Issue 22.2 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; EVODE BEAUCAMP, O.F.M. Sin and the Bible Throughout1 the New Testament the work of Christ is presented as a victory over sin. To speak of sin in this connection is to evoke an agelong experience which is highly complex and which can not be neglected if one wishes to comprehend the matter in all its extent and fullness. The word sin is a familiar one to us; yet it is no older than the Greek of the Septuagint. Before the Sep-tuagint there can not be found in the sacred text a single word exactly corresponding to it. The Alexandrian trans-lator has included under this single word the varying nuances of a number of terms; through this word he has thereby evoked all the forms which were taken through the course of centuries by the resistance of Israel to the salvific activity of God. There can be no question of giving here a study of sin in the Bible; for that is a problem entirely too large. We shall simply mark out the essential lines in order that we might have a better understanding of the problem of sin and that as a consequence we may be able to provide a catechetical presentation of sin that will be more richly nourished by the vitality of the Bible. The God of the Bible ancl the Problem o] Good anti Evil Like all the surroundin~ peoples, Israel united into one word evil and unhappiness on the one hand, goodness and happiness on the other. The first of these words is simultaneously disorder, deceit, emptiness, and death; the second is virtue, fullness of life, and peace. Every deed carries within itsel~ its own consequences: evil in-volves unhappiness while goodness implies happiness: Do no evil, and evil will not overtake you; avoid wickedness, and it will turn aside from you. Sow not in the furrows of in-justice, lest you harvest it sevenfold (Sir 7:1-3). Moreover, one finds in the Bible different ways of ex-pressing the same proverb: This article is translated with permission from the magazine Catdchistes, n. 49 (January 1, 1962), pp. 5-19. The magazine is pub-lished by Procure des Frhres; 78, rue de Shvres; Paris 7, France. 4. 4. Evode Beaucamp O.F.M., a Scripture scholar, lives at Via di Decima Kin. I; Rome, Italy. VOLUME 22, 1965 129 4. 4. ÷ Erode Beaucnmp, O.I~.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 130 Those who conceive malice bring forth emptiness; they give birth to failure (Jb 15:35). They sowed the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind (Hos 8:7). What is original in the Bible is the teaching that good-ness, physical as well as moral, has only one source: God. "O Lord," cries the Psalmist, "thou art my welfare; there is none beside thee." And for Amos the two expressions "to seek God" and "to seek the good" are perfectly identi-cal; both the one and the other offer the secret of life (Amos 5:4-14). The successful issue of human existence is found on the way which Yahweh points out and only there: For this reason will all go well with us, because we obeyed the voice of our God (Jer 42:6). You must keep his commands., that you may prosper, and your children after you, and that you may live long . (Dt 4:40). You must do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that you may prosper (Dr 6:18; see also 12:25 and 28). The Law given by Yahweh to His people is the way of happiness: "You must keep my laws and ordinances, by the observance of which man shall find life (Lv 18:5).'° This is a point which is important to remember when the idea of the Law is presented; the love of the Jews for the Torah is incomprehensible if it is not realized that Yah-weh is legislator precisely insofar as He is father, bene-factor, shepherd, and defender of His people. Moreover, this throws light on the well-known problem of reward. The Bible does not say that happiness is received as a recompense for goodness but that happiness is the fruit of goodness and that it is to be found at the end of the way. Evil is not treated in the same way as is goodness; the God of the Bible never attributes to Himself a paternir.y with regard to evil. For the Psalmists, evil is the absence of God; and it is towards Him that one must turn to be freed from it. Nevertheless, it is in relationship to God that evil is defined: evil is the reverse of what He wills, of the course of :action that He teaches. As the author of Chapters Three and Four of Genesis has carefully sho~qn, the evils which weigh on humanity are not imputable to the Creator; the responsibility falls on man who has at-tempted to find his happiness outside of God, to flee his dependence on Yahweh by himself possessing the key of good and evil. Man has set himself on the desperate route that leads far from Paradise: Woe to them that have wandered away from reel (Hos O Lord, thou hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who prove faithless to you in the land shall be brought to confusion, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water (Jer 17:13). Let us remark in passing that the God of the Bible never reproaches man for his thirst for greatness and happiness; what is reproached is the attempt to satisfy this outside of God. Unlikei the gods of Surher and Baby-lon, Yahweh has the intention of giving His creature the fullness of life and happiness, but He teaches that this must be done by Him: If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would only walk in my ways, I would quickly humble their foes . he would be fed with the finest of the wheat; and with honey from the rock would I satisfy you (Ps 81:13-14, 16). Although man punishes himself by separating himself from God (see Jb 22:3 ft.), the Bible, nevertheless, does not hesitate to show us Yahweh personally intervening to punish with all the power of His anger. It is He who hardens the pharaoh, as it is He who brings evil upon His unfaithful people: I am watching over them for evil and not for good (Jet 44:27). I will set my eye upon them for evil, and not for good (Amos It is curious to observe how the inspired writers can com-plain both that Yahweh hides His face and remains dis-tant from His chosen ones (Ps 88:14) and that He turns His face against them (Jer 44:11): "The face of the Lord has scattered them; he no longer regards them" (Lain 4:16). And some of the sacred writers are heard to cry out: Will you never take your eye off me, nor let me alone till I swallow my saliva? (Jb 7:19). Turn your gaze away from me, that I may be glad (Ps 39:13). Yahweh never ceases to assert His exclusive right to bestow good on His chosen ones even when they turn away from Him to their own loss. In the evils which then beset them, there can always, be detected the avenging pursuit of a cheated love: So I will be unto them like a lion; or like a leopard by the road I will lurk. I will rend them like a bear robbed of its cubs; and I will tear off the covering of their heart (Hos 13:7-8). Pursued by the love he has denied, the sinner sees him-self abandoned by all: "Thou has put friend and com-panion far from me" (Ps 88:18). He is abandoned even by the earth which bears and nourishes him: I am bringing upon them a disaster which they shall not be able to escape (Jet 11:11). I will rend and be gone; I will carry off, with none to rescue (Hos 5:14). Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 13! + + + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Behold, I am going to make a groaning under you (Amos 2:13). Unlike the Egyptian god Aten, Yahweh is not indif. ferent when He distributes life and happiness. His gifts are always made from a personal and jealous love. Hence He can not but react vigorously when man prefers deceit, nothingness, and ruin to His love. The blows which He deals as well as His tragic silence can lead the wanderer back to the road of return: I withdraw to my own place, until they realize their guilt and seek my face, searching for me in their distress (Hos 5:15). And yet it is necessary that this appeal be heard and followed: It was I that gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities . it was I that withheld from you the rain, three months before the harvest . I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards . I sent a pestilence like that of Egypt among you . But you did not return to me (Amos 4:6-10). When sin is presented as disobedience to the Law of God, it is necessary to realize that this Law is the path marked out by God and leading to life and happiness; to disobey it is to wish to conduct one's life by oneself and to run towards one's own ruin. The God whose love has been scorned will not be content to let us leave; He will inexorably bar the way that leads to peace just as formerly He posted the cherubim with their swords of fire to pre-vent Adam and his descendants from access to the Para-dise that had been lost: They are a people who err in their hearts, and do not know my ways. So that I swore in my anger that they should not enter into my rest (Ps 95:10-11). The Special Demands o[ the Covenant The Bible is not satisfied with presenting man in con-frontation with God; for the Bible the heart of the matter is the elect one in confrontation with the God who has chosen him. The peace dreamt of by the Jews of old, peace between the members of. one community, peace with the external world and the earth where men liv~.~- this peace is the fruit of the covenant of Sinai (see Lv 26:3-13; Dt 11:13-15). From the viewpoint of the history of religions, one of the most original characteristics of this alliance is the tact that the initiative belongs exclusively to God and not at all to the people; it is Yahweh who has chosen Israel and not Israel who has chosen Yahweh. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, Yahweh repeatedly emphasizes the absolute liberty of His choice, a liberty that gives Him the right to demand obedience without reserve or mur-mur. The elect one should adjust his conduct to the direc- tives given by his God; he must seek that "which is right in the eyes of Yahweh"; he must "march perfectly before Him" without "swerving" from the way "either to the right or the left." Hence.the existence of Israel was constitute~ by the acceptance of these demands;~and these;demands were unceasingly renewed nor were they ever fully completed at any given moment of history. The more Israel, through a better understanding of the obligations of the covenant, wished to submit to them, the larger the number of them grew. In its always unsatisfied thirst to stay perfectly close to the divine will, the chosen people never ceased to develop the principles at the base of the Mosaic legis-lation of the Decalogue (Ex 20:3-17; Dt 5:6-21) and of the code of the covenant (Ex 20:22-26) into the different priestly codes and the enormous growths of the rabbinical tradition. Since there existed this demand for a perfection never perfectly attained ("You must be holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy" fLy 19:2]; "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" [Mt 5:48]), an exhaustive list of sins is nowhere to be found in the Bible; prophets, Psalmists, and wise men give us but certain ones among many. In every epoch and in all circumstances, the obli-gations of the covenant remain unlimited; the human party of the covenant never succeeds in rising to the level of the demands of the divine party. Basically, the sin of later Judaism will be to pretend to arrest this movement of divine improvement by attempting to imprison the divine will within the walls of a definitive and rigid tra-dition. There is no need to emphasize that the same dan-ger lies in wait for every spiritual life, that there will always be a tendency to substitute for the unlimited de-mands of Christian perfection a code of limited rules which each person can hope some day to fulfill com-pletely. The covenant not only implies the demands of a bond faithfully maintained between God and His people, but it also includes the demands of a union between the in-dividual members of this people. Yahweh expects that His people should practice among themselves the justice and mercy which He has bestowed on them. The pious Israelite must never forget to share his joy with the stranger, the orphan, the widow; for, as Deuteronomy puts it: "You must remember that you were once a slave yourself in Egypt" (Dt 16:12). For the same reason it is forbidden to retain one's brother in the state of slavery (Lv 25:55; Dt 15:15); nor ought one to treat a stranger with scorn (Lv 19:34; Dt 24:17). In this principle can be seen the first outline of the thought of the Master: "Love each other as I have loved you." ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 4. + Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIL~V FOR RELIGIOUS Hence it is that along with the infidelities of the people towards God, the absence of social justice appears as the chief accusation directed by Yahweh against Israel. From the beginning of prophetism (for example, with Elijah), the struggle is waged on two fronts: opposition to the introduction of foreign cults and the respect for the rights of the weak (Naboth's vineyard, 1 K 21). As the Lord Himself emphasized, the entire legislation of Israel re. volves around this double commandment: to love God with one's whole heart and one's neighbor as oneself. The same is to be found in the warnings of the prophets, the Psalmists, and the wise men: You have been told, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you'. Only. to do l'ustice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly wtth your God (Mi 6:8; see also Jer 7:5-11). It will not be useless to insist somewhat on this capital point; since we have too great a tendency to distinguish sins against God and sins against neighbor, it is necessary to show how every sin against God leads to injustice with regard to neighbor and how every sin against one's neigh-bor is a blow struck against the rights of God. The first chapters of Genesis in the Yahwist and priestly redac-tions already present evil under this double dimension. The murder of an innocent person follows the act by which Adam made himself independent of his Creator, while the union of the sons of gods with the daughters of men (probably an allusion to sacred prostitution) in-volves the unleashing of violence upon the earth. In a more general way, the Bible unites under the single He. brew word resha' the idea of both impiety and evil-doing, The person who so acts is frequently referred to through-out the Psaher; he is a person who intends to do without God and to live his life entirely by himself and who, in consequence, makes use of force, deceit, and lies: The fool says in his heart: There is no God. Such men are corrupt; they do abominable deeds; there is not one who does good (Ps 14:1; see also Ps 9; 10; 12; 52; 62; and so forth). His adversary and his victim is the just man, the man who expects salvation and justification from God alone and who therefore does not seek to take the law in his own hands nor do himself justice at the expense of others. The life of David furnishes an excellent illustration of these two cases of the evil man and the just man. Sens-ing that Yahweh would give to him the crown of Saul, David steadfastly refused to touch the sacred person of the king; for he intended to owe his royalty: to Yahweh alone and he did not wish to do things wrongly. Accord-ingly, through terrible execution or a no less terrible curse, he decisively disassociated himself from all those who wished to hasten the event by doing violence to Saul or his son or the general of his army (2 S 1:15; ~:28 ft.; 4:10 ft.). In contrast to the dynasties of, usurpers, the dynasty of David was not in its origin tainted by blood (2 K 2:5). But in the affair of Uriah, the king of Jerusalem took a completely opposite c#ur.se; here he acted,asian impious and evil person. Nathan" recalled to the guilty monarch everything that Yahweh had done for him and pointed out to him how He was still ready to do more. But David had lacked confidence; he had chosen to take care of him-sell and this he did at the expense of one of his own subjects. There is, then, no rejection of God which does not eventually turn into injustice, just as there is no in-justice which is not a disregard of the power of the God of :the covenant. For a Christian, to sin is not only to disobey the eternal laws of the Creator; it is also a refusal of the covenant and a scorning of the love of the Father of all. Human Resistance and God's Final Victory The covenant supposes a history; it is at the center of a plan that develops by stages. At each of these stages man tries to block the plan, but his actions do not prevent God from having the final word. It is interesting to follow step by step the resistances of those who were the bene-ficiaries of the covenant, for in them are to be found all the possible forms which man's refusal of God's offer can take. 1. The choice of the elect from the midst of a humanity immersed in sin. Because the human race had turned from Him and had obstinately buried itself in evil, Yah-weh drew forth from it Israel in the desire to make of it a people who would follow His directives. Hence the election of Abraham is presented in the Yahwist tradition of Genesis as the last effort made by Yahweh to prevent His creation from going to perdition apart from Him. This evil had begun when Adam, in his desire for in-dependence, had lost Paradise. Nevertheless, Yahweh did not abandon this fugitive from Him; He gave him the hope of a future victory over the evil in which he had immersed himself; He had even covered the nakedness that the guilty couple had become aware of. To the first couple, punished by their pride, there succeeded a gen-eration of murderers: Cain and his descendants. Once more Yahweh intervened to prevent fallen humanity from disappearing, from the earth under the inexorable blows of the curse of blood. The union of the sons of the gods with the daughters of men provoked such a release of violence that Yahweh decided on the complete de-struction of His work. Nevertheless, He saved from the catastrophe a just man with whom He concluded a cove- 4- 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 1963 4, 4, 4, Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 136 nant. This was not yet the last act of the drama; the last scene of the beginnings of the human race is the episode of the tower of Babel, the dispersion of the sons of Adam after their aborted attempt to construct a tower that would reach to heaven. Nevertheless, the efforts of Yahweh to arrest man in his vertiginous descent into the abyss were not in vain; for, after the episode of the tower of Babel, a new history begins: the vocation of Abraham, the epic of the patri-archs, the covenant of Sinai. To the first scene of a uni-versal invasion of evil, there succeeds that of the increas-ingly solicitous enterprise of God with regard to a people whom He would choose for His own. Under different forms the same idea is found almost everywhere in the Old Testament. To explain the fact that Israel had taken the place of the Canaanites, the legal texts, for example, tell us that the latter were chased from their land because they had done "what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh"; He had determined to give their land to a people who would agree to live according to His will. But misfortune would come to this people if they ever dared to imitate the conduct of their predeces-sors; He would not hesitate to deprive them of the land. The falling back into the world of sin from which Yah-weh had drawn them led Judah to its ruin, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphatically pointed out. The sin of the elect is in fact a return to the sin of the nations after having been freed from it. Each election is pictured as a rupture: Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house (Gn 12:1), Forget your people and your father's house (Ps 45:11). The call of God implies an ascent towards Him by the practice of what is "right in His eyes" and by a renuncia-tion of "what is evil in his eyes." This initial break must continue throughout the course of time; this requires a constant effort at disencumbrance, for the surrounding world never ceases to exert pressure on the elect to make them fall back under its law. This is the drama of every vocation, not only to religious life but to Christianity self. 2. Resistance to the hand that guides. After He had led the people from Egypt, Yahweh made them cross the desert before bringing them to the Promised Land. The desert is the sign of temptation, a testing of faith. In other words, Yahweh would not give the land of Canaart to the Hebrews unless they abandoned themselves to Him without reserve by remaining faithful to the memory of the marvelous act of liberation by which they left Egypt. But hunger, thirst, and fatigue quickly overcame the faith of the former slaves of the pharaohs. They soon forgot the extraordinary epic of the Exodus; they mur-mured and rebelled against Moses and Aaron; they be-came enraged at seeing themselves in a venture which seemed to be pointless; and they dreamed nostalgically of the onions of Egypt. They refused to march forward on the grounds that the:.P~-omised Land W~s~'fi0t good enough and because the enterprise was to their minds a doomed one (Nm 14). This lack of confidence induced the people of Moses to attempt to assure themselves of the protection of their God by placing Him at their service and by forcing His hand as they wished. This is what the Bible calls "tempt-ing God." Instead of Yahweh "tempting" and trying the people in order to make them proceed according to His will, it was Israel who tempted its God, attempting to bring Him into the service of human caprice. Hence when Moses delayed coming down from the mountain and Yahweh made them wait for His answer, the He-brews made the golden calf, a material representation of their God which would allow them to control Him and to"make Him advance according to their desires at the head of their army. This recalcitrant attitude of the elect blocked the entire matter of the election and prevented their entering the rest of God (Ps 95:11). The intercession of Moses effected a compromise: the rebellious generation died in the desert and only their children possessed the right to the heritage of the God of the covenant. 3. Profanation of God's gift. The covenant gift of the land of Canaan should have created the indissoluble bonds of a steadfast love between Israel and God. Unfortunately, Israel, once it was secure and satisfied, was quick to forget: I led them to pasture; with food came satiety, and with satiety pride; and with pride came forgetfulness of me (Hos 13:6; see also Dt 32:15). The riches of the land of Canaan, instead of constantly recalling to the people the solicitude of Yahweh, drove Him from their mind and nurtured in them the illusion of being able to escape the jealous influence of their God. With the products of their land, they attempted to buy protection abroad; this was a seeking after "lovers"--the famous theme of prostitution. Often this theme is con- [used with the closely related one of adultery. The idea of prostitution certainly includes the notion of unfaith-fulness, but it is wider than that; it is not only the betrayal of love, it is also the profanation of the gifts of love: But you trusted in your beauty, and played the harlot on your reputation; you lavished your harlotries on everyone who passed by. You took off your garments, and made yourself gaily decked shrines, on which you played the harlot. You took also your splendid ornaments of gold and silver, which I had given 4- 4- VOLUME 22, 196;1 4. 4" Erode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 138 you, and made yourself images of men, with which you played the harlot. And you took your embroidered robes, and wrapped them in these. My oil and my incense you set before them; my bread which I had given you-~the choice flour, oil, and honey with which I had fed you--you set before them as a soothing odor (Ez 16:15-19). The Chosen People made use of what Yahweh had given them in order to curry the favor of the baals or to buy alliances with the peoples that surrounded them. Resistance to the hand that Ied them or profanation of the gift received represent two aspects of the rebellion of the children of God. However, none of the stages of the history of salvation exists in an absolutely pure state. Hence it is that throughout the length of our Christian life sin can put on the form of a refusal to proceed in the desert and of a prostitution when one, for his own pur-poses and independently of God, makes use of the gift which he has received from His love. The Old Testament leaves us with a vision of a check-mate: God is not able to regain the human race which from the beginning had plunged itself into sin and sepa-rated itself from Him. Unless God would make a new heart for men, they would never be able to rise up to the level of the divine demands. Even the Law which Yahweh had given His elect in an attempt to free them from the surrounding evil came in the end only to increase sin (Rom 7:7-25). The cross of Christ and the gift of the Spirit are necessary in order that we might escape the in. fernal cycle. It is then that there appears that new man according to the heart of God whom the prophets Jere-miah and Ezekiel had predicted: I will give you a new heart, and will put within you a new spirit; I will remove the heart of stone out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances (Ez 36:26-27). There is no need to emphasize that one must not present the Law of Christ which alone can make us pleasing to God without adding that this Law is impractical if Christ Himself does not communicate to us His power so that we might fulfill the demands of the Law. Fundamental Aspects o[ the Discord Between God and Man Throughout the Old Testament the resistance of man to the work of God is presented under three clearly dis-tinguished aspects; it is essential to guard against con-fusing these three when the idea of sin in the Bible is analyzed. 1. Opposition to the work of divine justice. The prin-cipal adversary of divine justice is an individual whom the Hebrew language terms rasha', a term which is usu-ally translated by the word impious or wicked. This rasha' enters into association with the "makers of iniq-uity," "the proud," "the mockers," and the "men of blood." His weapons are cunning, lies, violence; he is constantly thinking of i~i~l~'ity"in his he;irt~ li'~ Sets traps for the innocent; his hands are soiled with blood and he is given to drink. His opposition to justice is shown in two ways: it is, first of all, undisguised hostility towards God who is thought to be too distant to'react against it; and, secondly, it is a merciless war against the just whose violated rights the God of the covenant is pledged to de-fend. For practical purposes, the rasha' and his satellites coincide with the adversaries of the covenant; for the justice they oppose is at the center of the preoccupation of the parties of the covenant. They appear from the very beginning of the human race, but more ~usually they ap-pear as the enemies of the Chosen People; in every case they constantly menace the stability of the work of God in the cosmos and in history. Gradually the distinction between the just and the impious is found within the nation itself; it is at this time that the realization of a qualitative Israel necessitates a distinction between the faithful and those who are traitors and apostates. None of the faithful aligns himself with the: rasha': Drag me not away with the wicked, with those who do wron.g, who speak of peace to their neighbors though evil is in their hearts (Ps 28:3). On the occasion of the demands of the wicked, the just man frequently prays for justice from God; this im-plies that he is the victim not the accomplice of the wicked. If the good man wishes to be heard by Yahweh, he must disassociate himself as completely as possible from the perverse machinations of the artisans of evil: "I hate the assembly of evil~toers, and with the wicked I will not sit down" (Ps 26:5). It is only on this condition that he can cry out: "Judge me"; "Do me justice" (Ps 26:1; 43:1). In the matter of justice, then, the Old Testament knows only negative confessions (Ps 5; 26; 139; Jb 31) like those that the dead recite for their justification be-fore the tribunal of Osiris. There is no avowal of an atti-tude of present opposition to justice, an attitude that the God of the covenant would have to punish; only past sins are confessed the consequences of which are already or about to be felt. This is evidently insufficient for Chris-tians. We not only have to present to the Father our past errors but also a heart which even now is evil and which we ask Him to transform. There can be no doubt that ÷ ÷ ÷ Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 139 ÷ .I. ÷ Erode Beaucamp, O~F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS such a prayer supposes a pure intention, and this is the profound significance of our negative confessions. Man can not pray to God while desiring evil; nevertheless, pure intentions do not effect that we see exactly what God wants nor even that we feel the power to accomplish it. Our pure intentions require from us only that we aban-don ourselves,to Him in order that we might see and will the perfection which He expects from us: For I do not the good that I wish, but the evil I do not wish, that I perform . Unhappy man that I aml Who will deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom 7:19 and 24). 2. A state of rupture with God. The three Hebrew roots which are ordinarily translated by such words as sin, transgression, iniquity, fault, and so forth express, though each with different nuances, the idea of a state of rupture with the God of the covenant: The Lord's hand is not .too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear; but your iniquities have been a barrier between you and your God. And your sins have hidden his face, so that he could not hear you (Is 59:1-2). This state is a present situation the cause of which is a definite past act; hence one goes from the awareness of the rupture to an appreciation of its origin: "I have sinned." This is equivalent to saying that if God aban-dons me to my lot, I can blame only myself; it is my own fault: O Lord, the great and revered God, who keeps loving faith with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned . To us, O Lord, pertains confusion of face . but to the Lord our God pertain compassion and forgiveness (Dn 9: 4-5, 8-9). The awareness of sin, then, is the awareness of being abandoned by God through one's own fault; the sinner is like a child experiencing the feeling of no longer being loved by his mother; he feels himself cut off from the one who is his source of life: My anger shall blaze against them, and I will forsake them~ and withhold my favor from them; they shall become a thing to be consumed, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say at that time: Is it not because God is not in our midst that these evils have befallen us? (Dt 31:17). By the fact of sin--and this holds true for the relations between man and man as well as for the relations be-tween God and man--the Protector finds Himself re-leaged of His obligation 'towards His proteges; in particu-lar He is no longer bound to see justice done them and He can consider them as His enemies: We look for redress, but it comes not; for salvation, but it remains f~r from us. For many are our sins before you, and our faults bear witness against us (Is 59:11-12). Abandoned by his God and even pursued by His ill will, the sinner is sooner or later doomed to death. In the case of an individual he will use up his strength in a dis-ease that is without hope; in the case of a country it will perish under the blows of epidemics, famines, and wars. For sin breaks not only~th@,~bbnds betwe~en,~n~fi and his God; it also isolates man frbm society and even from the earth, since peace with God is the condition of peace with one's fellow men and with the entire world. In his dereliction and total loneliness, the sinner possesses only one resource: to throw himself into the arms of the One he has offended. On the whole, the Old Testament attaches more im-portance: to this state of rupture than to the nature of the acts which provoke it. Contrary to the confessions of Babylon which attempted to exorcise evil by interminable lists of all possible sins, the Bible generally reduces its inventory to the simple assertion: '~I have sinned." For the Bible, it is God, not sin, that is of interest; it is God that is considered. A sense of sin that is not a sense of God and does not suppose the experience of a valued intimacy is a false sense of sin which can lead to the greatest catastrophes as the history of Luther and Jansen-ism have shown. 3. Impurity, the state of incompatibility with the divine presence. The notions of purity an~l impurity are among the most common and primitive ones in the his-tory of religions. In them is found everywhere the same confusion between taboos of a ritual nature and ethical prescriptions in the proper sense. Sexual pollutions, for example, whether licit or illicit, make one impure, just as the shedding of blood, whether justly or unjustly, profanes the earth. And the contagious nature which is attributed to such impurity makes the notion even more difficult for the modern mind. There has been a mis-understanding of the place which the Bible gives to such a primitive category of thought in later books like Leviti-cus; many see in this a reaction to the effort made by the prophets to form the moral conscience of Israel. But presented in this way, the problem is wrongly placed. Impurity is on a completely different level than that of sin, the rupture with God. It is not concerned with the difficulties and blocks that can lessen the rela-tions of man with God but with that which appears in-compatible with the maintenance of the divine presence in the midst of the country: Because the Lord your God moves within your camp to rescue you and to put your enemies at your mercy, your camp must be clean, so that he may not see anything indecent with you, and turn away from you (Dr 23:14). If the Bible attaches a great importance to this notion sin VOLUM£ 22, 1963 141 ÷ ÷ ÷ E~ode Benuc~mp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 142 of impurity, it is because for it the question is not re-ducible to the simple fact of not offending God; it is the much more profound matter of living with Him in His presence. The sense of purity is the awareness of the holiness which election requires, a holiness that must ex-tend to everything which conditions the existence of the elect: I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy; for I am holy; so you must not defile yourselves with any kind of insect that crawls on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God, and so you must be holy; for I am holy (Lv 11:44-45). You must be holy to me; for I, the Lord, am holy, and have separated you from other peoples to be mine (Lv 90:26). As long as Israel remained a political and sociological reality, the community of life between Yahweh and His people had necessarily to preserve a character that was both interior and exterior, implying demands both of a physical and a moral order. This combination should not, then, be surprising. It is necessary to wait for the Gospel in order that the problem of purity be elevated to a properly spiritual level, for then the kingdom of God becomes an interior reality which is not involved in the social and material conditions of the life of the elect: "It is what pr6ceeds from a man that makes him impure" (Mk 7:20). All cases of impurity, however diverse, have this in common that they create a cultic incompatibility and make the approach to the divine dangerous. But it is dif-ficult to find how this incompatibility flows from a single principle; this is a world of different and heterogeneous elements which it would be a waste of time to attempt to unify. So, for example, one type of impurity consisted of any attempt to violate a reality that was initially sacred: harvesting, the gathering of fruits, marriage, and so ford~. But impurity was likewise involved when a being was possessed by foreign divinities; the sinner fell into this category when, being rejected by his god, he became the prey of demons. Finally, every act is impure which lessens the essential integrity of a being, especially a consecrated one: the loss of blood or of seminal fluid, the cutting of the hair of a Nazirite, the cutting of a stone intended for an altar, the putting to work of an animal destined to carry a sacred object, and so forth. All this is common to the ancient world; and the Bible in this matter originates nothing, though it should be noted that matters such as sicknesses, curses, various ca-lamities, blood crying for vengeance, cadavers awaiting burial figure here as simply malefic rather than being at-tributed to foreign divinities or demons. Furthermore, it seems to us that a global impression emerges from all this chaos: a being cannot support the presence of God if its existence is diminished or threatened either by an acci-dental loss of substance or by subjection to some other power. Not being fully himself, man in such a case cannot offer himself to his God. If this interpretation is correct, then the need for purity calls out for the idea of the In-carnation, for the Priest without stain who can enter the sanctuary of the God of the covenant; this is the perfect man who has attained the fullness of his stature: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Before the majesty of the King-God who was revealed to his eyes, Isaiah becomes frightenedly aware not of his sin but of his impurity: Woe to me, for I am lost; I am a man of unclean lips. and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts (Is 6:5). It is not sin but impurity which impedes the vision of God: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God." Whatever may have been for primitive man the deep roots of the notes of impurity, the idea should not be suppressed but moralized and spiritualized. From this an-cient notion, two elements should be kept for the profit of our own Christian life: first, our Christian life is truly a life with God, and it supposes a full realization of our stature as the "new man" according to Christ and a full posses-sion of ourselves that withholds nothing from the in-fluence of God; secondly, every lessening of our personal vitality is a lessening of the vitality of the community; every lessening of our charity detracts from the global charity of the Church, and it tarnishes her purity, since impurity by its nature is contagious, always passing from individuals to the collectivity. Solutions to the Discord Between God and Man 1. The judgment of the wicked. A victorious judgment of the God of the covenant will put an end to the opposi-tion of the wicked man. This judgment, however, is never purely negative. The wicked man is a dangerous individ-ual, and his downfall affects the salvation of the just: The righteous shall rejoice that he has seen vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked. And men shall say: There certainly is a reward for the just; there cer-tainly is a God who judges on earth (Ps 58:10-11). As we have seen, the wicked man is generally con-sidered as unable to be converted; this is why his disap-pearance appears as the only solution to the evil of which the just man is a victim; the world will regain its peace only when God has caused this evil to fall on its authors. Gradually, however, other conceptions of the matter came into existence. Jeremiah and especially Ezekiel envisage ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22° 1963 ÷ Evode Beaucamp, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the case of a wicked man who abandons his wickedness to practice "judgment and justice": As I live, says the oracle of Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather in this that the wicked man turn from his way and live. Turn, O turn, from your evil waysl Why should you die, O house of Israeli (Ez 33:11). This view of the conversion of the wicked is a direct preparation for the Gospel. Christ will proclaim that He has come not for the just but for the wicked---the publi-cans and adulterers who without conversion would fall beneath the blows of the avenging anger of God. The great revolution of the Gospel is the distinction between evil and evil men; in the Our Father it is from evil that we ask to be freed and not from our enemies, as was done in the Psalms. As long as a man has not drawn his last breath, he is never to be identified with evil and we must always hope for his eventual conversion. The venge-ance of the just is no longer the extermination of the wicked but their penance and reparation. 2. The pardon of the sin. The one who has culpably lost communion with God can only hope for the gratui-tous act of clemency and pity Which the One offended can grant or not grant when pardon is asked of Him. In the rupture man took the initiative, but the initiative in the matter of reconciliation belongs exclusively to God. More than in any other case there apears here the impos-sibility of forcing His hand. Sin, the rupture of relations between God and man, is an intolerable weight from which the sinner cannot free himself by his own effort; it is a weight that only the One offended is in a position to lift: For, day and night, your hand lay heavy upon me . I said: I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the guilt of my sin (Ps 32:4-5). The Babylonians, in order to have greater certainty of their restoration to favor, frequently attempted to have another friendly divinity intervene with the angered god. In the Bible, as is evident, man is without the possibility of such a mediation. He must directly approach the God he has offended and throw himself at His feet while de-claring "I have sinned"; he must rely entirely on God's mercy. It is clear that such an act implies conversion; it is the return of the prodigal son to his Father's house. While the Bible does not permit the sinner to avoid encountering the God he has angered, still it does not leave him without arguments by which he can plead his case. He can, for example, invoke the glory of the God of the covenant whose name he still continues to bear: What will the nations think of Yahweh if He continues to leave his people defenseless? (Ps 79; 80; Ez 32:11-14). He can also invoke His justice: In abandoning His own, does not Yahweh yield to His enemies? (Ps 41). Finally, he can appeal to the shortness of life--life which a pro-lUonngfoedrt uabnsaetnelcye, owf eG coadn m naokte ds eelmayp thye aren du ,s epngsne~le sths e(Pses 9a0rg).u-ments which still retaiii,:th~ir~, validity for, oi~i~ prayer as Christians. We have already pointed out that the penitent does not dwell upon an analysis of his culpable act but keeps his eyes on the God the lack of whom he suffers and in whom he sees his only hope; the simple fact of the rupture is al-ready virtually the presence of death and it constitutes for the sinner the deepest kind of punishment than which nothing greater is to be feared. The penitent calls on the judgment and justice of Yahweh as a grace the right to which he has lost by sin. He awaits the moment of pardon which will reestablish him in the friendship of His God so that once again he will be protected in the midst of a hostile world: The anger of the Lord must I bear--for I have sinned against him--until he shall take up my case and do me justice (Mi 7:9). Once pardon h.as been granted, the remembrance of the sin disappears in the remembrance of the victorious love of Yahweh, a love which is capable of overpowering all offenses and which in its profundity and total gratuitous-ness leaves the soul of man in confusion (Ps 103); here already there is almost found the felix culpa of St. Au-gustine. Moreover, the world which the divine mercy re-constructs is always more beautiful than the one de-stroyed by sin. To illustrate this law, it is sufficient to reflect on the messianic prophecies which for the most part are prophecies of pardon (Ps 85; Is 40-55; 60; Ez 34; and so forth). 3. Purification of Defilement. Having been excluded from worship, the defiled man must purify himself be-fore coming into the presence of God.'It is a co.mmon idea among all the ancient religions that the gods have given men ritual materials and formulas that are capable of purifying them, their temples, and their country. In particular, there are appropriate rites that permit the expulsion from the impure being of the evil spirits and demons who have taken possession of him; thus, for ex-ample, spells and curses which had victimized a person were made to pass on to the body of animals wh~ch.~:were then driven far away or burned. In the Bible this liturgi-cal transfer has left only a few traces, the most notable ex-ample of which is that of the scapegoat of the D~y of Atonement (Lv 16). This animal, loaded with the sins of Israel, was not offered to Yahweh but driven far aw~iy to Azazel. 4, 4, VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ ÷ Erode Beau~arap, O.F.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 146 In place of this image of a transfer, the Bible has pre-ferred that of cleansing through ablutions and sprinkling with blood and water. This symbol is simultaneously negative and positive: at the same time as it removes the uncleanliness, the water restores all the freshness of life. This is also, as it seems to me, the function of the blood in the atonement rite and in the sin sacrifices. But we shall not delay here on this difficuh and debated point; we will content ourselves with giving our own personal opinion. Blood seems to have as its effect the protection of the things and persons which it covers; it protects them from the various evils which are the sequel of sin just as the blood of the paschal lamb did at the Exodus (Ex 12:1-15). But to this negative effect there is added a posi-tive action; for blood is life, and it is by reason of the life that is in it that Yahweh has given it as an effector of atonement (Lv 17:10-12). Thanks to it, persons, cult ob-jects, and the country that is the abode of Yahweh find their fullness of life, their first integrity which impurity had caused to be lost. The application of this Biblical rite to our Christian life is not difficult. The sin of a Christian can be con-sidered as a stain that not only changes our personal re-lations with God but also diminishes the vital potentiali-ties of the Church and impairs her charity. Reparation, therefore, is a social duty just as it was in ancient Israel. God has given us the Blood of Christ as an inexhaustible source of love so that we can preserve for the Church the immaculate appearance which her divine Spouse initially bestowed on her: He wished to summon into his presence the Church in all her beauty, with no stain, wrinkle, or any disfigurement; she. was to be holy and spotless (Eph 5:27). Conclusion By way of conclusion, let us synthesize the results of our inquiry. In order that the notion of sin preserve all the force that the Bible gives it, it must include three ele-ments: deterioration of the order of creation; rupture with God, the source of life; and impurity which hinders all commerce with the divine. All this is what is repre-sented by the word sin at the time of the New Testament~ it is all this that Christ has come to restore, heal, and purify. Under these three aspects, sin is a flight from God, the only source of life and happiness; it represents the contrary of all the effort God has made throughout his-tory to draw us to Him; it is a return back to a past from which He has drawn us; it is our refusal to allow ourselves to be led by Him blindly; it is our squandering of the gifts we have received. To depart from God is to depart from other men and finally to find oneself alone in a hostile world: And it has brought you. w " as reconciled . ,_ o ~;. ¯ - uom~ wron~ ;-,- - "-' holiness a~a t__ )vu mrough dying, ;,,~.:_ . 6 ~-o.ugn now (Col 1:2'1_~)."ee ~rom reproa~c h. .or ~Ta~'e,'~'~vt~uas op~rensve nbcoedy) ia Sin VOLUME 22, 1963 PAUL W. O'BRIEN, S.J. The Weekly Confession of Fervent Religious ÷ ÷ Paul W. O'Brien, S.J., is the rector of the Pontifical Semi-nary in Dalat, Viet-nam. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 148 The word "fervent" in the title is not meant to frighten away those good religious for whom the article is actually written, but who usually hesitate to think of themselves as fervent. It is used rather to indicate the limited perspective of the article, a perspective however which we trust is representative of religious and hehce applicable to many. It is not unusual to find religious who have a problem with their weekly confession--a problem that seems to arise not from their being tepid but rather from their being fervent. They are serious about their religious life. They would rather do anything than deliberately offend God in the smallest thing. And yet they find a certain uneasiness, tedium, even difficulty with their weekly con-fession. Time and again they have consulted the classical authors to find ways of refreshing this exercise, but usu. ally with only transitory success. The considerations pro-posed in these manuals, while excellent and fundamental and helpful to a certain point, do not really fit. For the religious we have in mind does not come to his weekly confession as an enemy of God; he does not come with mortal sins; he has no need of being "reconciled" to the Church, much less of having divine life "restored" to his soul. His confession is not one of obligation, and con:;e-quently there is nothing that he is obliged to confess (supposing always that to ensure the validity of his con-fession, he mentions his past forgiven sins, at least in a general way). In fact he rarely (more likely never) brings unforgiven sins to the confessional. For to say nothing of the many ways that venial sins can be forgiven out-side the sacrament, his daily communion is constantly purifying his soul, and his habit of immediately turning to God in loving sorrow for any fault committed, plus the. contrition that he excites before confession, brings him to the confession with really no unforgiven matter. Clearly the basic considerations of the purgative way, which may once have applied to him, and whose grateful memory will always remain with him, are not sufficient. There is need of a ditter~ent perspective~a .,shifting of emphasis, if his confession ~is" to produce the,, fruit ex-pected by the Church. ' ¯ ~. ~ For the Church is greatly concerned about these fre-quent confessions. When som~ younger members of the clergy were diminishing esteem for the frequent confes-sion of venial sins, claiming that it was useless, consumed too much time of busy pastors, and was actually un-known in the early Church, Pope Plus XII spoke out clearly and strongly against them (Mystici Corporis 87): Equally disastrou~s in its effects is the false contention that tile frequent confession of venial sins is not a practice to be greatly esteemed. Therefore those among the young clergy who are diminishing esteem for frequent confession are to know that the enterprise upon which they have embarked is alien to the Spirit of Christ and most detrimental to the Mys-tical Body of our Savior. For a constant and speedy ad-vancement in the path of virtue, we highly recommend the practice of frequent confession, introduced by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian hu-mility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself. In the following lines it is not my purpose to touch on all the above advantages nor to give a form to confession nor to enter into the aspect of spiritual direction in the confessional. I wish merely to redistribute the emphasis of certain aspects and thus perhaps help towards a solu-tion of our problem. Sacrament of Loving Sorrow One of the areas that calls for reappraisal and a pos-sible reshifting of emphasis concerns our habitual way of looking on the sacrament. There is danger that a way of speaking will induce a way of thinking. Because of our ordinary practice of speaking of the sacrament of pen-ance as "confession," we may develop a wrong emphasis. Now I am not advocating a change in our traditional terminology, but we must be careful lest our way of speaking throw everything out of focus. For the actual "confession" of sins, in the type of confession we are dealing with, is one of the least important elements of the sacrament. And yet it is frequently the main source of trouble for the fervent religious: "What to say?" Such a preoccupation is understandable when there is ques-tion of the integrity of an obligatory confession of mortal sins, but how completely out of place it is in our con- 4- 4- 4- Weekly onlession VOLUME 22, 1963 ]49 P. W. O'B~i~, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fessions. I wonder if our exact catechetical training, given chiefly in view of a form of obligatory confession, is not unduly transferred to confessions of devotion. At any rate, it is not rare to find the problem of confession be-coming more acute as the religious becomes more fer-vent, the problem of "what to say" becoming so empha-sized as to bring on uneasiness. But even when we think more exactly in terms of the "sacrament of penance," we must still be on our guard. The very word "penance" can become a source of mis-understanding. The Latin word paenitentia of which our English "penance" is a translation, has been well-chosen and in its real meaning of "sorrow with purpose of amendment" is quite appropriate. But in English we do not think that way. For us "penance" is associated with fasting and disciplines; and even though we have been taught that true interior penance consists in sorrow for our sins, this is not our habitual association with the word "penance." Would that the translating fathers had given us something like "sacrament of sorrow." It would have helped us put the emphasis where it belongs. The emphasis then in this "sacrament of sorrow" should be on sorrow; but a sorrow that is a free and meritorius act. This should immediately put us on our guard against certain counterfeits. It is a free act; hence always in my power. I can make it on Monday; I can make it on Friday. I can make it when I am depressed; I can make it when I am as dry as a stick. Evidently its value does not and cannot depend on emotional inten-sity (which is not in my power). It is a movement of the will detesting sin because of my conviction (intellectua! appreciation) that God's will is above all. Its efficacy measured not by the accompanying emotion or affection. (if there is any) but by the strength derived from my conviction. Now for the fervent religious this conviction has become habitual. It is constantly operative in his daily life as is evidenced by his care in avoiding all that is against God's will. But it can well be that this con-viction has.become so settled in his life that it sets up no emotional resonance. He must not be surprised then when he finds that his sorrow in the confessional reta~ins the same strong voluntary but unemotional tendency that characterizes his daily life. He detests sin and all his failings because he truly loves God and has made will the supreme norm of his life. Here the question of motive enters. It is this that sets the tone to our sorrow and our confession. The faithful religious does not come to God in fear but in love,~,as to his Father. The Little Flower puts it simply: I have long believed that the Lord is more tender than a mother. I know that a mother is always ready to forgive trivial, involuntary misbehavior on the part of her child . Children are always in trouble, falling down, getting themselves dirty, breaking thing~but all this does not shake their parent's love for them. We come to God as His dearest children, sharing His very life, coming with th.e loving sorrow .of asofi; to be reassured that all, all has b&fi forgiven;' to i:eceive the embrace of the Father. Sacrament ol Purification One of the perspectives of the sacrament that opens up a rich vein of thought and deserves to be emphasized by the faithful religious is the aspect of purification-- purification not in the sense of liberation from the guilt of actual sins and faults--but rather a deeper purifica-tion that penetrates to the roots of those faults, to the habitual tendencies which cause them, and to the reli-quiae peccati which are their results. The sacrament be-comes (if you will pardon the expression) a sort of radio-therapy of our deep wickedness. We expose our wounds, visible or not, with a certain reasoned eagerness and joy to the curative influence of the sacrament. We are not so much preoccupied about our past actual faults. We have sorrowed over them and know that they have been wiped out through God's mercy. It is rather the deep of our soul, the roots of the faults, which give promise of bring-ing forth again their fruit of death--it is these roots which disturb us. And here precisely is where the "grace of the sacrament" comes into play--a grace which the Council of Florence describes as a grace of purification, a grace of healing: "Through penance we are spiritually healed" (DB 695). This grace reaches beyond the actual sins, forgiven by the absolution, to reach deep into our nature into the causes of those sins. This purifying influence acts not only on the soul but also on the body. I believe we may find an analogy in the effects of the sacrament of extreme unction which is usually considered as the complement of penance. Its influence in strengthening soul and body during serious sickness should give us some clue to the purifying action of penance. For we may well believe that the effects of this sacrament are but the "finishing touches" to a proc-ess begun and carried on through other sacraments throughout one's life. All the sacraments, even Holy Eucharist, have a purifying influence on the whole per-son, body and soul. Now one of the effects of the sacra-ment of extreme unction is to weaken the effects of con-cupiscence, to restore some part of our original integrity which was lost through Adam's sin. St. Thomas explains our inability to avoid all indeliberate venial sins by concupiscence together with the slowness of our percep- + + + Weekly Con]ession 151 ÷ ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Bden, $.L REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion of good, the changeableness of our will, and the frequency of temptation (S. T. 1, q 109, a 8). Now in re-ducing concupiscence, extreme unction restores order to man's strivings, subordinating the sensitive to the spirit-ual and the spiritual to God; it helps put a man in true possession of himself, so that he is able to dominate not only those positive urges of soul and body that escape control but also the oppressive weight of dead inertia by which the sensitive life impedes the striving of the will toward God. From this precious purifying and strengthening action of extreme unction, we may gather some idea of what takes place in the sacrament of pen-ance, not precisely in view of a serious sickness but look-ing rather to the progressive purification of our soul as it weakens concupiscence, counteracts sluggishness, or-ders our passions, and restores us to spiritual liberty. Awareness of Sinfulness Now it is precisely this grace of purification that draws religious to the sacrament of penance. (Perhaps I should say "drives," for there is no question of an emotional attraction, but rather the compelling force of a reasoned conviction based on faith.) It is this that explains the daily confessions of so many saints--St. Catherine of Siena, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver, St. Charles Borromeo, St. A1phonsus Liguori. Surely they were not deliberately sinning nor were they scrupulous. But they understood better the holiness of God. St. Francis Borgia was accustomed to confess twice a day, once in the morning before saying Mass and again in the evening before retiring. By this I do not mean that daily confession, where possible, is a goal to be aimed at. It may be helpful regularly for some persons, or for others at particular times of special grace or difficulty. This is a problem to be determined with one's confessor. I merely mention these examples to illustrate one of the great motives of frequent confession--the desire for pu-rity. This desire of the saints for purity is shared by ,~11 faithful souls according to their grace. For as the reli-gious strives to lead his life more generously, avoiding as far as he can all deliberate failings, he participates more abundantly in God's light. The effect is twofold: he be-gins to understand more clearly who God is, and in the same measure he becomes more aware of his wretched-ness. He finds himself in an attitude of soul similar to that of Eliphaz, one of Job's friends, who tells .us that his hair stood on end when in vision a spirit passed be-fore him. "I heard the voice as it were of a gentle wind: Shall man be justified in comparison with God, or shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold. in his angels he found wickedness." (Jb 4:15 ft.). Isaiah re-cords a similar state of soul, the result of his great vision of the holiness of God. "Woe is me because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips and I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts" (Is 6:l-5)~The religious~in~tlle light of God s hohness becomes painfully consc,ous, I will not say of "sin," but of sinfulness. He longs to bring his sins to the confessional, but what sins? Here precisely is the trouble. The sins that are clear have long since been sub-mitted to the sacrament in sorrow. He knows that they are forgiven and blotted from the sight of God. But the daily failings? Truly they are not deliberate sins. He would rather do anything than displease God. He cannot pin down his failings. And yet he is painfully conscious of a mass of selfishness, insincerity, sensuality, but deep in the soul where he cannot reach. He realizes that this wickedness penetrates all that he does, but it is not in acts where it can be grasped. And he also realizes that this is not an illusion; the wickedness is really there. This creates a problem for him--a problem that per-haps increases with the fidelity of the soul--and which often accounts for much of the difficulty experienced in approaching the sacrament. It seems such hypocrisy to have nothing to say. And yet no matter how long the ex-amination of conscience is prolonged, nothing more spe-cific is discovered. He has only wasted precious time that could have been more profitably spent on deepening his loving sorrow. Nor is this due simply to negligence of the soul. Perhaps most natures do not have the per-spicacity to analyze and draw out into the clear these deep tendencies of the soul. The light that is given them is not so sharp. Nor need it be; for its purpose of hu-miliation and purification is equally accomplished by the confused and painful acceptance of what the soul perceives confusedly. According to One's Light Fortunately, in this type of confession, the accusation is one of the least important parts. Hence very little time should be spent on the actual examination of conscience. The daily examination of conscience faithfully made will guarantee the religious against negligence, and a quick glance will usually reveal where he has displeased God. Hence if within a few minutes nothing specific is dis-covered, he should stop his inquiry and be satisfied with a general accusation: "I accuse myself of all the sins of my past life, especially for my sins of pride, sensuality, or against some commandment." Father Saint-Jure, S.J., gives this directive: Those (venial sins) which we should seek out and confess Weekly ¢onlesslon VOLUME Z2o '1'963 153 4. 4. 4. P. W. O'Brien, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]54 with more c~ire are those which weigh most heavily on us, and those which cause us more embarrassment and shame, pro-vided that we are able to confess them with honesty a~d de-cency; likewise those which ~hinder us most from attaining the perfection to which God calls us, or which are contrary to the virtue to. which we are particularly devoting our efforts for that week or month. And since among venial sins there are some which arise from mere weakness, which escape us as by surprise, and others from malice, which we commtt with full knowledge, coldly, understanding what we are doing and with full consent, of these latter none should be omitted in con-fession. As for the others, one should leave them to the mercy of God, and confess them in general, all-inclusive terms: If the soul is sufficiently. . .pure so that it commits only these sins of weakness, let zt ~ndzcate some of them" (On the Knowledge and Love of our Lord Jesus Christ, Bk 3, c 10, ~9). Hence we may give as a practical rule: I may accuse myself of whatever God gives me the light to see as dis-pleasing to Him (no matter how trivial it may seem in itselD. If I see specific failings clearly, it is well to accuse myself at least of some of them; if I see them only.in a confused way, as tendencies, I should be content to ac-knowledge them in this general way (paying particular attention to one or another of them for a few weeks at a time)--adding, however, a general accusation of past forgiven sins to insure the validity of the confession. This awareness of sinfulness and inability to reach it through our own efforts is often given by spiritual writers as a reason for God's intervention through the passive purification of the soul. We read of "dark nights of the soul" in which God's purifying action goes deep where the active effort of the soul cannot penetrate, purifying the roots of our evil inclinations, attacking the basic self-ishness of the soul. This, type of purification is usually associated with trials in prayer that fall to the lot of con-templatives. We know, however, that God's purifying action can take many forms, that his apostles are often purified through the trials inherent in their apostolate. Surely a most powerful means of purification and one which is often overlooked is the very sacrament of purifi-cation instituted by Christ, which accomplishes in the soul much the same work as the "dark nights" and apos-tolic trials: namely, the progressive submission of our lower nature to the higher and the higher to God, the liberation of our soul from the weight of its wicked in-clinations and its consequent gradual transformation in God. Building up the Body oI Christ As the religious grows in his vocation, he should grow also in a sense of his solidarity with the Churcli, the Mystical Body. He begins to see his sin and sinfulness in their social aspect. While clearly realizing that his sin is his own, for which he alone is responsible, he is more aware of the consequences of his sin on the organism of which he is a member--and this apart from the harmful effects that may come through bad example, coopera-tion, and so forth. He understands that the life that is in him is a shared lif~e; ~w, eakened with 'his'.~weakness, strengthened with his strength. It.is true that our liturgy today does not give such prominence to the social aspect of penance as in the old days when the penitent, after a period of public penance, was restored on Holy Thurs-day to the family life of the Church so that he might share the Paschal Bread of life with the other members of his family, the Church. Nor is there question of our religious being "restored" to the Church. But he begins to feel deeply his corporate responsibility, He is ashamed of the sinfulness that he brings to the immaculate Spouse of Christ. Aware of the lessening of love, as sin drains this Body anemic, he strives to replenish the blood ;stream with his love. He understands the general disappearance in the world of a sense of sin and rushes with his loving sorrow to make amends. If he be a priest whose mission it is to destroy sin in the world, he finds an added joy both in receiving and administering the sacrament. He offers God a soul in which He may work more purity, and thus "build up the Body of Christ" (Eph 4.9). And with this consciousness of his unity in the Mystical Body, a new dimension is added to his examination Of con-science, or rather a more acute awareness of his already existing obligation: his duty of charity; his responsibility for the spread of God's kingdom; his sins of omission through cowardice, selfishness, love of ease; the primacy of love. Meeting with the Three One beautiful but rarely stressed aspect of this sacra-ment is our meeting with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While it is true that the glorified humanity of Jesus is the instrument of all our grace, it is still the Word of God who takes away sin. "Who can forgive sin but God alone?" (Lk 5:21), Every sacramental absolution is then the action of Jesus, the great high priest, acting through His representative, a man chosen from amongst sinners. And in receiving that absolution, I come in vital contact with Jesus. Here He bestows on me the grace of redemption. Jt is for this that He came into the world, as He prolongs into my soul the efficacy of His redemp-tive sacrifice. -The life that He gives, He won in His blood. It is this that causes such joy in heaven, more than over the ninety-nine just, this prolongation of the rich mysteries of His death and glorification, for me a new 4- 4- 4- Weekly Conlession VOLUMF 22, 1963 155 + ÷ ÷ P. W. O'Brien, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 156 baptism, as plunged into His death, I rise to a new or richer life. But often we are inclined to forget the part of the Father and the Holy Spirit. If there is pardon in the sacrament and grace of purification, it is because the Father loves us beyond all telling. "God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." (Jn 3:16). In the pardon of the Son, I meet the love of the Father. And if there is life in the sacrament, it is because the Father, in giving His Son, gives us also the Holy Spirit who pours forth the charity of God into our hearts (Rom 5:5), this Spirit who cleanses, who burns away the impurities of our soul in the fire that He is. All this is brought out strikingly in the very institution of this sacrament of peace. It is as though the glorified Christ can hardly wait to begin pouring out the effects of His loving sacrifice. The very eve of Easter Sunday, He must come to His frightened Apostles in the upper room to give them power to forgive sin, First He shows them His wounds, the price of the sacrament, and the proof that it is really the glorified Christ in His human-ity. And then: " 'Peace be to you. As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.' When He had said this, He breathed upon them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' " (Jn 20:21- 23). The Father is there, prolonging in Jesus and through Jesus in the apostles, the love that fathered the redemp-tion. The Son is there, in His glorified humanity, com-municating the fruits of His redemptive offering. But first the Spirit must be given, for it is in the Spirit that the soul is led through the Son to the Father. What happiness for the faithful soul is this meeting in the sacrament with the ThreeI ]oy to the Heart of ]esus But if there is joy to the soul on meeting the Three, there is joy in the Three as They enrich the soul. For the eagerness of the soul to meet its God can never begin to match the love of God that goes out to meet the soul. "I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly" (Jn I0:10). The entire life of Jesus, with all its sufferings, has been aimed precisely at moments such as these, when meeting with the soul, He can com-municate the graces won on Calvary. If love that is frus-trated and refused can be such a torment, Love that gives and is received can be immeasurable joy. It is this joy that is ours to give to Jesus as we open our hearts in sorrow to His purifying love. JACQUES LECLERCQ The Priest Today In a preceding article? on active lay people, I men-tioned the confusion of priests when they ask themselves what their purpose is since now in meetings of fill kinds lay persons make meditations and in general ~ssume a spiritual role. And yet. The Presence o] the Priest And yet the laity cling to the presence of the priest. It seems that something essential is missing if a priest is not present--this priest who does nothingl Things now are entirely different from what they used to be. For one thing, previously there were no meet-ings that resemble the ones of today. Formerly when the priest .took his part by preaching a sermon, the faithful listened and then left. Or at the time when study clubs began to be organized, the priest presided and directed, trying with more or less success to make the various mem-bers speak; and frequently he was the only one to do any speaking. Today, however, he is neither presiding officer nor director. He is rather a chaplain; he assists--in Italy he is called the assistente ecclesiastico [the ecclesiastical assistant]. At times one may have the impression that everything happens without him, but in reality there is nothing that happens without him. Everything happens with him; but this "with him" is something other than "under his direction." All of this is disconcerting for those who are accustomed to the authoritarian conceptions of former times. The priest does nothing, and yet he is indispensable. When lay persons form a spiritual group of some kind, one of their first concerns is always to have a chaplain; for without a chaplain it would seem that the group is unable to suc-ceed. Is there any way in which we can point out pre-cisely what it is that the priest provides? x In La revue nouvelle, a Belgian periodical, during 1962,. Canon Leclercq published a number of articles on the laity in the Church today. The present article is translated with permission from La revue nouvelle, September 15, 1962, pp. 171-84. 4. 4. 4. Canon Jacques Le- ¢lercq fives at 102, rue de Li/~ge; Beau-lays, Belgium. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS lacqu~s Le¢l~rcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 158 The matter is a real puzzle, and it is being investigated from almost every angle. It is not a question of the sacra-merits. As is evident, it is the priest who distributes these. But the Christian life, as it is conceived today, is some-thing other than the sacraments. It is based on the sacra-ments; it is nourished by them; yet Catholic Action meet-ings, or meetings of workers or of managers, of students, of scotits and their leaders, have a purpose entirely other than that of receiving the sacraments; they are not even spoken of. Nor is it expected that the priest give an in-struction or a sermon. It is only expected that he be there, participating in the meeting with the rest. It would seem that from the Christian viewpoint some-thing is lacking to lay persons when they are left to them-selves., And yet it is a question of their own life, for it is they who must put into practice what they discuss. But at the same time it is a question of their own life insofar as it is Christian. From this point of view, it is necessary to have a priest in the midst of them. And I think that this expression "in the midst of them" is the exact one. A French priest, who works among the working class, has made the following remark on this point: I think that the people need a founder, someone who ~'will unite them in the charity of Christ. Lay persons can do some things, but they cannot be centers. Hence they need Someone who will be a religious center, a kind of church, for them. They do not only need Christians who are the presence of the Church, but they need above all a church in the sense of the Church realized in this community; they need someone who unites them and who is the head in the sense of being a father, not someone who commands but one who assembles and who is first ("T~moignage de M. Lelubre" in Etudes sur ,le sacre-merit de l'ordre [Paris: Cerf, 1957], p. 432). When this is reflected on, one sees very clearly the ap-pearance of the reality that is the Church. Christ continues His presence and His action by the Church. The Church is the people of God; and the people of God is constituted first of all by lay persons. In order to avoid giving the impression of tending towards laicism --which consists of excluding the clergy--let me say at once that the Church is both lay persons and priests, all of them together. But priests--all of them, even the bishops and the pope---exist for the laity, for the service of the laity. When it is said that they exist for the laity-- the pope himself is entitled the servant of 'the servants of God---this means that the people of God is essentially the laity, that it is to them that the divine life flows and that it is through them above all that it manifests itself. If the Church, according to the words of Scripture, is like a lamp that one lights and puts on a lampstand, this is the laity--Christian life in the family and in daily occupa-tions, The clergy, priests, religious are at the service of this. The result of their work is not that an elite may en-close itself within monasteries in order to live in God, nor even that Christian people in more or less great numbers may gather in churches to. ce,lebrate divine~worship; rather the result of their "dork is that through Christians Christ lives and acts in families and in the world. Priests and religious must sanctify themselves per-sona! ly in order to create a climate of holiness in the Church; but the result of the Church's holiness must be found in homes and in the world. When we use the word "world" [citd] here, we are envisaging professional, politi-cal, and social activities--all that can be called public life. It is to this that the life of Christ in the Church tends. Hence the Church is above all the laity; and it is through the laity that she first manifests her dynamism. But it is priests who form the laity in a Christian way. Priests :are men of the Church and men of God. '.Their function is to represent the Church; they exist only for this. ~ The lay person must be entirely Christian and at the same time something else besides; this shows forth the character of the Incarnation, that reality which is found only in Christianity. The Incarnation consists in this that the work and supernatural action of God is accomplished in and through nature. It has been frequently remarked that the supernatural is above the natural, but not contrary to the natural; it does not. suppress nature but elevates it; it transforms the natural, but it takes the natural into account. It constructs from, above; this can never be repeated too often if one wishes to comprehend what Christianity is. The kingdom of God, then, must be built up among men by taking due account of their nature. The Spirit of God transforms this nature to its depths; this is mani-fested exteriorly by the intention that animates action and by the choice which is made among various actions; .never-theless, these actions retain their .human character, and this must be remembered by those who are concerned with them. The Priest is Leaven Christ compared the kingdom of God to leaven that makes the dough rise; good bread can not be made with-out yeast. But yeast alone is not sufficient to make bread. Flour is needed, and the baker must be careful to secure good flour. It is necessary to knead the bread carefully. It must be baked in a good oven at the right temperature and for the right length of time and so forth. If the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 139 Jacques l.eclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 160 kingdom of God is like the leaven in bread, one can say that the priest is the depositary of this leaven; but it the laity who are like the bakers who must be occupied with all the conditions for the preparation of the bread. Moreover, it is they who must make use of the yeast. If the priest remains alone with his leaven, there will never be any bread; and if the bakers do not have the yeast, once again there will be no bread. Both are neces-sary. Now let us transpose all this into the entirety of life. The laity found homes and give life to the world. This obliges them to think of many things that in themselves are independent of the kingdom of God. It is to be noted that I have said "in themselves," for nothing is a stranger to the kingdom of God when one places it in the entirety of life. For example, parents must be concerned with the health of their children, their nourishment, their cloth-ing, their studies. The kingdom of God takes part in all this as a kind of preoccupation that orientates this activ-ity ir,.~ a certain measure, but only in a certain measure. And the same is the case with employers, workers, farmers, students, and so forth. But the priest is the man of God. He recalls the king-dom of God by his mere presence; one can say, by his existence, for he has no other purpose for existing. Theo-retically it should be sufficient that a priest be present for one to think of the kingdom of God. The word "theo-retically" is used because men are not perfect, and both priests and the laity are men. Nevertheless, this is the way reality is, and it is this that the laity perceive even when they cannot express it; it is this that leads them, when they are concerned with the kingdom or the way in which God should penetrate their life, to unite themselves around a priest. In brief, all the matters which.form the tissue of the llfe of the laity.are of importance for the kingdom of God; but they are not the kingdom of God. If, when they wish to discuss the repercussion of the kingdom of God on these matters, people gather together without a priest, the discussion easily slips over into the purely human condi-tions of activity; the presence of a priest, however, centers it upon the kingdom. Hence the laity need to have a priest present in their life. This also explains the desire of families to have times a visit from a priest. This is especially true in towns; but it differs from one locality to another, for we are discussing here the case of fervent Christians who desire that their faith influence their lives. In places where such Christians do not exist, the matter is quite different and needs to be discussed further. But to return to our subject, the visit of a priest to families is not a matter of giving a sermon or even of speaking principally about religion. It is a presence. Christian families enjoy having a priest in their homes. They want the priest to know them, their children, and their way of life. And this contributes to the general at-mosphere which reigns iri.~th~. home; th~"~ '6hversation spontaneously takes a vein different from the conversa-tion that is had with colleagues or with friends. And the fact that the priest is involved in their life permits all kinds of questions to be directed to him. The problem of the visit of a priest to families arouses a great many questions which can not be treated here, for they deserve an article to themselves. For the present, let us limit ourselves to pointing out these aspirations of good Christians. We are concerned with good Christians. As we pointed out previously, the Church cannot reach bad Christians or non-Christians except through the laity. The laity must be active or the Church will not take hold of the world; in the terms of the Gospel, she will be a light under a basket or leaven apart from the dough. But these active laity need the priest. Left to themselves, they are liable to be routed even in their interior life. In order that they may be united under the standard of Christ and that they may attack in an orderly way the problems of their interior life and of their Christian action in the world, the priest must be in the midst of them. In conclusion, let us note that in the Church at the beginning of this century the priest was occupied with a good many other things which were often profane; by reason of a tradition which dies away only slowly, many priests today are still taken up to a large extent by ad-ministrative and other activities which the laity would be better occupied with. The result is that priests are ab-sorbed by activities which are not suited to them; at the same time they are unavailable for groups of active Christians or they find it impossible to visi~ families. In any case, this new role of the priest is so important that there can be no Church without him. And the activ-ities that correspond to this role are so numerous and pressing that good priests are crowded with such activ-ities. And there is even the complaint that there are not enough priests. And yet what we have discussed so far is but one of the activities of a priest. Spiritual Action The action of leaven can not be seen; this results in difficulty for some because man has a body and is highly dependent on it. Man needs to see, and yet the soul and action on souls cannot be seen. ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, ~.963 161 lacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS There are, first of all, the older priests of whom we have already spoken; for these the pastoral ministry is ex-pressed by material activities and they can not conceive any other type. Moreover, they do not conceive of any other priestly intervention than the authoritarian form of formal congregational meetings composed of a sermon and a greeting. Today, all this has become secondary, if indeed it has not been completely abandoned. Formerly when the priest spoke authoritatively, he gave directions in many matters (politics, for instance) which touched religion only very indirectly. At the present time, there is a growing agreement that priests are not to in-terest themselves in the temporal. However, many priests formerly were interested in nothing else. To the extent that this remains true, one can understand that they have the impression of no longer knowing what to do. This outmoded spirit dies out only slowly; in semi-naries as well as in houses of study of religious orders clerical formation likewise becomes transformed only slowly. One even finds young priests who think that, when they are with the laity, their role should be one of teaching and that they alone should do the talking. They find themselves ill at ease when persons are not disposed to listen to them first of all. Others still think that they must do everything themselves~determine the place, day, and hour of the meetings and issue the announcements. Again they feel discomforted when a group of active Christians organize everything without them and then come to invite them. We are living in an age of transformation. The older attitude with its way of doing things is gradually giving way. But some priests still retain the older attitudes and do not conceive the possibility of allowing the laity to act. On the other hand, many of the laity retain a purely passive conception of their role; not only do they leave everything to the priest, but they will do nothing if they are asked to take over a work. "Adult" lay persons (of whom I have been speaking) and priests adapted to such are still but few in number. Nevertheless, when one compares today with the be-ginning of the century, the transformation is unmistak-able. The essential thing is that this evolution continue and that the priest should more and more return to. the spiritual; that is, to the domain that belongs to him. But is "return" the correct word? He should rather aspire to it. But man is material, and the older conception gives satisfaction to a kind of unconscious materialism. Collaboration Formerly, one spoke only of authority and obedience. The faithful should obey, and nothing else was asked of them. Today, however, as we have seen, they are asked to think and to act for themselves. The meetings of active Christians have as their purpose a united program to enable the realization of the Christian ideal in the actual circumstances of life. Accordingly, the pri~est.is, no longer '~oncerned only with teaching; he listens and he invites the faithful to make their own personal contribution. This can be seen even in the matter of worship; the Mass has ceased to be a sacrifice offered by the priest alone at an altar distant from the people and in front of a congregation uncon-cerned with what he is doing, Now the Mass has become the community sacrifice offered by the priest an'd the faithful together, the priest being the spokesman of the community, the representative of the Church and of Christ, the celebrant of a sacrifice which belongs to the entire community. This is a profoundly changed state of affairs. Priests and laity act together. The Church is a single body and all of its members are active. This is a true resurrection. And by this very fact the priest has been strikingly ennobled, for he is no longer limited to being the shep-herd of a passive flock but has become instead the ani-mator of an active community. This change is to be found on all levels of the Church. The last and highest is that at the very center of the ChurCh, the See of Rome. Vati-can Council II gives witness to this transformation; and it is clear how John XXIII envisages the matter. His man-ner is not one like this: "Let the bishops say what they want, I shall do only what I want"; rather, his attitude is this: "I am deeply concerned to know the opinions of the bishops in order that I may take their advice into account." No one can derive from this the impression that pontifical power has thereby been lessened; but every-one does get the impression that the. Church forms one living body, animated by a movement of the whole. The role of the clergy is essential for the Church. When Catholicism is compared with Protestantism and with Orthodoxy, this role of the clergy is one of the most striking characteristics of the Church. Perhaps this ex-plains the retreat of the laity after the Reformation which placed the clergy in the background and in many cases even suppressed the priesthood and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Now, however, the Church has recovered from this crisis; Christian life is now developing in its com-plete totality. Henceforth the Church will no longer be divided into the active Church composed of the clergy and the passive Church composed of the laity. The Church is a body ÷ ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 1963 ]63 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacqo, es REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I6,t of priests and laity together, living together, thinking together, acting together. As Cardinal Suhard put it: "The true achiever of evangelization is not the simple faithful nor the priest by himself; it is the Christian com-munity." The laity are fulfilling their role; the priest turn is free to be himself. Spiritual Counselor The direction of conscience has enjoyed a large place in the modern Church; it has been one of the principal instruments in the formation of a Christian elite. Never-theless, it has been especially concerned with women. When one reads the letters of the great spiritual directors, it is seen that they have been addressed almost exclusively to women. These women belonged to the higher levels of society. Today, however, as a result of the general spread of education and of the rise of active Christians, those who are concerned with the spiritual life are becoming more numerous and are to be found at all levels; they are found among workers and in the country as well as among the intellectuals. If it is necessary to practice direction of souls as it was formerly conceived, the clergy will be un-able to cope with it. But here once more, does not the spirit of collabora-tion profoundly transform conditions? Christians gather together with a priest to reflect on their Christian life; together they confront most of the questions that were formerly treated by individual conferences between the director and his spiritual child. In these conferences those seeking direction used to speak to their director not only of their interior life but of everything that con-cerned themselves. They asked their director's advice with regard to their relations with their husbands, with their children, and with their friends. They discussed the amount of freedom to be given their children, the amount of money to be given them, their clothes, companions, activities. Now all this is discussed in groups and in a way that is far more effective. Formerly, the person seeking direction would describe a situation to the director and he would decide the matter. The one consulting would act as though the director were omniscient, and he in turn would decide everything as though in fact he were. It was even taught as a received doctrine that the word of the director, was the word of God, that the director had the required graces of state, and that one should obey him blindly. Now it is realized that this was a false mystique, foreign to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation; neverthe-less, it formed a coherent system. Christians concerned with the exigencies o[ morality would consult their con[essor on the matter o[ all their reading. No priest, however, can be acquainted with everything that is being published. The con[essor, i[ he believed himsel[ obliged to answer--and [ormerly the majority believed themsel~ces so obliged h~d~0 answer by guessing or had to make use o[ a systematic severity in order to avoid all risk o[ danger . And thereby/ other dangers were [allen into. From another viewpoint, there were husbands who op-posed the idea o[ their wives having a director o[ con-science on the grounds that they did not want between themselves and their wives a secret authority which the latter obeyed absolutely. Moreover, the women who con-suhed a director were usually women who were not mar-ried or who were unhappily married. This meant that spiritual direction had mixed in with it a purely human desire [or masculine support, and this in a proportion that is difficult to determine. All this has passed, and we have arrived at a much sounder state o[ affairs. All the matters that we have men-tioned are taken up today in groups. In [amily groups there are discussed today the problems o[ conjugal intimacy, o[ prayer in common, and the prayer o[ each o[ the spouses. In all kinds o[ groups, there is discussion o[ diversions, o[ entertainments, o[ reading, o[ the time to be given to recreation and to apostolic work, and o[ the problems o[ pro[essional li[e. Since the dil~erent kinds o[ groups are highly diversified, the questions that are confronted also differ greatly; nevertheless, the great part of matters that were [ormerly treated by individual direction is now considered by groups, each member con-tributing the results o[ his own experience; the priest has only to contribute his own element. The result is that while the number o[ Christians de-sirous o[ a Christian life that will dominate their entire existence is growing, the number of those who want direction o[ conscience in the individualistic sense of former times is diminishing. Even the phrase "spiritual director" is vanishing; the expression tod~y is that of "spiritual counselor." Everything is simplified; every-thing is developed in an atmosphere of collaboration that befits adult li[e. Hence, [or example, when a [amily group discusses the liberty to be given to children o[ different ages or the amount of money to be given them, solutions are reached that are more balanced and more realistic than those [ormerly obtained when the one consulting was limited to accepting the word of a director who was a stranger to the li[e o[ the [amily. Some Christians, however, still have recourse to a spiritual director after the older method, but they are The Pr~st ToOa~y VOLUME 22, 1963 165 ]~que, Leclegcq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in general those who are slow to be caught up by the strong current that is sweeping through the Church and reanimating Christian life. Unfortunately they are still numerous, for a great many Christians as well as a great many priests remain immobilized in older conceptions. The movement that stresses the laity touches only a cer-tain sector and certain levels of the population. There are even entire regions where it is unknown. We are seeking here to emphasize the signs of this renewal, for we are sure that it is in this renewal that the future of the Church lies. That which is merely a prolongation of the past will fall as the world progresses. Undoubtedly, there will always remain certain ele-ments of the old direction of conscience, certain needs (more or less occasional) that will require personal, in-dividual contacts. In most of these cases confession will be sufficient. It is impossible to predict what will eventu-ally happen, but it is clear that everything is being sim-plified as the Christian animation of life grows. The Word Today much consideration is given to the ministry of the word; this again is a reaction against the past. Formerly, it was taken for granted that society was Christian. Children were instructed in religion, but no attention was paid to adults. Certain traditions, peri-odically restated by councils, obliged to a preaching directed to the instruction of the people; but actual practice had stifled the rule. One has only to recall what the state was of the ministry of the word. Now the word lives again; the most significant sign of this rebirth is undoubtedly retreats. The development of the spiritual life of active Christians has been accom-panied by the multiplication of retreats and periods of recollection. These have become so numerous that or~e can speak accurately in this connection in terms of a spiritual explosion. Retreats and days of recollection are organized in every walk of life: workers, business men, engineers, physicians, young persons of every category. Every time a group with a spiritual character is founded, retreats are organized. At the very time I am writing these lines, I have before me the bulletin of the Association of House-keepers for Priests, an organization that exists in France and Belgium; they, too, organize retreats and days of recollection. Moreover, undifferentiated retreats are also multiplying; these are directed towards all Christians and include without distinction both men and women, priests and laity. Once more we can note that formerly there were some retreat houses maintained by the Jesuits who pioneered them and by convents of women imbued by the Jesuit spirit; there was also a small number of persons who went to these houses for retreats. Today it is an immense move-ment. There are parishes which have retreat leagues com-posed of persons who make a retreat each- y.ear. In certain regions these leagues are systematically organized; in cer-tain dioceses of The Netherlands they are a regular insti-tution of every parish. And I am not speaking now of women, for women retreatants are even more numerous. Hence it is not a matter for astonishment that retreat houses are constantly being opened everywhere and that there are always too few of them. Rooms must generally be reserved in advance; and it can happen that a retreat must be canceled for lack of an available retreat house. But there is also need for priests. Preaching is par excellence a priestly duty. At the present moment the number of priests conducting retreats is legion. Formerly retreats were largely reserved to certain religious orders; but now many diocesan priests (pastors, chaplains, teach-ers) give them. Nevertheless, the number of retreat masters is still not sut~ciently large. As a general rule, it is very easy to find retreatants; retreat houses are more difficult to find; but hardest of all to find are priests. At the beginning of these articles, I recalled those who asked what was left for a priest to do now that there are active lay persons; the answer is that priests are needed for things that are genuinely priestlyl The Christian people have a hunger and thirst for the word of God, and those who can dispense it to them are not numerous enough. This is a matter of the priestly ministry par excellence. The tendency of today's priest is to occupy himself by preference in such ministries, for he feels himself the apostle of Christ in the strongest sense of that term; and he prefers to leave to lay persons the care of administra-tion. I have known a pastor who had to build a church; he appointed a committee of lay persons to raise the money while he himself conducted retreats. Perhaps the building of the church progressed a little more slowly than it would have had he devoted all his time to raising money, but he was at work shaping souls. All this also supposes a transformation in the clergy; for the majority of older priests, administrators of parishes, teachers of profane subjects, have been completely held back from conducting retreats. If they left this matter to religious, this was not without good reason. Today the importance of religious has not diminished, but retreat masters now come from every ecclesiastical sector. The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 167 $acques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 Collaboration Once More Together with divine worship, preaching is un-doubtedly the chief priestly activity; and yet even here there is to be found an interchange of priests and laity. Retreats differ greatly. In some the retreatants are plunged into an absolute silence; the director gives them talks throughout the entire day. In this case the renewal of Christian life is marked by the radical character of the retreat--more contemplative, more silent than could have been borne before. But there are also retreats where with-out any lessened preoccupation with the spiritual an hour a day is reserved for an exchange of views; in this period each one can present his problems as he discerns them in the particular situation in which he finds himself. Persons of an older form of mind find it indiscreet to expose one's state of soul to the whole world. Formerly in a retreat one listened to the director who was the only one to speak; then purely profane recreation pe-riods were had, and the retreatants who desired it could consult the retreat master personally and individually. Often retreatants would bring up the same questions; the retreat master would always give the same answer. In general, the matters discussed were such that there was no compelling reason to keep them secret; hence it often happened that the retreatants told each other what the re-treat master had told them. Today all this is treated in a community session; every-one profits by it, and it produces a community spirit in the group. The retreatants feels themselves engaged in a common work. The divine life in us, our work for the service of God, are problems that interest all Of us to-gether. We no longer go to heaven alone; we go there with our brethren; indeed it is impossible to go there alone, for we depend on those who surround us. The king-dom of God is a community enterprise to which we belong and which we ought to undertake together. Even a re-treat is a community enterprise. In addition to this, it is now customary to have lay persons speak during a retreat. Retreats are par excellence a priestly work; nevertheless, it does happen that a layman is invited to speak of an aspect ofthe Christian life which he knows. One of my friends was invited by a teacher to speak to his students during the retreat at the end of their studies; the subject was the role of the Christian in the world; after the talk the teacher told him: "It does them much more good to hear all this from a layman." Likewise lay persons are invited to speak in seminaries. In a Canadian magazine I found a letter from Rome con-cerned with the matter expressed by Cardinal Sali~ge as "making use of the layman." The correspondent described how some theological students in Rome had invited a father of a family to speak to them of his Christian life. ¯. Montreal, Rome, Toulouse, and now this article which is to appear in Brussels and Buenos Aires--the problems are everywhere the same. Lay persons are eve~:ywher~e.;,~so also are,priests. They are together, shoulder to'~hourder. We cannot do without the one more than the other. What About the Others? The reader will have noticed that the lay persons dis-cussed here are the active la!ty who have grown into Christian maturity. What has been said is concerned only with the activity of a priest in relationship to such laymen. But what about the others--who compose the vast major-ity of men? Clearly, the groups of which we have spoken, the aware-ness of the exigencies of Christian life, and the giving of retreats are giving to Christians a shape and a form very different from that which they previously had. As we have already remarked, we are seeing a new Christian people appearing. But if these Christians remain among them-selves and if the clergy is concerned only with them, what changes will there be in the world as a whole? Whatever else may be said about this problem, it is true that they will always be there in the world. They are not isolated from the world: they are shopkeepers with a neighborhood store; they are factory workers and en-gineers; they are white-collared workers; they are physi-cians and druggists. They are everywhere. They come to-gether to arouse their Christian awareness; but afterwards they disperse and return to the mass. This is a slow work which one can judge only over long intervals. One can see, for example, that the position of Catholic literature in the world is today far different from what it was a hundred years ago. The same can be said for the position of Catholics in philosophy, in art, in politics. This is true, someone may say; but this is only a matter of a few leaders. To this I would answer that the remark is true; but every leader supposes a body of followers. If Catholic writers and artists today show both a talent and a conformity to the aspirations of the times which were not shown a hundred years ago, then this has happened be-cause the environment must have changed. And it is the same if Catholic philosophers are able to speak to the men of today. Such persons are perhaps the flower of Christianity; but the flower supposes the stem, and the stem in turn supposes the root. If I am the root, I need not be humiliated by the 4. 4. 4. The Priest Today VOLUME 2Z, ~.963 169 ÷ ÷ ÷ Jacques Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS fact that I am not seen; it is owing to me that the flower can charm the eye. The position of the Church in the world is, then, pro-roundly changed. And in the examples given above, it will be noted that this transformation has been achieved by lay persons. Writers like Claudel, Chesterton, Bernanos, Ger-trud yon le Fort have undoubtedly done more to attract men to Catholicism than any theologian and perhaps more even than any priest. But they have been in relation with a priest. In short, the role of the priest is exercised on the interior of the Church, on those who are united in the Church; it is these latter who thereupon go out to speak to the world. At times the complaint is heard ~that Christians barri-cade themselves within a ghetto, living by themselves without contact with the outside. The complaint is well founded; if they dose themselves up with each other, the salt will not be able to give its flavor. And it is true that there is a dangerous exclusivism, a fear of leaving a Christian background. This fear is a debilitating thing, for of all the emotions fear is the one that is most debasing. The spreading of ideas, and especially the Christian spreading of ideas, is done by the osmosis of personal con-tact; it is to be noted, however, that this notion of per-sonal contact is a wide one extending to the books that are read and the films that are seen. The action of Chris-tianity proceeds from the fact that the Christian environ-ment reflects Christ. A great many who were born and raised Christian turn from Christianity because they do not find Christ in the Christianity which has been pre-sented to them. What they need is for active Christians to give them an exact image of Christianity. Others, also educated as Christians, turn from Christianity when they perceive the demands it makes on them. The Church loses nothing when such quit her, for they discredit her in the measure that they are believed to represent her. This is the case with cei'tain governments which declare them-selves Catholic. This, then, is a question of the large numbers of Chris-tians who are lukewarm and indifferent. But there is an-other group, larger still, those who are not Christian:; at all. Among these the seed must be sown. Here, too, the role of the priest is essential. Father Vinatur in the text cited above remarked that the priest is a founder. It is true; Christianity is founded only by a priest. This is seen from the very beginning; in the Acts of the Apostles there is related the ministry of St. Paul; he is seen taking up his residence in a city, making some converts, and then leaving when Christianity has been set up and a member of the community--the priest--has been established as head. This is a permanent condition of things. Active lay persons can prepare the soil; they can arouse sympa-thetic interest; but a Christian community is.formed only when a priest comes. This.i~ true on all, levels of the Church. When Catholid Action was constituted with its appeal to assume a genuinely religious activity, it was priests who took the initiative in the matter. So also when the family movement was founded to concern itself with the Christian life of married persons, it was begun by priests. Lay persons came afterwards; in a certain sense, they ended by doing everything. But the priest remains, and he will never be able to be dispensed with. This, then, is the design of the new Church, animated by a Christian life which has not been known since early times, a Church of Christians all sharing in the life and action of Christ. This Church is but sketched in the reality before us at the present time; but this sketch is the image of what is being formed. The confidence which we can have for the future comes from the fact that Christ is living in this Church in a way that He has not since her early centuries. ÷ ÷ The Priest Today VOLUME 22, 196,~ 171 LADISLAS M. ORSY, S.J. From Meditation to Contemplation ÷ ÷ ÷ Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., is professor of canon law at the Gregorian Univer-sity; Piazza della Pilotta, 4; Rome, Italy. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The aim of this article is both practical and doctrinal: it is to give practical help for the difficult period of tran-sition from meditation to contemplation and to show the theological background of the change that takes place in the soul. Meditation in these pages means prayer with the help of concepts, images, and more or less enforced acts of will. Contemplation means silence before God, prayer in which the soul is transformed under God's powerful ac-tion. In meditation the accent is on activity, in contem-plation on passivity. In meditation the soul tries to reach God by thoughts, feelings, and desires; in contemplation God has reached the soul and works on it without thoughts, feelings, or desires. In meditation the soul fights its way towards God; in contemplation it should stand before God in poverty. Passivity and poverty are then the foundations for a new type of activity and for new riches that have their source in God's powerful ac-tion. Such a deep change in prayer affects the whole man: it is a change in personality. It is not without difficulties; Saint Teresa remarks that there is no time in the spirit-ual life when it is so easy to give up prayer altogether as the time when contemplation begins. God's Work in the Soul God is eternally present in the soul: it is His presence that gives it life and being, it is His presence that sancti-fies it. He is not only present, He is working in the soul, infusing light and love into our mind and love into our will power. His final aim is to take possession of our person so that we should be united to Him and be His adopted children for an eternity. God is eternally present in the soul. He was there since the moment of our creation; but at the moment of our baptism He came again, not in majesty but as a good friend, and made our soul His own dwelling house where He likes to remain. He brought sanctity and holiness with Him and transformed the soul. As when fire is made in a cold and dark r0on~ ~th~ place be~ome~ ~¢arm and full of light, so when God comes into the soul it is filled with warmth and light. It is clothed with immortality, it belongs to God's family, in a way it becomes divine. The new life the soul receives is called sanctifying grace, the new light in the mind faith, and the infused love in the will power hope and charity. They are all fruits of the presence of God; should He leave the soul, there would be dark and cold again. God works in the soul. There is not one moment of rest for Him. He is supremely good and happy, and He wants to share His rich goodness and happiness with others. Consequently, His sanctifying presence is in fact a work of continuous sanctification. Light and love are given to mind and will in abundance: light that we may see and better understand things divine,-.love that we may go towards God at a better pace. This action of God is peaceful and quiet: He does not like noise and agitation. It is this action that ought to be the source of all our thoughts and deeds; unless they proceed from God they will be empty and they will not bear any fruit for eternal life. God's aim is to take possession of our person. He is not satisfied with partial sanctification of His family. He wants to bring them into the very centre of His own life where the Father and the Son and the Spirit are one and where They know and love each other without end. To say that one does not want to be more than an ordinary good Christian (meaning by it that one does not want to be perfect) is to betray a lack of generosity and to show a great ignorance of God's intention who wants all His children to grow continuously and reach their full maturity in Christ. The extent of the necessary trans-formation is indicated by the distance (which each one easily realizes for himself) between God's purity and our impurity, between His charity and our own obscurity. Nevertheless, it is this complete transformation that is God's aim and nothing less. He has the means to achieve it: by the gentle action of His love in this world and by Purgatory in the other. No person who wants to see God can escape this cleansing process; and those who are generous will want to get through it soon, if possible, in this life. Such desire is not a presumption: it is no more than conforming our will to God's will. 4. 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 196~ 173 4. 4. 4. L. M.'Or~y, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]74 Meditation When God comes into the soul of man and wants to sanctify him, He encounters a great obstacle which is man's fallen nature with all that it entails: sin, attach-ment to worldly things, false judgments, and selbwill as hard as steel. Purification is necessary. It is mainly done by God, but man has his part in it as well. Meditation is one of the first steps in this cleansing process. Man has heard the voice of God and wants to obey Him and be near Him. But man's mind is not clear and clean enough to perceive the light that comes from God living in his soul, his will is not sensitive enough follow the inspirations of grace. It is literally embedded in mortal and perishing things, it is ruled not by God but by the senses. Training is necessary for both mind and will in order to lift them from the visible into the in-visible, from the tangible into the intangible, from the sensitive into the spiritual. Part of this training is what we call meditation. The mind has to be trained. It should be a training in divine truth so that our thoughts, ideas, judgments correspond to those of God and thus that the two minds be united as far as possible into one. This training is done by the soul in an active and discursive way when it meditates on the words of our Lord, on the mysteries of His life, on the Church. What the person does is to fill his mind with God's thoughts instead of his own. He is really trying to m~ike his mind a better instrument for the perception of God's inspirations, an instrument more adapted to receive God's light. It is a tuning-up or warm-ing- up process. The mind is bathed in the divine truth so that it may become divine. This is done in an active way, by reasoning, by considering the call of Christ our Lord or God's beauty in nature, or by imagining the Holy Family. Man is working his way towards God. The will has to be trained as well. The attraction of things eternal is fine and delicate, and our selfish will does not easily notice it. In order to become more sensi-tive to the action of grace, the selfishness of our nature and of our will in particular ought to be broken by con-tinuous exercise in mortification. The aim is that our will should become soft and flexible, attached to nothing, so that it may follow the will of God in everything. To attain that aim, one has to work hard and in an active way. One has to do penance, one has to give up many things, many of his likings, one has to be humble; and there is no dispensation from this work. Since the mind and will are active, activity predomi-nates at this stage of the spiritual life. But sometimes it may happen that a longing awakens in the soul after God Himself, a desire to meet the living God without any human speech, image, or idea. Words and pictures are created things; they do not satisfy the soul that has been created to see God face to face. The desire to meet God without passing through created images all the time may be a sign of better things to come. Transition Thoughts, perception, and feelings are all created things. If we are called to union with God, there must be a moment when they have to disappear since no hu-man person can be satisfied with looking at the picture of somebody he loves when personal contact is possible. Besides~ those acts may fulfill their purpose in the puri-fication of mind and will. Their nature being limited, their efficacy is limited too. I can penetrate the mind of God to a certain extent by meditating on the Gospel; I can follow the will of God to a great extent by trying to do what I think the best. But neither my meditations nor my good deeds have the power to cleanse my soul so well that I may truly say that God has taken possession of me and that I am no more than an instrument in His hand. The true cleansing is reserved to God. It is He who transforms the soul by infusing light and love into it in a more than ordinary measure; it is that light and love that sanctify and purify the whole man. 1. External Signs. The first sign to indicate that a per-son might have a "vocation" to contemplative prayer is that he does not find any more "taste" in meditation: he does not enjoy it any more in the best and spiritual sense of the word. Before, he was able to collect a great va-riety of fruit in his meditation: words and images paci-fied his soul and helped him to formulate good resolu-tions. Now he finds that his meditation is more like a dried-up fountain which does not contain fresh water. But not to have any "taste" in meditation is a purely negative sign: it might well be the indication of careless-ness or of drifting towards the world. Hence, a more posivite sign is needed to confirm that it is God who brought about the change. The positive sign will be a deep longing in the soul for God and a sincere desire to follow Christ our Lord in everything and to be con-formed to His image. A sincere desire that is manifest in deeds. The loss of "taste" in meditation and the longing for God are always coupled with a turning away from this created world. This loss of interest in created things, even if they are very good in themselves, is the third sign; and it is a natural consequence of what has taken place: 4. 4. Meditation to Contemplation VOLUME 22, 1963 ]75 ÷ 4. 4- when the soul is not satisfied any more with created con-cepts in its prayer, it cannot be satisfied with created things either. The change may be astonishing for the person concerned: he used to enjoy music and art, litera-ture and human company, and now he notices that they all leave him dry and empty. When all these signs are found together, loss of "taste" in meditation after it has been practiced for a fairly long time (which may vary from person to person), longing for God in solitude (the longing being confirmed by solid virtues in practice), and the consequent loss of good and legitimate pleasure in created things, then the person concerned may have the vocation to a simpler form of prayer. If these signs are not there, any attempt to leave be-hind meditation and practice another form of prayer, namely the prayer of simplicity, may be poisonous for the soul; it may weaken its spiritual life and it may even ruin the soul altogether. 2. An Explanation. The signs just described are ex-ternal, but what is happening internally in the soul? What is it that brought the change about? The answer is that gradually and in a hidden way God is taking possession of the soul and its facilities. As mind and will have been purified to a reasonable degree, though by no means perfectly, God's work on them~be-comes more intense. Light and love are being given in a larger measure than ever before, and the hand of God begins to shape the new man, the new creature of St. Paul, out of the old. It is as if the hand of God had touched the soul from behind and in the dark. The soul recognised the touch instinctively but could not see the person. It turned away from all creatures, whether con-cepts, images in prayer, or works of art, and conceived a longing for its Maker and Creator. Hence the loss of "taste" in meditation, longing for God, and the feeling of emptiness in the presence of created objects. God comes near enough to awaken a deep desire in the soul but not near enough to let the soul perceive something of God's beauty. It follows that for a while (and it may be a very long while) one may remain in the dark: all consolation from this world is lost, but no sen-sible consolation from the other world is coming. Per-haps it would be truer to say that though the heart is pure enough to feel the obscure touch of God, as yet it: is not able to receive the light in its fullness because of the many impurities that it still has. The result is darkness; and if one does not know what is happening it is easy to lose confidence and even to give up prayer altogether. In truth, it is a time of grace for the soul. 3. Some Practical Advice. If the signs for contempla-tion are there, it would not be wise to force oneself to make meditations in a strict and methodical form. One cannot turn the clock back, not even in the spiritual life. The time of predominantly active prayer, is over; now one has to learn how to~follow~the lead The first step towards more passivity should be the simplification of prayer. Intellectual considerations dur-ing prayer time should be left out as much as possible. Their place should be taken by simple acts of faith, hope, and love, which are the beginning of any prayer and the fruit of the best of prayers. The soul should .learn how to come back to the same idea again and again and find peace, joy, and "taste" in it. Also there should be a tend-ency towards greater receptivity, but with prudence and wisdom. God likes to take His time; He likes to build slowly and gradually. Our duty is to follow the move-ments of His grace: we should not try to go any faster than He wants us to go nor should we lag behind. The adaptation to this new way of life in which it is God who holds the initiative is bound to be a long process. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a change in our personality. It is bound to affect everything in our life, our way of thinking, working, and our relations with other persons. A likeness to Christ our Lord is being formed in us. After the initial difficulties a long period of peaceful development may ensue. Prayer will be a mixture of ac-tivity and passivity; but if the soul is faithful, it may reach the stage in which the main rule is passivity. A passivity that leads to a readiness to do the will of God and to a very practical love of God and our neighbour. One final remark is necess
Tese de Doutoramento em Antropologia, na especialidade de Antropologia da Saúde ; Anthropology, through a life course approach, provides a crossover of biological, social and cultural perspectives and approaches on health and disease, with an outstanding potential to provide data that might not be obtained by any other field of knowledge, intertwining in the multidirectional association between cultural, social, historical, political, economic and biological processes. This work focus on the effect caused by environmental stress on human health and longevity, using the life course model, through the study of a sample of skeletons from the Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collection (aka Luís Lopes Collection), referring to the early-19th to mid-20th centuries, deposited at the National Museum of Natural History and Science, University of Lisbon, Portugal - 679 subadults and adults born between 1806 and 1958 and died at Lisbon between 1880 and 1970 were available for study. Life course approach emphasizes the effect of environmental stress on the skeleton at different stages of life, by analyzing the interruption of normal development and growth of skeletal injuries, currently called stress markers. The information obtained in this analysis provides evidence to identify how and when environmental stress affects the skeleton, with more or less severity and how the skeleton reacts or recovers, and how it affects patterns of morbidity and mortality in later stages of life. As a way of establishing the connection between environmental stressors and the skeleton, several minor congenital defects of the sternum, vertebral column and skull base, cribra orbitalia, size of the neuro-vertebral canal and length of the femur and tibia are analyzed. This study is the first to test the association between vertebral neural canal size and age-at-death in a collection of Portuguese skeletons, of individuals with known sex, age-at death, year of birth and cause of death. Age-at-death is negatively associated with the size of the neural vertebral canal in several cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae. However, this association ceases to exist when the confounding variables: year of birth and cause of death are added to the models as covariates. The results appear to be consistent with the plasticity and constraint model before the introduction of covariates and with the predictive adaptive response model after the inclusion of covariates in the analysis. The predictive adaptive response model defends that, in the womb, the organism makes a prediction about the environment in which it will be inserted later in life, according to the clues it receives, and adapts itself to this future environment, not only for its immediate survival, but also to be better prepared for later living conditions. Later in life, when there is a mismatch between predictions made in the womb and conditions in real life, it will result in greater susceptibility to certain chronic diseases. In the plasticity and constraint model, uterine changes resulting from environmental stress factors have the sole function of immediate survival, and will have harmful effects on morbidity and mortality in more advanced stages of life, regardless of whether or not there is an environment similar to that the organism had in the womb. None of the birth defects of the sternum and spine analyzed in this study has a statistically significant relationship with sex and age-at-death. Sex differences in the characteristics studied are not very common; therefore, the absence of statistically significant differences between sexes was expected. The absence of differences in age-at-death is also consistent with other studies. The absence of statistically significant differences in sex and age-at-death between individuals with and without these birth defects, makes them useful for biological distance studies, but not as suitable as stress markers. It would be expected that individuals with birth defects would have been exposed to any type of stressful event (for example, exposure to toxic substances, inadequate consumption of nutrients) during embryogenesis, which would affect life-long morbidity and mortality. Still, even if these defects do not affect longevity, it does not necessarily mean that they are not markers of stress. If the predictive adaptive response theory is correct, then individuals subject to stressful events early in life are better prepared to deal with stressful events later in life, which would counteract the expected effect of decreasing longevity. The study of a possible association between congenital defects of the sternum, vertebral column and skull base with cribra orbitalia, vertebral neural canal sizes and femur and tibia length, presents more promising results, regarding the possibility of using some of these defects as stress markers. Hyperplasia of the sternum is related to the antero-posterior and transverse diameters of the neuro-vertebral channels of the thoracic vertebrae in men, but each of these correlations has an opposite direction. Men with sternum hyperplasia have narrower anteroposterior diameters and wider transverse diameters. A narrower anteroposterior diameter may be associated with a hostile environment early in life leading to the presence of sternal hyperplasia, whereas a wider transverse diameter may be linked to an improvement in the environment during late childhood and adolescence, allowing growth recover. Therefore, the use of sternum hyperplasia as a stress marker may be defensible, although further studies are needed to corroborate this association. The double hypoglossal canal is related to the transverse diameters in the thoracic vertebrae in women. Women with a double hypoglossal canal tend to have narrower transverse diameters. Of all the birth defects analyzed, the double hypoglossal canal is the most promising for use as a stress marker. Sex differences can be explained by considering that males, during growth, are culturally more protected from adverse conditions than females. Finally, an exhaustive analysis of the entire collection is made regarding the presence and variability of the hypoglossal canal. The gross prevalence of double hypoglossal canal fits within the normal parameters of variation of this characteristic when compared with results from other collections. However the gross prevalence of global variants in the hypoglossal canal (partial bridging, double and triple hypoglossal canal) is 32.4%. None of the variants of the hypoglossal canal shows any difference in sex or laterality. The main findings of this study allow to infer that environmental stress is negatively associated with age-at-death, even though the association of stress and skeletal markers is not always straightforward, possibly hindered by phenomenon such as catch-up-growth associated with slight improvements in socio-economic status during childhood and adolescence. Some minor congenital defects might have the potential to be used as stress markers, namely sternum hyperplasia and double hypoglossal canal. ; A antropologia, através de uma perspectiva de história de vida, fornece um cruzamento de perspetivas e abordagens biológicas, sociais e culturais sobre saúde e doença, com potencial para fornecer dados que não poderiam ser obtidos por outro campo do conhecimento, entrelaçando-se na associação multidirecional entre processos culturais, sociais, históricos, políticos, económicos e biológicos. Este trabalho foca-se no efeito causado pelo stresse ambiental na saúde e longevidade humana, usando o modelo de história de vida, através do estudo de uma amostra de Esqueletos Identificados da Coleção de Lisboa, referente ao início do século XIX até meados do século XX, depositada no MUNHAC a, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal - 679 subadultos e adutos nascidos entre 1806 e 1958 e falecidos em Lisboa entre 1880 e 1970 estão disponíveis para estudo. A abordagem de história de vida enfatiza o efeito do stresse ambiental sobre o esqueleto em diferentes fases da vida, por meio da análise da interrupção do desenvolvimento e crescimento normal e das lesões esqueléticas(i.e. marcadores de stresse). O desenvolvimento e o crescimento são dois processos distintos, mas indissociáveis. O crescimento é fundamentalmente uma transformação quantitativa, na qual a multiplicação das células resulta em mudanças contínuas no tamanho do ser humano. Já o desenvolvimento incorpora transformações quantitativas e qualitativas e refere-se à maturação biológica de órgãos e tecidos. Embora o crescimento e o desenvolvimento não possam ser dissociados e atuem em simultaneamente, os fatores de stresse ambiental podem afetar ambos ou apenas um dos processos. As informações obtidas nessa análise fornecem evidências para identificar como e quando o stresse ambiental afeta o esqueleto, com maior ou menor severidade e como o esqueleto reage ou recupera, e a forma como isso afeta os padrões de morbidade e mortalidade em fases mais avançadas da vida. Desta forma, este estudo pretende contribuir para a ampliação do conhecimento sobre os efeitos do stresse ambiental no esqueleto e as suas consequências na longevidade, seguindo o modelo de história de vida. A perspectiva de história de vida baseia-se no pressuposto de que o trajeto de vida dos indivíduos só pode ser compreendido no contexto cultural, histórico, social e político em que vivem e resulta da acumulação de todos os eventos passados. Como forma de estabelecer a ligação entre os fatores de stresse ambiental e o esqueleto, são analisados diversos defeitos congénitos do esterno, coluna vertebral e base do crânio, cribra orbitalia, tamanho do diâmetro do canal neuro-vertebral e comprimento do fémur e da tíbia. Este estudo é o primeiro a testar a associação do tamanho do canal neural vertebral com a idade-à-morte numa coleção de esqueletos portuguesa composta por indivíduos para os quais se conhece o sexo, a idade-à-morte, o ano de nascimento e a causa da morte. A idade-à-morte está negativamente associada ao tamanho do canal neuro-vertebral em diversas vértebras cervicais, torácicas e lombares. No entanto, essa associação deixa de existir quando as variáveis confundidoras: ano de nascimento e causa do óbito são adicionadas aos modelos como covariáveis. A inclusão das covariáveis nas análises, provavelmente explica as diferenças observadas entre os resultados obtidos no presente estudo e estudos anteriores, que encontraram uma associação negativa entre os diâmetros dos canais neuro-vertebrais e a idade-à-morte. Os resultados parecem consistentes com o modelo de plasticidade e restrição antes da introdução das covariáveis e com o modelo de resposta adaptativa preditiva após a inclusão das covariáveis na análise. O modelo de resposta adaptativa preditiva defende que, no útero, o organismo faz uma "previsão" sobre o ambiente em que estará inserido mais tarde na vida, de acordo com as pistas que recebe, que lhe confere características adaptativas nesse ambiente futuro. Mais tarde na vida, na presença de uma incompatibilidade entre as previsões feitas no útero e as condições da vida real, isso resultará numa maior suscetibilidade a certas doenças crónicas. No modelo de plasticidade e restrição, as alterações uterinas decorrentes de stresse ambiental têm como função a sobrevivência imediata, e terão efeitos nefastos sobre a morbilidade e mortalidade em fases mais avançadas da vida, independentemente de haver ou não um ambiente semelhante ao que o organismo tinha no útero. Como um pequeno diâmetro de canais neuro-vertebrais tem impacto mínimo na longevidade, pode-se supor que a previsão feita pelo organismo no início da vida mostrou se correta. Embora as condições de vida possam ter piorado durante esse período, em Lisboa, sempre foram bastante adversas. No entanto, o desfecho mais significativo é a influência do ano de nascimento e da causa do óbito nos resultados. As condições de vida em Lisboa deterioraram-se entre os séculos XIX e XX, tanto para homens como para mulheres, e a morte por doença infeciosa foi um fator determinante para a morte prematura na amostra feminina. O canal neuro-vertebral captura as condições de vida durante a infância. No entanto, a espécie humana tem uma longa esperança de vida e a acumulação de risco ao longo da mesma, que pode contribuir para a mortalidade precoce, adulterando a expectável relação direta entre o tamanho do canal neuro-vertebral e a idade-à-morte. Pesquisas adicionais são necessárias para identificar outras potenciais variáveis confundidoras que podem desempenhar um papel importante na associação entre fatores de stresse no início da vida e mortalidade prematura. A falta de informações sobre a situação socioeconómica ao nascer e das mulheres (a maioria registada como "doméstica), não permite uma compreensão robusta do contexto em que esses indivíduos viveram e impede-nos de adotar uma abordagem holística da história de vida. No entanto, a trajetória histórica da coleção aqui examinada permite inferir que a maioria dos indivíduos nasceu e viveu num contexto de privação, enfrentando carências nutricionais e doenças. Nenhum dos defeitos congénitos analisados tem uma relação estatisticamente significativa com o sexo e a idade-à-morte. As diferenças de sexo nas características estudadas não são muito comuns, portanto, a ausência de diferenças estatisticamente significativas entre os sexos era expectável e é consentânea com outros estudos. A ausência de diferenças estatisticamente significativas em relação ao sexo e idade-à-morte entre indivíduos com e sem estes defeitos congénitos, torna-os úteis para estudos de distância biológica, mas não tão adequados como marcadores de stresse. Seria expectável que indivíduos com defeitos congénitos tivessem sido expostos a stresse ambiental (e.g. exposição a substâncias tóxicas, consumo inadequado de nutrientes) durante a embriogénese, que afetaria a morbidade e mortalidade no decorrer da vida. Mesmo que esses defeitos não afetem a longevidade, não significa que não sejam marcadores de stresse. Se a teoria da resposta adaptativa preditiva estiver correta, então os indivíduos sujeitos a eventos stressantes no início da vida estão melhor preparados para lidar com eventos stressantes mais tarde na vida, o que neutralizaria a expectável diminuição da longevidade. A mortalidade seletiva e a heterogeneidade ao nível individual no risco de morbidade e mortalidade, desconstrói uma associação direta entre a presença de um marcador de stresse e a diminuição da longevidade. O estudo da possível associação entre defeitos congénitos do esterno, coluna vertebral e base do crânio e cribra orbitalia, diâmetro dos canais neuro-vertebrais e comprimento do fémur e da tíbia, apresenta resultados mais promissores, quanto à possibilidade de utilização de alguns destes defeitos como marcadores de stresse. A hiperplasia do esterno está relacionada com os diâmetros ântero-posterior e transversal dos canais neuro-vertebrais das vértebras torácicas, nos homens, mas, cada uma dessas correlações tem uma direção oposta. Homens com hiperplasia do esterno têm diâmetros ântero-posterior mais estreitos e diâmetros transversais mais largos. Considerando que os diâmetros ântero-posterior completam o seu crescimento, aproximadamente aos 4 anos de idade, e os diâmetros transversais podem continuar a crescer até aos 15-17 anos, é possível que um diâmetro ântero-posterior mais estreito esteja associado a um ambiente hostil no início da vida; e um diâmetro transversal mais amplo pode estar ligado a uma melhoria no ambiente durante o final da infância e adolescência, permitindo a recuperação do crescimento. Portanto, o uso da hiperplasia do esterno como marcador de stresse pode ser defensável, embora mais estudos sejam necessários para corroborar essa associação. O canal hipoglosso duplo está relacionado com os diâmetros transversais nas vértebras torácicas, nas mulheres. Mulheres com canal hipoglosso duplo tendem a ter diâmetros transversais mais estreitos. De todos os defeitos congénitos analisados, o canal hipoglosso duplo é o mais promissor para uso como marcador de stresse. As diferenças de sexo podem ser explicadas considerando que os rapazes, durante o crescimento são culturalmente mais protegidos das condições adversas do que as raparigas. Por último, faz-se uma análise de toda a coleção quanto à variabilidade do canal hipoglosso. A prevalência do canal hipoglosso duplo enquadra-se nos parâmetros normais de variação dessa característica quando comparada com resultados de outras coleções. A prevalência das variantes globais (divisão parcial do canal hipoglosso, canal hipoglosso duplo e triplo no canal hipoglosso é de 32,4%. Nenhuma das variantes apresenta diferença de sexo ou lateralidade. Os resultados deste estudo permitem inferir que o stresse ambiental está negativamente associado à idade-à-morte, embora a associação entre stresse e marcadores esqueléticos nem sempre seja direta, possivelmente afetada por fenómenos como o catch-up-growth associado a melhorias no estatuto socioeconómico durante a infância e adolescência. Alguns defeitos congénitos podem ter potencial para serem usados como marcadores de stresse (hiperplasia do esterno, canal hipoglosso duplo). ; N/A
Orações condicionais em Língua de Sinais Alemã (DGS) e Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras) - Um estudo sociolinguístico empírico Orações coordenadas, como as interrogativas e as declarativas, são bem pesquisadas em várias línguas de sinais urbanas ocidentais. No entanto, orações subordinadas complexas, como orações relativas e condicionais nas línguas de sinais, estão no estágio inicial de investigação. Como os pesquisadores procuraram sinais manuais como marcadores de subordinação, eles não reconheceram que as características não manuais - sobrancelhas levantadas, movimentos da cabeça e do corpo, piscar de olhos e muito mais - são a principal fonte da subordinação. Os sinais manuais (lexicais) são meramente opcionais. Alguns desses recursos não manuais têm mais de uma função gramatical. Por exemplo, sobrancelhas levantadas podem marcar tópicos, sentenças interrogativas ou condicionais, ou são usadas como um marcador prosódico para limites de sentenças. Para detectar um tipo específico de sentença, é útil observar qual combinação de características não manuais, ao lado dos sinais manuais, aparece (Herrmann & Steinbach 2013, Tang & Lau 2012, Wilbur 2000, Liddell 1986, Baker & Padden 1978). Quanto a investigação das sentenças condicionais na DGS e na Libras, não há estudos com dados empíricos. Assim, o objetivo principal da minha tese foi eliciar e registrar orações condicionais, por meio de um jogo de cartas e a explicação de suas regras por sinalizantes nativos (Dachkovsky, em preparação) no Brasil e na Alemanha. Além disso, descrevi a estrutura das sentenças das orações condicionais em ambas as línguas de sinais e as comparei. Além disso, no nível sociolinguístico, levei em consideração as características cruciais vinculadas às comunidades surdas, como idade, idade de aquisição da língua de sinais, formação escolar, formação profissional e competências bilíngues (Schembri & Lucas 2015). As características sociolinguísticas também foram comparadas entre as duas comunidades surdas, pois ambos os países têm diferentes avanços diacrônicos, políticos e educacionais de sua própria língua de sinais. Os dados de vídeo das duas línguas de sinais foram anotados com o ELAN e avaliados no Excel com o código binário para 0 = não existe, 1 = existe, para a ocorrência de sinais manuais e não manuais. Na DGS, identifiquei 146 orações condicionais (por 17 sinalizantes, dos quais 8 são mulheres e 9 são homens, ø idade 43,3 anos) e na Libras foram 84 orações condicionais (por 18 sinalizantes, dos quais 8 são mulheres e 10 são homens, ø idade 38,2 anos). Meus resultados para DGS demonstram que a construção de uma condicional factual precisa de uma combinação de (i) pelo menos duas características não manuais para o antecedente, como sobrancelhas levantadas (79%) e um movimento da cabeça (88%), e (ii) dois outros sinais não manuais para o consequente, como um movimento de oposição da cabeça (95%) e (iii) um piscar de olhos (66%) na fronteira entre as duas frases. Os sinais manuais para ambas as frases são opcionais, existem quatro sinais manuais para o antecedente, WENN1, WENN2 ('se'), VORSTELL ('imaginar') e ZUM-BEISPIEL ('por exemplo'). Para o consequente, existem dois sinais DANN ('então') e BEDEUT ('significa'). Os sinais manuais ocorreram em 66% dos antecedentes e 32% dos consequentes. Os resultados para Libras mostram que os condicionais factuais precisam, no mínimo, de uma combinação de duas características não manuais, como sobrancelhas levantadas (92%) e um movimento da cabeça (99%) sobre o antecedente e uma cabeça oposta (99%) sobre o consequente. Os dois sinais manuais para o antecedente, SE e POR-EXEMPLO, e dois outros sinais para o consequente, um gesto de palma para cima e SIGNIFICAR, são opcionais, também. Em Libras, os sinais manuais ocorreram em 73% do antecedente e 12% do consequente. Comparando as duas línguas entre si, uma combinação de sinais manuais e não manuais em condicionais é muito comum. Mas nas construções anteriores em Libras, essa combinação é mais proeminente do que em DGS, especialmente para os marcadores não manuais. Já a DGS possui maior utilização de sinalização manual para o consequente. O uso de BEDEUT e SIGNIFICAR no início de um consequente é semelhante. Libras tem um gesto de palma para cima para o consequente, que está em desenvolvimento e pode ser visto no futuro como um lexema gramaticalizado. DGS tem mais variantes para o marcador manual do antecedente do que Libras. O sinal VORSTELL é um sinal para uma condicional contrafactual em DGS e um equivalente em Libras não pôde ser encontrado, talvez apenas o sinal pode sinalizar uma condicional contrafactual, mas isso ainda não foi verificado. Mas uma possível característica não manual com a boca que representa o fonema /tƒ/ de origem portuguesa. No nível sociolinguístico, apresento algumas descobertas. Na característica sociolinguística 'idade' com três grupos de idade diferentes (18-29, 30-50, 51-90 anos), pode ser visto que os sinalizantes mais jovens de DGS usaram mais variantes manuais do que os sinalizantes mais velhos. Os sinalizantes mais jovens em Libras tendem a usar mais SE do que os grupos de meia-idade e idosos. No recurso 'aquisição de língua' existem dois grupos, 'pré-lingual' (antes dos 6 anos) e 'póslingual' (após 6 anos). Os sinalizantes pré-linguais em Libras tendem a marcar as condicionais com marcadores não manuais e usam menos sinais manuais em comparação com os sinalizantes pós-linguais. Esta ocorrência é semelhante ao mesmo grupo no DGS. Além disso, os sinalizantes de DGS pré-linguais tendem a produzir mais variação. A formação escolar nos dois países tem grande influência na língua dos sinalizantes, que é a mesma na Alemanha e no Brasil: quem frequentou uma escola de surdos, usa uma versão mais ampla de marcadores manuais e não manuais nas condicionais do que os demais grupos, que frequentaram apenas escolas regulares. Alunos de escolas regulares mostram um maior contato com o idioma português do que seu grupo pendente, o que é expresso por sinais manuais. No grupo com formação profissional diferente (acadêmico/não acadêmico), informantes surdos com formação superior e trabalhos como professor ou instrutor, utilizam mais sinais manuais como SE e WENN1e suas variantes e menos recursos não manuais. Informantes surdos em DGS e Libras, que trabalham como não acadêmicos (p.e. com artesanato), preferem usar mais recursos não manuais do que sinais manuais em orações condicionais, o que é percebido como uma língua mais natural. Para competências bilíngues, a perspectiva é diferente em ambas as línguas de sinais: os sinalizantes de DGS com alta competência em alemão produzem orações condicionais com mais marcadores não manuais e manuais do que o outro grupo com competência mais elementar. Sinalizantes de Libras com alto nível de português usam menos marcadores manuais e não manuais do que seu grupo de controle. Em síntese, ambas as línguas de sinais não relacionadas são tipicamente vistas como "línguas de sinais dominantes não manuais" (Zeshan 2006), porque os marcadores não manuais são fortemente predominantes e os sinais manuais são opcionais. A origem dos sinais manuais está ligada ao contato linguístico das línguas faladas e escritas circundantes, alemão e português. O contato linguístico é transmitido pelos diferentes sistemas de educação especial e política linguística para surdos de ambos os países. O uso de características não manuais semelhantes em ambas as línguas de sinais - como sobrancelhas levantadas e movimentos de cabeça - estão ligados à emoção básica humana universal "surpresa" (Ekman 1979), que agora estão gramaticalizadas (Pfau & Steinbach 2011). Meier (2002) afirma, a esse respeito, que as línguas de sinais possuem menos recursos (anatômicos) para marcadores gramaticais do que as línguas faladas. Essa é a razão pela qual as línguas de sinais parecem mais "uniformes" e são, não surpreendentemente, mais semelhantes entre si. ; Coordinated clauses, such as interrogative and declarative clauses, are well researched in various western-urban sign languages. However, complex subordinated clauses, like relative and conditional clauses in sign languages, have just begun to come to the attention of researchers. Researchers have so far mainly identified manual signs as markers for subordination, they did not recognize that the nonmanual features – raised eyebrows, head and body movements, eye blinks and more – are the main indicators for subordination. The manual (lexical) signs are merely optional. Interestingly, most of these nonmanual features fulfil more than one grammatical function. For example, raised brows can mark topic, interrogative or conditional clause, or they are used as prosodic markers for sentence boundaries. In order to detect a specific clause marking function, it is recommended to examine which combination of nonmanual features, next to the manual signs, appear in video data material (Herrmann & Steinbach 2013, Tang & Lau 2012, Wilbur 2000, Liddell 1986, Baker & Padden 1978). For the investigation of conditional clauses in DGS and Libras, there is still a lack of studies with valid empirical data. Hence, the main aim of my thesis is to elicit and record conditional clauses. Elicitation was achieved with the means of a card game and the explanation of its rules by native signers (Dachkovsky, in prep.) in Brazil and Germany. Furthermore, I aim to describe the sentence structure of conditional clauses in both sign languages and compare them. Additionally, on the sociolinguistic level, I take into consideration crucial features linked to Deaf communities, such as age, age of sign language acquisition, school background, professional background and level of bilingualism (Schembri & Lucas 2015). The sociolinguistic features are also compared between both signing communities, because diachronic, political and educational development of the sign languages and the corresponding Deaf communities is different in both countries. Video data of the two sign languages were annotated using ELAN and evaluated in Excel with the binary code for 0 = doesn't exist, 1 = exists, for the occurrence of manual and nonmanual signs. In DGS, I identified 146 conditional clauses (by 17 signers in total, 8 women and 9 men, ø age 43,3 y) and in Libras 84 conditional clauses (by 18 signers in total, 8 women and 10 men, ø age 38,2 y). My results for DGS demonstrate that the construction of a factual conditional requires a combination of (i) at least two nonmanual features for the antecedent, such as raised eyebrows (79%) and a head movement (88%), and (ii) two other nonmanual signs for the consequent, such as an oppositional head movement (95%), and (iii) an eye blink (66%) at the boundary between both phrases. The manual signs marking the antecedent and the consequent are optional. There are four manual signs for the antecedent in DGS: WENN1, WENN2 ('if'), VORSTELL ('imagine') and ZUM-BEISPIEL ('for example'). For the consequent, two signs DANN ('then') and BEDEUT ('mean') were identified. The manual signs occurred in 66% of the antecedents and 32% of the consequents. Results for Libras show that factual conditionals require at minimum a combination of two nonmanual features, such as raised eyebrows (92%) and a head movement (99%) over the antecedent, and an (opposite) head movement (99%) over the consequent. The two manual signs for the antecedent, SE ('if') and POR-EXEMPLO ('for example'), and the two manual signs for the consequent, a palm-up-gesture and SIGNIFICAR ('mean'), are optional, too. In Libras, the manual signs occurred in 73% of the antecedent and 12% of the consequent. Contrasting both languages shows that a combination of different manual and nonmanual signs in the construction of conditionals is very common. In the antecedent constructions in Libras, this combination is more prominent than in DGS, especially for nonmanual markers. DGS, on the other hand, shows a higher use of manual signs for the consequent. The use of BEDEUT and SIGNIFICAR at the beginning of a consequent is similar in both sign languages. Libras utilizes a palm-up-gesture for the consequent, which is currently undergoing grammaticalization. As a result, this gesture might develop into a grammatical conditional marker. DGS offers more variants for the manual marker of the antecedent than Libras. The sign VORSTELL signifies a counterfactual conditional in DGS and an exact equivalent in Libras couldn't be found. The sign POR-EXEMPLO can possibly signal a counterfactual conditional, but this has not yet been checked. However, a possible nonmanual feature with similar meaning was identified - a mouth pattern which correspond to the Portuguese phoneme /tƒ/ from the Portuguese language. On a sociolinguistic level, the result of my study also revealed interesting correlations. In the sociolinguistic feature 'age', the informants were split in three different age groups (18-29, 30-50, 51-90 y). The data show can be shown that younger signers of DGS have used more manual variants than older signers. Younger signers in Libras tended to use more SE compared to the middle aged and senior groups. In the feature 'language acquisition' the informants were split into two groups, 'prelingual' (before 6 y) and 'postlingual' (after 6 y). Prelingual signers in Libras tend to mark the conditionals mainly with nonmanual markers and fewer manual signs compared to postlingual signers. The same difference between prelingual and postlingual signers has been attested for DGS. Additionally, the prelingual DGS-signers tend to produce more variation. The school background of the Deaf in both countries (Germany and Brazil) has a strong influence on their language: people who have attended a Deaf school use a broader variety of manual and nonmanual markers in conditionals in comparison to those who have attended only mainstream schools. Students from mainstream schools show a greater language contact than their pendant group, which is expressed by the higher usage of manual signs. In the feature dealing with professional backgrounds (academic/craftsmen) Deaf informants with higher education and professions like teacher or instructor, were found to use more manual signs like SE and WENN1 and its variants and fewer nonmanual markers. Deaf informants in DGS and Libras who work as craftsmen prefer to use more nonmanual markers over manual signs in conditional clauses, which is perceived as a more natural way of signing. In terms of bilingual capabilites, both sign languages differ: DGS signers with high German language competence produce conditional clauses with more nonmanual and manual markers than the other group with lower competence. Libras signers with higher Portuguese skills use fewer manual and nonmanual markers than their counterparts with lesser Portuguese competence. In summary, the two non-related sign languages investigated in this PhD-thesis are typically seen as "non-manual dominant sign languages" (Zeshan 2006), because the nonmanual markers are strongly predominant and the manual signs are optional. The origin of the manual signs can be linked to language contact with the surrounding spoken and written languages, German and Portuguese. Language contact is furthered by the different special education systems and language policies for the Deaf in both countries. The use of similar nonmanual features in both sign languages – like raised eyebrows and head movements – are linked to the universal human nonmanual gesture expressing the basic emotion 'surprise' (Ekman 1979), which have developed into grammatical markers (Pfau & Steinbach 2011). Meier (2002) claims in this context, that sign languages have lesser (anatomic) resources for grammatical markers than spoken languages. That is the reason why sign languages look more "uniform" and are, unsurprisingly, more similar to each other. ; 2021-08-11
THE NEW SERIES OF RESEARCH OF THE FACULTY If there is any way in which the university can give back to society what it deposits in it, it is the scientific elaboration of knowledge, which as such is important for any community. This Magazine, for example, confirms these efforts that are published every semester. And in this sense, our faculty of Law has taken up the even more difficult task of preparing and organizing a bibliographic series of advances or results of research, that is, books of our faculty researchers in the different branches of law and disciplines that adjoin the legal. For this purpose, since the month of April has counted on the editorial advice of Lizardo Carvajal, surpassed in the region in this type of process, to start with a seminar that has been called as "Drafting Table" where every afternoon of Wednesday during two months the main guidelines for the structuring of an academic text were provided. This space has served so that lawyers have approached the phenomenon of interdisciplinarity, and one more opportunity to put ourselves in line with the new academic-editorial requirements, especially those of the Administrative Department of Science and Technology (COLCIENCIAS). The results, being modest, could not have been better. Indeed, there are 16 titles that will be ready to be published, works that were submitted to a careful and demanding work of reviewing originals, reports on aspects of semantics, syntax, style and spelling. Regarding the cataloging on the web, under the basic criteria for the publication and accreditation of university books resulting from scientific research, compliance with the general requirements is met, in the sense of guiding the authors and editors in the publication work and thus it counted on the revision of academic pairs constituting a form of publicity of the documents produced in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the series, there has been a vast production in criminal law and related, which is not free since the Master of Criminal Law and the Master of Criminalistics and Forensic Sciences have led and made a presence in the editorial process. There are two titles that show the 80 researches coming from the theses of the aforementioned masters where indexes, authors, key words, juries and thesis presidents are indexed, and a brief review of the content of each thesis is made. Also in criminal matters, there is the Principle of Opportunity of Enrique Arteaga, trying to establish the impact that this institute has had against the new oral accusatory penal system. Maribel Lagos compiles five essays by ten researchers from the Research Group "Penitentiary and Prison Systems" with the title "Penitentiaries and Prisons" in diverse contexts. Theory of the crime is the contribution of Hernando Ordoñez to approach thematic like the social control, the imputability and inimputabilidad, the amplifying devices of the penal type, the punishability and the responsibility. On the other hand, María Inés Muriel, specialist in criminalistics, compiles essays in two papers: Criminalistics and forensic sciences in the Colombian accusatory system and the expert evidence in the Colombian accusatory criminal process. In the same criminalistics, Luis Guillermo González compiles research products in the Human Identification. The homicides in series of Iván Valencia, now in the key of criminology, realizes a theoretical foundation on the assassins in series and soon it describes the characteristics of two Colombian serial assassins. Already in co-authorship, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán, and Herman Gómez, contribute with their legal essays in Approaches to the current Colombian law; as well as those already named Hernando Ordoñez and María Inés Muriel, and Lilia Cortés and Maribel Lagos who took on the task of compiling works, the first with Exclusion of evidence in the Colombian accusatory system, and the second with La pena. Beyond the criminal, we find the political participation, education and responsibility of the Colombian State where the academic coordinator of our undergraduate compiles 6 essays on these topics. On her side, Lilia Cortés reflects on the academic educational strategies of the academic Ken Bain in university education. In the civil procedural law, Jaime Mendoza and Villa Angelly clarify whether the payment process as a procedural mechanism will serve to reduce the judicial default, an issue raised in the payment process, chimera or legal reality? Finally, moving away from the purely legal, and entering political science, we have the text Latin American Political Philosophy in which Ángelo Mauricio Victoria works as author and compiler of a series of essays about the notion of "good living" and its development in the Colombian, Ecuadorian, Mexican and Venezuelan context. As we can see, our efforts are aimed at enriching the science of law, and hence the right to sustain the high quality accreditation that we are seeking to ratify with the re-accreditation that we expect soon. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali ; Si existe alguna forma en que la universidad puede retribuir a la sociedad lo que ésta deposita en ella, es la elaboración científica del conocimiento, que en calidad de tal es importante para cualquier comunidad. Esta Revista, por ejemplo, constata estos esfuerzos que cada semestre salen a luz pública. Y en este sentido, nuestra facultad de Derecho se ha dado a la tarea más dispendiosa aún, de elaborar y organizar una serie bibliográfica de avances o resultados de investigación, esto es, libros de nuestros docentes investigadores en las distintas ramas del derecho y disciplinas que colindan con lo jurídico. Para este cometido, se ha contado desde el mes de abril con la asesoría editorial de Lizardo Carvajal, aventajado en la región en este tipo de procesos, para iniciar con un seminario que se ha dado por llamar como "Mesa de Redacción" donde cada tarde de miércoles durante dos meses se brindaron las principales pautas para la estructuración de un texto académico. Este espacio ha servido para que los abogados se hayan acercado al fenómeno de la interdisciplinariedad, y una oportunidad más para ponernos en la línea de las nuevas exigencias académico-editoriales, especialmente las del Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia y Tecnología (COLCIENCIAS). Los resultados, siendo modestos, no han podido ser mejores. Efectivamente, son 16 títulos los que estarán prestos a ser publicados, obras que se sometieron a un cuidadoso y exigente trabajo de revisión de originales, reportes en aspectos de semántica, sintaxis, estilo y ortografía. Respecto a la catalogación en la web, bajo los criterios básicos para la publicación y acreditación de libros universitarios resultado de investigación científica, se da cumplimiento a los requerimientos generales, en el sentido de orientar a los autores y editores en la labor de publicación y así contó con la revisión de pares académicos constituyendo una forma de publicidad de los documentos producidos en el programa de pregrado y los de posgrado. En la serie, ha habido una vasta producción en el derecho penal y afines, lo cual no es gratuito dado que la Maestría en Derecho Penal y la Maestría en Criminalística y Ciencias Forenses han liderado y hecho presencia en el proceso editorial. Hay dos títulos que muestran las 80 investigaciones provenientes de tesis de las maestrías mencionadas donde se indiza los títulos, los autores, las palabras claves, jurados y presidentes de tesis, y se hace una breve reseña del contenido de cada tesis. También en lo penal, está el Principio de oportunidad de Enrique Arteaga tratándose de establecer el impacto que este instituto ha tenido frente al nuevo sistema penal acusatorio de corte oral. Maribel Lagos compila cinco ensayos de diez investigadores del Grupo de Investigación "Sistemas penitenciarios y carcelarios" con el título Lo penitenciarios y carcelario en contextos diversos. Teoría del delito es el aporte de Hernando Ordoñez para abordar temáticas como el control social, la imputabilidad e inimputabilidad, los dispositivos amplificadores del tipo penal, la punibilidad y la responsabilidad. Por su parte, María Inés Muriel, especialista en criminalística, compila ensayos en dos trabajos: Criminalística y ciencias forenses en el sistema acusatorio colombiano y La prueba pericial en el proceso penal acusatorio colombiano. En la misma criminalística, Luis Guillermo González compila productos de investigación en la Identificación Humana. Los Homicidios en serie de Iván Valencia, ahora en clave de criminología, realiza una fundamentación teórica sobre los asesinos en serie y luego describe las características de dos asesinos seriales colombianos. Ya en coautoría, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán, y Herman Gómez, aportan con sus ensayos jurídicos en Aproximaciones al derecho colombiano actual; igual que los ya nombrados Hernando Ordoñez y María Inés Muriel, y Lilia Cortés y Maribel Lagos que se dieron a la tarea de compilar trabajos, los primeros con Exclusión de evidencias en el sistema acusatorio colombiano, y las segundas con La pena. Más allá de lo penal, encontramos La participación política, educación y responsabilidad del Estado colombiano donde la coordinadora académica de nuestro pregrado compila 6 ensayos sobre estos temas. De su lado, Lilia Cortés reflexiona sobre las estrategias educativas universitarias del académico Ken Bain en La educación universitaria. En el derecho procesal civil, Jaime Mendoza y Angelly Villa dilucidan si el proceso monitorio como mecanismo procesal servirá para disminuir la mora judicial, cuestión que se plantean en El proceso monitorio, ¿quimera o realidad jurídica? Finalmente, alejándose de lo meramente jurídico, e incursionando en la ciencia política, tenemos el texto Filosofía Política Latinoamericana en el que Ángelo Mauricio Victoria obra como autor y compilador de una serie de ensayos acerca de la noción del "buen vivir" y su desarrollo en el contexto colombiano, ecuatoriano, mexicano y venezolano. Como vemos, nuestros esfuerzos se encaminan a enriquecer la ciencia del derecho, y por ahí derecho a sostener la acreditación de alta calidad que estamos en pos de ratificar con la re-acreditación que pronto esperamos. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali ; A publicação da nova Série de Pesquisa de Faculdade Se houver alguma maneira pela qual a Universidade possa devolver à sociedade o que está depositado nela, é a elaboração científica do conhecimento que, como tal, é importante para qualquer comunidade. Esta Revista, por exemplo, confirma esses esforços cada semestre vêm à luz pública. Nesse sentido, nossa Faculdade de Direito assumiu a tarefa, ainda mais dispendiosa, de preparar e organizar uma série bibliográfica de avanços ou resultados de pesquisa. Isto é, livros de nossos professores pesquisadores nos diferentes ramos do direito e disciplinas que se aproximam do jurídico. Para este propósito, se conta a partir do mes de abril com o conselho editorial de Lizardo Carvajal, destacado na região neste tipo de processos, para começar com um seminário chamado "mesa de redação", onde cada tarde da Quarta-feira, se forneceram as principais diretrizes para a estruturação de textos acadêmicos e científicos. Este espaço serviu para que os advogados tenham abordado o fenômeno da interdisciplinaridade e mais uma oportunidade de nos alinhar com os novos requisitos acadêmicos e editoriais, especialmente os do Departamento Administrativo de Ciência e Tecnologia (Colciencias). Os resultados, sendo modestos, não poderiam ser melhores. Na verdade, existem 16 títulos que estarão prontos para serem publicados, trabalhos submetidos a um trabalho cuidadoso e exigente de revisão de originais, relatórios sobre aspectos de semântica, sintaxe, estilo e ortografia. Além da publicação no clássico e tradicional meio em papel, a Série será publicada na Web. Um site, que nos contatará com o mundo inteiro. Especialmente desenhado para consulta através deste meio e na Internet, colocará nossos autores e nossos livros em relacionamento com os estudiosos de todo o mundo. O conhecimento que surgiu da pesquisa básica aplicada ao desenvolvimento experimental em nossos grupos de pesquisa ou da academia, transcenderão por esse meio, os corredores e salas de aula, estarão disponíveis em todo o mundo, especialmente no de fala española. Com rigorosos protocolos para acreditação documental. Respeito à publicação e catalogação, de acordo com os critérios básicos de acreditação de livros universitários resultantes da pesquisa científica, é dado cumprimento aos requisitos gerais da comunidade acadêmica e das instituições do estado. Nesse sentido, orienta-se os autores e editores no trabalho de publicação, contando com a revisão por pares, sendo uma tarefa essencial no processo de validação, publicação e divulgação da produção acadêmica e científica da Faculdade e seus programas de pós-graduação. A Série contém produção intelectual em Direito Penal e Criminalística. Daí o nome: Coleção Direito Penal, Criminalística e Ciências Forenses. Isso não é gratuito, já que o Mestrado em Direito Penal e o Mestrado em Criminalística e Ciências Forenses lideraram e fizeram presença no processo de pesquisa e no editorial. O conteúdo da coleção. existem dois títulos que catalogam as 80 pesquisas provenientes das teses dos mestrados mencionados. Nestes dois livros de consulta e de referência, indexan-se os autores, palavras-chave, jurados e presidentes de tese. É feita uma revisão técnica do conteúdo de cada tese. Está disponível assim, uma verdadeira coleção documental e um catálogo de produção intelectual decorrente dos mestrados acima mencionados. Sua utilidade e bom uso resultarão no desenvolvimento da pesquisa nessas áreas pela nossa Faculdade. Também no penal está o livro O Princípio da oportunidade de Enrique Arteaga Córdoba. Neste trabalho, trata-se de estabelecer o impacto que este instituto teve contra o novo sistema penal acusatório de tribunal oral. Maribel Lagos Enríquez compila cinco ensaios de dez pesquisadores do Grupo de Pesquisa "Sistemas penitenciários e prisionais". Seu título, penitenciários e prisionais em diversos contextos. A teoria do crime é a contribuição de Hernando Ordoñez Ramírez para abordar questões como controle social, imputabilidade e inimputabilidade, amplificação de dispositivos de tipo penal, punibilidade e responsabilidade. Por outro lado, María Inés Muriel Puerto, especialista em criminalística, compila ensaios em dois trabalhos: Criminalística e ciências forenses no sistema acusatório colombiano y A prova pericial no processo penal acusatório colombiano. Na mesma linha criminalística, Luis Guillermo González compila produtos de pesquisa no livro identificação humana. Os homicídios em série de Iván Valencia, agora em chave da criminologia, realizam uma fundamentação teórica sobre os assassinos em série e logo descreve as características de dois assassinos em série colombianos. Já em co-autoria, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán e Herman Gómez, contribuem com seus ensaios jurídicos em aproximações ao direito colombiano atual; bem como aqueles nomeados Hernando Ordoñez e María Inés Muriel, e Lilia Cortés e Maribel Lagos que assumiram a tarefa de compilar trabalhos, os primeiros com Exclusão de evidências no sistema acusatorio colombiano, e os segundos com a pena. Além do penal, encontramos a participação política, a educação e a responsabilidade do Estado colombiano, onde a coordenadora acadêmica da nossa graduação compila seis ensaios sobre esses temas. Por sua parte, Lilia Cortés reflete sobre as estratégias educacionais acadêmicas do acadêmico Ken Bain na educação universitária. No direito do Processo Civil, Jaime Mendoza e Angelly Villa, esclarecem se o Processo de Monitoramento, como mecanismo processual, servirá para diminuir o incumprimento judicial, uma questão que é levantada no processo de pagamento, "quimera" ou realidade jurídica? Finalmente, afastando-se do puramente jurídico e incursionando na Ciência Política, temos o texto de Filosofia Política Latino-Americana em que Ángelo Mauricio Victoria atua como autor e compilador de uma série de ensaios sobre a noção de "bom viver" e seu desenvolvimento no Contexto colombiano, equatoriano, mexicano e venezuelano. Como vemos, nossos esforços visam enriquecer a disciplina do direito, para sustentar com fatos a re-acreditação de alta qualidade, que estamos no interesse de ratificar com o (re)credenciamento que esperamos em breve. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali
The world population has doubled in the last 60 years and is expected to grow to 9700 million people in 2050 and to 11,200 million by the end of the 21st century, which will have a strong impact on population structure, size, and distribution that will have profound consequences for environmental sustainability. This significant increase in population has resulted in global energy consumption increasing by more than 90% in the last decade and, consequently, CO2 emissions. These emissions contribute to the increase in the greenhouse effect caused by global warming. The alarming thing is that this has been caused by human activities and it is predicted that, if the current emissions trajectory continues, the Earth could exceed the limit of 2 °C of global warming, the limit established by the Paris Agreement to avoid dangerous warming that generates irreversible damage. The last five years have been the hottest since registration, with 2016 being the warmest, and successively 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2014. But global warming not only results in higher temperatures or adverse weather conditions, but the effects go even further, causing an increase in sea level, a change in ecosystems with the consequent disappearance of some species, the spread of diseases or an increase in the price of some foodstuffs, among others. These devastating effects that we are currently suffering and that are a consequence of the current development model, based on a continuous growth in energy consumption, should activate us to seek energy efficient solutions from an environmental point of view, as this model cannot be maintained indefinitely. It is indisputable that social, economic and technological changes and adaptations are required to preserve our well-being and the well-being of future generations. To this end, international agreements and policies have been implemented, such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015, in which all the signatory countries committed themselves to participating in global reductions in greenhouse gases, Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources or Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency within the European Union, with the main objective of increasing energy efficiency. As the building sector is Europe's largest consumer of energy, almost all governments have opted for measures to promote renewable energy, energy efficiency strategies and climate change strategies. In this area, the European Union takes into account energy efficiency certificates, to classify the building according to its carbon emissions and energy consumption; and the 2020 objective, which requires by the end of next year a 20% saving in primary energy compared to 2005; a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 and an increase in renewable energies of at least a 20% by 2020. At the same time, Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings stipulates that all new buildings should be categorised as nZEB by the end of 2020 and, in the case of public buildings, this deadline is shortened to the end of 2018. Given the social concern to improve energy efficiency in buildings, considered as one of the basic pillars of the main national and international strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the scientific community has delved into this area by contributing an extensive production. Chapter II provides a bibliographical review of research on energy efficiency and sustainability during the period 1976-2016, in which some of the key aspects of publications are studied, such as the type of document that predominates, the language used, the area of knowledge in which it has been most published, the main journals, key words or authors. After having carried out in-depth research on sustainability and energy efficiency, Chapter III analyses the viability of replacing the existing gas boiler in a university building in the south of Spain with the introduction of a biomass boiler system. In environmental terms, biomass has a clear advantage over fossil fuels, since, although it produces atmospheric emissions when burned like any other fuel, these emissions are considered carbon neutral. This is due to the fact that the carbon dioxide emitted during combustion is compensated with that absorbed by the plant during its growth, thus not altering the balance of the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. On the other hand, the properties associated with the date bone are analysed to evaluate its suitability as a new biofuel, obtaining that this waste product has a high calorific value that gives it optimum properties as a source of thermal energy comparable to other biofuels currently marketed. In addition, it would reduce about 95 tons of CO2 that are emitted by the natural gas boiler and would obtain an economic savings of more than 66%. Chapter IV studies the important contribution made by different international institutions in the field of energy saving. Energy saving and energy efficiency are terms related to a reduction in consumption, but there is nevertheless an important difference. While energy saving leads to a change in consumption habits, such as turning off lights when leaving a room, energy efficiency is the fact of minimising the amount of energy needed to satisfy demand without affecting its quality, for example, replacing existing light bulbs with others that consume less energy. It does not imply, therefore, changes in consumption habits, the behavior of the user, in this case, remains the same, but consumes less energy because the energy consumption to carry out the same service is lower. Obviously, in order to reduce energy consumption as much as possible, it would be necessary to combine energy saving and efficiency measures. In this chapter a bibliometric analysis of all the scientific production indexed in Scopus is carried out. World scientific production is analysed in the following areas: Firstly, the trend in time, types of publications and countries, secondly, the main themes and keywords, thirdly, the main institutions and their main themes, and fourthly, the main journals and proceedings they publish on this subject. These data are then presented using community detection algorithms and graphics visualization software. With these techniques it is possible to determine the main areas of research activity, as well as to identify the structures of the collaborative network in the field of renewable energies. The results of the work show that the literature in this field has increased substantially over the last 10 years. Finally, Chapter V carries out an energy review of the Reina Sofia University Hospital in Cordoba, analyzing data from the last 3 years. On the basis of these data, the current energy sources and areas of significant use of energy and equipment with the highest consumption, susceptible to energy improvements, are identified, and the first lines of improvement are proposed, which will materialise over time. A first energy baseline is also established for this period, which may be taken as a reference for calculating energy savings before and after implementing actions to improve energy performance. In conclusion, this Thesis proposes a reflection on energy efficiency and energy saving in public buildings, as well as the sustainability of the measures from an environmental and economic point of view, deepening the scientific production referred to these lines of research. At the same time, it tries to provide useful information on energy consumption in public buildings and propose possible energy-efficient actions in order to evolve towards a new more sustainable energy model, without diminishing the quality of life. ; La población mundial se ha duplicado en los últimos 60 años y se prevee que crezca hasta alcanzar los 9700 millones de personas en 2050 y hasta los 11.200 para el final del siglo XXI, lo que causará un fuerte impacto en la estructura, el tamaño, y la distribución poblacionales que tendrá profundas consecuencias para la sostenibilidad medioambiental. Este significativo aumento de la población ha tenido como consecuencia que el consumo global de la energía se haya incrementado más de un 90% en el último decalustro, y, consiguientemente, el aumento de las emisiones de CO2. Estas emisiones contribuyen al aumento del efecto invernadero que provoca el calentamiento global del planeta. Lo alarmante es que este ha sido causado por actividades humanas y se prevee que, de seguir con la actual trayectoria de emisiones, la Tierra podría superar el límite de 2 °C de calentamiento global, límite establecido por el Acuerdo de Paris para evitar un calentamiento peligroso que genere daños y perjuicios irreversibles. Los últimos cinco años han sido los más calientes desde que se tiene registro, siendo el 2016 el más cálido, y sucesivamente los años 2015, 2017, 2018 y 2014. Pero el calentamiento global no sólo tiene como consecuencia el aumento de las temperaturas o unas condiciones meteorológicas adversas, sino que los efectos van más allá provocando el aumento del nivel de mar, el cambio en los ecosistemas con la consiguiente desaparición de algunas especies, la propagación de enfermedades o el incremento en el precio de algunos alimentos entre otros. Estos efectos tan devastadores que actualmente estamos sufriendo y que son consecuencia del modelo de desarrollo actual, basado en un crecimiento continuo del consumo de energía, deberían activarnos a buscar soluciones eficientes energéticamente eficientes desde un punto de vista medioambiental, pues este modelo no se puede mantener indefinidamente. Es indiscutible que se requieren cambios y adaptaciones a nivel social, económico y tecnológico para preservar nuestro bienestar y el bienestar de las generaciones futuras. Para este fin se han implementado acuerdos y políticas internacionales como han sido el acuerdo de Paris sobre el cambio climático en 2015, donde todos los países firmantes se comprometían a participar en las reducciones globales de gases de efecto invernadero, la Directiva 2009/28/CE relativa al fomento del uso de energía procedente de fuentes renovables o la Directiva 2012/27/UE relativa a la eficiencia energética dentro de la Unión Europea con el objetivo principal de aumentar la eficiencia energética. Por ser el sector de la edificación el mayor consumidor de energía en Europa, casi todos los gobiernos han optado por la adopción de medidas destinadas a impulsar las energías renovables, las estrategias de eficiencia energética y las estrategias de lucha contra el cambio climático. La legislación en Europa en esta materia contempla, por un lado, la creación de certificados de eficiencia energética, desarrollados a principios de los años noventa como estrategia primaria para reducir el consumo de energía y las emisiones de carbono. Por otro lado, de la política energética adoptada en 2007, denominada Horizonte 20-20-20, en la que la UE exige el cumplimiento de ciertos objetivos para finales de 2020: ahorrar un 0% de energía en su nivel primario con respecto a 2005; reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero en un 20% con respecto a 1990; aumentar la energía renovable en el total de la combinación energética a un mínimo del 20% hasta 2020. Al mismo tiempo, la Directiva 2010/31/UE sobre la eficiencia energética de los edificios establece que todos los edificios de nueva construcción deben ser clasificados como "edificios de energía cero" (nZEB) a finales de 2020 y, en el caso de los edificios públicos, a finales de 2018. Dada la preocupación social por mejorar la eficiencia energética en los edificios, considerado como uno de los pilares básicos de las principales estrategias nacionales e internacionales para reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero, la comunidad científica ha ahondado en esta área contribuyendo con una extensa producción. En el Capítulo II se hace una revisión bibliográfica de la investigación sobre eficiencia energética y sostenibilidad durante el periodo 1976–2016, en el que se estudian algunos de los aspectos claves de las publicaciones como el tipo de documento que predomina, el idioma utilizado, el área de conocimiento en el que más se ha publicado, las principales revistas, palabras clave o autores. Después de haber llevado a cabo una profunda investigación sobre sostenibilidad y eficiencia energética, el Capítulo III analiza la viabilidad de la sustitución de la caldera de gas existente en un edificio universitario del sur de España por la introducción de un sistema de calderas de biomasa. En términos ambientales, la biomasa tiene una clara ventaja sobre los combustibles fósiles, ya que, aunque produce emisiones atmosféricas al quemarse como cualquier otro combustible, estas emisiones se consideran neutras en carbono. Esto se debe a que el dióxido de carbono que emite durante la combustión se compensa con el que absorbe la planta durante su crecimiento, no alterando de esta forma el equilibrio de la concentración de carbono en la atmósfera. Por otra parte, se analizan las propiedades asociadas al hueso de dátil para evaluar su idoneidad como nuevo biocarburante, obteniéndose que este producto de deshecho posee un alto poder calorífico que le confiere unas propiedades óptimas como fuente de energía térmica comparable a otros biocarburantes que se comercializan actualmente. Además, se reduciría unas 95 toneladas de CO2 que son las que emitiría la caldera de gas natural y se obtendría un ahorro económico de más del 66%. En el Capítulo IV se estudia la importante contribución que han realizado diferentes instituciones internacionales en el campo del ahorro energético. Ahorro energético y eficiencia energética son términos relacionados con una reducción del consumo, pero sin embargo existe una importante diferencia. Pues, mientras el ahorro energético conlleva un cambio en los hábitos de consumo, como por ejemplo, apagar las luces al salir de una habitación, la eficiencia energética es el hecho de minimizar la cantidad de energía necesaria para satisfacer la demanda sin afectar a su calidad, sería por ejemplo, sustituir las bombillas existentes por otras que consuman menos energía. No supone, por tanto, cambios en los hábitos de consumo, el comportamiento del usuario, en este caso, sigue siendo el mismo, pero se consume menos energía ya que el consumo energético para llevar a cabo el mismo servicio es menor. Evidentemente, para reducir al máximo el consumo energético habría que aunar medidas de ahorro y eficiencia energética. En este capítulo se realiza un análisis bibliométrico de toda la producción científica indexada en Scopus. La producción científica mundial se analiza en los siguientes ámbitos: En primer lugar, la tendencia en el tiempo, los tipos de publicaciones y países, en segundo lugar, los principales temas y palabras clave, en tercer lugar, las principales instituciones y sus principales temas, y en cuarto lugar, las principales revistas y actas que publican sobre este tema. Luego, estos datos se presentan utilizando algoritmos de detección de comunidades y software de visualización de gráficos. Con estas técnicas es posible determinar las principales áreas de actividad investigadora, así como identificar las estructuras de la red de colaboración en el campo de las energías renovables. Los resultados del trabajo muestran que la literatura en este campo ha aumentado sustancialmente durante los últimos 10 años. Por último, en el Capítulo V se lleva a cabo una revisión energética del Hospital Universitario Reina Sofía de Córdoba, analizando datos de los últimos 3 años. A partir de estos datos se identifican las fuentes de energía actuales y las áreas de uso significativo de la energía y de los equipos con mayores consumos, susceptibles de mejoras energéticas, proponiéndose unas primeras líneas de mejora que irán concretándose con el tiempo. Igualmente se establece una primera línea base energética para este periodo, que podrá tomarse como referencia para el cálculo de ahorro energético, antes y después de implementar las acciones de mejora del desempeño energético. En conclusión, esta Tesis propone la reflexión de la eficiencia energética y el ahorro energético en edificios de uso público, así como de la sostenibilidad de las medidas desde el punto de visto ambiental y económico, profundizando en la producción científica referida a estas líneas de investigación. Al mismo tiempo trata de proporcionar información útil sobre el consumo energético en edificios de uso público y plantear posibles acciones energéticamente eficientes con objeto de evolucionar hacia un nuevo modelo energético más sostenible, sin disminuir la calidad de vida.
Tese de Doutoramento em Urbanismo com a especialização em Urbanismo apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Doutor. ; Premissa Em Arquitectura, o desenvolvimento, a confirmação ou a negação de alguns paradigmas culturais e teóricos deve ser antecedido pelo mesmo processo em relação ao mais básico e prioritário dos objetos em questão, ou seja, o veículo das mesmas conjeturas, o produto de estes três anos de formação de terceiro ciclo: a tese de doutoramento. Esta é precisamente uma pesquisa, uma investigação de carácter experimental, original e inédita, confrontada meticulosamente com capacidades e técnicas capazes de controlar o seu processo. Não constitui uma prática de deificação de verdade dogmática, não tem validade universal, não revela a soma absoluta do saber. Pelo contrário, quer gostemos quer não, a investigação, como atividade, é de natureza duplamente parcial: epistemológica e temporal. Por sua vez, derivado de visões anteriores e baseado em inúmeros estudos, é um segmento do saber com uma certa legitimidade, transmissível entre pensadores e operadores da comunidade científica. Ao mesmo tempo, não tem validade cronológica ilimitada e não constitui uma meta invejada, mas sim um ponto de partida para futuras pesquisas académicas, próprias e de outrem, para um avanço disciplinar contínuo. É também importante precisar que o objeto de estudo não é produto de um capricho, e a investigação que dele resulta não constitui um exercício ocioso. Persiste, no entanto, a convicção de que é necessário que sejamos comedidos, mantendo-nos o mais possível dentro do nosso campo disciplinar específico, agora cada vez mais adulterado por desvios e fascinações sócio-antropológicas, com as condições da contemporaneidade na esfera de um realismo saudável. Objeto da pesquisa O objeto desta pesquisa é, portanto, aquela paisagem moderna dos segmentos costeiros do sul da Europa feita de geografia e de objets trouves, formas e materiais comuns, arquiteturas ainda "não acreditadas", resultantes de práticas não muito claras – traços de cidades informais litorais, produtos de auto-construção, ilegalidades, e ambiguidade normativa – que têm normalmente origem, necessidade, sentido e uso autónomos, relativamente a eventuais leituras formais e convencionais, mas que podem interessar bastante a quem se ocupa do território contemporâneo antrópico. Quer se queira quer não, estes manufatos, pela presença cénica por vezes tão imponente e violenta, outras vezes insignificante e camuflada, representam uma quota consistente da paisagem contemporânea e das ocasiões profissionais de nós arquitetos, cada vez mais forçados a manipular, com o olhar e com as nossas obras, a transformar e a corrigir este tipo de situações complexas, em vez de enriquecer os nossos territórios com nova edificação. Só os edifícios abusivos em Itália chegam aos 17%, enquanto que a percentagem aumenta entre os 30% e os 40% se considerarmos as construções que persistem ao longo da costa; a vizinha Grécia evidencia práticas semelhantes; se considerarmos também os edifícios autorizados do ponto de vista normativo, mas nunca 'dirigidos' a quem os observa, é óbvio que falamos pelo menos de metade daquilo que há anos temos constantemente debaixo dos olhos. Um fenómeno de quantidades e dimensões tais que é legítimo, por um lado, reconhecer que o atual sistema positivista normativo é, resumidamente, bastante ineficaz, e, por outro, falar de situações inadiáveis, e não de dissertação teorética gratuita. Talvez tenhamos realmente passado um ponto sem retorno. É possível conjeturar a demolição de quilómetros e quilómetros de construção ao longo da costa? Como reutilizar e armazenar os milhares de restos de metros cúbicos de materiais de construção civil não recicláveis? É economicamente sustentável? É dialeticamente correto? É culturalmente sincrónico? Cada empreendimento demiúrgico, adequado a reimplantar uma hipotética idade de ouro ou o sublimado "ponto zero" do estado natural das coisas, arrisca a parecer mais arrogante e insensato – mesmo que não seja considerado assim pelo senso comum – que uma humilde e realista tentativa de reconhecer certas formas que adornam o território honestamente rejeitado na consciência da autonomia disciplinar e dos limites – dentro dos quais a nossa investigação pode definir-se, de um certo modo, como científica – das nossas competências de estudiosos de arquitetura, que não se confundem com as nossas aspirações vagas de cidadãos e utentes sociais. Trata-se, na verdade, de abandonar por um momento os impulsos políticos e sociológicos e a prática da "reportagem da degradação" – muito em voga hoje – para se limitar, e não se trata de limites, pelo contrário, a investigar, na qualidade de arquiteto, a forma, e compreender até que ponto, objetos e linguagem, não considerados áulicos e sem acreditação, possam constituir, pelo contrário, materiais de construção de interesse. Exatamente como outros, não só no campo arquitetónico, têm repetidamente tentado, ao longo da história, uma cultura nova de partilha. O significado de acreditação A tese de doutoramento entende, portanto, propor uma leitura da paisagem contemporânea, olhando a dinâmica da acreditação como o principal instrumento de reavaliação de alguns objetos e segmentos costeiros da nossa área geográfico-cultural, a fim de enfrentar mais adequadamente a complexidade da gestão de território. A pesquisa explora, portanto, algumas técnicas compositivas para a acreditação, ou seja, contextualiza o objeto, ou o conjunto de objetos, em novos e variados possíveis sistemas de relações funcionais da construção da paisagem, do espaço coletivo, da forma e da contemporaneidade. A acreditação de um objeto está ligada a características intrínsecas e extrínsecas ao mesmo. Esta reside seguramente em atributos formais – forma, dimensões, escala, relação com a paisagem, materiais utilizados – mas sobretudo, amaldiçoando um estéril e perigoso elenco numérico das qualidades a registar, evitando a redução da arquitetura a sistemas meramente quantitativos, em características extrínsecas ao próprio objeto. Em primeiro lugar, a capacidade de criação – aliás, compositiva - que descreve o objeto a ser acreditado, a partir da operação de lançar um olhar sobre este, que é já projeto, transformando-o e tornando evidente com a produção de uma forma (seja ela uma fotografia, uma colagem, um desenho, um poema, uma composição musical) esta transformação. Uma transformação que consiste sobretudo na ativação de novas relações entre o objeto e outros elementos e layers do território, sejam estes materiais ou imateriais. Método e resultados esperados A acumulação de fragmentos da contemporaneidade sobre a forma de um ábaco de elementos de um vocabulário possível, a abstração das formas que adornam a nossa geografia, o confronto sistemático entre "objetos encontrados", esquecimento de hoje, e casos do passado pelos quais existe uma clara e universal atribuição de qualidade, o desnivelamento de um diálogo organizado entre elementos de pontuação, geneticamente heterogéneos, de diversas frentes costeiras, pode constituir um exercício saudável de observação para poder superar o paradigma do pitoresco e da lente da retórica, principais limites da pesquisa de onde é sempre difícil libertar-se. Desta forma, os investigadores, estudiosos, e administradores que colocarem as lentes dadas por esta pesquisa, e através das quais observarem a paisagem, poderão dialogar, debater e criar avanços disciplinares significativos no sentido de compreender as formas do território, concentrando-se nos mecanismos de reconhecimento e acreditação dos elementos que contribuem para a definição da paisagem contemporânea. A utilidade da dissertação é modernizar e atualizar o paradigma em vez de forçar a realidade a uma evolução improvável de "regresso ao futuro", para constituir uma base disciplinar, seja para elaborar cenários possíveis, seja para estruturar sistemas de avaliação de propostas de criação, seja para uma articulação normativa territorial de nova geração para áreas distintas. ; ABSTRACT: Premises Before proceeding with the widening, confirming or retracting of a few cultural and theoretical archetypes in the field of architecture, it may come useful to do the same with the most basic and overriding of the subject matters under examination: that is the vehicle of the conjectures themselves, the result of a third level three year education program: the PhD thesis. Indeed, it is a research, an investigation carrying an experimental flair; original and unreleased, tackled thoroughly by means of skills and techniques able to control its process. It does not intend to be the deification of dogmatic truths, it is not valid all-round nor reveals the absolute summa of knowledge. On the contrary, whether liked or not, the research activity has a two natured incompleteness: of epistemological and temporal nature. In turn, it derives from previous points of view and is based on upstream studies. It is a section of knowledge having a certain validity domain, transmissible and interchangeable among thinkers and operators belonging to the scientific community. Moreover, and at the same time, it has no limits in its chronological validity and it is not the seeking for a target: rather, a starting point inspiring confidence for future academic researches – both of the writer and reader's – for an incessant disciplinary progress. It is also useful to point out that the subject matter of this study is not the result of a whim; the investigation that it prompted, not an idle exercise. Instead, it was the persisting need urging one to measure oneself – trying one's best to remain as much as possible within his specific educational field (now, more than ever, diluted by the many social-anthropological bewitching) – with a healthy realism at the core of the being contemporary. Object of research Therefore, the object of this research is the contemporary landscape of the coastal segments in Southern Europe, made of geography and objets trouvés, ordinary shapes and materials, unacknowledged architectures, often a result of not very straightforward practices – sections of informal coastal towns, products of self building, unauthorized development and regulation ambiguity – which normally are autonomous in their origin, needs, sense and use in respect to a conventional formal reading, but rising great interest in those who are involved in the field of contemporary anthropized environments. Whether we like it or not, these products (human crafts showing, at times, a brutal and imposing stage presence and at times an insignificant or minor and muffled one) represent a considerable part of contemporary landscapes and of professional chances for us architects, being ever more forced to manipulate, transform and correct, both with our gaze and action, the complexity of these set outs, rather than enriching our territories with new volumes. Abusive buildings in Italy cover over 17% of the gross, while the percentage increases reaching 30-40% if considering buildings along coastal areas. Nearby Greece shows similar routine. If, on the other then, one wishes to broaden the dissertation also to those buildings authorized under the regulation point of view, yet upsetting those who observe them, it is obvious that they cover at least half of what we have constantly observed for years. A phenomenon in terms of quantity according to which it is licit on one hand to recognize that the present positivistic regulatory framework is, basically, most useless, and on the other to speak of a compulsory situation, and not of an uncalled for theoretical disquisition. Perhaps we have truly reached the point of no return. Is it at all possible to hypothesize the demolition of whole stretches of buildings along the coastal areas? How to manage the clearing out and hoarding of further billions of square meters of non-recyclable rubble? Is it financially sustainable? Is it dialectically correct? Culturally synchronic? Any demiurgical activity undertaken in order to re-establish an hypothetical golden age or exalted "zero point" of the natural state of things could appear more presumptuous and senseless – although never considered as such by a very popular common sense – than a humble and realistic attempt to give value to certain shapes studding the territory, describing it honestly being aware of the freedom settled by the discipline and boundaries – within which our research may be defined almost nearer a scientific one – of our expertise as academics in architecture, which must not be confused with our aspirations as dwellers or social users. Indeed, it is all about leaving aside for a moment political or sociological drives and the now very popular "environmental degradation reports", to limit oneself – and that is no limit – to investigate as architects, as we are, the shape, understand to which extent objects and languages that are not accredited nor considered noble can instead represent building material tickling a certain interest. Exactly like others, who have experienced, over and over again and not only in the architectural field, the new culture of sharing. The Sense of acknowledging Therefore, the aim of this PhD thesis is to suggest a reading of contemporary landscape, using the dynamics of the acknowledging as a fundamental means to reassess some objects and coastal segments of our cultural and geographical area, with the final objective of tackling more appropriately the complexity of the managing this territory requires. This research investigates some compositional techniques for the accrediting (that is, the putting at stake) of the object itself - or of the objects if a plurality – in new and many possible ways functional to the setting of the landscape, of the collective space, of the shapes of contemporaneity. The inclination of an object to be accredited is connected to its intrinsic and express characteristics. For sure it may be found in its formal qualities – shape, dimension, scale, relation with the landscape, employed materials – but, above all, preventing a sterile and dangerous numerical list of its qualities (an appalling tendency afflicting our time is to reduce architecture to systems measuring mere quantities, in characteristics extrinsic to the object itself. First of all the ability to design – rather, of composition – of who is describing the object to be accredited; starting from the first gaze, which is already designing, transforming it and making that transformation evident by giving it a shape (whether with a photograph, a collage, a drawing, a poem or musical composition). A transformation mainly consisting in activating new relationships between the object and other elements and layers of the territory, both material and intangible. Method and expected results Exercising gathering fragments of contemporaneity, in the form of an abacus of elements composing a possible vocabulary, the abstraction of the forms that stud our geographies, the systematic comparing of disregarded "found objects" of the present and cases of the past for which there exists an established and universal awarding of quality; the unveiling of an orderly dialogue between punctuation elements - genetically heterogeneous – of the different coastal fronts, may represent a healthy training to observation in order to overcome the paradigm of picturesque and the lens of rhetoric; main limits to research, from the domination of which it is always hard to set free of. In this way researcher, academics and managers who will be seeing the landscape through the glasses of this research may converse, discuss and produce significant guideline improvements towards the understanding of the territory, focusing on the mechanisms of acknowledgement and accreditation of the elements concurring to the definition of the contemporary landscape. To update and modernize the paradigm instead of forcing reality in an unconvincing evolution recalling a "return to the future" could represent the disciplinary grounds for developing possible landscapes, for structuring evaluation models for creative proposals, and for the issuing of a new generation of territory laws and regulation dedicated to distinctive areas. ; N/A
THE NEW SERIES OF RESEARCH OF THE FACULTY If there is any way in which the university can give back to society what it deposits in it, it is the scientific elaboration of knowledge, which as such is important for any community. This Magazine, for example, confirms these efforts that are published every semester. And in this sense, our faculty of Law has taken up the even more difficult task of preparing and organizing a bibliographic series of advances or results of research, that is, books of our faculty researchers in the different branches of law and disciplines that adjoin the legal. For this purpose, since the month of April has counted on the editorial advice of Lizardo Carvajal, surpassed in the region in this type of process, to start with a seminar that has been called as "Drafting Table" where every afternoon of Wednesday during two months the main guidelines for the structuring of an academic text were provided. This space has served so that lawyers have approached the phenomenon of interdisciplinarity, and one more opportunity to put ourselves in line with the new academic-editorial requirements, especially those of the Administrative Department of Science and Technology (COLCIENCIAS). The results, being modest, could not have been better. Indeed, there are 16 titles that will be ready to be published, works that were submitted to a careful and demanding work of reviewing originals, reports on aspects of semantics, syntax, style and spelling. Regarding the cataloging on the web, under the basic criteria for the publication and accreditation of university books resulting from scientific research, compliance with the general requirements is met, in the sense of guiding the authors and editors in the publication work and thus it counted on the revision of academic pairs constituting a form of publicity of the documents produced in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the series, there has been a vast production in criminal law and related, which is not free since the Master of Criminal Law and the Master of Criminalistics and Forensic Sciences have led and made a presence in the editorial process. There are two titles that show the 80 researches coming from the theses of the aforementioned masters where indexes, authors, key words, juries and thesis presidents are indexed, and a brief review of the content of each thesis is made. Also in criminal matters, there is the Principle of Opportunity of Enrique Arteaga, trying to establish the impact that this institute has had against the new oral accusatory penal system. Maribel Lagos compiles five essays by ten researchers from the Research Group "Penitentiary and Prison Systems" with the title "Penitentiaries and Prisons" in diverse contexts. Theory of the crime is the contribution of Hernando Ordoñez to approach thematic like the social control, the imputability and inimputabilidad, the amplifying devices of the penal type, the punishability and the responsibility. On the other hand, María Inés Muriel, specialist in criminalistics, compiles essays in two papers: Criminalistics and forensic sciences in the Colombian accusatory system and the expert evidence in the Colombian accusatory criminal process. In the same criminalistics, Luis Guillermo González compiles research products in the Human Identification. The homicides in series of Iván Valencia, now in the key of criminology, realizes a theoretical foundation on the assassins in series and soon it describes the characteristics of two Colombian serial assassins. Already in co-authorship, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán, and Herman Gómez, contribute with their legal essays in Approaches to the current Colombian law; as well as those already named Hernando Ordoñez and María Inés Muriel, and Lilia Cortés and Maribel Lagos who took on the task of compiling works, the first with Exclusion of evidence in the Colombian accusatory system, and the second with La pena. Beyond the criminal, we find the political participation, education and responsibility of the Colombian State where the academic coordinator of our undergraduate compiles 6 essays on these topics. On her side, Lilia Cortés reflects on the academic educational strategies of the academic Ken Bain in university education. In the civil procedural law, Jaime Mendoza and Villa Angelly clarify whether the payment process as a procedural mechanism will serve to reduce the judicial default, an issue raised in the payment process, chimera or legal reality? Finally, moving away from the purely legal, and entering political science, we have the text Latin American Political Philosophy in which Ángelo Mauricio Victoria works as author and compiler of a series of essays about the notion of "good living" and its development in the Colombian, Ecuadorian, Mexican and Venezuelan context. As we can see, our efforts are aimed at enriching the science of law, and hence the right to sustain the high quality accreditation that we are seeking to ratify with the re-accreditation that we expect soon. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali ; Si existe alguna forma en que la universidad puede retribuir a la sociedad lo que ésta deposita en ella, es la elaboración científica del conocimiento, que en calidad de tal es importante para cualquier comunidad. Esta Revista, por ejemplo, constata estos esfuerzos que cada semestre salen a luz pública. Y en este sentido, nuestra facultad de Derecho se ha dado a la tarea más dispendiosa aún, de elaborar y organizar una serie bibliográfica de avances o resultados de investigación, esto es, libros de nuestros docentes investigadores en las distintas ramas del derecho y disciplinas que colindan con lo jurídico. Para este cometido, se ha contado desde el mes de abril con la asesoría editorial de Lizardo Carvajal, aventajado en la región en este tipo de procesos, para iniciar con un seminario que se ha dado por llamar como "Mesa de Redacción" donde cada tarde de miércoles durante dos meses se brindaron las principales pautas para la estructuración de un texto académico. Este espacio ha servido para que los abogados se hayan acercado al fenómeno de la interdisciplinariedad, y una oportunidad más para ponernos en la línea de las nuevas exigencias académico-editoriales, especialmente las del Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia y Tecnología (COLCIENCIAS). Los resultados, siendo modestos, no han podido ser mejores. Efectivamente, son 16 títulos los que estarán prestos a ser publicados, obras que se sometieron a un cuidadoso y exigente trabajo de revisión de originales, reportes en aspectos de semántica, sintaxis, estilo y ortografía. Respecto a la catalogación en la web, bajo los criterios básicos para la publicación y acreditación de libros universitarios resultado de investigación científica, se da cumplimiento a los requerimientos generales, en el sentido de orientar a los autores y editores en la labor de publicación y así contó con la revisión de pares académicos constituyendo una forma de publicidad de los documentos producidos en el programa de pregrado y los de posgrado. En la serie, ha habido una vasta producción en el derecho penal y afines, lo cual no es gratuito dado que la Maestría en Derecho Penal y la Maestría en Criminalística y Ciencias Forenses han liderado y hecho presencia en el proceso editorial. Hay dos títulos que muestran las 80 investigaciones provenientes de tesis de las maestrías mencionadas donde se indiza los títulos, los autores, las palabras claves, jurados y presidentes de tesis, y se hace una breve reseña del contenido de cada tesis. También en lo penal, está el Principio de oportunidad de Enrique Arteaga tratándose de establecer el impacto que este instituto ha tenido frente al nuevo sistema penal acusatorio de corte oral. Maribel Lagos compila cinco ensayos de diez investigadores del Grupo de Investigación "Sistemas penitenciarios y carcelarios" con el título Lo penitenciarios y carcelario en contextos diversos. Teoría del delito es el aporte de Hernando Ordoñez para abordar temáticas como el control social, la imputabilidad e inimputabilidad, los dispositivos amplificadores del tipo penal, la punibilidad y la responsabilidad. Por su parte, María Inés Muriel, especialista en criminalística, compila ensayos en dos trabajos: Criminalística y ciencias forenses en el sistema acusatorio colombiano y La prueba pericial en el proceso penal acusatorio colombiano. En la misma criminalística, Luis Guillermo González compila productos de investigación en la Identificación Humana. Los Homicidios en serie de Iván Valencia, ahora en clave de criminología, realiza una fundamentación teórica sobre los asesinos en serie y luego describe las características de dos asesinos seriales colombianos. Ya en coautoría, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán, y Herman Gómez, aportan con sus ensayos jurídicos en Aproximaciones al derecho colombiano actual; igual que los ya nombrados Hernando Ordoñez y María Inés Muriel, y Lilia Cortés y Maribel Lagos que se dieron a la tarea de compilar trabajos, los primeros con Exclusión de evidencias en el sistema acusatorio colombiano, y las segundas con La pena. Más allá de lo penal, encontramos La participación política, educación y responsabilidad del Estado colombiano donde la coordinadora académica de nuestro pregrado compila 6 ensayos sobre estos temas. De su lado, Lilia Cortés reflexiona sobre las estrategias educativas universitarias del académico Ken Bain en La educación universitaria. En el derecho procesal civil, Jaime Mendoza y Angelly Villa dilucidan si el proceso monitorio como mecanismo procesal servirá para disminuir la mora judicial, cuestión que se plantean en El proceso monitorio, ¿quimera o realidad jurídica? Finalmente, alejándose de lo meramente jurídico, e incursionando en la ciencia política, tenemos el texto Filosofía Política Latinoamericana en el que Ángelo Mauricio Victoria obra como autor y compilador de una serie de ensayos acerca de la noción del "buen vivir" y su desarrollo en el contexto colombiano, ecuatoriano, mexicano y venezolano. Como vemos, nuestros esfuerzos se encaminan a enriquecer la ciencia del derecho, y por ahí derecho a sostener la acreditación de alta calidad que estamos en pos de ratificar con la re-acreditación que pronto esperamos. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali ; A publicação da nova Série de Pesquisa de Faculdade Se houver alguma maneira pela qual a Universidade possa devolver à sociedade o que está depositado nela, é a elaboração científica do conhecimento que, como tal, é importante para qualquer comunidade. Esta Revista, por exemplo, confirma esses esforços cada semestre vêm à luz pública. Nesse sentido, nossa Faculdade de Direito assumiu a tarefa, ainda mais dispendiosa, de preparar e organizar uma série bibliográfica de avanços ou resultados de pesquisa. Isto é, livros de nossos professores pesquisadores nos diferentes ramos do direito e disciplinas que se aproximam do jurídico. Para este propósito, se conta a partir do mes de abril com o conselho editorial de Lizardo Carvajal, destacado na região neste tipo de processos, para começar com um seminário chamado "mesa de redação", onde cada tarde da Quarta-feira, se forneceram as principais diretrizes para a estruturação de textos acadêmicos e científicos. Este espaço serviu para que os advogados tenham abordado o fenômeno da interdisciplinaridade e mais uma oportunidade de nos alinhar com os novos requisitos acadêmicos e editoriais, especialmente os do Departamento Administrativo de Ciência e Tecnologia (Colciencias). Os resultados, sendo modestos, não poderiam ser melhores. Na verdade, existem 16 títulos que estarão prontos para serem publicados, trabalhos submetidos a um trabalho cuidadoso e exigente de revisão de originais, relatórios sobre aspectos de semântica, sintaxe, estilo e ortografia. Além da publicação no clássico e tradicional meio em papel, a Série será publicada na Web. Um site, que nos contatará com o mundo inteiro. Especialmente desenhado para consulta através deste meio e na Internet, colocará nossos autores e nossos livros em relacionamento com os estudiosos de todo o mundo. O conhecimento que surgiu da pesquisa básica aplicada ao desenvolvimento experimental em nossos grupos de pesquisa ou da academia, transcenderão por esse meio, os corredores e salas de aula, estarão disponíveis em todo o mundo, especialmente no de fala española. Com rigorosos protocolos para acreditação documental. Respeito à publicação e catalogação, de acordo com os critérios básicos de acreditação de livros universitários resultantes da pesquisa científica, é dado cumprimento aos requisitos gerais da comunidade acadêmica e das instituições do estado. Nesse sentido, orienta-se os autores e editores no trabalho de publicação, contando com a revisão por pares, sendo uma tarefa essencial no processo de validação, publicação e divulgação da produção acadêmica e científica da Faculdade e seus programas de pós-graduação. A Série contém produção intelectual em Direito Penal e Criminalística. Daí o nome: Coleção Direito Penal, Criminalística e Ciências Forenses. Isso não é gratuito, já que o Mestrado em Direito Penal e o Mestrado em Criminalística e Ciências Forenses lideraram e fizeram presença no processo de pesquisa e no editorial. O conteúdo da coleção. existem dois títulos que catalogam as 80 pesquisas provenientes das teses dos mestrados mencionados. Nestes dois livros de consulta e de referência, indexan-se os autores, palavras-chave, jurados e presidentes de tese. É feita uma revisão técnica do conteúdo de cada tese. Está disponível assim, uma verdadeira coleção documental e um catálogo de produção intelectual decorrente dos mestrados acima mencionados. Sua utilidade e bom uso resultarão no desenvolvimento da pesquisa nessas áreas pela nossa Faculdade. Também no penal está o livro O Princípio da oportunidade de Enrique Arteaga Córdoba. Neste trabalho, trata-se de estabelecer o impacto que este instituto teve contra o novo sistema penal acusatório de tribunal oral. Maribel Lagos Enríquez compila cinco ensaios de dez pesquisadores do Grupo de Pesquisa "Sistemas penitenciários e prisionais". Seu título, penitenciários e prisionais em diversos contextos. A teoria do crime é a contribuição de Hernando Ordoñez Ramírez para abordar questões como controle social, imputabilidade e inimputabilidade, amplificação de dispositivos de tipo penal, punibilidade e responsabilidade. Por outro lado, María Inés Muriel Puerto, especialista em criminalística, compila ensaios em dois trabalhos: Criminalística e ciências forenses no sistema acusatório colombiano y A prova pericial no processo penal acusatório colombiano. Na mesma linha criminalística, Luis Guillermo González compila produtos de pesquisa no livro identificação humana. Os homicídios em série de Iván Valencia, agora em chave da criminologia, realizam uma fundamentação teórica sobre os assassinos em série e logo descreve as características de dois assassinos em série colombianos. Já em co-autoria, Héctor Hernández, Adolfo Murillo, Julián Durán e Herman Gómez, contribuem com seus ensaios jurídicos em aproximações ao direito colombiano atual; bem como aqueles nomeados Hernando Ordoñez e María Inés Muriel, e Lilia Cortés e Maribel Lagos que assumiram a tarefa de compilar trabalhos, os primeiros com Exclusão de evidências no sistema acusatorio colombiano, e os segundos com a pena. Além do penal, encontramos a participação política, a educação e a responsabilidade do Estado colombiano, onde a coordenadora acadêmica da nossa graduação compila seis ensaios sobre esses temas. Por sua parte, Lilia Cortés reflete sobre as estratégias educacionais acadêmicas do acadêmico Ken Bain na educação universitária. No direito do Processo Civil, Jaime Mendoza e Angelly Villa, esclarecem se o Processo de Monitoramento, como mecanismo processual, servirá para diminuir o incumprimento judicial, uma questão que é levantada no processo de pagamento, "quimera" ou realidade jurídica? Finalmente, afastando-se do puramente jurídico e incursionando na Ciência Política, temos o texto de Filosofia Política Latino-Americana em que Ángelo Mauricio Victoria atua como autor e compilador de uma série de ensaios sobre a noção de "bom viver" e seu desenvolvimento no Contexto colombiano, equatoriano, mexicano e venezuelano. Como vemos, nossos esforços visam enriquecer a disciplina do direito, para sustentar com fatos a re-acreditação de alta qualidade, que estamos no interesse de ratificar com o (re)credenciamento que esperamos em breve. José Hoover Salazar Ríos Facultad de Derecho, Ciencias Políticas y Sociales Universidad Libre Cali
İslamcılık ve demokrasi arasındaki ilişki, İslamcılığın 150 yıllık tarihi boyunca çeşitli biçimlerde gelişmiştir. Aslında İslamcılık dendiğinde tekil bir hareket söz konusu değildir. Türkiye'de İslamcılığın genel olarak beş farklı döneminde söz edilebilir. Dönemlere göre farklı nitelikler arz eden İslamcılık, 1970 sonrasında önemli bir değişim geçirmiş ve önceki dönemlerden siyasallık vurgusu ile ayrışmıştır. Yaşanan bu değişim, İslamcılığın tarihsel sürecinde ele aldığı pek çok konuya da farklı bir bakış açısı getirmiştir. Devlet, toplum, ekonomi, siyaset vs. pek çok konu, 1970 sonrasında oldukça farklı bir çerçevede değerlendirilmiştir. Demokrasi konusu bu süreçte önceki İslamcılardan farklı bir çerçevede ele alınmış ve demokratik yönetimler, Allah'ın egemenliğini insana veren bir şirk rejimleri olarak tanımlamaya başlanmıştır. Ancak süreç içerisinde demokrasiye ilişkin bakış açısı değişmeye başlamıştır. Bugün İslamcıların demokrasiye bakışlarında önemli bir değişim söz konusudur. 1997 de gerçekleşen 28 Şubat darbesi ve akabinde Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi'nin iktidara gelmesi, İslamcılar ile demokrasi arasında sıcak bir ilişkinin kurulmasına sebep olmuş ve bugün İslamcılar adeta demokrasiyi sahiplenmeye başlamışlardır. Bu noktada çalışma, yaşanan bu büyük değişimi anlamaya ve bu değişime neden olan faktörleri irdelemeyi hedeflemektedir. Görülen en büyük değişim ise demokrasiyi anlama biçiminde yatmaktadır. İslamcılar, demokrasi konusunu iki biçimde algılamıştır: Birincisi bir rejim olarak demokrasi, ikincisi ise bir yönetim mekanizması olarak demokrasi. Yaşanan bu algı değişimi, İslamcıların demokrasiyle kurduğu ilişkinin bugünkü noktaya gelmesini anlaşılabilir kılmaktadır ; The relation between Islamism and democracy has improved various forms since 150 years. Indeed, there is no unique Islamism or Islamist movement. Many different movements from each other define under the concept of Islamism. Islamism in Turkey can separate five periods in general. The first period is the late Ottoman era: between 1850 and 1924. This period also called Ottoman's Islamism. The second period starts with the foundation of Republic of Turkey and finishes in 1950. We can say for this period that interregnum of Islamism. The third period of Islamism in Turkey is the years between 1950 and 1970. In these years, Islamism had owned rightist, statist, and nationalist reflexes. The fourth period of Islamism is the years between 1970 and 1997. This period's Islamism can be named pure Islamism or political Islamism and thus it has a powerful political emphasis. The fifth and last period of Islamism has started with the February 28 coup in 1997 and it still goes on. Islamism, exhibiting different characteristics according to the period, has undergone significant changes after 1970. Different from its previous period, Islamism has turned into a movement highlighting tawhid and emphasizing political dimensions. This changing started along with translating some texts from Islamic movements' and their leaders in other countries like Egypt and Pakistan to Turkish in 1960s and 1970s. Islamists has brought different perspectives in a lot of topics such as state, society, economy, politics etc. These issues have been evaluated in a quite different context of post-1970. For instance, the perception of state has undergone a radically change during this period. Previous Islamists was owned the state. But for the latter Islamist, state is defined as a disbelievers (kafir) formation which should be islamization. An Islamic state definition is made and it was described in detail that how it should be. With state issues, democracy issues also were discussed in a different context from the previous Islamists in the process and democratic governments have begun to describe as a shirk regime (polytheism) that the sovereignty belongs to Allah gives people. But the outlook for democracy has started to change in the process. In fact, discussions about democracy between Islamists have shaped in two different definitions. The first group's definition of democracy is a way of life or an ideology or a philosophy of life. The Group who see democracy as incompatible with Islam prefers this definitions. The second definition is that democracy is a management mechanism independent from ideology. According to this approach, democracy is a tool that can be used as a means to an Islamic government. Especially after 1980s, this second definition related to democracy began to embrace in Islamists. In fact, democracy is quite a controversial issue in itself. There is no only one definition of democracy. If we seek the literature of democracy, we can see a lot of its definitions, models and applications. Moreover, current The relation between Islamism and democracy has improved various forms since 150 years. Indeed, there is no unique Islamism or Islamist movement. Many different movements from each other define under the concept of Islamism. Islamism in Turkey can separate five periods in general. The first period is the late Ottoman era: between 1850 and 1924. This period also called Ottoman's Islamism. The second period starts with the foundation of Republic of Turkey and finishes in 1950. We can say for this period that interregnum of Islamism. The third period of Islamism in Turkey is the years between 1950 and 1970. In these years, Islamism had owned rightist, statist, and nationalist reflexes. The fourth period of Islamism is the years between 1970 and 1997. This period's Islamism can be named pure Islamism or political Islamism and thus it has a powerful political emphasis. The fifth and last period of Islamism has started with the February 28 coup in 1997 and it still goes on. Islamism, exhibiting different characteristics according to the period, has undergone significant changes after 1970. Different from its previous period, Islamism has turned into a movement highlighting tawhid and emphasizing political dimensions. This changing started along with translating some texts from Islamic movements' and their leaders in other countries like Egypt and Pakistan to Turkish in 1960s and 1970s. Islamists has brought different perspectives in a lot of topics such as state, society, economy, politics etc. These issues have been evaluated in a quite different context of post-1970. For instance, the perception of state has undergone a radically change during this period. Previous Islamists was owned the state. But for the latter Islamist, state is defined as a disbelievers (kafir) formation which should be islamization. An Islamic state definition is made and it was described in detail that how it should be. With state issues, democracy issues also were discussed in a different context from the previous Islamists in the process and democratic governments have begun to describe as a shirk regime (polytheism) that the sovereignty belongs to Allah gives people. But the outlook for democracy has started to change in the process. In fact, discussions about democracy between Islamists have shaped in two different definitions. The first group's definition of democracy is a way of life or an ideology or a philosophy of life. The Group who see democracy as incompatible with Islam prefers this definitions. The second definition is that democracy is a management mechanism independent from ideology. According to this approach, democracy is a tool that can be used as a means to an Islamic government. Especially after 1980s, this second definition related to democracy began to embrace in Islamists. In fact, democracy is quite a controversial issue in itself. There is no only one definition of democracy. If we seek the literature of democracy, we can see a lot of its definitions, models and applications. Moreover, current The relation between Islamism and democracy has improved various forms since 150 years. Indeed, there is no unique Islamism or Islamist movement. Many different movements from each other define under the concept of Islamism. Islamism in Turkey can separate five periods in general. The first period is the late Ottoman era: between 1850 and 1924. This period also called Ottoman's Islamism. The second period starts with the foundation of Republic of Turkey and finishes in 1950. We can say for this period that interregnum of Islamism. The third period of Islamism in Turkey is the years between 1950 and 1970. In these years, Islamism had owned rightist, statist, and nationalist reflexes. The fourth period of Islamism is the years between 1970 and 1997. This period's Islamism can be named pure Islamism or political Islamism and thus it has a powerful political emphasis. The fifth and last period of Islamism has started with the February 28 coup in 1997 and it still goes on. Islamism, exhibiting different characteristics according to the period, has undergone significant changes after 1970. Different from its previous period, Islamism has turned into a movement highlighting tawhid and emphasizing political dimensions. This changing started along with translating some texts from Islamic movements' and their leaders in other countries like Egypt and Pakistan to Turkish in 1960s and 1970s. Islamists has brought different perspectives in a lot of topics such as state, society, economy, politics etc. These issues have been evaluated in a quite different context of post-1970. For instance, the perception of state has undergone a radically change during this period. Previous Islamists was owned the state. But for the latter Islamist, state is defined as a disbelievers (kafir) formation which should be islamization. An Islamic state definition is made and it was described in detail that how it should be. With state issues, democracy issues also were discussed in a different context from the previous Islamists in the process and democratic governments have begun to describe as a shirk regime (polytheism) that the sovereignty belongs to Allah gives people. But the outlook for democracy has started to change in the process. In fact, discussions about democracy between Islamists have shaped in two different definitions. The first group's definition of democracy is a way of life or an ideology or a philosophy of life. The Group who see democracy as incompatible with Islam prefers this definitions. The second definition is that democracy is a management mechanism independent from ideology. According to this approach, democracy is a tool that can be used as a means to an Islamic government. Especially after 1980s, this second definition related to democracy began to embrace in Islamists. In fact, democracy is quite a controversial issue in itself. There is no only one definition of democracy. If we seek the literature of democracy, we can see a lot of its definitions, models and applications. Moreover, current The relation between Islamism and democracy has improved various forms since 150 years. Indeed, there is no unique Islamism or Islamist movement. Many different movements from each other define under the concept of Islamism. Islamism in Turkey can separate five periods in general. The first period is the late Ottoman era: between 1850 and 1924. This period also called Ottoman's Islamism. The second period starts with the foundation of Republic of Turkey and finishes in 1950. We can say for this period that interregnum of Islamism. The third period of Islamism in Turkey is the years between 1950 and 1970. In these years, Islamism had owned rightist, statist, and nationalist reflexes. The fourth period of Islamism is the years between 1970 and 1997. This period's Islamism can be named pure Islamism or political Islamism and thus it has a powerful political emphasis. The fifth and last period of Islamism has started with the February 28 coup in 1997 and it still goes on. Islamism, exhibiting different characteristics according to the period, has undergone significant changes after 1970. Different from its previous period, Islamism has turned into a movement highlighting tawhid and emphasizing political dimensions. This changing started along with translating some texts from Islamic movements' and their leaders in other countries like Egypt and Pakistan to Turkish in 1960s and 1970s. Islamists has brought different perspectives in a lot of topics such as state, society, economy, politics etc. These issues have been evaluated in a quite different context of post-1970. For instance, the perception of state has undergone a radically change during this period. Previous Islamists was owned the state. But for the latter Islamist, state is defined as a disbelievers (kafir) formation which should be islamization. An Islamic state definition is made and it was described in detail that how it should be. With state issues, democracy issues also were discussed in a different context from the previous Islamists in the process and democratic governments have begun to describe as a shirk regime (polytheism) that the sovereignty belongs to Allah gives people. But the outlook for democracy has started to change in the process. In fact, discussions about democracy between Islamists have shaped in two different definitions. The first group's definition of democracy is a way of life or an ideology or a philosophy of life. The Group who see democracy as incompatible with Islam prefers this definitions. The second definition is that democracy is a management mechanism independent from ideology. According to this approach, democracy is a tool that can be used as a means to an Islamic government. Especially after 1980s, this second definition related to democracy began to embrace in Islamists. In fact, democracy is quite a controversial issue in itself. There is no only one definition of democracy. If we seek the literature of democracy, we can see a lot of its definitions, models and applications. Moreover, current practices related to democracy have criticized and it has found a widespread debate in the search for new models recently. But for Islamists, these broad debates about democracy literature have taken into brackets and neglected. They have been moving out only these two definitions of democracy. The Islamists view for democracy can be summarized in three manners from the 1970s until today. On first manner, democracy takes away the sovereignty of God and gives to human. For Islam, this means polytheism that is, to ascribe partners to Allah. So, from this perspective, democracy is full of opposite of Islam and a Muslim cannot give confirmation to democracy. The Second manner refers to a point of view not as hard as the previous approach to democracy. They do not believe in democracy as a principle or as an ideal form of government. But they think that democracy is a tool for reaching the ideal form of Islamic rule. The third approach is ownership of democracy but this situation doesn't reflect to Islamist discourse clearly. This discourse of democracy has constituted after February 28 process to struggle for existence. Today, there is a significant change the perception of democracy in Islamists. February 28 coup and the subsequently coming to power of the Justice and Development Party led to the establishment of a warm relationship between democracy and Islamists. Islamists have begun to embrace nearly democracy today. After the coup of February 28, democracy has been an existential ground for Islamists. From this point, the coup did not reduce the belief in democracy for Islamist; on the contrary, it increased. However, this ownership to democracy begun to bring some important problems for Islamist. Islamists have begun to lose their very lively thought climate especially in 1990s and they have faced with the danger of losing their claims to offer an alternative from their original source. At this point, the article aims to understand chancing in Islamists in particular of democracy. it appears that the biggest change lies on to understand of democracy.
Dottorato di ricerca in Ecologia forestale ; Climate change has become the most important global environmental crisis and its consideration has revealed the emergence of a new political regime that has been idealized under the hypothetical "carbon city". The Carbon City corresponds to a political community of people who can act on the carbon cycle and enjoy its productions and services. Forests play a key role into this new city because they significantly contribute to the carbon cycle and ecosystem stability and they represent an object to meet the consensus among the different groups of interests. Physically represented by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the climate community tends to establish an equitable repartition of the efforts to mitigate climate changes and adapt to future modifications of our environment. A fair distribution of the efforts requires the quantification of the contribution made by each country through scientific expertise. However, sub-Saharan African countries are mostly in margin of the process mostly because of the lack of knowledge about the quantitative contribution these countries can make to the global efforts. Quantification of carbon stocks has become crucial for sub-Saharan African countries to increase their participation to the climate discussions arena and develop actions to mitigate an environmental crisis they are the most vulnerable to. Better understanding the carbon cycle also allows a better comprehension of our interaction between the global climate and our activities. The aim of this thesis is to better understand the dynamics of carbon stocks in sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives were (1) to understand the most important factors influencing the estimation of carbon stocks and carbon stock changes, (2) to inventory the state of knowledge at continental scale and (3) to fulfill some of the gaps while identifying the necessary further researches. Three field experiments where implemented in Ghana to measure the variability of biomass within plots, between plots and between wet evergreen, moist evergreen and moist semi-deciduous forests. The wet evergreen forest was selected to analyze the variation of biomass within and between trees based on an original method to build tree allometric equation. The three forests were logged and the wet evergreen forest was selected to measure the impact of logging activities on carbon stocks. In parallel, an intensive data collection in various libraries of the world has allowed the development of the first tree volume and biomass allometric database and the first biomass and carbon stock database at continental scale. The data were organized and reviewed to allow the comparison between equations and carbon stocks data. About two third of the continental carbon stock is found in the soil. Using different soil databases and soil maps may result in variation of the soil organic carbon estimates of about 30%. The choice of the tree allometric equation to estimate the tree biomass can induce variation of aboveground biomass of about 40%. Using already available biomass data, the aboveground carbon stocks ranges 10-105 Pg C. Using the data collected in this study allowed increased the number of data and its harmonization. It follows a major reduction in the variability of carbon stocks that is between 58 and 76 Pg C. Measurements in humid tropical forests in Ghana revealed variations of biomass at different scales, from trees to different types of forests. Aboveground biomass ranges 348-364 ha-1 between ecological zones, 218-485 Mg ha-1 between plots and 0 - 4681Mg ha-1 within plots of 1 ha. Carbon stocks are on average 355 Mg ha-1 with 49, 39, 9, 1, 0.9, 0.8, and 0.2% are in the aerial part of trees, soil organic carbon, roots, litter, dead wood, lianas and palms. The biomass of a tree was mainly influenced by the diameter of the trunk, the crown diameter and the wood density in a tropical rainforest of Ghana. However, various factors influence the ecosystem biomass variability. At plant scale, the tree biomass is influenced by the tree species, the plant functional type and the growth strategies. At ecosystem scale, the biomass is influenced by the effect of topography, plant distribution, slope, soils, history of perturbations and forest management. At biome scale, the biomass is influenced by climate, ecological zone, age, structure, and management. When considering the impact of anthropic activities on carbon stocks, deforestation and forest exploitation emissions ranged 0.06-0.5 and 0.03 – 0.08PgC Yr-1 respectively. While deforestation had already been studied in previous research, I have focused on forest degradation caused by selective logging. In Ghanaian rainforests, selective logging impact 12 Mg C ha-1. Based on the relation between harvested volume and the impact of forest carbon stocks, I have estimated that 88 Tg C yr-1 are being emitted at continental scale which means selective logging would contribute to 20– 25% of the continental C balance. However, the potential for decreasing GHG emissions from selective logging has been limited by the accuracy and the cost of field measurements. Forest restoration has been identified as the highest potential activity for emission reduction and C sequestration in Ghana. While this activity is not recognized by the climate convention, enhancement of forest C stock can sequester significant amount of C. It was estimated that intensification of already existing cocoa farms was the most feasible option to sequester important amount of C in Ghana while increasing the farming income by about 19%. However, carbon sequestration and financial compensation are among many other aspects to better consider when implementing developing activities. Land and forest tenure issues have to be particularly addressed in Ghana to allow effective implementation. The mis-consideration of some social entities would lead to massive forest destructions that already happened in the past. Sub-Saharan Africa faces important gaps related to the understanding of the contribution of the African ecosystems to the C cycle. Only one percent of the necessary tree allometric equations is currently available. The impact of degradation and deforestation on the role of the decomposition of wood and carbon dynamics in soil are particularly poorly understood. The dynamics of forest regeneration after perturbations such as selective logging are poorly known. While C stocks are assumed to recover after a 40 years period, the structure of the forest and the biodiversity are still strongly affected. The use of remote sensing is often presented as a panacea and the solution to monitor natural ressources such as forest biomass. However, I have pointed out that the estimation of biomass using available satellite imageries of Ghana is not an accurate option while the use of high resolution imageries are too costly for countries that have low human and technical capacities to achieve their forest inventories using these techniques. This study highlights the issue of the language used to describe the environment. The global land descriptions are often not in relation with the language used in the field to describe the vegetation in term of structure, floristic composition, position in the landscape and management. The identification of the degraded forest is strongly limited by the poor definitions and the poor previous consideration and analysis. While several attempts to harmonize the vegetation descriptors have been developed on the basis of classification systems, however, they have been facing the complexity of wording, defining and translating our perception of environment. At last, very few socio-economic studies have considered the impact of carbon services to local farmer livelihood. However, they are considered as part of the main process of deforestation. There is an urgent need to identify the potential for improving farmer livelihood while sequestering carbon stocks and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. This would be achieved by an increasing consideration of agricultural activities in developing contries by the climate change convention. Still, the agricultural sector will be considered if a carbon quantification system can be implemented for farming. ; Il cambiamento climatico è diventata la crisi globale più importante, e la sua considerazione rivela l'emergere di un nuovo regime politico. Le foreste svolgono un ruolo fondamentale perché contribuiscono in modo significativo al ciclo del carbonio e la problematica della loro tutela e gestione incontra il consenso di diversi gruppi di interesse. Rappresentata dalla Convenzione delle nazioni Unite sul clima, la "comunità clima" tende a stabilire una ripartizione equa degli sforzi per attenuare i cambiamenti climatici e per adattarsi alle modificazioni del nostro ambiente. Tuttavia, i Paesi dell'Africa sub-sahariana sono ai margini di tale processo soprattutto per la mancanza di conoscenza di quanto il loro contributo possa essere fondamentale agli sforzi globali. La quantificazione degli stock di carbonio diviene pertanto fondamentale per accrescere la loro partecipazione alla discussione sul clima e per l'eventuale sviluppo di azioni. Una migliore conoscenza del ciclo del carbonio consente anche una migliore valutazione della nostra interazione tra il clima globale e le nostre attività. Lo scopo di questa tesi è quella di comprendere meglio la dinamica degli stock di carbonio nell'Africa sub-sahariana. Gli obiettivi erano 1) identificare i fattori più importanti che influenzano la stima degli stock di carbonio e le variazioni degli stock di carbonio 2) l'inventario delle conoscenze su scala continentale 3) soddisfare alcune lacune individuando al contempo le necessarie opportune ricerche. Tre siti sperimentali sono stati stabiliti in Ghana per valutare la variabilità della biomassa all'interno di piazzole, tra complotti e tra foreste sempreverdi umide, sempreverde umido e semi-umidi di latifoglie. La foresta pluviale è stata selezionata per analizzare la variazione di biomassa di alberi e tra gli alberi attraverso un metodo originale che consente anche la realizzazione di equazioni allometriche. Poi, i tre boschi sono stati sottoposti ad un trattamento selettivo di sboscamento. La foresta umida sempreverde è stata scelta per misurare l'impatto del disboscamento selettivo sugli stock di carbonio. In parallelo, la raccolta intensiva di dati, sulle equazioni allometriche e gli stock di carbonio, in varie biblioteche del mondo ha consentito lo sviluppo della prima banca dati sul continente africano. Circa due terzi degli stock di carbonio del continente si trovano nel suolo. Le loro stime variano del 30% a seconda delle mappe del suolo utilizzate e delle banche dati disponibili. Per quanto riguarda la stima della biomassa degli alberi, la scelta dell'equazione allometrica può portare a cambiamenti nella biomassa aerea di circa il 40%. Utilizzando i dati già disponibili nelle banche dati internazionali, la stima degli stock di carbonio varia tra 10 e 105 Pg C. Il database creato in questo studio ha permesso un numero crescente di dati e la loro armonizzazione. Ne consegue una forte riduzione della variabilità degli stock di carbonio che sono tra i 58 ei 76 Pg C. Inoltre le misurazioni nelle foreste pluviali tropicali in Ghana hanno permesso di rivelare variazioni di biomassa su scale diverse, da alberi a diversi tipi di foreste. La biomassa varia tra 348 e 364 Mg ha-1, tra le umide foreste tropicali, 218-485 Mg ha-1, tra i campionamenti e 0-4,681 Mg ha-1, all'interno di appezzamenti di 1 ha. Le riserve di carbonio sono in media 355 Mg ha-1 con 49, 39, 9, 1, 0.9, 0.8, e 0.2% si trovano nella parte aerea degli alberi, carbonio organico del suolo, le radici, lettiere, legno morto, liane e palme. La biomassa di un albero in una foresta pluviale tropicale è influenzata principalmente dal diametro del tronco, il diametro della chioma e dalla densità del legno. Inoltre, la variabilità della biomassa degli ecosistemi deriva anche da altri diversi fattori. Nella scala degli alberi la biomassa è influenzata principalmente dalla specie, il tipo funzionale e dalla strategie di crescita. Nella scala degli ecosistemi, la biomassa è influenzata dall'effetto della topografia, della distribuzione della vegetazione, dalla pendenza, dai suoli, dalla storia degli eventi che sono intervenut e dalla gestione forestale. Su scala bioma, la biomassa è influenzata dal clima, dalla zona ecologica, dall'età, dalla struttura e dal tipo di uso del suolo. Per quanto riguarda l'impatto delle attività umane sulle riserve di carbonio invece, la deforestazione e il degrado forestale derivanti da disboscamento selettivo variano rispettivamente tra 0,03-0,08 0,06-0,5 e Pg C anno-1. Il fenomeno della deforestazione è stato oggetto di precedenti studi. Pertanto, mi sono concentra essenzialmente sul degrado delle foreste dal disboscamento selettivo. In una foresta pluviale tropicale in Ghana, il disboscamento selettivo interessa circa 12 ettari Mg-1. Sulla base del rapporto tra il volume e l'impatto provocato dalla raccolta negli stock di carbonio, ho stimato che l'88 yr Tg C -1 sono rilasciati su scala continentale. Ciò significa che contribuiscono allo sfruttamento silvicolo il 20-25% del saldo C continentale. Tuttavia, il potenziale di riduzione delle emissioni di gas serra prodotte dal disboscamento selettivo è limitata dalla precisione e dal costo delle misure di campo. Il ripristino forestale ha delle foreste sono state identificate come aventi il maggiore potenziale di riduzione delle emissioni di gas serra e il sequestro di C in Ghana. Anche se questa attività non è riconosciuta dalla Convenzione sul clima, il miglioramento degli stock di carbonio delle foreste potrebbe conservare quantità significative di C. Prendendo le piantagioni di cacao come esempio, l'aumento della densità di alberi è l'opzione più sostenibile per preservare una notevole quantità di C in Ghana, aumentando perdippiù il reddito di circa il 19%. Tuttavia, la preserazione della C e di compensazione finanziaria tra i molti aspetti da considerare nella realizzazione delle attività di sviluppo. Territorio e possessi foresta sono questioni che devono essere specificamente trattata per l'effettiva attuazione di progetti di sviluppo forestale in Ghana. L'esclusione di alcune entità sociali porterebbe alla massiccia distruzione delle foreste, un fenomeno che già si è verificato in passato. L'Africa sub-sahariana affronta carenze significative nella comprensione del contributo degli ecosistemi africani ciclo C. L'inventario dei dati attualmente disponibili emerge che una percentuale di equazioni allometrica sono disponibili. L'impatto della deforestazione e degradazione sul ruolo della carie del legno e della dinamica del carbonio nel suolo sono particolarmente poco chiare. Anche se gli stock di carbonio si suppone che per recuperare da un periodo di 40 anni dopo la registrazione, la struttura e la biodiversità forestale rimangono fortemente colpiti. L'uso del telerilevamento è spesso presentata come una panacea e la soluzione per monitorare le risorse naturali come la biomassa forestale. Tuttavia, lo studio sottolinea che la stima della biomassa utilizzando satelliti disponibili per il Ghana è un basso uso e precisa di immagini ad alta risoluzione è troppo costoso un'opzione per i paesi con bassa capacità umane , tecniche e finanziarie. Questo studio mette in evidenza la questione del linguaggio usato per descrivere l'ambiente. La considerazione della struttura, la composizione floristica, la posizione naturale e lo sfruttamento e il degrado delle foreste è in gran parte limitato dalla povertà del linguaggio, le definizioni e le analisi precedenti. Diversi tentativi di cercare di armonizzare i descrittori della vegetazione sulla base dei sistemi di classificazione. Essi sono fortemente limitate dalla complessità della formulazione, la definizione e la traduzione della nostra percezione dell'ambiente. Infine, pochissimi studi hanno considerato l'impatto socio-economico dei servizi connessi di carbonio sulle condizioni di vita degli agricoltori locali. Essi sono comunque parte del processo di deforestazione. E 'urgente identificare il potenziale per migliorare le condizioni di vita degli agricoltori, mentre sequestro del carbonio e la riduzione delle emissioni da deforestazione e degrado forestale. Questo obiettivo può essere raggiunto aumentando la considerazione delle attività agricole nei paesi in via di sviluppo dalla convenzione sul clima. Tuttavia, è solo quando un sistema adeguato per la quantificazione degli allevamenti di carbonio, che questi ultimi saranno poi prese in considerazione.
2007/2008 ; L'inizio di secolo 21 a rivelato al mondo intero l'inizio di una guerra di piccoli dimensioni. La geopolitica e un gigante formato da una serie di 2 giocatori di scacchi , di cui questi giocatori cercano di ottenere vantaggi di posizione. In questo gioco e cruciale di conoscere le regole attuali che governano questi movimenti. I cavalieri non può muoversi in diagonale. Dal 1945 fino al 1989, il gioco principale sulla scacchiere e stato tra gli Stati Uniti e l'Unione Sovietica, è stato chiamato "La Guerre Fredda". Oggi, il gioco e tra l'Unione Europea e Russia , e metaforicamente è stato chiamato "La Guerre Fredda del Gas". La sicurezza energetica europea confronta una serie di sfide per quanto riguarda la dipendenza dell'Unione Europea delle risorse energetiche russe e della necessità di diversificazione dei mezzi di trasporto su le risorse energetiche, si fa riferimento principalmente a gas naturale. Lo scopo di questa tesi di dottorato e quello di indagare la situazione attuale, a partire da l'idea che ci sono gravi preoccupazioni in Europa per quanto riguarda il fatto che la Russia potrebbe utilizzare le sue esportazioni di energia come arma politica per poter finalizzare la sua supremazia politica . Questa tesi si concentra sull'identificazione di una soluzione per quanto riguarda le maggiori preoccupazioni dei europei - la sicurezza dell'approvvigionamento energetico, iniziando a sviluppare nuovi vie di acceso alle risorse energetiche. Per una migliore comprensione, ho pensato la mia tesi come una scacchiera, avendo come scommessa - il sviluppo di nuovi gasdotti, con due giocatori principali (l'Unione Europea e la Russia), un giocatore chiave - La Regione del Mar Nero - e, naturalmente, con una soluzione. Le principale domande di questa ricerca sono: Nell'Unione Europea allargata può essere vero che la Russia potrebbe tentare di utilizzare le sue esportazioni di energia come un'arma politica per raggiungere la supremazia? Per vincere sarà utilizzato il prezzo dell'energia per ottenere questo vantaggio? Per poter rispondere a queste due domande se deve prima capire le relazioni tra l'Unione Europea e la Russia, e qual è il ruolo che il Mar Nero svolge in questo problema. Questo tipo di ricerca proporre un quadro teorico d'analisi, avendo come metodo di analisi, un metodo quantitativo ( di contenuto ) e un metodo qualitativo ( le discussioni informali con gli esperti di questo settore ). Per poter essere più precisa, per quanto riguarda l'ipotesi della tesi, ho avuto alcune discussioni informale con gli esperti del settore energetico e dei affari europee, in Europa, della zona del Mar Nero e della zona Caspio, paesi che sono direttamente coinvolti nel problema energetico, per discutere e analizzare l'impatto che ha la politica estera energetica russa, che se trova in pieno sviluppo sul Europa e sulla sicurezza europee, a partire dalla crisi del gas provocata dalla Russia, che ha avuto un impatto reale, influenzando considerevole l'economie europee a partire dal 2006 fino ad oggi. Il mio punto di vista è che la Russia cercherà attraverso vari mezzi di consolidare la dominazione come Leader Mondiale, usando i mezzi che gli ha - il prezzo d'energia, e il mio parere e che l'unico modo per risolvere questo problema e di cominciare a diversificare l'accesso alle risorse energetiche, sviluppando una strategia in piano energetico che collegano l'Europa dal bacino del Mar Caspio attraverso la regione del Mar Nero. Se questa strategia avrà successo, l'Europa sarà in grado di ridurre l'influenza della Russia e di creare un clima sicuro dal punto di vista energetico. Per quanto riguarda il metodo di analisi quantitativo, la teoria è basata sulla lettura di alcuni libri di riferimento dal settore energetico e quello di relazioni internazionali, con la partecipazione a conferenze e seminari sia in Romania e all'estero, compreso uno stage di formazione alla Direzione di Energia e Trasporti della Commissione Europea , il monitoraggio delle notizie e degli articoli di stampa di questo settore ( Mediafax ,Journal of European Public Policy , Euractiv , Eurobserver , Eupolitix , CNN , BBC , Euronews ). A partire da una ricca esperienza in questo settore energetico e da una cooperazione transfrontaliera, la mia tesi desidera sottolineare l'importanza di una sicurezza energetica europea in quello che riguarda l'approvvigionamento dell'Europa con l'energie. Nei seguenti capitoli di questa tesi ho studiato alcuni aspetti guardando la dipendenza energetica europea nei confronti della Russia e il ruolo dalla regione del Mar Nero, come un ponte di accesso alle fonti alternative di energia, diverse da quelle russe. Il primo capitolo inizia con due opinioni sulla sicurezza energetica e economica europea,che rivela la vulnerabilità dell'Europa, pero anche il suo potenziale che si divide tra l'Europa e gli stati dell'Eurasia Centrale. La tesi discuterà del ruolo di Gasprom sia nella politica interna e nella estera russa, che rivela una cattiva immagine della diplomazia energetica russe. Seguendo questa rotta, il obiettivo si muove da sud a est. Un capitolo parla del ruolo determinato che lo ha la regione del Mar Nero come un ponte di accesso nella sicurezza energetica europea , seguita da capitoli destinati a rivelare il ruolo specifico della Turchia in questo problema. Nel piano secondario, due progetti specifici di infrastrutture sono studiati - Nabucco e Il Gasdotto South Stream, finendo con una soluzione su un gasdotto Trans-Caspian. La tesi si conclude con l'indicazione di una strategia sulla diversificazione delle vie d'accesso energetiche. In questo momento, possiamo dire che lo scopo di questa ricerca è stato quello di definire una possibile soluzione per poter uscire da sotto la dominazione russa, quella di sviluppare una strategia comune al livello europeo sulla diversificazione del accesso alle risorse energetiche dalla regione Caspio al Mar Nero in Europa. In questo senso, la strategia energetica europea si prevede di continuare a raggiungere di tali obiettivi promuovendo nuove rotte di trasporto sicuro e al sviluppo economico territoriale, trasformando l'Europa più sicura nel accesso alle risorse energetiche. L'Unione Europea detiene in questo momento tutti gli strumenti di una politica estera per promuovere la stabilità politica e la riforma economica, per il sviluppo e il rafforzamento della democrazia e delle legislazioni nazionali, e aumentare i diritti e le libertà umane nei paesi della regione del Mar Caspio. Il più importante, le relazioni europeo - Mar Caspio , dovrebbero essere estese per quanto riguarda le dimensioni bilaterale e regionale dal punto di visto economico e commerciale e al livello diplomatico. L'ultimi eventi che sono stati sulla scacchiera energetica fornisce una vera e propria importanza alla regione del Mar Caspio per esercitare una notevole importanza come uno centrale geo-strategico, e all'Unione Europea per poter esercitare il ruolo del Leader Mondiale nella regione . Comunque per rendere reale ( per effettuare ) questo compito difficile, l'Europa deve rispettare alcuni consigli per poter formulare una strategia energetica comune nella zona del Mar Caspio , come : di eliminare gradualmente la dominazione Gasprom da Azerbaijan . di offrire supporto economico e politico allo scopo di costruire il progetto Nabucco e di costringere alla costruzione di un gasdotto Trans-Capian , intervenire sul mercato per assicurare la diversità e di impedire il monopolio della fornitura delle risorse energetiche verso l'est d'Europa . di garantire la stabilità e la sicurezza nei paesi di transito e di risolvere il conflitto di Nagorno Karahbak , e imporre dei impegni più grandi sul processo di Minsk di pensare seriamente come negoziare con Turkmenistan, mettendo nella bilancia l'apertura energetica con una generosa offerta, pero senza un coinvolgimento troppo grande sulle riforme politiche e economiche. Questo farà una chiamata alla diplomazia e tatto, e alla superiorità tecnologica e tecnica del ovest di poter pagare. Come una conclusione finale, l'Ovest , incluso l'Unione Europea e gli Stati Uniti, deve ripensare il più rapido possibile le sue politiche energetiche e non-energetiche nei confronti di Russia . Cosi come possiamo osservare in questa tesi , l'Ovest detiene veramente il vantaggio economico e politico di poter costringere la Russia per diventare più trasparente e commerciale nei confronti delle sue politiche energetiche estere . Non può più permettere a Mosca di minacciare la sicurezza energetica d'Europa , avendo la possibilità insieme al entrata dalla Romania e Bulgaria nell'Unione Europea in gennaio 2007 di sviluppare nuove rotte sul accesso alle risorse di gas dalla zona Caspio attraverso il Mar Nero in Europa. ; The beginning of 21st century revealed to the world the beginning of a small war proportion. Geopolitics is a gigantic series of two player chess games, in which the players seek positional advantage. In these games it is crucial to know the current rules that govern the moves. Knights are not allowed to move diagonally. From 1945 to 1989, the principal chess game was the one between the United States and the Soviet Union and it was called the "Cold War". Nowadays, the chess game is between European Union and Russia and it is called metaphorically the "Gas Cold War". European energy security is facing a set of serious challenges connected to Europe's dependence on Russian energy and the need for diversifying energy supply sources. Now days, European Union and Russia arrived at a crossroad regarding their agreements on energy matters. The target of this PhD is to explore the current situation, leaving from the fact that are serious concerns in Europe that Russia may try to use its energy exports as a political lever in order to settle its supremacy on the political board. This thesis focuses on finding a solution towards the European's major concern – energy security of supply, by start building new routes of gas supply. For a better understanding, I structured my paper like a chase board, with a stake – new routes of gas supply, with two major players – European Union and Russia, one key actor – The Black Sea Region and of course with a solution. The main research questions of this thesis are: In the enlarged European Union it could be true that Russia may try to use its energy exports as a political lever in order to settle its supremacy? And, in order to be successful it will use the energy price to obtain the leverage? To answer these questions a first step is to understand the relations between EU and Russia and the role that, the Black sea region plays in this meter. The research proposes a theoretical framework, using a quantitative analyze method (analysis of content) and a qualitative analyze method (informal discussions with experts from this area). In order to be more precisely with my thesis assumption, I carry out some informal discussions with experts from energy and international affairs area, from Europe, Black sea and the Caspian region, countries who were involved in the energy case, to discuss and to analyze the impact of Russia's increasingly assertive foreign energy policy on Europe and European security, started from the gas crises launched by Russia that have a real affect on Europe economy from 2006 till nowadays. My point of view is that Russia will try through different ways to consolidate its dominance as a Global leader, using its most convenient means – the "energy price" and my believes were that the only way to solve the problem is by start building a diversification supply strategy that could link Europe to the Caspian basin through the Black sea region. If this strategy will succeed, Europe will be able to reduce the Russian influence and to create a safer life climate. Regarding the quantitative analyze method, the theoretical framework was foundated by reading some record books in the international relations and energy field, by participating to conference and seminars in Romania and outside the country, including a stage at the European Commission on energy matters, monitoring the news and the press articles in this field (Mediafax, Journal of European Public Policy, Euractiv, Eurobserver, Eupolitix, CNN, BBC, Euronews). Starting from the successful work experience in the energy field and cross-border cooperation, my thesis aims to deepen the understanding of the European Union energy security of supply. In the fallowing chapters of my thesis, I studied several aspects of Europe's energy dependence on Russia, and the role of the Black Sea region as a source of alternative supplies. The first chapter begins with two overviews of Europe's economic and energy security, which show Europe's vulnerability, but also the potential lying in the complementarities between Europe and the states of Central Eurasia. The paper then proceeds to discuss the role of Gazprom in both Russian domestic and foreign policy, respectively, which provide a disturbing picture of the emerging Russian energy diplomacy. Following this, the focus shifts south and east. A chapter puts forward the role of the emerging Black Sea region as a hub in European energy security, followed by chapters devoted to the specific role of Turkey. Subsequently, two specifically important infrastructural projects are studied – the Nabucco and the South stream pipelines, ending with a pipeline solution as a Trans-Caspian pipeline. The paper final concludes with the outlining of a supply diversification strategy. At this point we can say that the aim of this paper-study was to define what might be a solution to get out under the Russian dominance and to offer as a possible solution the developing of a common European energy supply strategy from the Caspian region thorough the Black Sea into the European Union. In this sense, the EU energy supply strategy is expecting to contribute to achieving these objectives by promoting new safe routes of supply and a balanced and sustainable development of the territory, making European Union safer concerning its energy supplies. The EU holds all the foreign policy instruments required to promote political stability and economic reform, develop and straighten democracy and the rule of law, and enhance the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the countries of the Caspian region. Most importantly, the EU-Caspian relations need to be further expanding in the bilateral and regional dimensions of economy and trade, as well as at diplomatic level. The last events that occurred in the energy chess board had give a real chance to the Caspian region to exert its importance as a significant geo-strategic pivot, as well as to the EU to play a global role in the region. However, making this a reality is fraught with difficulty and Europe must respect some recommendations in order to formulate a common energy strategy in the Caspian area, such as: move swiftly to thwart Gazprom's overtures to Azerbaijan. give the political and economic backing to get Nabucco built and push for the creation of the trans-Caspian, intervening in the market to ensure diversity and prevent a monopoly of supply to Eastern Europe. ensure stability of transit countries, push to resolve Nagorno Karahbak, greater commitment to the Minsk process. think seriously about how to deal with Turkmenistan, balancing energy overtures with generous but not overbearing support for political and economic reforms. This will require concerted diplomacy and reassertion of western technological and technical superiority and ability to pay. As a final conclusion, the West, including the EU and the United States, needs to quickly rethink its energy and non-energy policies towards Russia. As we can see in this paper, the West does have the economic and political leverage to force Russia to become more transparent and commercial in its foreign energy policies. It cannot allow Moscow to threaten the energy security of Europe anymore, having the possibility since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in January 2007 to develop new routes of gas supply from the Caspian area through the Black sea into Europe ; XX Ciclo
The Situation In The Middle East This Record Contains The Text Of Speeches Delivered In English And Of The Translation Of Speeches Delivered In Other Languages. ; United Nations S/PV.8164 Security Council Seventy-third year 8164th meeting Tuesday, 23 January 2018, 3 p.m. New York Provisional President: Mr. Umarov. . (Kazakhstan) Members: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). . Mr. Llorentty Solíz China. . Mr. Shen Bo Côte d'Ivoire. . Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue Equatorial Guinea. . Mr. Ndong Mba Ethiopia. . Ms. Guadey France. . Mr. Delattre Kuwait. . Mr. Alotaibi Netherlands. . Mr. Van Oosterom Peru. . Mr. Tenya Poland. . Ms. Wronecka Russian Federation. . Mr. Nebenzia Sweden . Mr. Skoog United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Mr. Allen United States of America. . Mrs. Haley Agenda The situation in the Middle East This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the translation of speeches delivered in other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room U-0506 (verbatimrecords@un.org). Corrected records will be reissued electronically on the Official Document System of the United Nations (http://documents.un.org). 18-01889 (E) *1801889* S/PV.8164 The situation in the Middle East 23/01/2018 2/11 18-01889 The meeting was called to order at 3.05 p.m. Adoption of the agenda The agenda was adopted. The situation in the Middle East The President: The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I should like at the outset to apologize to the members of the Security Council and the Secretariat for the fact that I ruined their siesta today. We have requested the convening of an open meeting of the Security Council because the issue that we intend to raise is far too important for the discussion to be held in closed consultations. We have nothing to hide. When we discussed Syria in consultations yesterday, many touched on the importance of establishing a new structure to investigate instances of chemical-weapons use in Syria to supplement the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which fully discredited itself. We have never forgotten this issue, and we have consistently recalled in meetings our readiness to continue consultations on this matter, as noted by Minister Lavrov to the Secretary-General last week. Yesterday, however, we were unable to rise to that call. Today, upon instruction from our capital, it is my honour to report the following. Russia has consistently stressed the importance of taking the most serious approach to the problem of the manufacture and use of chemical weapons. We are troubled by manifestations of chemical-weapons terrorism in the Middle East, which are not limited to Syrian territory. Unfortunately, the JIM, which no longer exists, caused the collapse of the investigation, which from a scientific and technical perspective was an utter failure and became an instrument for political manipulation. Members of the international community and the Security Council were well aware of the Russian specialists' scrupulous analysis of the conclusions of the JIM. In an attempt to interpret certain elements of the Russian approach, during consultations on 9 January the United States delegation circulated the relevant document. However, at no point in the document was there even an attempt to approach the matter from a professional standpoint. The so-called refutations of our position do not stand up to any criticism. I invite Council members to familiarize themselves with the material supporting our position in the response that we circulated yesterday as an official Security Council document. Today, incidentally, senior representatives of the United States Department of State made further unfounded accusations alleging that Russia is hindering international verification of the facts of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. We have already responded to that, and anyone who wants to can read Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov's comments on the issue. No one has called more than we have for a further investigation — a professional one rather than a simulacrum — into the incidents involving the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and at the moment we are still trying to get the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to send its specialists to Syria to see for themselves the stockpiles of chemical weapons left by militants in liberated areas that the Syrian Government has discovered. By the way, during yesterday's consultations, following the reports of various recent incidents involving the use of toxic substances in Syria, which have yet to be verified, the representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom — without a second's pause or any evidence, let alone an investigation — hastened to declare them the work of what they refer to as the Syrian "regime". Now they are trying to drag Russia into it too. Secretary of State Tillerson brought this up in Paris today at the meeting of the so-called international partnership of States against impunity for the use of chemical weapons, basing his argument on an incident that allegedly occurred yesterday in eastern Ghouta. However, his statement was devoted almost exclusively to Russia. By the way, does nobody find it strange that this alleged incident, whose genuineness has yet to be confirmed — as does the identity of its perpetrators, if it is genuine — coincided very conveniently with the meeting in Paris and the forthcoming Syrian national dialogue conference in Sochi? An amazing coincidence. Some States are persisting in their attempts to push through an anti-Damascus verdict at the OPCW at all costs, and thereby undermining that respected organization's authority. Others are seeking to scrape together a narrow alliance of anti-impunity-ites through non-legitimate formats. In November of last year, Russia, working with others of like mind, put together draft resolution 23/01/2018 The situation in the Middle East S/PV.8164 18-01889 3/11 S/2017/968, which would have ensured that the JIM's activities conformed to the the high international standards of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which guarantee a genuinely impartial and professional investigation. The initiative was blocked by a number of delegations at the time. We want to rise above those differences and propose creating a new international investigative body that could establish the facts that the Security Council needs in order to identify those who used toxic substances as weapons, based on irreproachable, irrefutable information from transparent, credible sources. It must be professional and non-politicized. We have prepared a draft of such a resolution and ask that the Secretariat circulate it. We hope that Council members will study our initiative with their capitals as soon as possible. We are ready for substantive consultations. Mrs. Haley (United States of America): Russia has convened us with almost no notice, and then put forth a proposal that it hopes will distract from the new French initiative to hold accountable those who use chemical weapons. Today, Russia is again doing what it does best with regard to chemical weapons. It is running from the facts. It has the audacity to lecture the Security Council about how to stop the use of chemical weapons. I know that I have said this before, but it is worth repeating. In the past year, Russia exercised the right to veto three times to kill the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) in Syria. All by itself, Russia killed the Mechanism, which we had specifically tasked with identifying those responsible for using chemical weapons in Syria. Russia should look in the mirror before bringing us into the Security Council to talk about chemical weapons. Earlier this week, we received yet another report that the Al-Assad regime had used chlorine gas on its own people. Dozens of civilians had to be treated for suffocation. Syrian children were literally gasping for breath as chlorine gas surrounded them. Of course, it is no coincidence that this week's chlorine-gas attack reportedly happened in the exact place that the Al-Assad regime is trying to take over militarily. We know that it resorts to such brutal tactics when it wants to retake territory, without any regard for innocent civilians, and we know that Russia has looked the other way for years while its Syrian friends use those despicable weapons of war. Russia is complicit in the Al-Assad regime's atrocities. Will the representative of the Russian Federation say anything at all today about the suffering caused by Al-Assad's barbaric tactics? Will it hold Al-Assad to account? Of course not. It never does. It is therefore fitting that Russia brought us here on the same day that a new initiative on accountability for chemical weapons has been introduced in Paris. Today, France launched an international partnership against impunity for chemical weapons. We strongly support that effort and commend France for its leadership. More than 25 like-minded countries have come together to share and preserve information on who has used chemical weapons and to make sure that the perpetrators will be held accountable. Make no mistake — the United States, together with the Council, will continue to pursue those who have used chemical weapons to ensure that they are held accountable for their atrocities. Russia says that it has concerns about this French initiative to share evidence of the use of chemical weapons. That is no surprise. Russia opposed the Joint Investigative Mechanism because it collected facts about who used chemical weapons in Syria. Now Russia is questioning the French effort to collect facts on who used chemical weapons. What can we conclude? To put it simply, when Russia does not like the facts, it tries to distract the conversation. That is because the facts come back over and over again to the truth that Russia wants to hide, which is that the Al-Assad regime continues to use chemical weapons against its own people. Today, Russia once again threw around many different accusations. Again, that is not surprising. Russia often puts out misleading and unfounded claims to confuse the conversation about chemical weapons. In fact, this happens so often that we recently wrote to the Security Council with a detailed assessment of Russia's misleading claims. The letter is public and available for anyone to see. We encourage everyone to take a look at it for themselves. Here is the bottom line. The Security Council gave the Joint Investigative Mechanism a mandate to tell us who used chemical weapons in Syria. When investigators found the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham to be responsible, Russia was fine. When the investigators found that the Al-Assad regime had used them, Russia tried to find any excuse to poke holes in the investigation and threw up smoke to question the findings. But hat is not how independent investigations work. You do not get to question the findings when they do not go your way. We are therefore not going to accept any Russian proposal that undermines our S/PV.8164 The situation in the Middle East 23/01/2018 4/11 18-01889 ability to get to the truth or that politicizes what must be an independent and impartial investigation. If the Russians want to work in good faith towards that goal, we are ready to re-establish the JIM, with its original, independent and impartial mandate, right now. But anything less is unacceptable. To be crystal clear: the United States supports accountability for anyone who uses chemical weapons. We agree with Russia that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham must be held accountable for its use of such weapons, as the Joint Investigative Mechanism has found. But the difference between the United States and Russia is that we believe that no one should be let off the hook. Chemical weapons must never be used. Russia can continue to talk for as long as it wants about chemical weapons. It can bring it up in the Security Council Chamber as often as it wants. We welcome the debate. The United States and the international community will not be fooled. We remain steadfast in pursuing accountability for those who use chemical weapons. We stand strong in doing all we can to preserve the norm against their use. We remain forever committed to preserving the truth about what the Al-Assad regime has done in Syria and, sadly, what it will likely continue to do. Mr. Delattre (France) (spoke in French): We meet today after receiving news about another chemical attack in Syria — this time in Douma — which resulted in more than 20 victims, including women and children. Furthermore, the attack was penetrated in a de-escalation zone. We are closely following all available information. We expect that the international investigative mechanism in place — in particular the Fact-finding Mission — will shed light on the attack. As we commemorate the one hundredth anniversary this year of the end of the First World War, during which chemical weapons produced on an industrial scale were used for the first time in history, repeated chemical-weapon attacks in Syria are an affront to the human conscience and a violation of the most fundamental norms of international law. The facts prove that the scourge continues to exist. Last year in Syria, on 4 April, more than 80 people, including women and children, were killed by a powerful nerve agent. Four years prior, 2,000 Syrian civilians were gassed in Ghouta with sarin gas. The use of chemical weapons was confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) clearly determined that the Syrian regime and Da'esh were responsible for those attacks. France itself independently confirmed that the Syrian regime was responsible for the attack perpetrated on 4 April. Since 2013, investigations have revealed more than 100 allegations of the use of chemical weapons, primarily in Syria but also in Iraq and Malaysia. Chlorine gas, sarin, mustard gas and VX — all deadly nerve agents — have returned to the forefront of the international arena a century after the horrors of the First World War. Gruesome images of the victims of such weapons of terror, which we thought we had long ago left behind, have also resurfaced. We cannot allow the use of such loathsome weapons to become commonplace. They destabilize entire regions and threaten everyone's security. They increase the risk of chemical terrorism, which we all fear. They also weaken the regime against chemical weapons as well as the entire non-proliferation regime. They undermine international law and call into question the outcome of international forums that have been held for decades. That is why we must take action. We owe it to history; it is a responsibility we must shoulder together. Those of us who claim to be committed to the non-proliferation regime and helped to build it should bear that in mind. Let us be clear: those who hamper our efforts to combat impunity endorse de facto impunity for the perpetrators of such chemical attacks. They prevent us from deterring and bringing to justice those who participated in chemical-weapon programmes and those Governments and entities that give the orders to carry out attacks. We therefore cannot turn a blind eye and allow them to continue — and all the more so, and I repeat this, given that the chemical-weapon non-proliferation regime is the most developed and successful of all international non-proliferation regimes. Allowing it to be weakened without taking action would be tantamount to accepting the erosion of the entire non-proliferation regime on weapons of mass destruction, which we built together, step by step, over decades and which now serves as the backbone of the international security architecture and one of multilateralism's main accomplishments. France has therefore proposed the establishment of a new international partnership to combat impunity for the use of chemical weapons by anyone — State and non-State actors alike. That partnership was launched yesterday in Paris at a conference convened by the 23/01/2018 The situation in the Middle East S/PV.8164 18-01889 5/11 French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, at which representatives of 24 States were in attendance to reiterate their willingness to work together to counter the threat. I should like to mention just a few of the partnership's ambitious commitments. They include the transfer and sharing of information, when possible, about the perpetrators of attacks; a commitment to impose national or international sanctions against entities and individuals concerned; assistance for building State capacity with regard to designations and sanctions; and the publication of a single, consolidated list of the names of individuals involved in attacks. Criminals who claim responsibility for developing and using such barbaric weapons must know that they will not go unpunished. Once again, this is about the future of the entire collective security system. One should not be able to violate the most basic norms without eventually facing the consequences. Owing to obstruction on the part of certain countries, we were unable to renew the JIM's mandate at the end of last year. Yesterday's consultations on Syria confirmed that an overwhelming majority of the members of the Security Council do not agree with the current impasse. In that regard, we take note of the proposal made today by Russia. We will consider it in the light of the principles I have just outlined. The new partnership launched in Paris does not aim to replace international instruments and the investigative mechanism established by the United Nations and the OPCW. Instead, it seeks to complement and bolster that structure by making a new operational instrument available to the multilateral system and the international community. It will assist investigations and help the international justice system in its work. It is neither an anti-Syrian instrument nor an exclusive club of countries. All countries can join this pragmatic and open partnership by adhering to its statement of principles. Through the partnership, they will show their commitment to law, international stability, justice and security in order to end impunity for the perpetrators of chemical attacks and their accomplices. We must therefore work through the partnership to consolidate the regime prohibiting chemical weapons. The cornerstone of the partnership was laid in Paris and embodies our faith in effective and demanding multilateralism. In an effort to take immediate action, I can confirm that France has imposed asset-freezes on networks involved in the proliferation of chemical weapons in Syria. In conclusion, I recall that there will be no justice or sustainable peace in Syria without putting an end to impunity. How can we continue to defend the regime and reiterate its willingness to speak in good faith and seek a political solution when that very same regime employs barbaric weapons against its own people? There has never been a larger gap between words and deeds. At the United Nations in both Vienna and Geneva, I said that we must work together to reach a political solution in Syria. Implementing an inclusive political solution as outlined in resolution 2254 (2015), which serves as our guidepost now more than ever, will depend upon a neutral environment in Syria guaranteed by the regime's clear commitment to credible constitutional change and democratic elections. It is the only way to permanently end the suffering of Syrians. We continue to believe that we can, and must, bring the Security Council together to proceed in that direction. Mr. Allen (United Kingdom): When I heard today that Russia had called for an urgent meeting on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, I was glad that we could return to an issue on which the Council has a duty to ensure that those responsible are held to account. That duty is even more pressing today, because yet another heinous attack on civilians was reported yesterday to the Council by the Secretariat. In that attack, in Douma, in eastern Ghouta, at least 21 civilians were treated for symptoms consistent with exposure to chlorine. That followed another reported attack in eastern Ghouta on 13 January, affecting six people. In 2016, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) found in three cases that the Syrian regime had used chlorine gas to attack civilians. Last year, it found that the regime had used sarin in Khan Shaykhun. Now, as the regime is escalating its attacks on eastern Ghouta in an attempt to force the besieged opposition to surrender, we remain deeply concerned about continuing reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In all of this, we should not forget that it was the regime's 2013 attack on eastern Ghouta, using sarin, that led to the Council's adoption of resolution 2118 (2013), which had the clear, unanimously endorsed aim of disarming Syria's chemical-weapon programme. Throughout that process, Russia has claimed to be acting as a leading Power, a guarantor. But when the Al-Assad regime deliberately ignored its obligation to stop using chemical weapons and continued to do so with careless regard for human life, Russia chose to S/PV.8164 The situation in the Middle East 23/01/2018 6/11 18-01889 abuse its power of veto to protect that regime. Russia says that it supported the renewal of the JIM mandate and that it was the rest of us who killed it, because we could not agree with Russia's terms. Yet Russia's proposed draft resolution would have removed the JIM's ability to investigate the Al-Assad regime, which has been found responsible for multiple attacks. Russia has made it clear several times that it will not support a new investigative mechanism as long as it has the power to hold to account a State Member of the United Nations, and it seems, from a rapid reading of the latest text, that this proposal is another attempt to shift attention to non-State actors. The Russians have even claimed that Syria is a signatory in good standing to the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is not. It has not completed its declaration. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has repeatedly warned of inconsistencies, gaps and omissions. Russia has great influence over the Al-Assad regime. For the sake of the Syrian people and for preventing the future use of chemical weapons, we call on Russia to persuade its Syrian friends to get rid of their chemical weapons and comply fully with the Chemical Weapons Convention. By ending the JIM, Russia also stopped its investigations of chemical attacks by Da'esh. The investigators had found that those terrorists had carried out at least two such attacks. We condemn Da'esh unreservedly for its use of these vile weapons, which is yet another reason why we must defeat those terrorists once and for all. The United Kingdom was proud to join the international partnership against impunity for the use of chemical weapons led by our French colleagues today in Paris. The use of chemical weapons is barbaric, illegal under international law and must stop. We must ensure that we can re-establish a mechanism to ensure accountability. We all know where the obstacle to that lies. In response, we will only redouble our efforts to pursue accountability for these crimes. Mr. Van Oosterom (Netherlands): The Kingdom of the Netherlands is deeply shocked by the ongoing attacks using chemical weapons in Syria. The Secretariat briefed the Council yesterday on yet another alleged chemical-weapon attack, the second this month. Two surface-to-surface projectiles targeted eastern Ghouta, releasing what is suspected to be chlorine. The attack resulted in injuring 21 people through exposure to chlorine, of whom eight were men, six women and seven children. Furthermore, there are shocking estimates of 130 chemical attacks between 2012 and 2017, with more than 60 pending allegations of chemical-weapon use in Syria still to be investigated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and its Fact-finding Mission. The Netherlands condemns in the strongest terms the use of chemical weapons by any State or non-State actor. I would now like to make three points. First, accountability for the use of chemical weapons in Syria is neither optional nor negotiable. Secondly, it is unacceptable that four years after Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, its declaration is still unable to be verified as accurate and complete. Thirdly, the Netherlands will use its membership of the Security Council to bring accountability to the fore. We regret the dismantling of the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). We were convinced of the professionalism and independence of the JIM's work, and its results still stand. The Council should shoulder its responsibility in that regard. In particular, the countries on the Council with influence on Syria should use it with the Syrian regime to convince it to refrain from further chemical-weapon attacks, acknowledge its past use of such weapons and complete its chemical-weapon declaration. As long as the Council remains deadlocked, our focus on accountability will not stop here. We will look for complementary measures so that impunity will not prevail. We therefore thank France for taking the initiative to establish an international partnership against impunity for the use of chemical weapons. The Netherlands participated in the meeting of the partnership that took place in Paris today. The Paris initiative aims to collect evidence of the use of chemical weapons anywhere in the world. It will enable States to take action to uphold the international norms against the use of chemical weapons. It represents a political commitment to increasing pressure on those responsible for the use of chemical weapons, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands is fully committed to that goal. Furthermore, the International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011; the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic; and national prosecution in third countries, as well as sanctions, remain instrumental for achieving accountability for the crimes committed 23/01/2018 The situation in the Middle East S/PV.8164 18-01889 7/11 against the Syrian people. We must use all the tools available to us to achieve accountability. In conclusion, the Netherlands remains convinced that a referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court in The Hague is by far the best option for achieving accountability for the extremely serious crimes that have taken place in Syria. Mr. Skoog (Sweden): Yesterday the Council members were briefed by Under-Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman on yet another alleged chemical-weapon attack in Syria. Allegations of the use of such weapons continue to be reported. There are some 60 cases of the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria that are currently being examined by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and that its Fact-finding Missions continue to investigate and report, including a case of a sarin attack in Lataminah in March of last year. I would like to reiterate once again that Sweden condemns the use of chemical weapons in the strongest terms. It is a serious violation of international law and its use in armed conflict amounts to a war crime. Bringing the perpetrators of such crimes to justice remains a high priority. There must be no impunity for those responsible. That is why we participated in the meeting of the international partnership against impunity for the use of chemical weapons held today in Paris. As a member of the Council and the OPCW Executive Council, Sweden attaches great importance to all international efforts to combat the use and proliferation of chemical weapons by State and non-State actors alike, anywhere in the world. We trust that the French initiative will complement and support our collective work in multilateral forums, as well as the existing multilateral mechanisms to achieve unity around those important goals. That also includes the Human Rights Council's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic and the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for the Syrian Arab Republic, which play an important role in collecting information. It was highly regrettable that the Council was not able to agree on an extension of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism. It is a critical to establish a similar new impartial and independent attributive mechanism now. The Council needs to come back together and speak with one voice. We need to be forward-looking and overcome our differences with a view to protecting the international disarmament and non-proliferation regime and ensuring accountability. That should be possible if everyone engages seriously, constructively and genuinely in good faith. We stand ready to engage in such efforts in order for the Council to fully shoulder its responsibilities. Ms. Wronecka (Poland): We are deeply concerned about the reported use of chemical weapons in eastern Ghouta, which is in clear violation of international law and deserves condemnation in the strongest possible terms. This alleged use of chemical weapons, as with other incidents, including in Talmenes, demonstrates the need to hold perpetrators accountable. There is no space for impunity in this regard. We support taking all the necessary measures to fill the gap left by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, so as to ensure that no one goes unpunished for using chemical weapons, which cause unacceptable harm and suffering. Those responsible for chemical attacks must realize that they will be held accountable because their acts are an affront to all humankind and the basic rules of civilization. We support the tireless work done by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We are convinced that it is the responsibility of the Security Council to establish and maintain a suitable institution to investigate alleged cases of the use of chemical weapons. Let me take this opportunity to thank France for today's hosting of a high-level meeting to launch a new initiative to protect the core values underpinning the credibility of the non-proliferation regime on chemical weapons established by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Poland joined that new partnership with the sole purpose of using all the tools at our disposal to end impunity for those responsible for chemical attacks and to promote and complement existing standards and mechanisms against the use of chemical weapons. We look forward to working on this issue in the Council in the months to come. Mr. Tenya (Peru) (spoke in Spanish): The Security Council has the highly sensitive responsibility of contributing to the prevention of the use of chemical weapons, which entails identifying and prosecuting those responsible for atrocities such as the one perpetrated yesterday in Syria. S/PV.8164 The situation in the Middle East 23/01/2018 8/11 18-01889 Peru participated in the meeting convened by France today to establish a partnership to combat impunity for the use of chemical weapons, at which a declaration of principles was adopted. The document sets out a series of measures aimed at ensuring that individuals and entities responsible for the use of chemical weapons are brought to justice. During that meeting, Peru's Ambassador to France referred in particular to paragraph 3 of the terms of reference, which had been circulated in advance, wherein it is expressly stated that the purpose of the initiative is not in any way meant to replace, reproduce or supersede international inquiry and investigation mechanisms that serve the same purpose. Our Ambassador also expressed his satisfaction with those words, insofar as Peru, as a member of the Security Council and a member of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, encourages the necessary action to be taken by those competent bodies. Peru condemns in the strongest possible terms the lack of accountability in the continuing incidents involving chemical weapons in Syria, for we believe it undermines international regimes on the matter and weakens peace efforts in the region. Mr. Shen Bo (China) (spoke in Chinese): China expresses its grave concern about the use of chemical weapons in Syria and extends its deepest sympathy to the Syrian people for their suffering. China's position on chemical weapons has been clear and consistent. We firmly oppose the use of chemical weapons by any country, group or individual for any purpose and under any circumstances. The use of chemical weapons is unacceptable, whenever or wherever they are used. China supports a comprehensive, objective and fair investigation into such incidents in order to arrive at a conclusion that can stand the test of time and to shed light on the facts in order to bring the perpetrators to justice. China welcomes the draft resolution circulated by the delegation of the Russian Federation that would establish a new investigative mechanism on Syrian chemical weapons. China appreciates the efforts made by Russia in the Security Council to continue to advance the work on the Syrian chemical weapons issue. China will seriously study the draft resolution and actively participate in consultations on it. It is imperative to establish a new investigative mechanism to find out the truth and to deter further use of chemical weapons in Syria. We hope that Council members will participate in the consultations in a constructive manner and strive to reach consensus on the establishment of a new mechanism. The Syrian chemical weapons issue is closely linked to a political settlement to the Syrian question, and it requires a comprehensive, balanced and integrated approach. China supports the role of the Security Council and of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as the main channel for achieving an appropriate resolution to the Syrian chemical weapons issue. We hope that all the relevant parties will adopt a constructive attitude and seek appropriate solutions during consultations. We must maintain the unity of the Council and coordinate with the relevant parties in an effort to actively promote the political process in Syria. Mr. Llorentty Solíz (Plurinational State of Bolivia) (spoke in Spanish): Bolivia reiterates its strong, categorical condemnation of the use of chemical weapons and chemical substances as weapons as unjustifiable and criminal acts — wherever, whenever and by whomever they are committed. We believe that there can be no justification for the use of such weapons, regardless of the circumstances and of who uses them, as it constitutes a serious crime under international law and a threat to international peace and security. We emphatically condemn the reported use of chemical weapons in the city of Douma, in eastern Ghouta. That incident must be investigated in order to identify the perpetrators, bring them to justice and ensure that their actions do not go unpunished. Accordingly, we reiterate our support for the work carried out by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and its Fact-finding Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic. However, as we have stated on other occasions, we emphasize the urgent need for an investigative mechanism with a clear mandate that can carry out its assigned tasks of investigating methodically, transparently, technically, faithfully, with assistance and in a fundamentally depoliticized way. We must have a mechanism that can develop an independent, impartial, complete and conclusive investigation to hold accountalbe those responsible for such horrific crimes. We believe that, if what we want is an independent and transparent mechanism, we have the challenge of not exploiting the Security Council by bringing geopolitical interests on the ground into the Chamber. We have 23/01/2018 The situation in the Middle East S/PV.8164 18-01889 9/11 the challenge of demonstrating to the international community the unity of the Council. To that end, we must not turn the Chamber into a sounding board for warring confrontation and, even less so, transfer the immediate interests of the battlefield to this setting. In that regard, we welcome the proposal put forward by the Russian Federation today. We will study the text, and we hope that consultations will be convened as soon as possible and that they will result in the Council and the international community having on an independent investigation mechanism. It is essential that we overcome the lack of trust that exists in the Council. Furthermore, we must always bear in mind that no initiative, however well intended, should supplant our responsibilities, as established by the Charter of the United Nations. Mr. Alotaibi (Kuwait) (spoke in Arabic): The ongoing use of chemical weapons in Syria represents one of the deplorable elements of this crisis, which has been continuing for seven years. It is all the more deplorable when we see that there is an absence of justice and accountability and that there is impunity for every criminal who has contributed to and participated in such crimes against civilians. Following the attack when chemical weapons were used in Ghouta, where most of the victims were civilians, we witnessed the unity of the Council in ensuring that such a crime would not be repeated and that perpetrators would be held accountable through the adoption of resolution 2118 (2013). However, unfortunately, we note that there are still reports of chemical attacks in Syria, most recently by Mr. Jeffrey Feltman, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, yesterday regarding a chemical attack on the city of Duma on 13 January. We would therefore like to express our disappointment that the Security Council has been unable to reach consensus on renewing the mandate of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, which, we believe, carried out its work in a professional, impartial and independent way. As a result, the failure to renew the mandate meant the complete absence of a tool for accountability in Syria. For that reason, the perpetrators of such crimes will go unpunished and there is no guarantee of holding them, or any perpetrator of such crimes in future, accountable. The State of Kuwait has a firm, principled position strongly condemning any use of chemical weapons at any time, anywhere and by anyone, since the use of chemical weapons is a grave violation of international law. We underscore the need to hold perpetrators — individuals, entities, non-State groups or Governments — accountable. As members of the Security Council, we are responsible for maintaining international peace and security. We must therefore seek alternatives and mechanisms, agreeable to all members of the Security Council, to ensure the independence, impartiality and professionalism of any new future mechanism to ensure that criminals are held accountable. We note that there is a draft resolution before us on establishing a new mechanism. We recall the clear and decisive language in resolution 2118 (2013), which stipulates the need to hold accountable those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In that regard, the State of Kuwait welcomes the French initiative to convene the Paris meeting on an international partnership against impunity for use of chemical weapons. Along with a number of countries, the State of Kuwait participated in that event to underscore the importance of strengthening the values of justice and accountability and to implement the principle of ending impunity. We support the international mechanisms established by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council to gather evidence regarding any crimes related to human rights violations in Syria. In conclusion, we emphasize that it is important for the Security Council to stand united when dealing with issues that threaten international peace and security, such as the incidents mentioned in reports on the Syrian crisis, through the unanimous adoption of such resolutions as resolution 2118 (2013), on chemical weapons; resolution 2165 (2014), on the humanitarian situation; and resolution 2254 (2015), on the political track of the Syrian crisis. Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue (Côte d'Ivoire) (spoke in French): My delegation thanks the Russian Federation for having called for this emergency meeting of the Security Council with a view to once again discussing the issue of the use of chemical weapons in general, and in Syria in particular, where, it seems, that atrocious weapon is being used. My country, which is opposed to the use of chemical weapons, ratified the Convention on the Prohibition S/PV.8164 The situation in the Middle East 23/01/2018 10/11 18-01889 of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction in order to show the world our determination to work with other international stakeholders for the complete elimination of such weapons. To that end, on this very day, 23 January, we signed in Paris the declaration of principles, issued by the meeting held at the initiative of France on the topic of combating impunity through the international partnership against impunity for the use of chemical weapons. Côte d'Ivoire extends its full support to that initiative and vehemently condemns any use of chemical weapons, regardless of the reasons or perpetrators. In firm support of the values of equity and justice, Côte d'Ivoire wishes to draw the attention of the Security Council to the need to set up a new consensus mechanism aimed at combating the use of chemical weapons. In that regard, we welcome the Russian initiative to propose the establishment, by means of a resolution, of a new mechanism. We assume that such a mechanism, like the previous one, would be tasked with identifying perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons, in general. In the specific case of Syria, the perpetrators of such acts must be identified and be held accountable for their actions. Inaction by the Council on this important issue would be a bad sign and send a message of encouragement to those who indulge in the use of chemical weapons with impunity. To conclude, my delegation calls on the Council to act in a consensus-based and coordinated manner in order to establish a new mechanism, for our action must prompt us not only to protect and to help victims, who are martyrs in the endless war in Syria, but also to work to uphold international peace and security. Mr. Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea) (spoke in Spanish): The use of chemical weapons, the issue we are considering is critically important to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. We categorically repudiate and condemn their use by any country, State or non-State actor. We also condemn in the strongest terms the recent chemical-weapon attacks in Syria. With regard to the issue of who is responsible for the use of such weapons, there is no consensus among the members of the Security Council on that. We realize that the Security Council must address the issue of the use of chemical weapons in a spirit of understanding and unanimity, with a view to combating impunity, thereby sending an unambiguous message to anyone who has used such weapons or is thinking of doing so that they will be held responsible for their actions. We repeat that we categorically condemn the production, stockpiling and use of chemical and other weapons of mass destruction. If we are to take steps against those who have used such weapons, we must clearly identify the responsible parties in a way that leaves no room for doubt. That is why, given the lack of consensus among the members of the Council and the need to identify those responsible for the use of such weapons, we are of the view that the proposal that the Russian Federation has just made is worth considering as a new opportunity for conducting a fully transparent investigation whose results all Council members would have to accept, thereby fostering the unanimity and consensus within the Council that would enable it to take the necessary steps against the perpetrators of the heinous act of using chemical weapons. The President: I shall now make a statement in my national capacity as the representative of Kazakhstan. We are deeply worried about the fact that chemical weapons continue to be used in Syria. It is regrettable that this inhuman and illegal type of weapon is being used with the specific purpose of intimidating ordinary people, since it mostly affects unprotected civilians. Another discouraging fact is the lack of unity and the deepening confrontation among the parties on the chemical dossier, which complicates our ability to address this threat in an appropriate way. It is therefore urgent to start thinking about developing a new investigative tool that can effectively counter all such chemical crimes. Any delay or inaction on the part of the Council could lead to an increase in the commission of such acts in the absence of clear plans and mechanisms to end impunity. We welcome the Russian Federation's proposal to establish a new mechanism, giving us a new opportunity to look into the matter. Since we will have to start over with the creation of an investigative mechanism, we must try to get it right from the very beginning, on a basis of consensus. The mechanism should be impartial, depoliticized, professional, representative, and with a clear mandate that will preclude any doubts and ensure the credibility of its work. That does not mean that we think the previous mechanism was unfit for its purpose, but it is obvious that accountability requires a Security Council that is united in its decision-making. 23/01/2018 The situation in the Middle East S/PV.8164 18-01889 11/11 Kazakhstan is ready to contribute and to assist in finding the best way to move forward together. I now resume my functions as President of the Council. The representative of the Russian Federation has asked to make a further statement. Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): I am taking the floor to further clarify our position. It is a pity that my friend Mrs. Haley has left the Chamber. She mentioned that we convened this meeting today on short notice, for which I apologize. As I recall, however, we have frequently been convened by Mrs. Haley's call, and we are ready to do it again. Please let her know that I am doing it because I am always very pleased to see her here. Once again, everything that we heard from the United States in its statement today was about Russia. The fact that it is rejecting our proposed draft resolution from the get-go says a great deal. It once again betrays a truth that we are sadly familiar with. The United States has no need of any independent professional mechanism. It is not only betraying a truth, it is betraying itself in the eyes of the international community. Let me say straight out what I spoke about before in a rhetorical question. It was no accident that the allegations — which will remain allegations until they are confirmed — about the use of chemical weapons in eastern Ghouta emerged on the eve of some important political events for Syria, the meeting in Vienna and the Syrian national dialogue conference in Sochi. Furthermore, I will say it again, why does the United States need an investigative mechanism when both yesterday and today, before any kind of investigation, it asserted, without apparently a shadow of doubt, that it was the Syrian Government that did it? It has taken the role of both judge and prosecutor. Does the United States at least understand that it is betraying itself by this? If it genuinely wants to establish a professional, independent attributive mechanism, it should at least read the draft resolution before rejecting it. Did we not discuss a new mechanism with Council members of the Council at the conclusion of the multiple acts in the political spectacle surrounding the closure of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism? We did not time our draft resolution to coincide with any events or partnerships. However, I want to reiterate something that I spoke about at a Council meeting presided over by President Nazarbayev on 18 January, which is that no commissions, partnerships or so-called independent mechanisms in this area can be legitimate unless they are approved by the Security Council. That must be our premise. I would like to echo what the Permanent Representative of Sweden — and he was not the only one — said in his statement, which is that we must overcome our differences, engage in dialogue and try to restore the Council's lost unity. That is the aim of our proposal. The meeting rose at 4.10 p.m.
PEBRUARY, 1901 ooTheoo ettysbiir Mercury CONTENTS The Flight of the Birds 239 The Taking of a United States Census 240 Pan-American Sports 243 A College Romance 244 The Treatment of the Skeptic 246 A Glimpse of Byron 248 Giving 254 Exchanges 255 Editor's Desk 258 The Past Our Present Pilot 259 A Financier (Continued) 263 A Twilight Reverie 266 "Taps" 266 An Era of Progress 268 G'BURG C. LIB. pUPLICATE FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. For Fine. Printing go to Tk Jo Eo Wile ftkilm Staff CARLISLE ST. GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller Dealer In Hats, Caps, Boots and Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. R. M. Elliott Dealer in Hats, Caps, Shoes and. Gents' Furnishing Goods Corner Center Square and Carlisle Street GETTYSBURG, PA. EDGAR S. MARTIN, ^CIGARS AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES Chambersburs St., Gettysburg Leadership IN THE CLOTHING and MEN'S FURNISHING Business It is strictly here—everybody knows it. Testimony? The stock itself. The pen suffi-ciently nimble to tell all the good points of our ::::::: PALL AND WINTER. SUITS AND OVERCOATS has not been found. We will keep you dressed right up-to-date if you buy your Clothing and Furnishings here. : : : : STINE McPherson Block. No. II BALTIMORE STREET THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. The Literary Journal of Pennsylvania College. Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter% VOL. IX. GETTYSBURG. PA., FEBRUARY, 1901. No. 8. THE FLIGHT OF THE BIRDS. MARGARET (HIMES) SEEBACH. Not one by one on lonely wing, They seek afar a sunny clime, When winds a chill from ice-fields bring The sombre Autumn-time; But when the cold rain comes to beat On tattered nest and drooping feather, They rise in rushing flocks, to greet The South-land all together. Not one by one, as single souls, We seek thy sunshine, Land of Light, When o'er our love-lit sky uprolls The first black shade of flight. When Pain comes whispering, " Rise and go I I bring the heart's bleak winter weather," Our pilgrim souls clasp hands, and so We journey home together I 240 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY THE TAKING OF A UNITED STATES CENSUS. C. W. WEISER, '01. HPHE book-agent or peddler may meet with a door slammed in * his face, a couple of cross dogs let loose, or an angry and citrous tongue set wagging ; he may even meet with the toe of a boot, or some missile hurled violently at him—poor man ! But the enumerator who is discreet and courteous has none of these weapons of local warfare to fear. His way is paved by the an-nouncement in the local papers of his coming. All the cross dogs seem to be away on a visit, or else tied. The people greet you with, " I knew you'd be along ; I saw it in the paper.'' He, unlike the wretched book-agent, starts out knowing that he is going to succeed. He is not asking the people, in an indirect way, for dollars ; all he wants is their census. "Well, you hain't a going to get any of my senses," replied one woman. The census enumerator learns lessons and acquires experience which could be obtained in no other way. He comes in contact with all sorts and condition^ of men. Some of his experiences with these people are indelibly fixed in his memory. Many of them, indeed, are pleasant, and some of them ridiculously humor-ous ; while some of the scenes and tales of woe which incidentally come to his knowledge are pitiable in the extreme. It is our purpose to relate some of these experiences in the active service. In town the work was pleasant, and progressed rapidly, until I came to the manufacturing establishments, where it went slow. It was necessary to make a complete inventory of the books and property, which took much time. The proprietors, however, acted in a very courteous manner. In the country the work was more troublesome, owing to the distance between the different farms, and the rough roads I had to travel over. It was not an unusual occurrence to be seen pushing a wheel up a hilly road, which was almost too rough even for a buggy. The farmers were usually to be found in a back field at their corn. This meant a long tramp, and some-times several hours spent standing out under a scorching hot sun filling out the Agricultural report, for no one kept a book ac-count. But this was amply atoned for by a cordial invitation to a farmer's dinner. The required statistics were freely given, except in the case THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 2A\ of a few illiterate people, who thought that this was only a scheme for increasing taxation. I met one man only who was unreason-able. Him, no amount of explanation would satisfy, until fright-ened into answering by the presentation of my census badge. All in all, the farmers proved themselves to be a well read, intel-ligent, courteous and hospitable people. It was, however, among the poor classes in or along themoun-tain side where one met with the most varied experiences. We came in contact with poverty and illiteracy of the most flagrant kind. The lack of suitable food and clothing was most evident. Some of the narratives were heartrending. I rapped at the closed door of a little shack one June morning, and soon saw the hag-gard and disheveled head of a distracted woman peer through a sidewindow. Soon the bolts were drawn and the door was opened. After I had completed the Population Schedule, and asked for the cause of the death of her child, the poor mother answered in tones of despair that it had frozen to death in bed one cold mid-winter night. Perched in an agony of physical and mental torment, in a lit-tle black hovel, through whose single window peered the dim light, I found a murderess—an ex-penitentiary convict. The look of despair, and fear, and torment, mirgled with every sign of the wildest passion, were sufficient to make one shudder. After a long and lonesome journey on horseback, through the wildest and most picturesque mountains in the state, I arrived one mid-day on the top of a lofty mountain. Far below lay a deep, narrow vale, wooded with the verdant forest. On the op-posite side loomed up lofty crags and peaks, proud sentinels of a scene of native grandeur which few have ever beheld, and which brought tears of rapture to the eye. In all this grand and lonely fastness there were but four families, for two of which I had to make this long trip. They had never been to school. Had no-where to go to church. Creeping in among the bushes I came across some rude hovels, in which dwelt gnome-like creatures, who spoke a dialect scarcely to be understood. The chief object which showed of any com-munication with the outside world, which I saw in one hovel, was a tin cup filled with tobacco standing in the centre of a rough table. Of this both men and women smoked and chewed. I suppose it was their only consolation. When asked the date of 242 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY their birth, the one replied that she was born in "the corn husk-ing time," another in the " huckleberry season." When asked their age, they simply couldn't tell; they hadn't the faintest idea. At another house I rapped at the door. A woman answered, and after I had stated my business she simply turned her back and walked away. I followed her into the house, opened my portfolio, and began work. When I asked the date of her birth she studied awhile and finally drawled out, "Why—m—1749." (She was about thirty years of age.) Another woman said she was born in 1896. One old man replied, " My mommy hut mir net gesat" (His mother hadn't told him). No doubt you will ask whether the condition of these people of the mountains cannot be helped. It cannot, at least in this generation. It has been tried. Some of the children have been brought out to the town schools, and after years of hard toil and unceasing, patient effort 011 the part of the teacher, these chil-dren have gone back as ignorant as when they came. They could not spell d-o-g or c-a-t. When given warm clothing they could not be induced to wear much of it. Habits of thought and neat-ness could not be taught to them. When they spoke to each other it was in such guttural, and so rapid, that no one else could understand. And is it any wonder that these people have become so de-praved and mentally estranged ? Isolated from the world, amidst wild and lone surroundings, they have always lived in the same spot where their ancestors lived for two hundred years back. Under such conditions the natural condition would be for these people to drift back towards a wild and animal state. Thus, coming in contact with the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it will readily be seen what a wide range for the study of humanity the enumerator has. Much of the social and moral condition of our country cannot be conveyed by the great round numbers of a census report. It remains buried in the heart of the enumerator. 'Many a dream has vanished away, Many an ideal turned to clay ; Many a friendship proved untrue— Constant and lasting, Oh, how few !" THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 243 PAN-AMERICAN SPORTS. '"PHE President of the Pan-American Exposition recently appoint- *■ ed a Committee on Sports, as follows: Jesse C. Dann, Chairman, Dr. Chas. Cary, J. McC. Mitchell, John B. Olmsted, Chas. M. Ranson, Seward A. Simons, Wm. Burnet Wright, Jr. Soon after its appointment the committee invited the follow-ing named gentlemen to act as members of an Advisory Committee on Amateur Sports: Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, Walter Camp, C. C. Cuyler, C. S. Hyman (Canada), C. H. Sherrill, A. A. Stagg, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Casper Whitney. The appointment of this Advisory Committee emphasizes the desire of the Committee to have all amateur competitions occupy the highest possible plane. The Stadium, with a seating capacity of 12,000, is beautiful in design and promises to be one of the most successful architect-ural creations of the Exposition. It will surround a quarter-mile track with ground area ample for the requirements of all the events proposed. As to the nature of the athletic events planned, it may be said that amateur sports of all kinds will be encouraged as representing the most desirable of athletic competitions, and the members of the Committee on Sports, being college graduates, particularly wish to make a special feature of college sports. In the manage-ment of inter-collegiate events, it is the desire of the Committee that the various college associations be invited to undertake as far as possible the arrangement of the necessary details connected therewith. Although amateur sports will comprise a large part of the program, it is proposed to have such a number of professional events as will allow visitors an opportunity to witness the athletic skill of the best professionals. The character of prizes that will be offered has not yet been definitely determined upon, but the assurance may be given that prizes will be awarded of value as lasting souvenirs of athletic success at the Exposition. It is proposed to arrange a number of college baseball and foot-ball games, and it is especially desired by the Committee that the Eastern Inter-Collegiate (I. A. A. A.) Track Meeting be held in Buffalo next year. An ideal program might be to hold in the Stadium the East-ern Inter-Collegiate Meeting, then the Western Inter-Collegiate 244 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Meeting; these to be followed by a Pan-American Meeting open to competitors in the two previous meetings and to representatives of other Inter-Collegiate Associations. Other Inter Collegiate events have been considered, such as La Crosse, Cross Country Running with start and finish in the Stadium, etc., etc. The Committee on Sports hope that the Exposition may have a full college representation. It is proposed to hold many other sports in the Stadium, the A. A. U. Championship, Lawn Tennis, La Crosse, Cycling, Association Football, Water Sports, Trap and Target Shooting, etc., etc. All communications should be sent to Jesse C. Dann, Chair-man; 433 Ellicott Square, Buffalo, N. Y. c*p A COLLEGE ROMANCE. '99. Thro' a painted window Soft the sunlight falls, With a rainbow beauty Lighting- up the halls— With a touch of glory, Gilding dim, old walls. Stately arching pillars Rise above the stair, On the carven columns Stone-cut faces rare; Here a laughing satyr, Tearful naiad there. Graven deep, long ages Each has filled its space, Keeping watch in silence O'er the classic place. Time has laid no finger On each cold, still face. Motionless in sunshine, And in shadow so, Heeding not unnumbered Feet that come and go. Oh, what fiue romances Must these statues know! THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 245 Could each sculptured image Open lips of stone, Tell to eager listening Secrets it hath known, Bits of lore and legend, Of the days long gone! Once a dark-eyed maiden Lingered near the stair, And a fair-haired Junior Stood beside her there, With one strong arm resting Strangely near her hair. Eyes of brown are meeting Eyes of tender blue, Hearts are closer beating— Lips are Hearing, too, How it came to happen Neither ever knew. Just a hurried pressure, One keen moment's bliss, But the face above them Saw the stolen kiss. When had graven image Looked on sight like this? Years have closed the lashes Over eyes of brown; One page in life's story Folds forever down. Thro' the classic hallway Others trail the gown. Tho' the silent statue May recall full well That romantic moment, Yet a magic spell Ouardeth still the secret— It can never tell! c*P Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good ; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. —TENNYSON. 246 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY THE TREATMENT OF THE SKEPTIC. J. B. BAKER, '01. TVTHAT the world is to-day, she owes to the skeptic. Before " he walked among men, the race was inert and drowsy and dull. No systems of thought were conceived, no rational explanations sought. It does appear sometimes, however, in going back to mythic lands and mythopceic days, that they must have been, indeed, an active state. The grotesqueness of their various colored myths is sometimes taken as a proof of mental keenness. The multiplicity of their beings, and the variety of their functions, connected as they are with almost every conceivable phenomenon of nature, is said to augur a deep measure of mental acumen on the part of the authors, as well as the people who believed in them and honored them. But they are not the product of a mature analysis ; only the fancies of a dreamy childhood. Their golden fables were nothing more than the gyrations of splendid color to the yawning child who is just rubbing the scales of sleep away from his eyes. They are the capricious imaginings of an awakening mind. In this setni-somiioleut condition the sons of men were long enwrapped, and cared little to abandon it. When Thales, Anaximines, Diogenes and others appeared with their various creeds and myth-dispelling dogmas, they dis-turbed the lethargy of their fellows, and incurred the hostility of many. Their names became the targets of false accusation, and their teachings were branded as dangerous. But the world of philosophy is not unique in its antagonism to the independent thinker. The realm of science is its kin. There was a time when scientific men believed the world to be fiat. Columbus said it was round, and instantly the tongues of ridicule were loosened on him. Yet upon his hypothesis rest the important calculations of to-day. There was a time when the sage men of the world held that "lightning was an almost infinitely fine combustible matter, that floats in the air and takes fire by sudden and mighty fermenta-tion; also, that it was a physical expression of God's wrath against the insects He had created." Benjamin Franklin was too practical a man for such idle spec-ulation, and showed them their folly by the flying of his kite. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 247 No sooner had he seized the bolts of Zeus, however, and shat-tered their theory to the good of mankind, than he was charged with an affront to the Almighty himself. Protecting houses against lightning was said to interfere with the prerogatives of Deity, and when, three years after the experi-ment, New England was shaken by an earthquake, a Boston divine contended, in a sermon preached on the subject, that light-ning rods, by gathering the electricity from the clouds and ac-cumulating it in the earth, were the causes of the upheaval. There was a time, even later than that, when the stage-coach was the fastest mode of transportation, when steam locomotion was unknown and little thought of. George Stephenson went to work to construct an engine, and this is what the Quarterly Re-view had to say: "What can be more palpably absurd and ridicu-lous than the prospect held out for locomotives traveling twice as fast as stage-coaches. We would as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off in one of Congreve's cannons as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate." Another authority of equal prominence said that " the poisoned air of the locomotives would kill the birds." Waile still another insisted that " there would be no further use for horses." Such examples might be added to an almost infinite number, but would only strengthen a truth already quite patent. There is yet another sphere of activity in which the skeptic, or man of thinking, figures prominently, and that is the world of religious thought. Nowhere does dissension touch such a vital point in man's destiny, and nowhere has it been punished with greater severity. The men of courage, who gave us the heritage of a pure gos-pel, were men who felt the hand of inquisitional torture. They were men whose flesh and bones were blistered and charred by the fagots of fire; men who were driven about like the master they followed, with nowhere to lay their heads. We honor them, and mention their names with oracular reverence. But we are judging them all from the vantage ground of tested history. What shall be our attitude toward the skeptic of to-day ? Con-servatism might advise us to shun him as we would shun a ser-pent. Radicalism might tell us to be fearless and read his works. We shall not presume to answer the question, but consider it wise 243 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY to resort to that sage old philosopher, who said, "Know thyself," and to a still higher authority, which says, "Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Above all things, whether we believe him or not, whether he is right or wrong, it is due to us to respect him for his independent thought and candor. "Honor the honest man. Earth rears but few. Only at God's white forge are such souls wrought. Rare honest man. His mind perchance sees truth In different forms from thine, yet honor him. Perchance his vision thy dim sight transcends And what to thee appears sublime and sure As the eternal hills, to him is but A bubble in the air. Perchance when thou Hast found the crystal spring whereof he drinks Thou, too, wilt quaff, and own the light divine." A GLIMPSE OP BYRON. HTHE meteoric career of this celebrated, but ill-starred poet has * been a subject of study for all lovers of literature and its makers. Meteoric, both because of its brilliancy and short dura-tion. Byron's popularity, in his day, was greater than that of any of his contemporaries, but it was much briefer and more in-constant, and to-day the general verdict pronounced by the read-ing public and literary reviewers, is against him. To-day men praise the highland ruggedness and simplicity of Scott's poetry; its bold irregularity and indifference to minor imperfections, claiming all to be the highest attributes of genius; they speak with unchilled ardor of Wordsworth: his great and sympathetic heart; his tender but manly verse, always sincere, often profound and ever, the genuine utterances of a true priest of the spirit; Southey and Coleridge are both loved and lauded for their large-ness of vision and poetic truth; but Byron who was hailed as he rose over the horizon in the artlessness and inexperience of his youth, as a star of the first magnitude, as the brightest orb in the firmament, is now almost universally despised and deserted; an outlaw under the ban of moral reproach and literary censure, he stands friendless in the gloom of his solitary exile. That Byron was endowed with rare natural gifts, that his poetry bears the evi-dence of exceptional powers are denied by no impartial reviewers; THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 249 that his poems lack energy, emotional colouring, daring in in-vention and many of the less definable qualities of poetry cannot be rationally insisted upon; bat that his poetry is unfit for the hands and hearts of innocent and impressionable youth and that it revolts the moral sensibilities of the more mature in years and experience, as well as offends the literary taste of the cultured, are matters of fact, known to all students of English literature. This apparent paradoxical fact must be accounted for by the unfortunate accompaniments that attended and marred his genius. His powers were of the first order, but they were accompanied by a pessimistic and envenomed spirit, a haughty egotism—though this he endeavored to conceal,—and at last, what reversed his early successes, a growing affectation of contempt for public opinion or private regard. There was a mixture of literary and moral virtues with literary and moral vices in which the propor-tion of vice became predominant, and eventually prostituted his genius to the service of shame and folly in their most attractive and insidious forms. Censorship should not be unjust, not even unsympathetic towards this most to be pitied of poets. His works to be properly appreciated, and his unwholesome sentiment and thought to be viewed in a fair light, must be traced back to his sad life as their source of inspiration, and there though the works may justly be reprobated as unchaste and injurious,we cannot help, at least but partially exonorate their author, when we view the circumstances that gave them birth and determined their character. Born into the world with a tender but impetuous and some-what petulant nature, he was alternately visited with passionate caress and indiscriminate and vindictive disfavor by his mother, —caressed into self-will and pride, he was upbraided and scolded into ill-temper and defiance; his sensitive young nature was embittered; his strong propensity to love and crave it in return was here first disappointed and thwarted; here his spirit began to be discolored with that tinge of hatred and haughty contempt for human kind that disfigured his poetry and ruined his life. Leaving home with scarce a regret save that at the expiration of the school term he would have to return, he hoped to enter a more wholesome social atmosphere, to mingle among more active and congenial spirits, and there find that sympathy, trust and esteem for which his ardent young nature panted. His friendships, 250 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY as may be imagined, were few but fast, nearly always broken, if broken at all, through his own petulance upon the most trivial occasions, but generally soon renewed with ties of stronger affec-tion and mutual respect. Precocious emotional susceptibility exposed him at a very early age to the vexatious experience of unreasoning loves. The mistresses of hisyouthful passions uniformly repelled his advances, little knowing that they were crushing a heart that would bleed, not for a day, or a week, or a month, but for a lifetime; that they were rejecting a passion, which, exalted by a sanctified home-life, would have provided and enriched every endearment of wedded felicity; but spurned with indifference in its first ventures, would turn to the madness of despair. The haughty pride of his untamed spirit was insulted at every turn; his keen sensibility to neglect or offense kept his resent-ment, against somebody or other, at white heat the greater por-tion of his life, making him new enemies, and decimating fre-quently the ranks of his friends—those who generally endured his eccentricities, and enjoyed his confidence and esteem. His first effort in poetry was a juvenile performance, with meagre promise of his later fame in it, written at school and pub-lished when he left the University under the title, " Hours of Idleness." It was assailed at once by Francis Jeffreys, the most celebrated critic of his day, in the Edinburgh Review. The poem, prefaced with a disavowal of all poetical aspira-tions and a cleverly written appeal to the clemency of the critics was condemned without reserve, its faults exposed with relent-less accuracy, and, in general, treated with so much ridicule and contempt that Byron was aroused, the latent powers of sarcasm and irony that lay sleeping within him were awakened, and he seized the pen and wrote with the energy and inspiration of a demon, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," venting indis-criminate calumnies upon all writers and critics of his day. This poem, though written in the rashness of youth, and in some re-spects inviting severe censure as " misplaced anger and indis-criminate acrimony," for the first time announced his real power. His skill in versification, the vigor of his thought, the terrible energy of his feelings, and brilliancy of sarcastic wit, proclaimed at once to England that no common man had risen, and prophe-cies were many and sanguine of his future fame. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 251 After having been rebuked by every journal, by critic and even friends for his unjust assault upon men of genius and merit, some of established reputation and venerated name, he became dissatisfied at home, and, conceiving his talents not duly appre-ciated, and himself slighted, he sailed from England and traveled throughout the continent, visiting Spain, France, Switzerland and Italy. During his tour he wrote the first two cantos of " Childe Harold." This poem, written in the verse of Spencer's " Fairie Queen," though often affectedly antiquated in style, and always darkened by skepticism and misanthropy, is energetic and manly in thought always, in spirit often, and his language is picturesque and expressive, conjuring from the world of fancy the weird but vivid and copious imagery that so uniformly characterizes all his poetry. This rhythmic tale is regarded as a poetical version of his own life, the central figure throughout the narrative no other than the haughty Byron himself, masquerading in an imperfect disguise. The spirit, the pictured career and dismal sentiments of the self-exiled hero, are all paralleled in Byron, though he strenuously denied their identity, alleging that Harold was wholly an inde-pendent creation, without an existing prototype, at least under his observation. The poet, however, in the fourth canto identi-fies himself with the gloomy pilgrim visiting earth's historic scenes, as if no longer caring to maintain his false character. All the poetry that followed was animated by the same spirit; characters were changed in name, but not in essence ; scenery was altered; the tale diversified by fresh incident; yet through it all stalked Harold's sombre ghost casting a shade of gloom and sadness over it, and breathing into it his philosophy of despair. Frequently Byron was bitter, but that in his attacks upon so-ciety, upon the virtues and excellencies of character, which most men admire and magnify, he was insincere, and did not give utterance to sentiments actually his own, only unsympathetic and misled readers dare assert. His poetry above any other of his age bears the stamp of its author's character, the seal of his spirit, though often gracefully concealed, and impresses the reader that whatever the scenes, whatever the characters, Byron is there and speaks from the innermost depths of his heart. "From the in-nermost depths of his heart," for in all his works the energy of his 252 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY spirit burns with a blazing heat and like a kindled furnace throws its wild glare upon the narrow scene it irradiates; little difference whether he wrote of angels or villains, of princes or beggars, the torch of his thought and feeling was lighted at the same flame. This sombre color and despairing energy of his genius, though admirable in the proper place and proportion, makes it impossible for him to sympathize with the ordinary and more generous feel-ings of humanity. He could not elevate the simple and obscure life, the pure love, the trials, the sorrows, the tradegy and comedy of those low in station and humble in fortune, into the realm of poetic beauty as Burns; Nature had denied him the tender respon siveness of heart to song of bird, ripple of brook, the sigh of wind, which it so richly bestowed upon Wordsworth. Byron was fasci-nated by rugged scenery, by nature in her violent moods but never loved her for herself, and though his poetry abounds with allusions to and descriptions of mountain and lake, ocean and forest, they serve but to suggest by analogy some mood of man—and that mood how monotonously the same ! What a sublime range of character, what inexhaustible re. sources of human feeling, what a wealth of poetic mystery, beauty and truth investing diversified nature and human life were left un-touched by his master pen. Had his energy of spirit not been perverted and confined to the narrow channels into which it was forced, had his harp been tuned to more numerous and pleasing chords, who can say that with his exuberance of imagination, ca-pacity for reflection and poetic insight and art, Byron would not have been the chief ornament of his day and generation, his mem-ory cherished with fondest admiration, and his poetry a more per-manent and vastly more desirable addition to our literature. Of this sad fact Byron was not ignorant and often took occasion in his verse to rebuke his impetuous and monotonous strain of feeling and ardently prayed for tranquillity of spirit and soberness of mind. Serene landscapes, peaceful waters, inspired longings "to forsake earth's troubled waters for a purer spring." "Clear placid Leman," he cries, "once I loved Torn ocean's roar but thy soft murmuring' Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved." During the early stages of his literary career he resolves but in vain to tame his wild passions and to think and feel as other men: THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 253 "Yet must I think less wildly; I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became In its own eddy boiling- and o'erwrought A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame, And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame My springs of life were poisoned,—"Tis too late." The tragedy of a soul here seems to reach its catastrophe in the utterance of the concluding sentence: '' 'Tis too late !'' Byron here appears to stand on a commanding eminence and view with retrospective survey the irredeemable past, lamenting the errors of his way, but all "too late," and theu with sublime heroism to submit to the doom prepared for him, "to feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate;'' to chide himself with the guilt of his own desolation: "The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted—they have torn me and I bleed, I should have known what fruit Would spring from such a seed." His poetry thus is the musical wail of a proud yet broken spirit; a life with many shattered yet many vibrant strings; it is a feast of beauty attended by the unclean spirits of an unchaste mind, a song with the vigor and spirit of a march and the sadness and gloom of a dirge; the tuneful philosophy of a man who knew both too much and too little of himself and his fellow mortals, who in tempest and calm sailed life's pathless sea without chart or compass; a man with more than the usual powers of men, but destitute of their most common possession—character. "A wandering mass of shapeless fame, A pathless comet and a curse, The menace of the universe, Still rolling on with innate force Without a sphere, without a course." —TID BITS. Oh, many a shaft at random sent Finds mark the archer little meant; And many a word at random spoken May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. —SCOTT. 254 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY GIVING. When God brought forth the world we're told, He did it by decree, , Just spake the word, and chaos rolled Into consistency. But when the race of human-kind To sin became a slave, Not all the words in Perfect Mind Could ransom, so He gave. He gave his child, the anointed One, The best in Heaven above, That man might learn through His dear Son How God indeed is Love. And so must we, if we would be Found walking in His ways, Show to mankind that sympathy, That gives as well as prays. A word well said may often thrill, A happy song may cheer, But souls will ne'er be won, until Kind deeds with words appear. They are the vessels that contain The oil of healing grace, And they alone can free from pain The deep-scarred human race. Then let our eyes be e'er alert, Our neighbors' want to see, Our hands and feet grow more expert To bear them sympathy. For thus it is, each little chance Improved, becomes a gem, Whose lustre shall fore'er enhance Our heavenly diadem. —ERNIE. e$P Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy and England did adorn ; The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty, in both the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third she joined the former two. -DRYDEN. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Entertdat the Postojfice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. VOL. IX. GETTYSBURG, PA., FEBRUARY, 1901. ' No. 8 Editor-in- Chief, . A. VAN OR.MER, '01. Assistant Editors, W. H. HKTRICK, W. A. KOHLER. Business Manager, H. C. HOFFMAN. Alumni Editor, REV. F. D. GARLAND. Assistant Business Manager, WILLIAM C. NEY; Advisory Board, PROF. J. A. HIMES, LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD. D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, One Dollar a year in advance; single copies Ten Cents. Notice to discontinue sending- the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors, and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EXCHANGES. [From the January TOUCHSTONE, Lafayette.] Our Contemporaries. I HAVE heard it said that we never have original thoughts; that even those which we consider original have been worked over in the minds of others who have gone before. It seems impossible, however, that two college men, apparently far sepa-rated, should have had thoughts so exactly similar, and above all, that they should have expressed them in language so similar, as have two men representing two of our prominent colleges. This is an age of psychological phenomenon, and the power ot one mind over another is unquestioned ; but, if the case under consideration comes under this head, there evidently remains a field of psychological research yet unfathomed. 2S6 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY We ask the aid of those interested in honest college literary work, in the solution of the following mystery : In the Nassau Literary Magazine for October, 1900, was printed the MacLeau prize oration, entitled "An Ideal of American His-tory." In the Gettysburg Mercury for November, 1900, appeared an oration, entitled " Abraham Lincoln." We quote from these two articles, and print them in parallel columns. AN IDEAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY. Thirty-five years have gone by and the Republic is stronger than ever. The battle smoke of the civil war has rolled away, and to-day when we look into the clear past, our first glance meets the colossal figure of Abraham Lincoln. He is an American mountain—when you view minutely and examine care-fully each particular crag or fea-ture, how homely he seems ! But stand back half a century, behold the entirety—do you not see an Al-mighty hand ? We say an Ameri-can mountain, for you cannot think of Lincoln as a Grecian or a Roman, he is not English and certainly not French—he is ours, the man be-longs to. us alone, while his fame is the world's. Our broad country can no more contain that, than the present race can compute its dura-tion. Ages are the units which shall measure its extent, and eter-nity shall not behold it9 comple-tion. Let us for a while then con-sider him who, under God's provi-dential hand, more than any other, preserved our liberties and main-tained for us our national govern-ment. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Thirty-five years have passed and the Republic is stronger than ever. The battle-smoke of civil war has rolled away, and as we louk into the clear past, our first glance meets the colossal figure of Abra-ham Lincoln. He seems a moun-tain— when you examine each par-ticular crag and feature, how home-ly he appears; but stand back half a century, behold theentirety—Do you not see the hand of God ! We wonder at him for his greatness, and we are proud of him that he is ours. We cannot imaging Lincoln as a Grecian or a Roman; he is not English and certainly not French —he belongs to us alone, but his fame is the world's. Our broad land can no more contain that than the present generation can esti-mate its duration; ages are the units which shall measure its ex-tent, and eternity shall not behold its completion. Let us for a while then consider him who, under God, more than any other, preserved our liberties and kept us as a peo-ple what we are. The Nassau Literary Magazine Princeton University Princeton, N. J., Jan. 29, 1901 Editor Gettysburg Mercury, « Dear Sir: You have probably noticed in the Lafayette Touchstone for January, 1901, in the department headed Our Contemporaries, that attention is called to two orations, one entitled "An Ideal of American History," which was published in this magazine in the THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 257 October number and another, entitled "Abraham Lincoln," which appeared in your magazine for November. The opening para-graphs of the two orations are printed in parallel columns and are so similar that it leaves no doubt in our mind that either one was copied from the other or else both were taken from a common source. If you will read what the Toiichstonc says you will prob-ably come to the same conclusion. Now this matter should be sifted to the bottom and it is to the interest of both magazines to see that it is done. I send you a copy of the Lit. which contains "An Ideal of American History" and request that you send us the November number of the Mercury. Will you also state who wrote the oration on "Abraham Lincoln," when it was delivered, and when probably written. Also the home residence of the man who wrote it. "An Ideal of American History" was delivered here last June and won the Junior McLean Oratorical prize of $ioo. I trust you will appreciate the seriousness of this for both of us, and help me to find out the truth of the matter. Awaiting an early reply, I am, sincerely RALPH P. SWOFFORD. The above are self-explanatory. It but remains for the MER-CURY to clear away the accumulated mist, thus vindicating Mr. Heilman and his alma mater as well as the MERCURY. For this purpose we find sufficient testimony in Mr. Heilman's Statement. "March 9, 1900, I delivered the oration at Collegeville before the Pennsylvania Inter-Collegiate Oratorical Union; March 10, joined Glee Club on trip at Carlisle; March 19, returned to Get-tysburg from Glee Club trip and found awaiting me a letter from Princeton, written by a '97 alumnus of the Harrisburg High- School, whose classmate I had been for about 9 mouths. The letter asked me to send a copy of my oration for a few hints and ideas, as the '97 alumnus was preparing an oration soon to be de-livered. Sent copy of oration to Princeton March 20th or 21st. Handed oration to Dr. Himes in competition for Geis Prize— third number. [The third production for the Geis prizes is due May 1st.—Ed.] Have not seen the manuscript since." The oration came into possession of the MERCURY from the Geis prize committee through Dr. Himes, before the close of 258 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY college in June. We published it in the November MERCURY, and the original manuscript is still in our possession. We hope the above is a satisfactory explanation—that it is not necessary to ramble through that "field of psychological research yet unfathomed." It is to be hoped, further, that this, as a warn-ing to college men, may prove beneficial. Gettysburg does not suffer from the "mix up;" indeed we may feel complimented that one of our men wrote the oration that won the MacLean prize of $ioo at Princeton University, knowing that it was not sent for the use made of it. Princeton, come out. Lafayette, give us due credit. S. A. VAN ORMER, Ed. MERCURY. EDITORS' DESK. Following the custom of former years, no January number of the MERCURY was issued. The question of special programs in our literary societies is be-ing discussed. That they have merit no one will doubt; but whether they should occur so frequently is, indeed, a question. The object of the societies is to train their members for the duties that shall rest upon them in years to come by assisting in and completing that harmonious development that shall send the col-lege student into the world well-rounded. Our discoveries in science have been made by men who worked in seclusion; our masterpieces in literature and in art have not been wrought before the gaze of cheering throngs; the men who have "moved the masses" in days agone have frequently talked to the ocean's waves and the forest's trees. Young men, that they may be successful, must cultivate the habit of working with-out artificial stimulus. As this is the last issue of the present staff, we desire to ex-press our appreciation of the hearty support we have received from those interested in THE MERCURY. We have at all times had sufficient material on hand. Whether or not we have selected wisely the material used, others must determine. We have tried THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 259 to maintain the standard formerly held by THE MERCURY among the college journals of the State. In conclusion, we remind the Professors, Students and Alumni of Pennsylvania College that the standard of her journals have much to do with her success ; and we bespeak for the new staff the same hearty support given us, that the literary journal of the institution may be worthy ot Pennsylvania College. THE PAST OUR PRESENT PILOT. CHAS. LEONARD, '01, Reddig Junior Oratorical Prize. ■CAR back through the dim, dim vistas of the ages, when chaos, ■*■ darkness and void had receded in obedience to the eternal fiats of the Omnipotent, to give place to cosmos, light, and cre-ation, there appeared in that creation a creature whose progress and destiny have been the objects of the concern of two worlds. The earth was man's birthday present. "Go forth and subdue it" was the divine commission, and the history of the race is the story of the warfare that has been going on ever since that com-mission has been received. As the nineteenth century gates swing on their hinges, soon to shut into the hoary past another century, we feel like one who is leaving the harbor to sail an untried sea; in whose vision friends throwing kisses of good-by, and waving handkerchiefs for a suc-cessful voyage, are fast fading from view, and from whose sight the well beloved shore is receding and has at last merged into the misty horizon overhanging the deep. In the stately ship of civilization we are about to launch on a trackless ocean. Farewell to the past—only its lessons are any longer ours. Welcome the future, in which we are to live and act! I^et our prayers be united that our majestic ship may clear all the dangerous rocks that lie just beneath the surface, any one of which may prove fatal to the progress of the "Ship of State." As we stand at the stern of the vessel, looking out upon the watery expanse stretching into eternity on either side of the wake, with our mind's eye we take a retrospective glance into the history of the past. We look into the realm of discovery and we note that the most important contribution of this realm to civilization has been the discovery of laws in the moral and the physical universe. 260 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Ages ago the minds of men craved to understand the laws of the heavenly bodies, and the skies did speak to the old Chaldean shepherds, but in an unknown language. They were transported by the rich melody of the spheres, but could not appreciate or understand the celestial anthem. Ptolemy listened and caught a few scattered words; Copernicus hearkened and caught the first full sentences: Kepler and Newton gave us the first translation of the rythmical language of the heavenly orbs. Thus we see the gradual development of the scientific spirit in the presence of which truth has always unveiled her face and made herself known, as she has come to answer the everlasting "Why?" of science. In philosophy the same development is strikingly real. Man in his eagerness to answer the two questions concerning himself of "Whence?" and "Whither?" at first indulged in speculations that seem to us to the last degree chimerical. Twenty-five centuries have made but comparatively few changes on the face of the material world. A Greek of the fifth century B. C. might still find his way without difficulty from town to town of his native Hellas, and recognize at a glance the scenes of his childhood days, but he would find the world of thought a new creation or rather the old so transformed as to be unrecognizable. We have emanated from the mist and fog which enveloped the old Pagan philosophers. We have transcended the highest thought of grand old Socrates. Thought can no longer be said to be "An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry." In the sunlight of truth this infant of thought has grown to a great stature, though it has not yet attained the perfect symmetry of maturity. The discovery of laws has been just as important and extensive in the social and political world as in the realm of philosophy. Every century has been an improvement over the preceding. Nations have been born, grown up, and died, while history, the coroner of the fallen empires of the past, has declared at the autopsy, "The cause of death was the result of a departure from law, either undiscovered or disobeyed" and standing, a silent sentinel, in the ashes of their former glory, pointing her finger toward the future she says in prophetic voice to all surviving nations "Beware!"— THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 261 a word so full of meaning when uttered by such an authoritative voice. Are we heeding this long sounded warning? Shall we dare say that the past is meaningless? Shall we not profit by the wise instruction it has to give? The Mu