Pastor’s Corner — May 28th, 2023
Pentecost Sacraments this Weekend
As I’ve noted before, we at St Pat’s have moved to welcoming people into the Catholic Church in three different dates throughout the year: 1) Solemnity of Christ the King, 2) the Easter Vigil and 3) Pentecost. This Pentecost we are welcoming two new people into the Catholic Church (Nicholas Eli Butzke and Kim Lynn Yezbick) and we have four Catholics being confirmed (Colleen Anne Deaven, Kristi Ann Hill, Abby Patricia McKeig, and Maggie Elizabeth McKeig). Please join me in praising God for them and praying for them and their continued conversion.
Since last summer we will have welcomed 25 people into the Church here at St Pat’s! God is good. If you or someone you know is interested in considering joining the Church, please contact Anne Guminik, our Director of Pastoral Formation.
Why It’s a Good Idea to Pre-Plan Your Funeral: Materials from Parish Event Available
About a month ago we had over a hundred people come to our presentation put on by me and Todd Borek, “Advantages of Planning Your Own Funeral.” We recorded the event for those who couldn’t make it and have the materials available on our website here. Some of the important topics covered include:
The purpose of the funeral rites and how they can help family members grieve and facilitate them encountering God.
When to call for Anointing of the Sick and the difference between it and “last rites.”
The role of the funeral home in caring for the family in the acute loss period.
How each part of the funeral (vigil, Mass, burial) can help meet the emotional and spiritual needs of your grieving family members.
How to properly plan a funeral Mass (date, music, readings, etc).
What is a proper Christian burial and why the Church prefers burial of body in a cemetery.
Why the Church only allows for cremation in certain circumstances.
Why keeping ashes in one’s house, scattering them, or other burial alternatives such as composting or alkaline hydrolysis are disrespectful to the dignity of the body
The benefit of creating a family care plan
In the link above you’ll find a family care plan, selections for readings, music, outline for talk and video of the talks.
How AI Will Reveal Christian Truth: Critical Thinking About the Limits of Artificial Intelligence
(Occasionally, I offer an article in this column that helps us think critically about what’s happening in our world from a Christian perspective.) Ever since the release of ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot internet sensation, there’s been increasing public speculation about the future of artificial intelligence. Will AI kill jobs? Should we regulate its use before it’s too late? How dangerous is biased AI chatbots to democracy? Will AI ever become “sentient” or “conscious”? Will AI eventually take over the world and kill us as in the Terminator movies? Some of these questions are more easily answered than others. The fact is that the answers to these questions largely depend on good philosophy and anthropology.
People who are rooted in good philosophy generally agree that AI will never become conscious in a way just that we as humans are on account of the basic principle of philosophy: the effect cannot be greater than the cause. You can’t get consciousness from pure matter. (This does not mean that AI can’t mimic really well certain outcomes of human consciousness. It already does) Moreover, most people also know that AI chatbots are not true depictions of reality because the data sets they rely on for computation are determined by what software developers allow. In that sense they mirror the biases of the programmers. While extremely fast and intuitive software is really impressive and can be used for great evil, AI can really only be as good as the limits of software computation and the data it computes. There are serious limits here.
There’s no doubt that we’re in an important point in history regarding the development of this artificial intelligence. technology. Recently I read the article, “How AI will Reveal Christian Truth” and I found it to be very insightful about the nature and limits of artificial intelligence around meaning and God’s existence. The author, Steve Smith, has other writings on this as well available on this site. Here is what the author says about this article:
“In this article, I contend that AI, as it expands and advances, will come to reveal what all of technology and human invention reveals – the reality of God as explained by the Christian faith.”
I think the author is on-point here. I encourage you to read the whole thing, especially if you’re into science, philosophy and technology. It’s not that long. In the end, the world cannot give itself meaning and more than AI can, which poses a serious problem for atheist or secularist.
Celebrating Memorial Day
For many Memorial Day is just a day off so that we can have a long-weekend and BBQ with family and friends. But let’s not forget to remember and honor all of those men and women who gave their lives for us defending our country and protecting and promoting the freedom we have. If you can’t make it to Mass that day to pray for them (ours is at 9am in our cemetery) please at least pray for the response of the souls of those who have served in our militaries and pray for our country.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias