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I’m Not at All Eager to Start Another Brawl Over the Pope, But…—Peter Robinson
An email from a friend:
Worry less about Francis on economics, but sweat the upcoming Synod on the Family instead. To paraphrase George Gilder, economic growth can get switched back on in an instant. All we need to do is set in place the right policies.
But the family? Don’t mess with that. Damage to the family would be permanent. You couldn’t repair that with lower tax rates. The upcoming Synod on the Family looks to be Humanae Vitae all over again. The 1968 crowd is getting ready to make their final push before they expire.
I wish he didn’t, of course, but I’m very much afraid that my friend has a point. The effort within the Church to persuade Pope Paul VI to overturn the Church’s traditional teaching against birth control back during the 1960s proved immense—a majority of the panel of experts the Pope convened to advise him on the matter recommended that he permit birth control, which, of course, would have altered the Church’s very conception of married love, marriage, and fidelity. Only a minority report, and the Pope himself — in a display of what might be termed holy stubbornness— led instead to the publication of Humanae Vitae, reaffirming the Church’s historic teachings. (If you’ve never read Humanae Vitae, by the way, you’re in for an intellectual shock. With astonishing accuracy, Paul VI predicted the ills to which the breakdown of marriage would lead. Even if you think we Catholics are crazy—a view I share from time to time myself, I admit—Humanae Vitae is worth a read.)
Now Pope Francis has called a Synod on the Family, and another major effort to alter historic teachings appears to be underway—an effort to make annulments easier to obtain, for instance, or to permit those who have remarried without annulments to receive communion. Here again, this sort of talk may strike a lot non-Catholics as crazy. But what’s at stake is the Church’s ancient and unchanging teaching that marriage is indissoluble—and the fundamental commitment that makes possible the permanence of the family.
Someone—anyone—tell my friend why he’s wrong. Tell him—and me—why we don’t need to sweat the Synod.
Published in General
Actually I read somewhere that this teaching was quite popular with Roman women. Women living in most ancient patriarchal cultures faced the prospect that their husbands could divorce them for no reason and toss them out on the streets, homeless and penniless, having to rely on their relatives to support them in old age.
So a religion that taught that men had a sacred duty to commit to their wives and support them “until death do us part” may have actually helped Christianity spread, or at least helped attract female converts.
Fair point; it depends on what you’re comparing it to. As I recall, Christianity caught on much faster among Roman women than Roman men. Perhaps this is part of the reason.
That said, my point had less to do with the reasons for allowing divorce than on the prohibitions against re-marriage after divorce and classifying it as a kind of adultery. Frankly, I find that nuts.
Keep this up and I’ll convert to dispensationalism…
As far as I’m concerned, the Catholic Church can regard re-marriage as adultery as long as they recognize that’s a “church rule” in the same way a libertarian Baptist recognizes the “prohibition on drinking” is something for him, and not something for people outside his church.
Trying to legislate that sort of thing is roughly equivalent to trying to impose Sharia.
From the Catechism:
Salymander: #94 As far as I’m concerned, the Catholic Church can regard re-marriage as adultery as long as they recognize that’s a “church rule”
You are concerned about how the Catholic Church sees something, as long as it agrees with your position. That’s very noble of you. Have you considered writing it up and sending it along to the pope, or at least the closest Catholic bishop to where you reside? Perhaps they will be swayed by your wisdom?
Sabrdance #46
1. Baptists are Protestants
1. Christianity would survive the loss of the Catholic Church – nope
1. God preserved the bible for 2500 years. I believe that parts of the Old Testament are older than 2500 years. The final form of the New Testament was decided at a Church council in the year 325AD, and a successor council concurred with that decision. So parts of the bible are older than 2500 years, and parts of the bible are younger than 2500 years.
2. You might want to read up on the Landgrave Philip of Hesse and how he was permitted to take a second wife while his first wife lived. Fascinating bit of history there.
Catechism citations and explanation appreciated. As I often find myself thinking in regard to Catholic teaching of this kind, I understand the wisdom and thinking behind the position, but disagree with the conclusions drawn from it. Dooming decent to lives of celibacy if they can’t reconcile with a spouse — or if their spouse refuses to reconcile with them — strikes me as too-high a price to pay for modelling God’s constancy.
One thing I’ve found interesting is how stark the differences are between Jews and Christians; outside of matters of direct theology, it’s probably one of the biggest differences.
Absolutely. I’m one who knows firsthand how watching your child suffer can be a test of faith. Let him know I’m asking another such parent to intercede for him — our Blessed Mother. Ask him to hold onto that.
No, please re-read what you quoted-EDIT: in context with the rest of what I wrote. I don’t care whether they agree with me or not, as long as they don’t try to make me live by their rules.
I’ve often thought of homosexuals as modern day eunuchs.
KABOOM! Ducking for cover…
Peter, as much as I hate to say this, there is nothing to worry about with this Synod because the family has already been redefined, restructured, and destroyed by the powers of the Left. You can see it in the dangerously low total fertility rates in every Western Civilization state, especially the southern European Catholic states. The Church will just be rearranging chairs of the Titanic after it has completely slipped below the water.
And other laws regarding marriage?
That feeling has been around for a while.
1 John 4:3
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
How many times have I heard the trope “I don’t worry, ’cause Jesus was all about love and peace and tolerance.”? It’s a self-serving excusing of any sort of licentiousness and utterly unscriptural. Jesus did away with the strictures of Jewish ritual purity, but he doubled down on moral tenets, such as honoring God, relations between men, charity for the unfortunate, and sexual behavior.
Do I not remember your approving of McArdle’s essay on divorce? It seems self evident to me that the extreme cruelty of divorce in a world where women lack any form of agency ought to come with a stiff price tag of celibacy and shame. It’s not murder, but it’s the next worst thing (assuming one takes a mid-point for torture; it’s probably less bad than blinding one’s wife, but worse than breaking some bones).
Male initiated divorce is less harmful to women today than ever in history, since women often have independent incomes, remarriage is entirely possible, women often get custody over their kids, and women have purpose to their lives that does not require a man or a religious vocation. It’s still terrible (hence McArdle’s article), but today comes only with a cost of celibacy, rather than celibacy plus shame, which seems commensurate with the reduced impact.
Not ‘doom’, Tom, surely?…At least in North America, resources like the Nova retreats for divorced/remarried offer support re: blended families, the process of obtaining a decree of nullity, etc. The myth of Catholic faith communities shunning people who’re impacted by divorce is just that…as I can attest – as the adult child of a broken-but-personally-amicable civil marriage. (If you were dealing with other aspects, I apologize`for inadvertently side-tracking.)
Nobody expects a Carthusian Juxtaposition.
James of Enland writes: “But you were appealing to historical example to derive the content of that standard… Changes in disgust really do dispose of arguments based on the universality of disgust… [A]ll the consequences in the world will not salvage an argument based on a claim that particular non-universal traits are universal.”
James- I’m precisely not saying that we derive notions of right or wrong from emotion or from what makes us disgusted. This is the signal mistake of people like Martha Nussbaum: schooled in the notion that all moral claims are but projections of opinion — or, more precisely, projections of will — she simply hears something contrary to her will. Are there concrete grounds outside the will to guide the will itself? I’m appealing to nature via historical examples to make the distinction between nature and culture, the former being necessary for understanding the latter. An appeal to natural right or natural law is a claim that there are limits to government because there are limits to human nature. And so our federal government abrogating the right of individual states to deny SSM effectively gives government unlimited power, as SSM means government can redefine reality.
James- much more I have to write– perhaps a whole separate post. Very busy, and will pick this up tomorrow.
I will. Bless you brother.
Re: 115, Jude are you aware of the “Divine Help 2.0” post? Lots of prayer warriors over there – including me…Praying with and for you and yours! Peace be with you!
There’s nothing to worry about. One of the benefits of papal infallibility is that the faithful don’t have to worry about the pope teaching false doctrine or upending the church’s moral teachings. Conservative-minded Catholics seem to lack faith that God will keep the church out of the ditch of falsehood, but this isn’t like politics, where we’re used to unprincipled men selling out. The church’s teachings concerning sexuality and marriage will remain the same post-Synod as they are now. Even should the Synod try and publish something to the contrary, either the pope will veto it like Paul VI, or a conclave will suddenly have to be held.
That’s not to say that this Synod won’t be the occasion for all sorts of misinformed trouble-making by the media and the 1968 crowd. They will set a narrative of change and hope that nobody actually reads what the Synod eventually puts out – a fair bet, since Rome isn’t exactly adept when it comes to PR. That’s where the fight will be, the interpretation of the Synod. There is no need to worry about the substance of the Synod.
Papal infallibility is a much less broad doctrine than you suggest. You can believe comprehensively in infallibility and still think that, e.g., papal twitters are profoundly mistaken, and that they thus teach false doctrine. It’s like the defense of “is Francis a Marxist? No? Then he’s clearly not left wing.” A lot of the misunderstandings of Vatican II, for instance, are examples of confusion stemming, in part, from John XXIII and Paul VI’s suboptimal discipline and communication.
No, that’s not the case. They don’t have to worry about the Pope teaching false doctrine universally throughout the whole church through the Magisterium.
Peter: if you’re still following this thread you may want to read this analysis by Sandro Magister and share it with your friend. Two quotes from the article: