The Church Flatulent
The Catholic hierarchy is no doubt disappointed that the Blunt-Nelson amendment – designed to provide accommodation for those who, for reasons of conscience, find paying for contraceptive devices and abortifacients unpalatable – failed to pass in the Senate today, and I can easily understand why. Eighteen years ago, as John McCormack pointed out on Tuesday in an article posted on the website of The Weekly Standard, the precise language of that amendment was, as a matter of course, included in the healthcare proposal that came to be called Hillarycare. But, of course, that was then, and this is now. In 1994, the Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives were eager to avoid offending the Roman Catholic Church and its faithful adherents, and now, with exceedingly rare exceptions, they are intent on humiliating that church and its adherents.
The bishops, priests, and nuns of the American Catholic Church may be dismayed, but they should not be in any way surprised. The situation that they now find themselves in is one of their own making. Thirty-eight years ago, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision inRoe v. Wade, the country was resolutely hostile to abortion on demand. At that time, many Democratic politicians, not all of them Catholic, announced their opposition to abortion. For a time, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were in their number. Had the Church pressed the question resolutely at the time, the 5-4 court decision would quickly have been reversed. As Mr. Dooley was wont to say, the Supreme Court follows the election returns.
But, of course, under the leadership of Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, who became President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in 1974, the hierarchy chose to soft-pedal the issue, treating abortion as one among a number of issues, such as the death penalty and the public provision of healthcare, that Catholics should take into consideration when voting in local, state, and national elections. Nowhere did the bishops expressly say that outlawing abortion was no more important than providing healthcare and eliminating the death penalty, but by treating these issues all as part of a “seamless web,” Bernardin and his supporters implied as much.
Moreover, thanks to the efforts of Bernardin and those of his adherents whom he installed as his successors atop the NCCB in later years, Catholic politicians came to realize that they could with impunity publically repudiate the teaching of the Church to which they professed to belong and propagate the notion that pregnant women had a right to kill their children as yet unborn. Mario Cuomo was the pioneer. He tested the waters, encountered criticism, and came away politically unscathed. Before long, virtually every Catholic who held elective office as a member of the Democratic Party occupied the ground that he had cleared. No one was excommunicated for taking this stand. Next to no one was publically reprimanded, and the faithful were never once told that they could not in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates. In the meantime, thanks to the silence of a host of clergymen who gave only lip service (if even that) to the notion that abortion is murder, more than forty million unborn Americans were deprived of their lives. It would not be too much to say that those who remained silent in the face of this have blood on their hands.
The Blunt-Nelson amendment failed to pass the Senate today for one reason and one reason only. The supporters of abortion-on-demand are serious about the matter. They will do what it takes to punish at the polls any Democrat who crosses them. The bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States have spent almost four decades intimating with a wink and a nod that they are not really serious about this question. In the process, they have made themselves politically irrelevant.
For the first time in memory, however, the leadership of the American Church has fallen into the hands of a man who appears to have a backbone. We will soon learn what Timothy Dolan, Cardinal-Archbishop of New York, and his episcopal colleagues across the country are made of.
It is not easy to recoup moral authority that one has spent four decades in squandering. It will take a supreme effort on their part. It will take courage. It will take determination and grit. And it will take humility – for it cannot be done if the bishops do not first admit to themselves and to the rest of us that they have been party for a very long time to a pact with the devil. Renewal begins with repentance. If the Church Flatulent does not now become again the Church Militant, in the United States, it will be regarded from now on as the Church Irrelevant.
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Sep '10
Re: The Church Flatulent
Bernardin's "seamless garment" theory was designed to muddy the distinction between our moral duties and the political program that he advocated, and it achieved its intended end brilliantly. It has even, I believe, confused you .
One point of distinction. Both Weigel and Dulles seem to agree (in their respective pieces in First Things magazine) that Bernardin himself wasn't attempting to diminish the importance of abortion. I think its clear based on how careers evolved afterward that certain co-drafters that he collaborated with did intend that. As to what political decisions he made behind closed doors none of us are privy to, but it should be a point beyond contention that John Paul II's more technical magisterial documents like Evangelium Vitae left little wiggle room for those who wished to willfully misinterpret.
Re: The Church Flatulent
Pseudodionysius: Bernardin's "seamless garment" theory was designed to muddy the distinction between our moral duties and the political program that he advocated, and it achieved its intended end brilliantly. It has even, I believe, confused you .
One point of distinction. Both Weigel and Dulles seem to agree (in their respective pieces in First Things magazine) that Bernardin himself wasn't attempting to diminish the importance of abortion. I think its clear based on how careers evolved afterward that certain co-drafters that he collaborated with did intend that. As to what political decisions he made behind closed doors none of us are privy to, but it should be a point beyond contention that John Paul II's more technical magisterial documents like Evangelium Vitaeleft little wiggle room for those who wished to willfully misinterpret. · 2 hours ago
Very interesting. I hope that you will lay this all out at some point.
Re: The Church Flatulent
Joseph Stanko
KC Mulville
The teaching is that while it's true that wars and killing are sometimes necessary and moral, it'sonlyif they protect life elsewhere. The teaching says that it'sonlyjustified to protect other life. Capital punishment may be moral, butonlyif it protects other life.
You cannot kill for property. You cannot kill for revenge. You cannot kill for political leverage.The only justification for killing is if it saves life elsewhere.
I don't think just war theory can be reduced to a calculus of lives saved. As Ronald Reagan once said, there is one sure way to have peace and to have it today: surrender.
I think that just reasons for war include defense of natural rights. Suppose for instance a Catholic nation faced imminent invasion by a Communist or Islamic nation that would strip them of the right to practice their religion. They have two choices: surrender, and no lives will be lost, only freedom of religion. Or go to war, with the foreseen outcome that many on both sides will die. On your theory defending themselves would be unjust as it would cost more lives than it saved. I disagree. · 2 hours ago
Amen.
Re: The Church Flatulent
Joseph Stanko
KC Mulville
The Seamless Garment argument is that if you actively oppose abortion (which Catholics areobligedto do), and you engage in political action or normal civic participation to change it, then it is morally inconsistent to refuse to do the same for capital punishment and nuclear war.
You're claiming that Bernardin's theory was intended to support a political party. But JPII's "culture of life" argues the samemoraltheory.
Interesting point, KC, there does seem to me to be a fair bit of similarity between Bernadin's "consistent ethic of life" and JPII's Gospel of Life.
In particular JPII seems to list capital punishment as one of the "life issues" on par with abortion, and that troubles me as it seems to be a reversal of the Church's previous position that the death penalty, like war, is legitimate and necessary under some circumstances and discerning those circumstances is a question of political prudence. JPII's opinion that modern circumstances no longer justify capital punishment is certainly worthy of a hearing, but many now seem to elevate it to settled Catholic doctrine that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral. It's not. · 2 hours ago
Amen.
Jan '11
Re: The Church Flatulent
To further the conversation ...
I agree with the moral argument beneath the "culture of life," and the criticism of it in Benedict's opposition to the "culture of death." Over time, I've come to rely on those papal encyclicals and speeches to form my conscience. They certainly take precedent over the Seamless Garment theory.
However, I studied the Seamless Garment theory a few years before those encyclicals, and I consider it a perfectly respectable moral theory. I'll agree with the Professor that disreputable politicians have tried to hide behind it, but I don't blame the theory for that.
As for favorite theologians, for obvious reasons I very much enjoyed reading Avery Dulles, SJ. He put out theology faster than I can read it, so I don't claim to be an expert. But I have read quite a bit, and I'd say that Dulles struggled to do the same thing (and succeeded much better) in the task that Bernardin claimed he was pursuing. Dulles wanted a coherent theology that explored the responsibilities of a believer in the modern world. We can't do theology as isolated political positions; it goes deeper than that.
Jan '11
Re: The Church Flatulent
Completely agree.
Part of it is a misunderstanding of how theologians do theology. They used to say that theology is "faith seeking understanding" ... not "hey, faith found it!" It's always an ongoing discovery. Not because the faith changes, but the understanding is rarely fixed forever.
Sep '10
Re: The Church Flatulent
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., "Wisdom as the Source of Unity in Theology," in Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering, eds., Wisdom and Holiness, Science and Scholarship: Essays in Honor of Matthew L. Lamb (Naples, Fl.: Sapientia Press, 2007), 59-71, at 59f.
Apr '11
Re: The Church Flatulent
Pseudodionysius:I agree that the support for a Catholic candidate amongst evangelicals exceeding the support amongst Catholics is something that might alarm the church authorities
I don't see why. Evangelicals and Catholics Together has been around since 1994. · 9 hours ago
Right. I did say that it shouldn't alarm them, but I do find it plausible that some might be alarmed. I don't think that Catholics (or anyone else) should be terribly clannish in their voting patterns, but I know people who are easily disturbed by that sort of desegregation.
Nov '11
Re: The Church Flatulent
Prof. Rahe, May I suggest that it may well be a case of "The Hierarchy Indolent" and "The-Barely-Educated-But-Vocal-Laity-Flatulent" (of both religio-political stripes)? Praying for you, yours and all the Catholic Ricochettians, with gratitude to all.
Mar '12
Re: The Church Flatulent
...But if the Church’s ordained leaders look to John Paul II as their model, they will increasingly embody an evangelical Catholicism that is unafraid to be countercultural in its engagement with public life, even as it stresses the imperative of radical conversion to discipleship and friendship with Jesus Christ as the raison d’être of the Church’s existence. George Weigel
This will be the tip of the spear in the new evangelization as the Church moves forward in the US. The theologians will have plenty to ponder about. I see 3 integral movements of God's Will in moving the Church universally and humanity as a whole to the complete renewal of creation as prescribed in the Our Father prayer: "Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
One, we already see the incorporation of the feast day of Divine Mercy as the 2nd Sunday of Easter with it's overarching proclamation of God's love and mercy. As many of you might know John Paul II was the one to resurrect Sister Faustina's writings after it was "held in abeyance" for untold years.
...continued...
Mar '12
Re: The Church Flatulent
Second, The Marian Movement of Priests where Our Blessed Mother's messages to Fr Gobbi underscores the gravity of our times in which, as a function of God's Will, She as Leader, Queen, Prophetess, and tender and merciful Mother is helping humanity pass through an initial stage of tribulation toward a radical transformation of the world and a profound conversion to Christ: You are called to be the new heart of the new Church which Jesus is forming, in a wholly mysterious way, in the heavenly garden my Immaculate Heart.
John Paul II understands that consecration or entrustment to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is the most efficacious means to bring about the gift of divine mercy for the Church and for all of humanity (Dives in Misericordia).
Third, the epicenter are the writings of Luisa Piccarreta as they articulate God's deepest desire to move forward His plan of salvation by completing perfectly the work of the Cross and thereby restoring to creation the original lofty level of sanctity and intimate union with God in an era characterized by universal holiness, justice, peace, grace and love.
...continued...
Mar '12
Re: The Church Flatulent
It centers on the subjugation of the human will with it's resultant evil by the dominion and providence of the Divine Will.
Now, as in Creation, my love is gushing out strongly, and it is decided that the Kingdom of my Will wants Its life in the midst of creatures. Therefore, displaying with all magnificence, without looking at their merits, with insuperable magnanimity it wants to give its Kingdom again. Only, it wants creatures to know this, and to know Its goods, so that, by knowing them, they might long for and want the Kingdom of sanctity, of light and of happiness. And just as one will rejected It, so may another one call It, long for It, press It to come to reign in the midst of creatures. Jesus, October 30, 1927 message
These 3 movements of God's Will can be summarized as such:
"The Holy Spirit wants to give Christians [and the world] a ‘new and divine holiness’ at the Dawn of the Third Millennium” - Pope John Paul II
...continued...
Mar '12
Re: The Church Flatulent
The parousia: the first advent of Christ came in the fullness of time through His virgin birth and the merits of His Mother, so Christ's second coming will be through the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Because in the Eucharist Jesus Christ is really present he mains ever with you and this presence of his will become increasingly stronger, will shine over the earth like a sun and will mark the beginning of a new era. The coming of the glorious reign of Christ will coincide with the greatest splendor of the Eucharist. Christ will restore his glorious reign in the universal triumph his eucharistic reign, which will unfold in all its power and will have the capacity to change hearts, souls, individuals, families, society and the very structure of the world. BVM, August 21, 1987.
My blog is a first cut to a means of introduction to the Kingdom of the Divine Will.
My prayers go with you all!