Human Interpretation
In Dr. Eusebio's letter to the Pacific Daily news, he told a story about a priest seen giving money to a prostitute. This is an excellent example of how we perceives things differently despite that we see the same picture. Some people may interpret that the priest was having a sexual relationship with the prostitute and was paying her for her services while others may perceive that he was trying to help a prostitute to buy food for herself and young child. So, people can perceive things differently from looking at the same picture. It is the same with letters and documents. Let us say for example, that I wrote these words: I did not say that you stole money.
This one sentence can actually be interpreted in five different ways. These five interpretations include:
- I did not say that you stole money - meaning that it was not me who said it but someone else.
- I did not SAY that you stole money - meaning that I said no such thing, but said something else.
- I did not say that YOU stole money - meaning that I said it was someone else who stole the money, not you.
- I did not say that you STOLE money - meaning that I never said you stole, but borrowed the money.
- I did not say that you stole MONEY - meaning that it was not money you stole, but something else.
This is why there are over 20,000 different Protestant sects. They all read the same Bible, but interpret the same words differently. If my one sentence can be interpreted in five different ways, how much more a letter or document that Tim Rohr has been showing you with only his interpretation????
Plus, Tim writes in a way that directs his readers to one interpretation. Apparently, Archbishop isn't the only one who "doesn't have a mind of their own"
ReplyDelete"If my one sentence can be interpreted in five different ways, how much more a letter or document that Tim Rohr has been showing you with only his interpretation???? "
ReplyDeleteI'm not Tim and I don't know him, so I can't comment on his behalf.
When I read about the Archbishop threatening priests in letters and documents (and in action), I tend to interpret it as the Archbishop threatening priests.
When I read a letter or document about the credible allegations of sexual abuse against a priest and him being banned from practice - the document being from the church itself - I tend to interpret that letter or document to mean the priest should not be allowed to practice and to keep my kids away from him.
Here's the flaw with your article and its entire argument.
You gave one sentence without any context. You asserted that if a sentence can be open to endless interpretation, documents and letters are infinitely more open to misinterpretation.
Do judges render opinions with only one sentence?
Do legislators draft bills that contain one sentence?
Does the Archbishop draft one-sentence removals of a Monsignor?
Heck, why do we even have language if it's so useless in communicating ideas?
Context is your everything.
Dr. Eusebio's letter gave some interesting examples of things that can be taken out of context.
So what is the context for Apuron favoring non-NCW priests? I ask this because you brought up letters and documents being interpreted by Tim.
I read those documents and letters too. In his words, he threatened priests who refused to join The Way. Did I misinterpret his threatening words?
Dear Anonymous at 9:44 a.m.,
DeleteMy response to you is found in this weblink below:
http://neocatechemunal.blogspot.com/2014/08/responding-to-anonymous-poster-from.html
Thank you for responding to my post. I feel it's necessary to thank you for several other things as well.
ReplyDeleteThank you for continuing to allow my posts to show through. The easier path would be to completely censor me and be done with what I have to say. "Censor" isn't even the proper word as this is a private person's blog and I have absolutely no right or reasonable expectation to be heard here.
I further appreciate that you have been nothing but civil in your responses to me. Like I said in a previous post, I have little doubt that we'd get along just fine in the real world.