Dr. Liccione:
Nicely done.
As always, you offer yet again substantive reply and that perspicuity notoriously absent in Arturo's many screeds concerning the Catholic Church.
"I have noticed that, in the combox to Arturo's above-linked post, none of the criticisms directed (explicitly or implicitly) toward me engage any of my actual arguments on the specific points at issue, despite my having developed and publicized such arguments for several years. As I've often seen before, my critics simply disparage my general "development-and-negation" approach by suggesting that I proceed like a "lawyer" who, though he might or might not be using philosophy, is certainly not doing theology."
Indeed --
In fact, I am not at all surprised that when I challenged Arturo and his girlfriend (?), AG, instead of slinging the proverbial mud in the form of some rather tendentious, not to mention, fallacious arguments (with a sprinkling of ad hominem) as somehow to advance their own position on the matter, they chose simply to ignore (and even delete) my comments that issued such challenge, which I shall reproduce below for the record:
"At any rate, if you are the intellectual you yourself claim to be, then perhaps you would be so kind as to take up the challange I had initially offered to Arturo in the very comment you had deleted and provide substantive reply to Dr. Liccione’s own comments contained herein. Unless, of course, your engagement was merely an activity largely based on obfuscation, at best, or sheer calumny, at worst."
It's a pity, too, since I would have thought a person of Arturo's caliber to be honorable especially in the realm of polite & especially intellectual debate.
Dr. Liccione:
As concerning your previous engagements with these kinds of opinions offered (incessantly it seems, as well as stubbornly) by the likes of Arturo et al., would you kindly produce the previous arguments you and Fr. Kimel once presented in the past which wrestled with the sort? Thanks.
I know AG a bit. I've met her in person; like myself, she's a Texas Aggie of Louisiana extraction. So let me just suggest that I don't believe her problem with you has anything to do with the substance of Dr. Liccione's argument. Dr. Liccione made that argument, and they will respond or not. But saying "disagreeing with Dr. Liccione's position makes you a Protestant" was not something that Dr. Liccione says. Perhaps it makes one a discontinuant in some sense, but not all discontinuants are Protestants.
Besides, no one likes to be goaded, and unless you happen to be the Son of God, it's generally not a good idea to complain about someone kicking against your goads. Dr. Liccione says here why what is happening is happening, and far from criticizing it, he calls it "good," because it indicates that the time isn't ripe for exactly the sort of wrangling that you insist must take place. I'd counsel you to learn from his example.
Jonathan:
"But saying 'disagreeing with Dr. Liccione's position makes you a Protestant' was not something that Dr. Liccione says. Perhaps it makes one a discontinuant in some sense, but not all discontinuants are Protestants."
I appreciate your seemingly wise counsel in the matter (and have for quite some time, as you very well know); yet, how is it that the same sort of claim that one actually holds to a more genuine Christianity not consistent with the same that Luther himself held?
This sort of claim, these sorts of argumentation themselves (i.e., that the present Church in all its magisterial teachings is basically defective yet the one somehow holds to the truer meaning) cannot but be Protestant if not apparently, it is so by their very nature.
Show, therefore, how Arturo's is actually not like Luther who didst himself say thus:
"For I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves... I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."
If anything, Arturo is merely the voice that echos Luther's several centuries later.
Dr.Liccione,
Apologies for the off-topic post, but I wasn't sure how else to contact you. Could you give me your thoughts about Belmont Abbey since you were there for a while? It seems like the leadership is orthodox, but the faculty is not necessarily so.
I have a son I have been encouraging to go there, but if the faculty is not good, perhaps I should think twice. The leadership is important, but the faculty who'll actually be teaching is even more so.
You can E-mail me if you have time...if not I understand! God bless you...
Dave:
I shall post on this shortly. In the meantime, I shall just say that Belmont Abbey is an overwhelmingly Catholic place. I know the faculty member causing the most trouble here, but her views are not the majority's. If you're going to send you son to BAC, though, I'd forget about Federally provided or subsidized financial aid. I think they're going to have to forgo that in order to retain their independence.
Best,
Mike
Wow, as another parent thinking of encouraging her son to go to Belmont Abbey, I am very interested to hear this.
How are they academically? I understand they have an Honors Institute....
Thanks,
Diane (also off-topic)
Show, therefore, how Arturo's is actually not like Luther who didst himself say thus
Well, for one thing, he didn't reject the divine authority of popes and councils. Rather, he affirmed it. For another thing, he didn't appeal to his own conscience but rather to the formation of his conscience according to such norms. For another thing, he didn't appeal to sola scriptura. Those are all differences, and not trivial ones either. Not every difference with authority is Protestantism; Protestantism is a particularly extreme version of a difference from authority.
And even if it doesn't got that far, the implication is that, if Protestantism is rebellion, then Arturo is something like the Fifth Column for the rebellion. I think that goes too far. Similarities do not identity make, and I consider it important to get distinctions right where they correspond to a real difference.
Mike,
I like most of your points, as usual. Well said, and clearly put.
I suspect though, that the gulf between the trads and the firm continuants (amongst whom I count myself with hope) might not have been quite so wide or rancorous had not the Church made some pronouncements that were (even if true) unnecessarily vague or lacking in forethought.
For example, although I find it possible to understand Dignitatis Humanae (which is the most serious stumbling block doctrinally for most trads) well within the traditional teachings, still it was put forth in a way that tended to obscure rather than clarify some of that unity. (Some people, like the late Jesuit Malachi Martin, would suggest this obscurantism was an intended ploy by progressives, and it is hard to argue that they are wrong.) Even the officials responsible for the document sometimes had trouble stating how to reconcile it with tradition. Hence, the official Church can be seen to needlessly have fostered the problems trads (at least some of them) have with Church statements on the subject.
As another example apropos of the trads, it is totally clear from the reigns of Paul VI and JPII that they did not prefer to make use of authority in a forthright and, well, AUTHORITATIVE manner, preferring instead an almost impregnable collegiality and consensus to achieve their goals. This works great in some situations, but fell flat on its face in promulgating the Novus Ordo, which promulgation simply forgot to mention what to do about immemorial custom and rights thereunder. Thus creating all sorts of confusion that was totally needless. Even after the early-to-mid 1970's, when it became clear that the controversy about whether priests had the right to say the trad Mass was not going to go away, and when Paul VI (and later JPII) could have resolved the entire discussion with a firm, authoritative dictate abrogating earlier law, they STILL refused to use authority for clarity and common sense. Now along comes B16, and essentially confirms that the stance claimed by the trads as to whether the trad mass could continue to be used lawfully, it is not surprising that trads might look askance at some of the other holdings under Paul VI or JPII.
Not that I agree with them on this - you have to distinguish between teaching of truth and laying down juridical rules. But I would favor Benedict making simple, straightforward decrees that officially slice right through many of the knots for those trads who want to be united with the Pope and the Church regardless of whether there is any distinctly submissive response forthcoming from the Society of Pius X - which is not the totality of trads, anyway. Like making a traditional personal prelature, and formally recognizing most marriages that took place without diocesan approval.
Jonathan:
Well, for one thing, he didn't reject the divine authority of popes and councils. Rather, he affirmed it.
Pardon me, but isn't it a fact that Arturo does not accept the authority of Vatican II and its as well as any other post-Vatican II teachings, claiming that they contradict earlier concilliar/papal teachings?
Therefore, if such is the case, he holds higher in authority not the councils or the pope itself (since one cannot arbitrarily select certain councils over others as our Catholic Faith itself holds them in an organic whole; there is only one sect that dares do such a thing: Protestant, with respect to the ecumenical councils), but rather his conscience as his own source of infallible teaching, which in a sense is much like Luther.
Therefore, if such is the case, he holds higher in authority not the councils or the pope itself (since one cannot arbitrarily select certain councils over others as our Catholic Faith itself holds them in an organic whole; there is only one sect that dares do such a thing: Protestant, with respect to the ecumenical councils), but rather his conscience as his own source of infallible teaching, which in a sense is much like Luther.
At least by the term's ordinary meaning, Eastern Orthodoxy is not Protestant, and even if you called those who denied the authority of the Pope before the Reformation "Protestants," I think that would mislead rather than illuminate. Moreover, you've repeated what I view as the inaccurate charge that Arturo is following his consicence as the source of infallible teaching, which I think is inaccurate, in much the same way I think the term "Protestant" applied to, e.g., Eastern Orthodoxy would be inaccurate. It is nothing like the individualism of Protestantism, and it does not deny the sacramental life of the Church in the way that Protestantism does.
The persuasive value of analogies is based on similarities having greater illustrative value than the confusion created by the dissimilarities. That seems to be exactly the opposite of that is happening here.
Jonathan:
It is nothing like the individualism of Protestantism...
But that is exactly what I employ the term "Protestant" to describe the manner that Arturo is conducting himself as well as the nature of his arguments in his arbitrarily selecting while at the same time nullifying magisterial teachings solely based on what he considers genuinely "Catholic" from what is not.
This eminates from the same sorry predicament out of which Protestantism itself suffers from: that very individualism that remains at its source.
I believe that is precisely what you seem to be neglecting here.
e.:
It's not neglect; it's conscious disagreement.
We have historical examples of this sort of behavior that are essentially conceded not to be Protestant. Take the Catholic Encyclopedia on Gallicanism:
"This term is used to designate a certain group of religious opinions for some time peculiar to the Church of France, or Gallican Church, and the theological schools of that country. These opinions, in opposition to the ideas which were called in France 'Ultramontane', tended chiefly to a restraint of the pope's authority in the Church in favour of that of the bishops and the temporal ruler. It is important, however, to remark at the outset that the warmest and most accredited partisans of Gallican ideas by no means contested the pope's primacy in the Church, and never claimed for their ideas the force of articles of faith. They aimed only at making it clear that their way of regarding the authority of the pope seemed to them more in conformity with Holy Scripture and tradition. At the same time, their theory did not, as they regarded it, transgress the limits of free opinions, which it is allowable for any theological school to choose for itself provided that the Catholic Creed be duly accepted."
Likewise, I wouldn't lump Mar Zoghby in with Protestants, even though he had a different view of church authority than the CDF. And with respect to Eastern Orthodoxy, I doubt the charge of "individualism" could be seriously made. Even conciliarists weren't Protestants, although Protestants appropriated certain ideas from conciliarists. If we go back in time even farther, there were the Donatists and Novatianists, who I would not consider Protestants or individualists.
There is a chasm between "the authority doesn't work the way you think it does" and "you have no authority over my conscience" that creates a difference in *kind* and not *degree* between the positions. The fact that you jump that chasm in your analogy makes it unconvincing.
Jonathan:
While I appreciate your continued patience (not to mention, time & consideration) in addressing my comments, I believe there may be something else you are neglecting (no doubt, perhaps a consequence of my lack of skill in communication concerning the matter).
Firstly, I believe, as concerning Gallicanism, was not this with respect to the secular powers of the Pope then?
Secondly, I don't think this to be a matter of papal primacy; for even that, the Orthodox Church even recognizes (indeed, I believe it is papal supremacy that remains the perrenial thorn between East & West).
However, the arbitrary manner in which Arturo has selected what he believes (merely by personal gloss) is genuine Christian teaching from those he believe are not (Vatican II, Post-Concilliar, and even current magisterial teachings), and the fact that he remains adamant in doing thus (presumably, his "conscience", amongst other things, that remains his principal guide in all this) admits, in a sense, that he does not yield to the Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith as an organic whole but, rather, on his own personal interpretation of things.
That is what is "Lutheran" about his methods; that is what is "Protestant".
Therefore, in spite of the admirably courteous & logical manner in which you put your case forward on his behalf as well as the admittedly good reasons contained therein, I will have to continue to respectfully disagree.
As you will. For the record, Arturo believes that he is entitled to disagree with them precisely because the Magisterium never taught them infallibly, meaning one is entitled to judge about what teaching is more probably true. Let me say, though, that what you're doing here seems to fall right into the hands of Protestants who rightly object to fallacious Catholic arguments for authority. If one takes Protestantism as any position in which an individual interprets Magisterial teaching, then you are caught in an infinite regress. So your position, if correct, not only accuses Arturo of a wrong he has not committed but also makes Protestantism appear more justifiable.
Disagreement is one thing, but my objection comes from the fact that you seem insistent on following this argument to the point of setting the fortress afire from within. You appear to be holding the "naive" concept of Catholic authority, in which an individual is never competent to judge the error of the Magisterium. While people who live like that will certainly never conflict with Magisterial authority, but they do it by adopting an essentially Protestant concept of authority, exalting will over reason. Saying "I will agree with whatever the Magisterium says because it is safe" conflicts with reason, which requires you to judge right and wrong even of the Magisterium. One is entitled to do that, and obliged to do it, so I don't begrudge Arturo making the effort. I think he is wrong, but unless I can convince him of that, it isn't wrong of him to continue in that belief.
Jonathan:
"So your position, if correct, not only accuses Arturo of a wrong he has not committed but also makes Protestantism appear more justifiable. "
No, ironically, it is Arturo who is advancing the case for Protestantism as he feels that the Popes and the Councils are capable of error and, indeed, even contradict themselves, as Luther himself supposed.
As you appear to remain unconvinced and, even further, seem unclear of my own position in the matter, I shall present, therefore, a compelling advocate for my position, then-Cardinal Ratzinger himself, who didst say thus:
"Though Vatican Council II is inescapably a turning point, Ratzinger could find no fault with the council itself. It is impossible to decide in favor of Trent and Vatican I, but against Vatican II, he said. Whoever denies Vatican II denies the authority that upholds all other councils, namely the Pope and the council of bishops."
I hope from this you will see exactly the kind of Protestant thought that is conspicuously apparent in not simply in Arturo's misgivings but, more precisely, his explicit dissent concerning Vatican II and Post-Concilliar teachings.
e.:
I don't see Ratzinger actually saying what you purport your own paraphase to say. Consider that he said right before that Vatican II is "even judged as an apostasy from Vatican I and from the Council of Trent. Consequently demands have been made for its retraction or for a revision that would be tantamount to a retraction." That is directed to the extreme view that Vatican II was not an ecumenical council at all, but a gathering on par with the Latrocinium of Ephesus, which is an actual position taken by many traditionalists.
There is, once again, a chasm between calling something a robber councill and denying that particular documents (or even *parts* of particular documents) carry the full authority of the ecumenical council. Even denying the authority of an ecumenical council itself is not sufficient to call a position "Protestant," but it is far less the case here, where someone is not claiming to deny everything but only some particulars that are not believed to have been taught infallibly.
But I'd even go further and say that it is wrong even to call traditionalists who take the extreme view "Protestants." They have certainly taken a novel and discontinuous view of the authority given to past teaching, but a novel and discontinuous view of authority is hardly the same thing as protesting against the authority per se, which is precisely what Protestants do with respect to the office of both Pope and bishop.
I haven't followed all this brouhaha, but one thing I do know: Arturo is giving aid and comfort to anti-Catholic cranks like the Ochlophobist, who gleefully glom onto his arguments as "proof" that those wascally Catholics really do "change doctrine."
Granted, people predisposed to knock the Church do not need much encouragement, but why give them any?
I do not know whether I would characterize Arturo's approach as Protestant, but (WADR) I think it lacks a certain intellectual humility. Just my two cents' worth.
Diane
Diane brings to light just a portion of those things which highlite the series of crimes for which Arturo himself is actually guilty, but for some reason or another Jonathan (who I still happen to respect in spite of the ill feelings he bears toward my position) would much prefer to ignore.
Indeed, Arturo, by his own words and actions, which have demonstrated nothing more than promote efforts that undermine the Church, legitimizes the whole that is Protestantism, if not, the whole affront that consists in anti-Catholicism.
Aid and comfort? Crimes? I can't support that kind of language for Arturo. Arturo at best wants a revision in the pastoral style of the Holy See, and if people want to *misinterpret* that as an endorsement of Proetstantism or Orthodoxy, they're just being disingenuous. Arturo rebuked Death Bredon at his website for his delusional view of Anglicanism as traditional, and Owen described Arturo as follows: "Sometimes I think Arturo is insane. Other times I wonder if he is the last sane man left."
The only guy I suspect of abandoning his profession of faith while publicly pretending not to have is Stephen Todd Kaster, and you'll note that Mike L. has not been shy about saying so here. Arturo, by contrast, is no kind of threat to Catholic morality. I very much think you're both rushing to judgment on this one.
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