Well put, I must say, as someone more than passingly familiar with the iceberg you describe. I'd applaud the party -- Dem or GOP -- that put working families first and foremost. Here's to policies that let families save the money they earn; that encourage parents to raise their own kids rather than warehousing them in daycare; that address exorbitant housing and education costs that require both parents to work to provide for their families what one working parent could 50 years ago...Both parents devoting themselves to corporate career climbing to pay for half-million-dollar ranches (let along McMansions) is not "progress"...
Why should we care about Leo XIII's views of economics? Should we ask Alan Greenspan about Transubstantiation?
I can relate. 4 years ago I left the Democratic party. But I didn't join the Republican party either. For now, I am a registered Libertarian until I can find a political party that fits Catholic sensibilities.
Since our last child is in high school, my wife has gone to work part-time; mostly for spending money (yes, we are so materialistic 
)
MCNS - I live in one of those half million dollar ranches. (Orange County, CA). The price has tripled in the 15 years since we bought it. Stupid land management regulations are to blame.
(1) So I can, in a like manner, wave away PXI and JPII when they criticize communism? Catholic social teaching is...less disposable than that.
(2) It depends--is Greenspan Catholic?
Dale, Brian, & Others
To the ends of: A more Family Friendly Republican Party.
I was inspired by this piece in the (supposed home of neo-conservatism)
The Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Co...11/
991nmrow.asp
There was also a recent cover story in the magazine entitled: Sam’s Club Republicans (what will Republicans do for the base that elected them) {I’m looking for a link)
Its got “new movement” written all over it. I think it’s the key to a more moral republican party. All about centering tax policy & credits toward single earner homes with children. It is very inspiring! This approach is one I would get behind!
Greg:
You do realize, don't you, that Scripture has rather a lot to say about money and the right ordering of a society. Your argument is no different than "Leave the ethics of stem cell research to biologists. What do theologians know about it?"
Found it!!!!
Its called…..
The Party of Sam's Club
Isn't it time the Republicans did something for their voters?
by Ross Douthat & Reihan Salam
11/14/2005, Volume 011, Issue 09
http://www.theweeklystandard.com...06/
312korit.asp
I think it’s (very centrist) policy proposals are right on the money!!
BOTH: articles get to the same idea, through different authors.
Greg:
Remember: there are FOUR sins which cry to heaven for vengeance. Two of them are oppressing the poor and depriving the worker of his rightful wage.
Read Amos. Read James. Read Matthew 25:31-46.
The thing about laissez-faire is that it's the least common denominator.
You're probably going to like it better -- or dislike it less -- than any of the alternatives on offer, which will relate to Catholic social teaching about the way Ted Kennedy does.
The US is a very large and very (pardon the phrase, I mean it in the old sense of the word) diverse country. The internet tends to hide this from people because it makes it possible to associate with the like-minded and avoid the pain of cognitive dissonance.
The diversity remains, however, which means any party which can actually govern the US will have to be a broad coalition, in which none of the constituent elements gets more than bits and scraps of what it really wants, and in which the normal state of affairs is quarrelsome dissatisfaction.
Eg., the old Democratic coalition, which included Jewish socialists in New York and Jim Crow segregationists in Alabama, each heartily despising the other while working together nationally.
The precondition for this type of coalition is an unspoken agreement to not talk about certain things.
This is yet another reason for the Federal government to do as little as possible. Apart from its sheer bumbling ineptitude at almost everything except killing people, locking them up, and smashing their stuff, that is.
Anything positive it does, even if done well by some special dispensation of providence, will lethally PO _somebody_. It's futile to expect San Francisco and Peoria to be happy living under the same arrangements. They inhabit different perceptual/moral universes, and the more they come into contact the more they'll dislike each other.
The classic case of this is abortion, which is why Roe v. Wade was a very bad decision regardless of how you stand on the abortion issue itself.
The sensible thing to do would be to leave the matter to political regulation at the state level. That way everyone would have _somewhere_ they could go and be reasonably satisfied.
Vermont would go one way, South Dakota another, and those who couldn't endure being in the minority in either could move.
Stirling is obviously correct about abortion. Abortion wasn't a political issue, much less a wedge issue, until Roe v. Wade made it a live issue by taking it out of the hands of the political branch by "constitutionalizing" the issue.
Another issue that the Supreme Court put energy into was the death penalty. Bill Curtis came to my Rotary Club last year with his book on abolishing the death penalty in Illinois. He pointed out that until the mid-70s the United States was essentially following the same road to abolition as Europe, but was completely unaware of the fact that Supreme Court's hiatus on capital punishment occurred in mid-70s, which is what sparked new life into public acceptance for capital punishment.
Also, mark me up as another Republican who was just incensed about the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act. There was something sick about the idea that individual responsibility means that individuals can't discharge burdensome debt, but banks have no responsibility to screen who they send out pre-approved credit cards to.
I'm just waiting for banks to cut their credit card interest rates and eliminate their late payment penalties.
Scripture addresses lots and lots of things, but the church's charism has traditionally been limited to faith and morals. There are moral aspects to economics, but there are moral aspects to engineering -- that doesn't make the church expert on engineering.
And if we're going to follow church teaching on economics, what are we going to do about usury?
There are moral aspects to economics, but there are moral aspects to engineering -- that doesn't make the church expert on engineering.
Well, no. But I would hope this doesn't disqualify the church to set some parameters as to what those moral aspects to and limits of engineering are.
Otherwise, this does sound almost exactly like the current cry of "get religion out of science!" regarding the destruction of human life (embryonic stem cell research).
After all, one doesn't have to have a Nobel in economics or be Alan Greenspan to determine that pressuring people to work for starvation wages might just be an offense against Divine Justice.
peace,
When someone asked Evelyn Waugh why he had said he would no longer vote Tory, he replied, "they have utterly failed to turn back the clock one minute."
Who said Leo was claiming expertise, Greg?
Re: usury. Follow developed church teaching of course, just as we follow developed church teaching on what to do about witches.
Greg, I sometimes think you are so eager to tout the "I haven't drunk the Catholic convert Kool-Aide" line that you needlessly make things more difficult for youself than you need to. Is it really *that* hard to believe that the Church could have some valuable input in the ordering of a just economic and social system?
I'm with Greg K. While laissez faire economics has proven itself to be a moral problem (cf, the late 19th century and the development of trusts), I don't believe in blindly relying on teaching from authorities (even papal ones) who have never held a job, who never had to meet a payroll, who have nothing but a superficial understanding of business priniciples and whose professional lives have been ensconced in an insular bureaucracy that warps their view of reality.
Taking papal teaching seriously doesn't mean swallowing it whole without thinking. It means contemplating that teaching in light of previous teaching, in light of Scripture and in light of current events.
Catholics have for far too long been infatuated with the esoteric, etherial and intellectual as opposed to the practical, let alone the pragmatic. That's one reason why many contemporary Catholics in the West support a pseudo-socialist economic response over a capitalist system they take for granted -- a fundamentally Protestant system that has done far more than pseudo-socialism, Catholic social teaching or the Catholic Worker movement to alleviate poverty and encourage economic progress.
That's a fact, Catholics. Deal with it.
Joe:
I'm not an advocate of blindly following the Popes like they are Sybilline oracles. I own a book by a French ultramontaine, but I'm not one.
But while there is a danger of prooftexting Catholic social teaching and touting some unrealistic utopian/heavy-handed governmental solutions, I also think the opposite extreme is a danger: we've lived inside the American economic engine so long we can become inured to its real problems--and they didn't end in the 19th Century.
Way off topic--what happened to Some Guy's blog?
I agree that the Republicans aren't great. I just wish the Democrats were serious about being relevant again. Screaming and crying about the republicans and what they are messing up is for the populace, and that is ALL the dems have been doing. If they keep it up and nominate Hilary in 2008, expect more of the same from the GOP, because that is all they will have to do to retain power.
At least Joe's being honest in his dissent. He's decided that Catholic social teaching in and of itself is incompatible with capitalism.
I wonder how he feels about all those problematic Scripture passages I mentioned earlier?
No, Mark, I make it easier on myself by avoiding all the problems caused by trying to make the bishops more of an authority than they are. Dale is the one who believes "faithful Catholics" are in a "conundrum" because he expects them to "square laissez faire economics" with Leo's economic views. I say "relax, he's a pope not an economist."
More generally, capitalism (in our times and circumstances) is roughly like democracy -- it's the worst possible system except for all the others.
Capitalism has some negative outcomes. However, a lot of trial and error has shown that attempts to rectify them usually create worse problems.
Hence the default solution would seem to be to shrug and accept them as conditions of life to be endured, not problems to be solved.
Given a free choice in the matter most people will be elect to be hedonistic individualists, using a broad sense of the word "choice" to include freedom from things like effective community opinion as well as legal constraint by the State. It's the default setting of the 'natural man'.
I don't altogether like or approve of this, but I really can't see how it would be either legitimate or practical to try and force people onto a path I liked better.
The "reign of virtue" is not a platform which has produced very happy results in the last century.
Greg:
I honestly have no idea why an enthusiast for stem cell research could not say exactly the same thing about the Church's moral teaching in his sphere. The Pope's not a biologist, so we can basically ignore him. Similarly, the Pope has no expertise in, say, military tactics, so we can ignore the church's teaching on war too. Are you serious?
Mark -- it comes down to details. Obviously the church has something to say about moral behavior, which impacts some aspects of economics and how a business is run.
But church social teaching seems to run past its area of expertise in some cases. I'm thinking especially of a letter by Robert Bork in First Things in which he says, in the context of the death penalty, "My difficulty has to do with the Church adopting positions that may be taken to be binding on public affairs when it has no special, or sometimes even an adequate, understanding of the subject."
Greg:
This convenient arguement seems to me to be very wooly thinking. I still don't see how it can't be deployed *every* time the Church says anything that bothers anybody.
You seem to be backing away from your initial position, which sounded a great deal like "Bishops are interfering ninnies and Leo can safely be ignored." Now you are apparently acknowledging that in some vague and unspecified way, Leo might have some valid input. But the core of your argument still appears to be that if a magisterial authority is not personally an economist or a biologist or a gynecologist or a general or a "pain technician" or a judge, then we can pretty much write off whatever they say if it annoys us with the "They have no expertise" heave-ho. So much for pretty much all the Church's moral teaching.
I don't see how that is not the inevitable consequence of your argument.
My argument is rather that there is a thread in modern conservative Catholicism -- especially on the internet -- that is overly eager to find "authoritative church guidance" and ends up putting big weights on people's shoulders. The firestorm against Scalia for his position on the death penalty is a good example.
If the church wants to bind people, it should issue authoritative decrees. Otherwise, we are free to regard them as opinions.
Steve:
Oh, make no mistake--I am not a "bomb throwing Marxist", to recycle a recent phrase. I have no problem with a guy making billions of dollars--even Bill Gates. Collectivism in all its forms has proven to be a road to Hell, well-paved with four wide lanes. Even in its "freer" forms, it becomes sclerotic--a quick glance across the Pond at the EU shows that.
I guess my main problem is that American capitalism can be just as ugly and collectivist, especially when the oligopolies hop into the sack with the state. I'm seeing a lot of people in my neck of the woods barely staying afloat or getting slowly dragged under.
Debt-peonage ain't dead--it's just that now it comes with a monthly statement.
Fitz:
Great article--dovetails quite nicely with the Carlson piece.
I'll blog it when I get a chance.
My argument is rather that there is a thread in modern conservative Catholicism -- especially on the internet -- that is overly eager to find "authoritative church guidance" and ends up putting big weights on people's shoulders.
The problem is Dale was doing no such thing, whereas you were immediately and without any real provocation *completely* dismissing Leo without even knowing what he said. Like I say, you sometimes strike me as *so* eager to say that you haven't drunk the Kool-Aid that you basically come off sounding like, "If it's not dogma, then I'm going to assume it's the naive opinion of an interfering ninny who is speaking beyond his competence." That's only conclusion I can drawn when you compare listening to Leo on Economic Justice to listening to Greenspan on Transubstantiation.
The firestorm against Scalia for his position on the death penalty is a good example.
What firestorm? In the blogosphere, mostly what I encounter is your position: that JPII was an interfering ninny who stuck his oar in when he should have just shut up and let the experts handle it. Joe D'Hippolito will be happy to tell you how evil and stupid JPII was. What seldom gets articulated is that JPII did not change anything in the essence of Catholic teaching. Caesar still has a right to the sword for capital crimes--though nobody seems eager to exercise it for adultery and blasphemy--and Caesar is still free to use his discretion in meting out capital punishment. All the Pope does is politely recommend that Caesar opt to refrain more than he has in the past (and he has *always* refrained to some degree in the past).
So what would you have? Do you want the Pope to issue a *command* to the governments of the world to stop executing people?
Your argument makes no sense to me.
By the way, I think this conversation is interesting, so I've blogged on it. Just FYI.
I find myself respectfully wondering how much of the problem is state, and how much is federal, economically speaking. There are about five billion Minnesotan/Michigander conservative and/or Catholic family men who blog, it seems like, and they all seem to be in about the same boat Dale describes. While the peeps I know in OK/KS/Missouri seem...not necessarily more prosperous, but less laden down with gummint-imposed burdens.
Broadly speaking, I would argue that the best thing the gov't could do for ppl like Dale is get out of the way, and I am reasonably sympathetic to the idea that the current lot are not doing that nearly fast enough.
For the rest, I find myself pretty much with S. M. Stirling: the alternatives just don't look good. I've seen some small and mid-sized businesses that did a quite adequate job of applying Leo XIII's ideas (Whether or not they knew those were his ideas) to themselves, that seemed to prosper. But that's because they were *allowed* to: it wasn't because the gov't spelled out for them in microscopically fine detail, what the just thing to do is.
The "invisible hand of the marketplace" is primarily a way of understanding how free will works in the real world. The question of where, exactly, the powers that be need to jump in and save people from themselves, while still respecting free will (that bizarre and unattractive trait that fascinates God so much He'd rather have us than a bunch of happy-clappy automatons), is often a blurry one. (Not always, I hasten to add, to save The Usual Suspects the trouble of barging in with "oh, yeah? What about...?")
I might *also* point out, since both sides of the debate are studiously ignoring the fact, that Leo XIII's comments were primarily directed towards employers and workers, not towards governments. Encyclicals are (among other things) a form of social pressure, albeit a very different one from Advertising.
At least Joe's being honest in his dissent. He's decided that Catholic social teaching in and of itself is incompatible with capitalism.
I wonder how he feels about all those problematic Scripture passages I mentioned earlier?
Dave, those Scripture passages could be equally applied to the Catholic episcopocracy, as well (if not even more so, because the Catholic episcopocracy has a heavier responsibility under the divine economy than any secular government or economic philosophy).
Catholic social teaching, for what it's worth, does a great job of telling other entities how to live. Those teachers, however, fail or refuse to apply those prinicples to themselves -- and I'm not just talking about the clerical sex-abuse crisis, either. Just look at the financial chaos that envelops most dioceses. Just look at how poorly paid diocesan workers are. Granted, nobody is supposed to go into Church work to become rich. Nevertheless, there's a glaring discrepancy between how the "princes of the Church" live and how diocesan workers live.
And these same medieval potentates have the audacity to lecture anybody on economics?
IMO, Catholic social teaching is nothing more than intellectual grapsing for the remnants of power and secular influence that the Church had before the Reformation. Moreover, Catholic social teaching recognizes the worth and sanctity of the individual only in rhetorical terms. The Church has never encouraged individual initiative or enterprise (too "Protestant," doncha know) because such enterprise would threaten the collectivist interests and desire for power of Catholic episcopocrats.
Just look at the economic status of countries with "Catholic" backrounds (especially in Latin America) as opposed to those of "Protestant" backrounds. Ask yourself these questions, Dave:
1. Why have so many immigrants (including from such Catholic areas as Ireland, Italy and Latin America) chosen to come to this nation? Because it offers them in fact something that the Church barely bothers to offer in name: freedom to pursue personal development and betterment in a moral fashion. Too much of Catholicism seeks to place people in the straightjacket of "community".
2. Why did the economic phenomenon known as the "Irish Tiger" occur after Ireland rejected much of its Catholic heritage?
3. Why do so many Catholic activists treat the poor not as people created in God's free image, as people created with God-given talents that can be used to improve themselves and others, but as wards of the state or of the Church, as puppy dogs who cannot do anything for themselves?
Caveat emptor. Any social teaching coming from the Catholic Church represents the philosophy of an isolated, arrogant bureaucracy whose behavior is essentially no different than the behavior of the Pharisees and Saducees whom Christ rightly condemned as hypocritical and self-serving.
What seldom gets articulated is that JPII did not change anything in the essence of Catholic teaching...
That is not only ideological spin, Mark. That is a bold-faced lie.
True, Evangelium vitae did not ban capital punishment outright, technically speaking. But the same Pope who wrote it engaged in the kind of personal activism that seemed to suggest that he meant it to ban capital punishment under any and every circumstance. At the turn of the millenium, JPII asked for the lights of the Roman Colisseum to be turned on in memory of those on death row worldwide (not their victims). He wrote Pres. Bush to ask for clemency for Timothy McVeigh, despite the fact the McVeigh never expressed regret nor repented of his action. Just last spring, the USCCB (no doubt, inspired by the late Pope) embarked on a program in which it plans to advocate the elimination of capital punishment in the United States.
All these developments directly contradict the teaching of Scripture and Tradition on the issue. According to Genesis 9: 5-6, God demands capital punishment for murder (and that's the only crime anybody is really talking about as far as capital punishment is concerned) because murder is the ultimate descecration of the divine image in humanity.
Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, also has some useful things to say about the moral necessity of capital punishment.
Yet, according to EV, it is enough to encarcerate people to protect society. The absurdity of JPII's position came to light a couple of months ago in California, where a death-row inmate plotted the murder of two potential witnesses against him from behind bars.
You can rail against me all you want, Mark. Yet you still have to answer this question before the public and before God:
How many innocent people must die to justify JPII's theological revisionism concerning capital punishment?
I still like this:
"the problem with socialism is socialism; the problem with capitalism is capitalists"
We are not, and haven't been for awhile laissez-faire. We have a relatively open market economy with a regulatory regime over it which has a baseline level. GOP and DEM administrations make adjustments to that baseline level.
But our economy in general allows us to make as much or little money as we wish, depending on effort - effort at education, training, and work ethic, as well as the actual effort at work.
SOME will abuse this and treat workers poorly. WOrkers can leave. Unfortunately, the habits of workers around debt and spending along wiht the abomination of company-sponsored health plans, have most workers trembling in fear at leaving their job, no matter how much they hate it.
THe system is not evil, but some people in it, are. Like the Crusades. I'll apologize for the actions of some capitalists, but not for capitalism.
Maybe we just need to lay out a little more clearly what the authority of an expert looks like.
I don't want to claim that magisterial authority is the same as professional authority, but maybe the analogy will be useful.
I teach English at a big university. When I read the work of my colleagues in other fields, I don't pretend to be able to criticize their knowledge of what pertains exclusively to their field. However, I am trained in the logic of English argumentation and in rhetoric, so when something in a biologist's writing isn't making sense from a linguistic/logical/rhetorical point of view, they are obliged to listen to what I am saying (and, if he wants to write well, to at least try to follow my advice). If, however, I try to tell a biologist that I, on my own authority, know more about protein synthesis than they do, they can ignore me.
If a pope tried to tell an economist something about those elements of economics which pertain exclusively to professional scholars of Economics, he would have no authority there. However, when a pope says that some economic idea or practice doesn't make sense from a moral point of view, an economist is obliged to pay attention to him and try to follow his advice.
Economics, as a science, has little to say about morality. Economic theories that attempt to engage moral questions open themselves to authoritative input from experts in morality.
If I want to write a book on the rhetoric of Arminian tracts in England, I don't need to accept a historian's advice on my analysis of a writer's rhetoric, but I darn well better accept his advice on the historical context or impact of that rhetoric.
I hope this helps us to get a hold of this question, rather than just muddying the waters.
When there is a conflict within the Republican party between social conservatives and business conservatives the business conservatives always win....
Except when they don't. Take the example used in the linked to article. Business conservatives wanted BAPCPA enacted, yet it was held up for several years. Why? Because it contained a provision that would have been harmful to pro-lifers. If the "business conservatives always win" theory were true, the bankruptcy bill would have sailed through Congress with the provision intact. But it didn't. Because while the "business conservatives always win" line is a nice piece of rhetoric, it doesn't measure up to reality.
The truth is that within the Republican party, social conservatives tend to win on social issues and business conservatives tend to win on economic issues. Why this should be surprising to anyone is beyond me.
Joseph,
John Paul II did nothing to change the Church's traditional position that capital punishment is legitimate, and even necessary, in some cases. This is the essence of the Catholic position.
Which cases those are has always been a matter for dispute and JPII was offering a very strong case against its necessity in most cases in modern 1st world countries. Citing Genesis will only work if you expect all Christians to adhere to all of the OT laws and prescriptions. Jesus did spare the adulteress, you know.
The individual actions of a pope in no way affect the essential teachings of the Church. Remember that Jesus instructed his followers to do what the Pharisees and Sadducees taught them (because they taught from the seat of Moses) but not to imitate their actions. Maybe the Catholic hierarchy really is like the Pharisees. That still leaves Christians with the obligation to follow their teachings (and not their individual actions). Jesus said so.
Joe:
You're dodging the question. We're not talking about how dioceses run their affairs now or at any other time. We're talking about thousands of years of Judeo-Christian social teaching, with some strong words about the matter from Christ himself.
You quote St. Thomas Aquinas on capital punishment. If you read more of him, you'd also know that he acknowledges the right to private property. And if you read a little more of Catholic social teaching, you'd also know that the Church condemns socialism just as much as she condemns completely unfettered, amoral capitalism.
And to answer your questions:
1)Why have so many immigrants (including from such Catholic areas as Ireland, Italy and Latin America) chosen to come to this nation? In the case of Ireland, it was because of famine, compounded by their Protestant overlords refusing to do anything to help them. With other Europeans, it was because of Prussian meddling, economic depression affecting Catholic and Protestant regions alike, and freedom of religion and culture (in the case of the Catholic Polish, they were fleeing from Prostestant Prussians and Orthodox Russians). And as far as Latin Americans go, people weren't faring well whether the government was Catholic or anti-Catholic, capitalist or socialist.
(questions 2 & 3 answered in next comment box)
Continuing from the previous combox:
One other thing about Catholic immigrants from Europe: you may have noticed that when they arrived here, they built churches and schools and flourished (if but for a while) in their faith. They became Americans, but remained Catholic.
2. Why did the economic phenomenon known as the "Irish Tiger" occur after Ireland rejected much of its Catholic heritage? They not only rejected their Catholic heritage; they rejected Christ entirely, like the rest of Western Europe. And God help them when the secularist EU starts interfering more and more. They'll end up in the same funk as the rest of the continent.
3. Why do so many Catholic activists treat the poor not as people created in God's free image, as people created with God-given talents that can be used to improve themselves and others, but as wards of the state or of the Church, as puppy dogs who cannot do anything for themselves? Depends on the activists and the agencies. I will acknowledge that a good number of Catholic activists confuse social teaching with the Democratic Party platform, and they're wrong when they do that. OTOH, you meet people where they are and give basic help. You don't ask if a hungry person got into that condition through their own neglect, or because of circumstances beyond their control. They're hungry. You feed them. If they're in danger of freezing to death in the cold, you don't bother debating their worthiness. You find them a coat. And I'm talking about government programs here. I'm talking private agencies of whatever faith doing this.
Also, you know as well as I do that quite a few Catholic social groups also help people get on their feet and help them help themselves. Look at the ministries of the Fransican Friars of the Renewal, or the Missionaries of Charity.
And now, a few questions for you:
Any social teaching coming from the Catholic Church represents the philosophy of an isolated, arrogant bureaucracy whose behavior is essentially no different than the behavior of the Pharisees and Saducees whom Christ rightly condemned as hypocritical and self-serving.
So from how long ago? Are we talking the last 20 years of social teaching? The last 100 years? Or are you throwing out the last 2000?
Can you differentiate between bad bishops and honest ones, since you seem to give that much leeway to business executives (like the difference between Ken Lay and Tom Monaghan)?
Can you put as much importance on the Scripture passages I cited concerning the treatment of the poor (including Our Lord's own words) as you do on Genesis' take on capital punishment?
And lastly, for these and for other reasons, do you no longer consider yourself a Catholic? (Also, if you're willing to answer, do you go to church anywhere these days?)
My parents got by fairly well with four kids on a Canadian air force officer's pay, which was never what you'd call extravagent. We certainly never considered ourselves poor, or got into debt.
And for a good few years we were supporting my aunt and her two daughters (after my uncle died in a fishing accident)and my grandmother as well.
My mother didn't work outside the household, though God knows she did work, with 9 people sitting down to dinner!
(When it was "just" the four kids and my parents we were in a trailer with no running water for a long time. My elder brothers had the joyful task of taking out and emptying the honeybucket.)
Of course, even when we had a house, none of us kids had our own bedroom -- we had bunkbeds. We had one car, always secondhand (until my brothers built a hot-rod out of wrecks from the junkyard) and we ate a lot of meatloaf. Mom baked her own bread, because it was cheaper, and canned a lot of stuff. The one big appliance we had was a deep-freeze, so we could buy food seasonally and store it.
Entertainment was something we made ourselves, particularly the kids; there was no question of any form of recreation that cost significant cash-money. No 'classes' in this or that, for example. The family didn't have the money and our parents didn't have the time to supervise anything of that kind, apart from Little League.
Movies were a rare treat. We read books from the public library (buying them was another rare treat) and played with the neighborhood kids using our imaginations, or had pickup baseball in schoolyards, or hockey on ponds in the winter. There was a washing machine (upright, with a mangle) but Mom dried the laundry on a clothesline.
Our parents didn't try to micromanage our time, either; sometimes I wonder that kids nowadays don't suffocate.
My brother Keith fell out of a tree once and broke his arm. They took him to get it set. The day after he got home he climbed the same tree and fell out and broke the other arm. Nobody considered this much more than an amusing boyish prank (though his backside was a bit sore afterwards, too).
S. M. Stirling: that explains alot about your books, actually...in a good way :D
Mr. Stirling,
You wrote, It's futile to expect San Francisco and Peoria to be happy living under the same arrangements. . . . The classic case of this is abortion, which is why Roe v. Wade was a very bad decision regardless of how you stand on the abortion issue itself. . . . The sensible thing to do would be to leave the matter to political regulation at the state level. That way everyone would have _somewhere_ they could go and be reasonably satisfied.
Amen. This is one reason why, IMHO, national-party coalitions are easier to forge *in opposition* to something, usually a terrifying picture of what life will be like if "they" win. It's usually easier to unite disparate cultures against an alternative, hated "monoculture" than it is to have them sit down and hash out a unified version of the good life.
A result is a national politics that prohibits people from full participation in their own cultures and communities. One example is the endless litigation conducted to prevent people from celebrating religious holidays. Staking one's membership in the community on anything besides money, commerce and national politics is frustrated to the point of apathy.
BTW, if you stop back in to read the comments, please consider writing a second Peshawar Lancers novel.
dannyboy, several points:
John Paul II did nothing to change the Church's traditional position that capital punishment is legitimate, and even necessary, in some cases. This is the essence of the Catholic position.
If that is true, then why did JPII effectively stake out an intensely abolitionist position in his personal activism? Why has the USCCB, not an insubstantial organization, staked out essentially the same position without being disciplined from Rome, if that position doesn't mesh with Catholic teaching?
dannyboy, you're being brainwashed by the rhetorical subterfuge employed by the late Pope's apologists. So are most Catholics, who are so infatuated with the late Pope's "greatness" that they refuse to think for themselves or consider the implications of the late Pope's thoughts on this issue.
Citing Genesis will only work if you expect all Christians to adhere to all of the OT laws and prescriptions. Jesus did spare the adulteress, you know.
God issued the demand in the passage in question before revealing the Law to Moses, so it not only takes precedence to the Law but expresses God's thoughts on the matter. As far as Jesus sparing the adulteress is concerned, two points:
1. Jesus spared her because He recognized that the Pharisees were effectively acting as a lynch mob. Where are the two witnesses they produced? In what kind of due process did the Pharisees engage? Jesus knew that they violate the Law they claimed to uphold in order to trap Him; they did this during His trial when He was slapped by one of them.
2. Jesus Himself said that He did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it. His death, resurrection and ascention made those elements of the Law concerning atonement and redemption null and void (otherwise, why did the curtain separating the Holy of Holies in the Temple split?). He also said that not one jot nor tittle shall pass away. Does this have to do with such things as circumcision (which was a temporary sign) or dietary laws (which Jews of that time used to establish an ethnic superiority by separating themselves from others)? Or does it have to do with the mind of God concerning sin and its consequences?
The individual actions of a pope in no way affect the essential teachings of the Church.
If this is true, then there would be far greater opposition to the late Pope's thoughts about capital punishment that there is right now. If this is true, then the Catechism wouldn't have been changed to reflect JPII's revisionism on the issue.
Remember that Jesus instructed his followers to do what the Pharisees and Sadducees taught them (because they taught from the seat of Moses) but not to imitate their actions. Maybe the Catholic hierarchy really is like the Pharisees. That still leaves Christians with the obligation to follow their teachings (and not their individual actions). Jesus said so.
And what if those teachings contradict divine reve
continued from previous post
And what if those teachings contradict divine revelation, as they do concerning capital punishment? Whom are we supposed to obey? Supposedly, all Catholics receive the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation. Supposedly, the Holy Spirit is responsible (among other things) for enlightening believers. Supposedly, there should be no contradiction between what the Spirit teaches and what the Church is supposed to teach.
But as the world has seen -- not only in the clerical sex-abuse crisis but also through centuries of abusive power -- the Catholic episcopocracy is incorrigibly and irreconcilably opposed to Christ's agenda. Instead, it seeks to satisfy its thirst for ambition, amplify its power and impose its own agenda not only on Catholics but non-Catholics, as well.
JPII provided ample evidence of this by emphacising his geopolitical and theological agendas at the expense of responsible stewardship over the bishops he appointed.
When the Ultimate Day of the Lord comes, the Catholic episcopocracy will go the way of crank-start automobile engines, rotary phones, Islam and Moloch worship -- deservedly so, I might add.
Whoa!!! I almost answered J D'H! I must be tired. Then I realised the futility of addressing an argument that recognises the difference between Church teaching and JPG's personal opinion and still uses the latter to discredit the former. Plus, who else would try to call the USCCB a "not insubstantial body"?
Franklin, it's the vast majority of Catholics who confuse JPII's personal opinion for doctrine, not I. It's centuries of teaching from Scripture and Tradition that discredit JPII's prudential views on capital punishment, not vice versa. It's the current Pope who included JPII's prudential views on capital punishment in the CCC as doctrine, contravening centuries of teaching. And, despite its general incompetence, spiritual malaise and infatuation with intellectual fashion, the USCCB is still the leading body of Catholic leaders in this nation.
Dave Pawlak, several points:
You're dodging the question.
No, Dave, YOU are. The greater issue involves the Church's ability to live by the standards it sets for others. History and recent events have proven otherwise. Perhaps the motto for the Catholic episcopocracy should be, "Take the mote out of your own eye before you try taking the splinter out of your brother's."
If you read more (Aquinas), you'd also know that he acknowledges the right to private property. And if you read a little more of Catholic social teaching, you'd also know that the Church condemns socialism just as much as she condemns completely unfettered, amoral capitalism.
Fine. Then why don't contemporary Catholics -- especially in leadership -- learn about what Aquinas said concerning private property? Why don't Catholics use Thomist ideas on private property to challenge Catholic Worker's neo-Marxist ethos? Most contemporary Catholic economic teaching seems to be nothing but sentimentalist, warmed-over pseudo-socialism embraced by the secular intelligencia.
As far as "unfettered, amoral capitalism" is concerned, I have never issued any defense of such on this thread. You're being disingenuous.
Can you differentiate between bad bishops and honest ones, since you seem to give that much leeway to business executives (like the difference between Ken Lay and Tom Monaghan)?
Of course, there's a big difference between Monaghan and Lay. But you can't equate businessmen with bishops, for one very important reason: Businessmen do not come from the same mold; Catholic bishops are trained and nurtured by a centuries-old system that has tolerated (if not encouraged) corruption, bureaucratic arrogance and isolation from the people (and the God) they claim to serve.
Businessmen operate in a much more open environment than Catholic bishops, who think they are above the law. Just look at Cardinal Mahony's actions concerning the clerical sex-abuse crisis and his recent statements on immigration.
Businessmen have more of an incentive to be honest because they realize that their credibility and financial futures depend on it. Of course, not all business men are honest. Of course, cartels and trust exploit the vulnerable. But both governments and the market have the power to influence business. Catholic bishops are insulated by a self-perpetuating, self-protecting bureaucracy that's impervious to influence -- unless it's the extreme kind that the Boston Globe brought to bear.
Show me an honest bishop and I'll show you a 7-foot jockey.
Can you put as much importance on the Scripture passages I cited concerning the treatment of the poor (including Our Lord's own words) as you do on Genesis' take on capital punishment?
Of course. My point is that the Church Establishment violates those very words in the way it runs its finances, treats people who work for it and exploits the poor and vulnerable as foils to induce pervasive guilt
continued from previous post...
Can you put as much importance on the Scripture passages I cited concerning the treatment of the poor (including Our Lord's own words) as you do on Genesis' take on capital punishment?
Of course. My point is that the Church Establishment violates those very words in the way it runs its finances, treats people who work for it and exploits the poor and vulnerable as foils to induce pervasive guilt and grasp at secular power. If the Church really cared about justice, the poor and vulnerable if would have done right by those sexually violated by its own priests (and I don't necessarily mean just financially).
Dave, you misuse those passages to condemn capitalism as a whole. You deliberately refuse to see that, despite its seamier aspects, capitalism offers the best way for people to use their God-given talents, avoid poverty, support their families and plan for the future. None of the self-important ideological nostrums offered by our "shepherds" compares.
And lastly, for these and for other reasons, do you no longer consider yourself a Catholic? (Also, if you're willing to answer, do you go to church anywhere these days?)
Dave, let me respond with a question: Do you believe that the Church Establishment is beyond criticism? If so, then Catholicism to you is nothing but a cult. That's not to say that it *is* a cult; any theology or secular ideology can become a cult to its adherents (cf, Communism). But I am not willing to ignore the Church's pervasive and immemorial hypocracy in order to maintain brand loyalty.
One particular clarification:
Dave, you misuse those passages to condemn capitalism as a whole. You deliberately refuse to see that, despite its seamier aspects, capitalism offers the best way for people to use their God-given talents, avoid poverty, support their families and plan for the future.
I'm not condemning capitalism in and of itself. A free market is the best way of doing things -- I agree with that. But you may not use that system to exploit people. Hence my qualification of amoral capitalism.
My apologies, Dave.
The condemnation of socialism is based on its fundamental immorality. The right to one's wages, property, etc. and the limitation of the state's claims to them are part of Catholic teaching.
There are immoral policies that can be proposed inside the capitalist system and the Church can and does identify them.
In the wide range of licit economic policy options and state interventions in free markets, that's a matter of prudential economic and political decisions. Obtaining a just wage for all is a goal but there's no single means directed to that end proposed by the Church.
There is no firestorm about Scalia.
There's only a Bic lighter:
http://secret-agent.blogspot.com...-penalty-
i.html
There is no firestorm about Scalia.
There's only a Bic lighter:
Quite witty, S.A.M. Nevertheless, perhaps you should tell Absp. Chaput that...
http://www.seattlecatholic.com/
a...e_20040406.html
Dave and Patrick, when I refer to the moral bankruptcy of Catholic social teaching, I refer to sentimemts reflected in this comment from Patrick's blog:
When asked directly, one bishop said that open borders and automatic citizenship were the only public policy in accord with Catholic social justice teaching.
(Patrick, I'd love to know which bishop made that statement)
Well, now, this is very interesting, since such teaching also protects the rights of laborers to organize -- and illegal immigrant labor is one way to undercut union labor. And, obviously, the right to organize is one way workers protect their ability to earn a living and raise their families. So our beloved bishops are actually supporting "scab" labor, in contrast to the teaching they supposedly uphold!
Also, there's no denying that these immigrants are putting a tremendous strain on the educational and medical systems, so much so that many emergency rooms here in California have had to close because they can no longer take on uninsured patients (which illegal immigrants inevitably are) -- often at the expense of other poor.
So it seems that our marvelous bishops are playing one group of poor and vulnerable people off against another. Is this consistent with Catholic social teaching?
Dave and Patrick, you're arguing based on academic analyses that seem isolated from contemporary circumstances. I'm arguing based on the bishops' own ignorance of civic responsibility and arrogance in the face of responsible civic authority.
After all, this is the same bunch that felt it to be their right to stonewall abuse victims and legitimate government inquiries.
Such statements make me question the entire legitimacy of Catholic economic and social teaching as it applies to today's circumstances. If the bishops who are responsible for interpreting it come up with such interpretations, then how much moral (let alone practical) value does it really have -- except as a self-serving mechanism for preening bishops to grasp at secular power?
Your serve, gentlemen....
Dear Joe:
OK, Chaput's comments qualify to upgrade this to the level of a stove-top or Bunsen burner. It's still shy of a "conflagration."
Palm's article repeats the same bad view of EV and the Catechism used by Scalia. When my home computer's working again, I'll do a long blog on this subject.
You wrote, "I'm arguing based on the bishops' own ignorance of civic responsibility and arrogance in the face of responsible civic authority.
After all, this is the same bunch that felt it to be their right to stonewall abuse victims and legitimate government inquiries. . . .
Rather than asking whether you have more than one string on this particular violin, I'll ask if you're willing to apply the same brand of Donatism to the state and its leaders? If memory serves, the history of secular government is not an pristine record of moral brilliance, either. So, if the moral evil of officers disqualifies the office, how can we legitimately obey the state?
S.A.M., you make several mistakes in even asking the question. First, you equate all civic officials in all secular governments with each other; no serious individual can make such a claim. There are significant differences, for example, between free European governments and the U.S., let alone between Communist, Fascist and democratic ones (all of which, the last time I looked, were secular).
Second, you equate civic officials who are held publically accountable (whether directly by the voters or indirectly by bureaucrats who are governed by people who are direcly accountable to the public) with Church officials who are in no way, shape or form held accountable by the faithful, nor desire to be.
This point is pivotal as far as American political behavior is concerned: We legitimately obey the state because we can hold the state accountable. We can, through the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, petition the state for grievances and protest its decisions (among other things). The Constitution provides mechanisms to hold government accountable and to encourage citizen participation. Where do those mechanisms exist in Canon Law? For that matter, does the Catholic episcopocracy really encourage the faithful to engage in such behavior?
Third (and this is closely related to the second point), you refuse to admit the fact that the Catholic episcopocracy is essentially a closed system that is impervious to outside influence (including, in some cases, papal influence), that creates in an almost assembly-like fashion like-minded individuals whose prime loyalty is to the system and to their own ambition, not to Christ.
Fourth, and this is the most important point, I expect more from a Church that claims to be the fulfillment of the Gospel than from a secular government that makes no such claim.
Ultimately, S.A.M., you're arguing that we should obey Church officials without regard to their behavior, only in regard to their rhetoric. This is the worst kind of "cafeteria Catholicism," the kind that deliberately sacrifices reality on the altar of ideological agenda.
Joe:
In all that wind, you have neglected to actually answer both Dave's and SAM's actual questions.
A) do you no longer consider yourself a Catholic?
B) If the moral evil of officers disqualifies the office, how can we legitimately obey the state?
In both cases, you have evade direct answers to rather simple questions. *Will* you answer them with a simple yes or no? It doesn't seem that hard, yet you blow a lot of smoke without actually ever coming to the point.
Joe:
Don't call Mark a liar. He's a friend of me and my family, and I don't want that charge flung at him.
Stick to the issues and there won't be any problems.
Dale, as far as my comments about Mark are concerned (and they relate to capital punishment), see.
http://www.seattlecatholic.com/
a...e_20040406.html
As far as whether I consider myself a Catholic is concerned, I refuse to answer the question because it's a loaded question. If I say "yes," then the Sheas and Pawlaks of the world will discount what I say because I'm not "Catholic" enough. If I say "no," then they'll discount what I say because they'll accuse me of having no business criticizing something of which I don't see myself as a part.
Besides, it's none of their damn business, anyway. This is the United States; this isn't Spain under the Inquisition.
The problem isn't my criticism. The problem is their refusal to confront the Catholic episcopocracy's pervasive, incorrigible, infernal hypocracy and the fact that such hypocracy destroys all moral credibility when it speaks on issues outside of their expertise.
So much for the Junior Inquisitor from Montlake Terrace.
Now, for the $64K question: "If the moral evil of officers disqualifies the office, how can we legitimately obey the state?"
As I said to S.A.M., this question mistakenly equates all types of secular authority (Communist, Fascist, democratic) and equates all secular authority with religious authority. In the United States, we can obey the state because we have imput into how the state functions, thanks to the Consititution and the Bill of Rights. The electorate can hold office holders accountable; theoretically, nobody is above the law. Unjust laws can be changed. Corrupt office holders can be voted out and prosecuted.
IOW, the office is defined by the accountability under which it is held. That certainly isn't the case with Fascist or Communist governments -- and the Catholic episcopocracy is far closer in management style to those governments than to American republican democracy.
And if Catholics have a moral duty to fight against unjust secular governments, then Catholics have a moral duty to fight against a parasitic, incompetent, malevolent episcopocracy -- just as Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Thomas More and Erasmus did.
Moreover, the question presupposes that the only obligation that the governed has is to obey and obey supinely. Such acquiescence is not citizenship; it is slavery.
The question also presupposes that the episcopal perogative to comment on public issues is exactly the same as a God-ordained sacramental mandate (cf, S.A.M.'s comments about "Donatism") That is nothing but clericalism.
At this point, I'd like to refer to what I said on my first post on this thread:
Taking papal teaching seriously doesn't mean swallowing it whole without thinking. It means contemplating that teaching in light of previous teaching, in light of Scripture and in light of current events.
Trying to prooftext and shoehorn Leo XIII's views on economics without reference to context, Scripture or history is swallowing it whole.
It's not a loaded question, it's a perfectly straightforward one. If you are no longer Catholic, then you should be honest and make clear that you are arguing, ultimately, that people should leave the Church. This is called "being clear". If you do consider yourself Catholic, then it is reasonable to ask things like "How do you reconcile this claim with statements that appear to endorse the notion that the sacrament of Holy Orders was not instituted by Christ?" Again, this is called "being clear". Instead, you prefer to attack everybody else but not admit that anybody else has the right to question you. This sort of intellectual bullying does more to destroy your credibility than anything I could say.
Finally, you appear still to be incapable of giving a straight answer to a straight question. If, as you argue, the sins of bishop nullify the episcopal office, then why don't the sins of politician's nullify the political office. Nero had no more "accountability" than bishop. Indeed, he had rather less. Yet Paul still maintained that the office of Caesar was legitimate, despite the sins of the occupant (Rom. 13). For all your sturm und drang, Joe, you have not actually succeeded in making your case for the abolition of the episcopacy. You've simply dodged a couple of perfectly legitimate questtions because you know that if you were to answer them, it would be clear that you are essentially arguing from a Donatist and Fundamentalist Protestant position while claiming to be a Catholic prophet.
Yes or no is really all that's necessary to answer both questions.
Mark, you and your own little group of inquisitors (Dave Pawlak, S.A.M.) should re-read my first two posts on this thread. If you re-read them, you will notice the following:
1. I don't encourage anybody to leave the Church.
2. In no way do I address the issue of Holy Orders or other sacramental responsibilities.
Here are my points:
1. Much of Catholic social and economic teaching has been framed in a vacuum by isolated academics who have no personal knowledge or experience in the matters they address.
2. Given the refusal of Catholic leaders to apply their own principles to the way they govern the Church -- a sign of the internal corruption within the Catholic episcopocracy -- Catholic social and economic teaching has minimal (if any) moral credibility.
3. The USCCB's attitude on immigration, for example, contradicts such encyclicals that encourage the right of workers to organize to protect their wages (since immigrant labor undercuts union labor). Either the USCCB doesn't know what it's talking about or it is grotesquely malevolent.
In response to these points, I'm accused of being a de facto Donatist (courtesy S.A.M.), a blind apologist for laissez faire economics (courtesy Dave Pawlak) and a mindless follower of secular government.
The fact that the three of you equate the prudential ability of bishops to comment on public affairs with their divinely mandated sacramental responsibilities effectively makes you clericalists. Your refusal to understand the fact that the Catholic episcopocrasy's hypocracy and corruption destroy its credibility to address significant issues makes you not worth my time.
One more thing, Mark and Dave,
You are trying to draw me into an argument that I did not advance on this thread. You are uncomfortable with the arguments I present, so you're trying to re-set the issue in your own terms, in terms that you feel comfortable dealing with, such as calling into question my Catholic identity. The fact that such terms are irrelevant to the discussion are immaterial to you.
I suggest you address what I actually said on this thread instead of what you would have liked me to say or what you wish I said.
I'll take that as a "No. I won't answer your simple questions."
1. I can't tell if you are urging people to leave the Church or not. That's why I asked you to clarify your non-answer to Dave.
2. When you write "Supposedly, all Catholics receive the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation. Supposedly, the Holy Spirit is responsible (among other things) for enlightening believers. Supposedly, there should be no contradiction between what the Spirit teaches and what the Church is supposed to teach" you are most certainly calling into question essential Catholic teaching, both about the nature of the sacrament of confirmation and about the infallibility of the Church.
When you further maintain that "the Catholic episcopocracy is incorrigibly and irreconcilably opposed to Christ's agenda" you strongly suggest that the office of the bishop was not Christ's idea. If the office is truly "irreconcilable" with the will of Christ, then he could not have instituted it.
That's why I asked you to clarify what you meant, because a reasonable person can easily take you to mean that. If that's not what you mean, then what *do* you mean?
You're the guy screaming for "accountability", Joe. Who about showing some accountability for your own words?
Bold off!
Joe, two things:
1) I'm going to re-read Dale's original post and all the comments here, and write about this on my blog on my own time. I hope to be a bit more thorough and a bit less hotheaded on my own turf. You are welcome to visit and comment if you wish.
2) I'm in no way part of "Mark's little group of inquisitors". While he and I may agree on quite a bit, I do try to think independently, make my own opinions, and stand my own ground. If Mark happens to agree with me, that's his right, as you have your right to disagree with me.
But I'm done here. See you at Improvised, if you want to go there.
OK, Mark, it appears you need a lesson in literacy:
1. When you write "Supposedly, all Catholics receive the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation.... you are most certainly calling into question essential Catholic teaching, both about the nature of the sacrament of confirmation and about the infallibility of the Church.
No, Mark, I am demanding a legitimate consistency between the words and actions of the Catholic episcopocracy and the Holy Spirit. Any devout Catholic will and should make the same demand. Christ Himself would make it. In effect, He did every time He confronted the religious leaders of His own day.
2. When you further maintain that "the Catholic episcopocracy is incorrigibly and irreconcilably opposed to Christ's agenda" you strongly suggest that the office of the bishop was not Christ's idea. If the office is truly "irreconcilable" with the will of Christ, then he could not have instituted it.
No, I'm talking about the behavior or the episcopocracy; the essential nature and the origin of the offices are separate issues.
Tell me, Mark, if you're so knowledgeable about Catholic theology, how does embracing intellectual fashion reflect Christ's agenda? How does engaging in the massive coverup of sexual perversion reflect Christ's agenda? How does deliberately distorting previous teaching and engaging in revisionism reflect Christ's agenda? How does a blindly ecumenical attitude toward non-Christian religions reflect Christ's agenda? How does the ambition for political power that marked much of Vatican history reflect Christ's agenda?
The clock is ticking. The crickets are chirping....
No, Mark, I am demanding a legitimate consistency between the words and actions of the Catholic episcopocracy and the Holy Spirit.
No, Joe. You're not. When you use the word "supposedly" you are suggesting that a) all Catholics *do not* receive the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation, b) the Holy Spirit is *not* responsible (among other things) for enlightening believers and c) there *is* contradiction between what the Spirit teaches and what the Church teaches.
Note that last point. You claim you are saying there is a disconnect between the words and *actions* of the episcopacy (no argument that there is not from me, by the way). But that's not what you are, in fact, claiming. You are in your own words, alleging that the episcopacy (and in particular, John Paul) "contradicts" Scripture and Tradition. In short, you are not simply asserting they are sinners (which everybody grants). You are asserting that the Church is not protected by infallibility.
And, you have, in the past, also asserted that apostolic succession was false. Perhaps you have changed your mind about this?
No, I'm talking about the behavior or the episcopocracy; the essential nature and the origin of the offices are separate issues.
So then, you do grant the validity and authority of the episcopal office, even when it is occupied by a sinner?
Tell me, Mark, if you're so knowledgeable about Catholic theology, how does embracing intellectual fashion reflect Christ's agenda?
It would be helpful if you could clarify this woolly polemic with specifics.
How does engaging in the massive coverup of sexual perversion reflect Christ's agenda?
It doesn't. Neither does it remove the office of the bishop nor make it one whit less an office that Christ founded. It simply shows what we all know: that bishops are sinners.
How does deliberately distorting previous teaching and engaging in revisionism reflect Christ's agenda?
Here you seem to again be suggesting that the Church is not protected by infallibility. No doubt because JPII isn't as eager to kill people as you are.
How does a blindly ecumenical attitude toward non-Christian religions reflect Christ's agenda?
More woolly polemics. Are you again arguing that the Church's formal teaching is in error, or merely that bishops screw up and/or do not do things to your taste?
How does the ambition for political power that marked much of Vatican history reflect Christ's agenda?
More woolly polemics. By "marked ambition for political power" you seem to mean "Reluctance to kill as many people as Joe D'Hippolito would like to see dead" and "Hesitance to indulge in Joe's fantasies about Total War Against Islam and the nuking of multiple population centers". I'll take that version of power politics over yours any day.
Bye, Mark. Have a nice day. Don't get laryngitis screaming into the wind.
Actually, I'd like to compliment all hands on the most civil discussion involving Joe that I ever recall seeing.
I am not being sarcastic here.
Hi, I'm a Conservative Anglican economist here. This looked like an interesting topic at the top of the main blong, but I'm not sure where it goes.
Mark: I think for me it has something to do with means and ends. There is a core of the Church's teaching which is immutable, and a big chunk (like the idea, for example, that the "preferential option for the poor" follows from the dignity of all human beings) that should be way seriously.
Now, you can agree for example that Christians should be devoted to reducing poverty, and they can have a bunch of different opinions on what *actually* reduces poverty. The better opinions may depend on some knowledge of economics or human behavior which is specialized rather than doctrinal. If you have a moral imperative to do x, you have a moral imperative to do it by effective means.
Similarly, if a little village is downstream from a dam about to crack, and we all agree that there is a Christian moral imperative to mend the dam, at that point I really want the views of a civil engineer. Having the Church say "don't let the people die" isn't going to tell me *how* to stop that from happening.
I think this is how you preserve the core of Christian teaching while still giving appropriate deference to useful technical information.
Joe, your latest words in italics. I haven't replied to your earlier points because it was growing into a longer post. Hopefully I can combine them in the future.
Mark, you and your own little group of inquisitors (Dave Pawlak, S.A.M.) should re-read my first two posts on this thread. If you re-read them, you will notice the following:
1. I don't encourage anybody to leave the Church.
2. In no way do I address the issue of Holy Orders or other sacramental responsibilities.
Joe, I never said anything one way or the other about either point. Lumping me (or anyone else) together with an imaginary "little group of inquisitors" just makes you sound petulant.
Here are my points: . . . . 1. Much of Catholic social and economic teaching has been framed in a vacuum by isolated academics who have no personal knowledge or experience in the matters they address.
This is something I can partly agree with. It's true that bishops, cardinals and popes are generally too busy doing the things one does to become a bishop, a cardinal or a pope to have hands-on experience and deep knowledge about running a business or a secular government. Does it follow, as I think you suggest, that they have little or nothing relevant to say about economics and government? It depends on what realm of knowledge one identifies as the noblest and most useful in human affairs.
If that's economics and politics, then the Church is certainly best thought of as one of many interest groups that may be allowed to put options and ideas on the table for discussion along with everyone else and without distinction. The odd thing is that while this perspective is widely held, many of those who hold it can't resist inflating economics and politics into religions that purport to teach authoritatively about mankind's nature and the destiny of our race. I can't understand why the attempted domination of ‘hard' disciplines by religious dogmatists is objectionable, but the attempted usurpation of religious infallibility by economists and politicians isn't thought equally odious.
That lopsided paradigm is one of the things that persuades me of the truth of the Church. The Church has always recognized this expert/clerical problem as a manifestation of an inherent tension between God and Caesar and has, most unpredictably, refused either to damn the state and the world as the works of Satan or demand that the Church be recognized as owning the direct, exclusive, and immediate right to rule mankind. There are popular and pseudo-intellectual charicatures to the contrary, but they are to the contrary. What follows is a brief and shorthand refutation of the charicature.
The charicature is that, wherever her divine authority is recognized, the Church assumes the direct right to rule mankind through her chosen delegates. Sometimes those delegates are clergy, but they are also secular authorities which exist only at the whim of the hierarch
Part II
. . . whim of the hierarchy. Something like that paradigm can be found in history, but it fails as a complete description of Church teaching on politics and economics. There is another story which has persisted in the history of the Church far longer than the reign of Innocent III.
Religions thrive on ideas. Religions are ideas. If a religion takes vigilant care of anything, that thing is first and foremost its ideas about human life. That having been said, it is an astonishing fact that no religion dedicated to world domination by a clerical apparatus would have ever accepted Pope Gelasius' dualism: "There are two powers by which chiefly this world is ruled: the sacred authority of the priesthood and the authority of kings. And of these the authority of the priests is so much the weightier, as they must render before the tribunal of God an account even for the kings of men."
The charicature I've described spends all its time on the second sentence and its consequences. Very well, but the fact remains that a totalitarian "world Church-State" would never for an instant countenance any authority other than its own being constituted and legitimated by the will of God. It would never have accepted Romans 13 into its canon of Scripture. ("Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.")
Even if one assumes that the Church's teaching on political matters is a corruption of that text, one is left with the unexplained fact that the Church has been (for a movement supposedly dedicated to papal rule of every aspect of human life, that is) astonishingly complacent about regimes that persecute and thwart her own plans and ministers. Explanations of this fact in terms other than the Church's recogniztion, per Gelasius, that God has constituted and valued secular authorities in their own right and without regard to prelates' personal opinions eventually devolve into hare-brained conspiracy theories of the "they're-so- victorious-they-got-themselves-killed" variety.
However much Jefferson's "wall of separation" may deviate from the vision of Gelasius and the Popes who followed, it is (for secularists) an inconvenient fact the Church's vision of two swords is the engine that generated the political culture in which Jefferson's thought flourished. I don't mean to suggest that Thomas Jefferson is the epitome of Catholic social thought, or that the modern conception of Church-state relations is one which the Church has endeavored to bring about. Far from it -- but I do mean to suggest that if one wants to find a thoughtful, serious and sustained discussion of questions about the relationship of ecclesiastical and secular authority one will find it conducted primarily (I would venture to say exclusively) by and within Catholicism.
Christianity has always maintained the necessary existence of secular
Part III
. . . and spiritual authority over the same areas: Christ's command to render to Caesar and God necessarily involves a continuing dialogue between their respective ministers about their own authority and the proper place of things in the cosmic order. But only the Catholic Church has been able to conduct this dialogue on consequential terms, precisely because the authority she claims for herself and her tenacity in clinging to it prompted some very astute maneuvering that has resulted in her being the only religious authority which secular powers must recognize as independent and equal to themselves.
Constant negotiation of the tension between spiritual and temporal is important to any Christian, but in the Church's context it's also vital to the understanding Roman Catholicism has of itself. Secularism has no such scruples. The secular realm assumes ab initio that there is nothing higher than its own paradigms and imperatives. The secular debate about the utility of religion is limited to the ways and means religious sentiment can be mobilized to support state policies. That's actually a far-less tolerant paradigm than anything the Popes used on Europe's kings and princes.
It's also rather frightening because I think societies and states are most barbaric and dangerous when the ability to articulate their legitimacy and the means of power are entirely combined in the same institutions. Of course this has happened to some degree within Catholicism. The Papal States are one example. But, following Christopher Dawson, I think it happened within Catholicism because the Church lived through a period of barbarism. (The Church is, by the way, the only continuously-existing Western institution to have survived the fall of Rome, something that does suggest that her memory and thinking are relevant to the problems of civilization). Even then, however, prelates exercised secular power as secular rulers. No one maintained that the Papal States' laws and ordinances were handed to the Popes on Sinai, or that the princely-archbishoprics of Germany were created by Christ. These religious/secular rulers always wore two hats, not one mitre, and again I would submit that their example would not exist if their religion had preached a totalitarian theocratic model.
Secularism doesn't even comprehend that issue. For it, man's nature and destiny are a matter of interest and politics and nothing else. More than that, modern secularism assumes that all questions and answers about man's dignity are self-generated by the popular will -- whether expressed through the electorate or some notional Lawgiver (read "god-king") or a combination of both. Far from embracing the inconvenient tension between a real Christ and a real Caesar, secularism simply assumes the two are one and that the one is Caesar. "Sunday Christians" comply with the secular paradigm, regarding their own faith as an ins
Part IV
. . . Sunday Christians" comply with the secular paradigm, regarding their own faith as an insubstantial hobby to be indulged in the pews and nowhere else. But secularism's failure to take that dialogue seriously, and to examine it self-consciously and without fear, is a kind of moral blindness that causes me to vigorously distrust the secular solution and to thank God for the Pope.
2. Given the refusal of Catholic leaders to apply their own principles to the way they govern the Church -- a sign of the internal corruption within the Catholic episcopocracy -- Catholic social and economic teaching has minimal (if any) moral credibility.
As opposed to the United States, whose leaders have always and without exception applied their own principles to the way they have governed the country? Joe, this is Donatistm, and it's a very shaky moral paradigm if it obliges you -- as it does -- to uphold the Tuskeegee experiments as a stainless example of good government.
3. The USCCB's attitude on immigration, for example, contradicts such encyclicals that encourage the right of workers to organize to protect their wages (since immigrant labor undercuts union labor). Either the USCCB doesn't know what it's talking about or it is grotesquely malevolent.
First off, none of those encyclicals establish unions as a paramount value that automatically trumps all other values. It would be one thing if Rerum Novarum maintained that a workers' union could abolish the Ten Commandments and rewrite the Beatitudes. But Church teaching on unions doesn't go so far, and for that reason alone, your absolute dichotomy is rashly proposed. Not to mention the fact that "immigrant labor undercuts union labor" is true to the extent that immigrants aren't in unions. Papal enclyclicals (at least not the ones I've read) don't forbid immigrants to join unions, so again, your absolute contradiction is being rashly proposed.
But does any of this matter, Joe? You've already established that the bishops in the USCC aren't applying their own principles to the way they govern the Church --- the Church is "internally corrupt," which means its economic and social teaching has no "moral credibility." So who cares what the Popes and Bishops say? It can't be worth the time of day because the Church is "internally corrupt." Why bother with the details?
In response to these points, I'm accused of being a de facto Donatist (courtesy S.A.M.), a blind apologist for laissez faire economics (courtesy Dave Pawlak) and a mindless follower of secular government.
You're a Donatist to the extent you argue point #2. You're not one to the extent you argue point #3. You're a Push-Me-Pull-You to the extent you argue both.
The fact that the three of you equate the prudential ability of bishops to comment on public affairs with their divinely mandated sacramental responsibilities effectively makes
Part V (sheesh!)
. . .
The fact that the three of you equate the prudential ability of bishops to comment on public affairs with their divinely mandated sacramental responsibilities effectively makes you clericalists.
That depends on how you define "clericalism." (There are lots of ways to define it. The most popular is "maintaining any role for the clergy of which one disapproves" and is really not susceptible to discussion). But I can defend a certain definition of "clericalism" whereas you won't even try defending your adherence to Donatism.
Your refusal to understand the fact that the Catholic episcopocrasy's hypocracy and corruption destroy its credibility to address significant issues makes you not worth my time.
You can say that, Joe. But I know you really like us, deep down.
I hope that it is appropriate to comment here. One of the most salient results of the protestant revolution, imho, is the totalization of the state in protestant countries, including our own U.S. It is true that our founders conceived of a government limited in scope and function; however, those limitations are defined by the state whether those definitions are made by 66% of the voters, or five men such as Anthony Kennedy.
It seems to me that Mr. SAM has it correct. Not only is the teaching authority and sacraments of the Church necessary for our salvation, but the authority of the Church is necessary for the welfare of the political community. We should thank our Lord Jesus Christ for our Bishops and the Holy Father. I am saying this as a resident of SoCal.
J.D.: Given the refusal of Catholic leaders to apply their own principles to the way they govern the Church -- a sign of the internal corruption within the Catholic episcopocracy -- Catholic social and economic teaching has minimal (if any) moral credibility.
S.A.M.: As opposed to the United States, whose leaders have always and without exception applied their own principles to the way they have governed the country?
Yes, S.A.M., precisely opposed. Know why? Not because the United States is the "best of all possible worlds;" far from it. Not because American leaders have been "perfect;" nobody who knows American history can argue that. So why are they precisely opposed? Because in American governance, unlike in Catholic episcopal governance, the governed have inalienable rights, including the right to redress of grievances and to hold the elected accountable. You constantly refuse to acknowledge this fundamental difference, one which makes all the difference.
Certainly, corruption has existed and will exist in American politics. But the American system has within itself the means to fight that corruption. Can the Church say the same thing? Of course not; the clerical sex-abuse crisis made that abundantly clear. If it weren't for the Boston Globe, bishops would continue to move pedophilic priests around with impunity, despite the wishes of the faithful and their pastors. If it weren't for the crisis, Catholics would not have known about JPII's pervasive incompetence and favoritism when it came to these bishops.
Don't believe me? Then who is holding Cdl. Mahony accountable for his treatment of abuse victims -- the same Cdl. Mahony who is trying to rehabilitate his reputation as a "moral leader" by thrusting himself into the immigration controversy?
Comparing Catholic episcopal governance to American political governance -- in terms of accountability, transparency and respect for the governed -- is like comparing a Little League team to the 1927 New York Yankees.
You have the audacity to accuse me of political Donatism, yet you carefully avoid the fact that you are a clericalist. Go to Hell.
That last comment was from me.
"Because in American governance, unlike in Catholic episcopal governance, the governed have inalienable rights, including the right to redress of grievances and to hold the elected accountable."
Unless, of course, the part of the electorate in question is dead from syphilis, which is what happened in Tuskeegee.
Or locked out of the electoral process by rigged "tests" of their qualifications to vote, which is what happened from the end of Reconstruction until the 1970s.
But, Joe, you think that's all right, because it happens in a legal framework dedicated to the idea of inalienable rights and lawsuits. According to you, being interned isn't really "corruption" because, some five years later, the Supreme Court will vote to say that you shouldn't have been interned, so sorry.
The reason corruption exists is because the corrupt find the idea of others having inalienable rights too inconvenient to bear. That's true whether the corrupt are bishops, generals, presidents or senators, and whether the inalienable rights involved are secured by the Constitution or the Code of Canon Law.
You have the audacity to accuse me of political Donatism, yet you carefully avoid the fact that you are a clericalist. Go to Hell.
But I didn't carefully avoid it. I said I could defend some idea of clericalism. You, on the other hand, still can't get your keyboard around the questions I've posed about having a Donatist perspective on Church authority.
As to whether I shall, as you wish, go to Hell, I'd rather find out what happened to Mystery Achievement. It doesn't seem to be online. Do you have any info on that?
I ask because I know that, deep down, you really do like us. You're just overwraught. I know how you feel. Maybe we can continue this when I put up some blog postings inspired by this discussion?
S.A.M., perhaps that's best. Please accept my apologies for my intemperance.
As far as the incidents you cite are concerned, the fact that nobody would support them now merely proves my point: American leadership must move in accordance with constitutional rights and safeguards or else lose power.
I have never said that American political leadership is perfect or ever will be or is incapable of making gross errors. I *have* said that the U.S. lives under a constitutional framework in which the rights of the individual are protected from excessive government intrustion. If that weren't the case, then Tuskeegee would have been multiplied exponentially, as it was in Nazi Germany.
Again, S.A.M., you fail or refuse to face the fact that such safeguards do not exist for the faithful in Catholic episcopal governance. If they exist in Canon Law, they certainly aren't applied, which makes Canon Law effectively useless.
As far as my being a Donatist is concerned, Donatism matters only concerning the sacramental functions of priests and bishops, not concerning their non-sacramental function of issuing prudential judgements on politics or economics. It's an irrelevant accusation; you might as well accuse me of being a Montreal Expos fan.
As far as Mystery Achievement is concerned, send me your e-mail and I'll let you know what happened. I want to protect someguy's privacy.
Joe:
I agree that when you keep saying I don't address the issues, and when i keep saying you don't address the issues, it's time to take a break.
Thanks for the info, BTW.
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