So, it’s been established that a sufficiently powerful cleric, like the pope, could in theory consecrate an unlimited amount of holy water at once, like the ocean.
My question is this: Would the ocean become holy all at once, or would there be a speed-of-light delay on the outlying regions? How close must a cleric be to water in order to consecrate it? Could the pope bless Europa? Would that be unethical?
I think the rule is that a priest in general can bless as much water as they can see. So not the entire ocean, but maybe a small-to-medium-sized lake or a slice of ocean. I don’t know about the distance issue, but I’m pretty sure blessing Europa would be considered unethical because you have no idea what’s going on way out there- you can’t technically be sure there aren’t aliens living there that we haven’t spotted yet, and they might unwittingly desecrate the now-holy water, and that would be Bad.
Sorry to jump in, but if line of sight is a problem, you could pop the pope in a plane n fly it out over the ocean.
Jen suggested satellite flyovers. Though I still don’t know if there’s an additional distance rule; I’d suspect there have to be further qualifications, since otherwise blind priests wouldn’t be allowed to bless holy water at all and that seems highly unlikely.
Wait, if the pope could bless only as much ocean as he could see, and did so, then what would happen when that water mixed with the non-blessed rest of the ocean? How much can holy water be diluted before it stops being holy?
I did a little research on this, because it seemed metaphysically important. The consensus of online catholic forums seems to be that if you mix holy water and regular water you obtain more holy water, since once the waters are mixed they are indistinguishable. My suspicion is that this is a holdover from pre-atomistic metaphysics, in which a pure substance (like water) was truly united and infinitely divisible.
There seems to be some debate in practice, however, over whether the mixture needs to be at least 51% holy or whether any amount of holy water will do, and this will have an effect on the logistics of blessing Europa. Even through a powerful telescope the Pope can only see a maximum of 50% of Europa at once, simply because it is a sphere. So, if the 51% rule holds, then the Pope cannot remotely bless Europa all at once under any circumstances, since 50% blessed water mixed with 50% unblessed water would yield 100% unblessed water. If the 51% rule doesn’t hold, though, the whole planet can be blessed all at once (under the reasonable assumption that the Europan ocean is continuous).
If the “any amount of holy water makes all the water holy” thing is true, then all water on earth would be holy by now. You’re not supposed to pour holy water down the sink, sure, but it does still get disposed of by pouring it down a pipe that goes underground, and some of it has probably at some point gotten into the water table. So I think we have to assume the 51% interpretation.
EDIT: Depending on the mechanics, it might also be possible for the Pope to bless Europa very slowly, so his view of it changes over the course of the blessing and he sees a larger portion of the surface. (This is all, of course, still assuming there isn’t a “can touch the water” rule or something.)
…And now I’m wondering: if you can mix holy and normal water and the result is all holy, could you do serial dilutions to increase the amount of holy water exponentially? Like, get a cupful from a church, add slightly less than another cupful of unblessed water, add slightly less than a double cupful of unblessed water to that, etc.? How long would you have to wait between dilutions for the holiness to diffuse through the water?
To that last point: Not only is that apparently possible, various catholic forums inform me that it is actually standard practice. Accounts differ on whether you do have to add the unholy water slowly (in compliance with the 51% rule) or whether you can just top it off with tap water. Seminaries are stuffy places, apparently. Things tend to evaporate.
And yes, your point about the water cycle does seem to prove that the 51% rule is necessary for any consistent account of holy water. So, in order to bless Europa, we’ll either have to construct a gradual method, or potentially work out some sort of parallax scenario with another cleric who is stationed on Mars.
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