Two blogs, Disputations and Intentional Disciples, are giving a bit of play to this passage from the commentary:
"Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, “nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her.” The fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore, already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners “until it happily arrives at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.” This progress in fullness is rooted in the ongoing process of dynamic union with Christ: “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians.” [cf. Dominus Iesus #17].
Apparently, the neuralgic point is that not only are the Orthodox churches and the ecclesial communities "wounded," but also the Catholic Church. The Disputations blogger sees this as a "knock" against the Church; Sherry Weddell chose to highlight the Disputations post, when, heretofore, she has not posted one word, either about the MP or about the CDF document.
That was illuminating in several ways. Thanks, Janice.
What was illumined?
My problem with the notion of converts bringing their "gifts" to the church is not with Eastern Orthodoxy. Their credentials are well-established. However, with the protestant ecclesial bodies, I think there is cause for great caution. First of all, it is clear from the reaction to the CDF document that, while the Orthodox understood and appreciated what Pope Benedict (via the CDF) said, protestants (for the most part) did not. It is clear to me that the Pope wanted to begin with the Catholic concept of the Church because that is the greatest point of confusion and least understood aspect of Catholicism for protestants. This is now the third time Pope Benedict has said this (Communionis notio (1993), Dominus Iesus (2000), and this document (2007).
Now if protestant converts (especially evangelicals) do not fully understand the Catholic concept of "Church," (and judging from the protests that greeted the new CDF document, they do not) which is not something devised by humans, but is something which has been revealed (cf. Gal. 4.26; CCC #795), they do not understand Jesus, the liturgy, the sacraments or any of the rest of Catholicism.
Just to be clear: I am not relativizing Jesus (CCC #425, 858, 1065, 1698, 2466, 2812). He is the focal point, the alpha and the omega (Rev. 1.
. But the Church (the Heavenly Jerusalem) was created before the ages (Gal. 4.26) and has always co-existed with Christ. As Tertullian said: "Christ is never without water," i.e., "Christ is never without His Church (Photina Rech, Inbild). So Catholics come to the Church because that is the place created for us even before time by Christ, who is never separated from it. It is within the Church that we come to know Jesus Christ and to learn how to pray to Him. And prayer is the fundamental way in which one comes to know Jesus Christ. It is in the Church that Catholics learn Scripture. It is in the Church that Catholics encounter Christ in the most objectively personal way possible: in the Eucharist or in Eucharistic adoration. The Liturgy is the center of Catholic life, where the objectively Real Presence of Jesus Christ encounters the prayer and adoration of the worshipping community. This is where the concept of the Christus totus comes in. This is present already in Paul (1 Cor 12:12-31; Col 1:18; 2:18-20; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19; 4:13; cf. CCC #805, 1140). The community of believers is Christ’s own body, united with Him, her head. As it says in the Catechism: “The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church, which is the Body of Christ, participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire (CCC #136.”
I do wonder how converts from evangelical or pentecostal bodies grasp all of this, coming out of a tradition that has no church, as Catholics understand it, no liturgy, no Eucharist (for the most part), no Eucharistic adoration, no notion of the Christus totus. They claim a personal relationship to Jesus and great knowledge of Scripture. But rote memorization of Scripture or only making a personal application of Scripture to oneself, without any reference to the Tradition of the Church or the exegesis of the Church on the Scriptures makes me wonder if we’re even talking about the same thing. Certainly, Catholics can practice lectio divina, which is a personal application of the Scriptures. But this is practiced within the ethos of membership in the Catholic Church. And the evangelical protestant knowledge of Jesus, conducted on a purely personal, subjective level, completely free of any ecclesial criteria, and completely subject to one’s own personal desires and demands, results in a purely personal portrait of Jesus that reminds me of “historical Jesus” scholars, who paint Jesus in their own image.
The question I am left with is this: can converts from the protestant bodies, especially evangelicals and pentecostals, claim to offer Catholics insights from their own religious traditions that will illuminate Catholicism? Certainly, they have a core of beliefs that appear to intersect with those of Catholicism and not simply on the level of values. But the three recensions of the ECT and GOS documents indicate that there is more disagreement than agreement and they are still the same old disagreements: scripture, tradition, justification, etc. But if evangelicals bring these attitudes over to Catholicism, under the guise of bringing in their “truths” or things Catholicism has “neglected,” we are talking about very different theologies and attitudes.
It might be one thing if you were talking about the first generation of Reformers, who were Catholic and brought up that way. They, ostensibly, could have pointed to things either neglected or undervalued in the Church. But after centuries of ever-more-divergent theologies, perpetual rending of already-separated communities with even more varied theologies, how can anyone seriously consider that these converts should be bringing their theologies and practices into Catholicism.
My problem with the notion of converts bringing their "gifts" to the church
You keep using this odd language of converts bring gifts "to" the Church. Certainly, new members enrich the Church, but they don't bring anything "new" in the sense of revelation. So I don't get what you mean, nor what you think Evangelical converts mean. The Church herself teaches that all the baptized have received gifts. They are given by the Holy Spirit who is the soul of the Church. Those who enter into full communion add their gifts to the riches of his inheritance in the saints. But they do not add something to the Church's deposit of faith that was not there before.
Now if protestant converts (especially evangelicals) do not fully understand the Catholic concept of "Church," (and judging from the protests that greeted the new CDF document, they do not)
Who are these protestant converts protesting the CDF document? Kreitzberg is not a convert (nor is he protesting the document) and Weddell is certainly not protesting the CDF document either.
can converts from the protestant bodies, especially evangelicals and pentecostals, claim to offer Catholics insights from their own religious traditions that will illuminate Catholicism?
Not in the sense of adding anything to the Revelation. But in the sense of mutual edification: Sure. Why not?
What can you edify, Mr. Shea? Your own religious tradition is defective. The notion of "mutual edification" is a bit on the hubristic side, don't you think?
In all seriousness, Mr. Shea, tell me exactly what evangelical converts can bring that will edify the Catholic Church? Don't bother to mention the personal relationship with Jesus or Scripture, because I already dealt with that and explained the difference. But what else? And don't say an appreciation of the laity because the Catholic Church has had a lay apostolate since the apostles.
Janice,
Quakers denounced all slavery several hundred years before the whole Catholic Church did (desp[ite papal bulls) and we should have listened closer to them. Our Popes denounced the trade generally and the enslavement of native non African groups in the new world but what was always left to moral theology was the 4 reasons that justified slavery...one being born to a slave mother....protected by Cardinal Juan de Lugo in the 17th century and accepted by St. Alphonsus in the 18th...the premier moral theologians of their times. As late as 1960, the 5th edition of Tammaso Iorio's Theologia Moralis supported just titled slavery. Our religious orders and Bishops had slaves in the 19th century well after the Quakers condemned it. We could have learned that particular thing from them.
Calvin had our answer to the usury issue in 1545 in a letter to his friend ...the answer we arrived at in the 19th century aftee which our apologetics machines went into motion saying that we changed wisely as economies changed. Very simply...Calvin agreed with our extrinsic titles for entrepeneurs who risked but unlike us, he allowed interest on loans not to the poor but to the comfortable which we did not So had we listened to Calvin in 1545, we would have not. Had we listened to Calvin we would not have needed "apologetics" to explain why we thought it a sin to ask interest from uncle Pavio in the 16th century when he wanted a loan to go on vacation in France (and were he killed, we would lose the whole principal).
Thirdly the Vatican Council itself noted the greater than normal concern with scripture that some of the separated brethern had. There are cradle Catholics who despite reading the newspaper for decades and reading mystery novels...will not have read even 40 pages of the Old Testament by the time they leave this world and there are many Protestants who will have read the entire OT well before they leave this world. Thus they bring with them the memorization of multiple scripture verses that was a hall mark of Aquinas throughout the Summa T and of no famous Catholic since him. The result is comments like the one in the Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine where it is stated that wherever there is violence there God is not. Saul lost the kingship of Israel for not killing Agag as ordered by God and Samuel then killed Agag "in the prescence of the Lord" at Gilgal. Please God...may converts return us to Aquinas' discipline.
What's your point, Mr. Bannon? That you can recite some historical incidents over the years that prove the Church on earth is fallible? Good, you made your case. However, it's neither here nor there for purposes of this discussion.
Mr. Bannon,
Just to take you seriously for a moment, we're discussing the marks of a true Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Only the Catholic Church has these. The Church on earth is composed of human beings, therefore, of sinners. That does not lessen the four marks of the true Church. All it illustrates is the effect of sin. We are not living in the Heavenly Jerusalem as yet.
Your analysis is strikingly similar to those of the "historical Jesus" school. You rattle off a bunch of historical incidents, which tell us a lot about you, but nothing about the Church.
Janice:
It's very simple. We don't discuss liturgy on Intentional Disciples as a matter of policy because it is being done much better elsewhere than we could ever do it and none of us are knowledgeable to do so thoughtfully and helpfully.
Also, I do original theological research for a living and know what it takes to really know whereof I speak. If I don't know, I don't comment.
And I'm incredibly busy and about to leave town yet again. So I didn't have time to read the CDF document carefully or write an original comment on the CDF document. I know that Tom is always careful and thoughtful and that he had made a interesting observation. So I linked to him as I have done before.
It's no more complicated or conspiratorial than that. And now I must get to bed so I can get up at 3 to catch that early morning shuttle.
Janice:
I don't know how many ways I can say converts do not bring anything new to the revelation before you will hear it. So when I speak of "mutual edification" I do not mean that Evangelicals are bringing some new revelation to the Church that it lacks. I mean what St. Paul said, that "his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. 15* Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16* from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love."
I trust you do believe the Church's teaching that each member of the body of Christ is to help build up the others in love?
Janice:
Again: Who are these protestant converts protesting the CDF document? I did read somebody the other day falsely prophesy that the CDF document was "getting rid of subsistit and going back to esse" (as though a CDF document would, could or should trump or reverse the council). But, oh, wait: that was *you* dissenting!
As to protestant converts protesting the CDF document though: I know of none. Please do tell me who they are.
Janice:
Mr. Bannon's point is that sometimes individuals outside the visible Church can actualize the Church's teaching better than those in visible communion. It doesn't mean they add anything to the deposit of faith. It just means they can sometime live it better. When such people inspire Catholics to live it better too, they are helping to edify their brothers and sisters, just as individual Catholics often inspire and edify Protestants (often leading Protestants to seek full communion with the Catholic Church). But when a Protestant inspires and edifies his brother or sister Catholic he is not adding anything new to the Revelation. He is just living out the one baptism for the forgiveness of sins that we Catholics confess. Unless you seriously want to contend that no Catholic has ever learned anything from the example of a Protestant or received the grace of a baptismal charism through the charity of a Protestant (in which case you are mad) I don't see what is hard about this.
Although I've long wondered just how much of an "enrichment" of the Church it is (something of a mixed bag, I think), there's the historical-critical method that originated among liberal Protestants of Europe during the 1700s and 1800s, and only really caught on in the Catholic Church during the 1900s. Apparently the Church is happy to receive that as a gift from non-Catholic Christians (though I have my moments when reading Fr. Raymond Brown et al. when I feel like we should politely decline the gift).
What can you edify, Mr. Shea? Your own religious tradition is defective.
Janice, since Mark is a Catholic and has been for quite a while, "his own religious tradition" is the Catholic one. It's quite wrong to speak as if Mark were still an evangelical Protestant. The way you said it, it sounds like you're questioning or denying the authenticity and integrity of Mark's conversion.
Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, was not aboriginally a member of the Children of Israel, the Covenant People of God. Yet he gave Moses good advice about defects in the manner in which he (Moses) was conducting his administration, and Moses prudently took it.
Even doctrinally defective Christians, it seems to me, are often in a position to offer badly-needed suggestions on how doctrinally more complete Catholics can implement their undertakings, even if Catholic Tradition is fully doctrinally adequate. For example, many Evangelical churches (e.g., Baptists) have wonderfully effective religious education programs for children and adults. Contemporary Catholic parishes, whose parishioners are often abysmally ignorant of their own Catholicism, could stand to learn from these, IMHO. As to what is good in Protestant doctrine, even here I think Catholics could benefit. I refer anyone who doubts this, once again, to the first half of the late, great Fr. Louis Bouyer's Spirit and Forms of Protestantism. He leaves not a shred of doubt, even though the second half of his book offers decisive criticisms of deficiencies in Protestant doctrine.
Janice, your complaints about converts (here and in comments in prior entries) reminds me of the workers who weren't satisfied with their wages in Matt. 20:1-16. Remember what Jesus said there.
We all have gifts that the Father gave us. We all are in the body of Christ. What difference does it make if a convert wishes to share the gift of grace that caused them to convert and express it? Are you going to suggest that John Henry Cardinal Newman was somehow doctrinally challenged because he was a convert? Chesterson? Waugh? Or let's back a little further in history to let's say, Augustine?
Or is it only present day converts that you have a problem with? Mssrs. Shea, Akins, Armstrong, Miller and Dr. Blosser, too, all are converts and do a masterful job in the Lord's vineyard as apologists. Let's face it-not too many Fulton Sheens have come out of the watered down social justice theology that Catholic schools and universities have been peddling for the last 50 years. It is the converts who are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to apologetics these days. We should be grateful that the Holy Spirit moved them to fight for our Faith instead of dwelling on some sort of "defective" inculcation. If you feel that their efforts are somehow lacking, then throw yourself into the hurly-burly and make up the difference. Let your actions do the talking, instead of whining in the comment sction of a blog.
"Two blogs, Disputations and Intentional Disciples, are giving a bit of play to this passage from the commentary..."
Well, I read the post over at Disputations. I thought I noticed a sneering tone of self-amused triumphalistic mockery from the author and some commentators. In any case nothing 'exceptional'.
http://
disputations.blogspot.com...067016374679309
Though Janice and I do not always agree, I think that she is on to something.
As Sherry W at Intentional Disciples wrote, "So often, we don't carefully read church teaching because we approach simply as fuel for our pre-existing ideological conflicts". Although she did not intend it, I suspect these words might fit John da Fiesole fairly well in this circumstance; and insofar as she approved of the post, they suit her too. But I do not hold them responsible, because they are repeating, in their own fashion, what they have been taught by high ranking ideologists.
I for one have had, for many years, difficulties with aspects of Vatican II and post-Vatican II eccesiology and ecumenism, and I did not personally find the 'Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church', by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, all that helpful.
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Mr. Hoffer,
Why don't you knock off the a priori judgments. You have no idea what I do in the "hurly burly."
I am offering a critique of the evangelical offerings that I believe constitute a throwback to evangelical protestantism. As the Pope said recently in Brazil, Catholic missionization is conducted via attraction, not via the aggressive proselytism of the "sects," by which he meant evangelicals and pentecostals (and this is a step down from "ecclesial bodies." Yet, evangelical protestantism informs many of the efforts of converted evangelicals. Catholics, as our own tradition informs us, have their own sources and resources. I refer to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. As the Pope said in Deus caritas est, Catholic doctrine evolves into caritas, which is offered to all, without recourse to the strong arm tactics, which often inform the protestant evangelical outreach. As Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope wrote on the New Evangelization. He defined two types: classical (including schools of prayer (personal, paraliturgical, and liturgical), proclamation of the Word, works of charity and justice) and new evangelization, which to the Pope means: ". . . to dare, once again and with the humility of the small grain, to leave up to God the when and how it will grow (Mark 4:26-29)." Ratzinger recommended prayer as the most ultimately effective form of the new evangelization, following the example of Don Didimo Mantiero of Bassano del Grappa: "Jesus preached by day, by night he prayed."
As the Cardinal says: "God cannot be made known with words alone. One does not really know a person if one knows about this person secondhandedly. To proclaim God is to introduce to the relation with God: to teach how to pray. Prayer is faith in action. And only by experiencing life with God does the evidence of his existence appear."
Ratzinger offers some concluding thoughts for evangelization: first, following Christ: "does not mean: imitating the man Jesus. This type of attempt would necessarily fail—it would be an anachronism. The Sequela of Christ has a much higher goal: to be assimilated into Christ, that is to attain union with God." This is where the Christus totus comes in (that I mentioned in a post above).
As to the deficit in Catholics' understanding of their own religious doctrine and tradition, I wonder, again, how a tradition that has gone its own way for some 500 years, can testify to the deficits in the Catholic tradition. Fr. Bouyer's own reading strikes me as a bit inconsistent with Catholic tradition. He was good in his day on some aspects of Christian antiquity, but not so in this case. For example:
"Luther's basic intuition, on which Protestantism continuously draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being hard to reconcile with Catholic tradition, or inconsistent with the teaching of the Apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching, and in the most direct line of that tradition.
Well, not really. Luther's basic intuition was a "pro me" subjectivism that has always been rejected by Catholicism (cf. de Lubac, Catholicism). The Gospel message itself has primacy over its existential meaning (the "pro me" introduced by Luther and continued in existential theology; cf. Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther. Graz: Styria, 1966). True conversion is always "I," but, more importantly, it is "we," because there is a common path to God.
I will repeat something I have said on other posts: using examples from other Christian denominations is risky because content follows form. Look at ritual studies and see the evidence of how difficult it is to separate a form from its content. Religious education programs, etc., must be developed according to their own innate principles, just as Catholicism speaks its own language and has its own culture and history (Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance). It is simply part of realizing that there are different principles at stake.
Back for a return engagement, Cardinal Walter Kasper again redefined the meaning of church.
Cardinal Kaspar said a careful reading would show that the Vatican does not deny that Protestant churches are churches, but only stated that the Vatican definition of what constitutes a church is one that is traceable through its bishops to Christ's original apostles.
"Without doubt at the basis of dialogue is not what divides us but what unites us, and that is larger than what divides us," Kasper said.
Janice:
Again: Who are these protestant converts protesting the CDF document?
Since all your remarks here are supposedly occasion by this protest, it would be nice to know who exactly these people are.
Protestantism, or a neo-Protestantism, made great inroads into the Catholic Church in the latter 20th Century IMHO. It came to the point where traditional Catholics had less rights, freedom of expression and worship, and so forth, than so-called Charismatic Catholicism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, whatever you want to call it. On a personal note, I have always thought it strange and disagreeable that my region gives these Charismatics a place and support to the exclusion of others, and the Bishops, clergy and religious, etc. will participate in and sponsor their annual rally and events, while other Catholics of a 'pre-Vatican II' variety got pushed out of the Church. So if you wonder why some question and resist neo-Protestantism influences in the Catholic Church today, now you know, from at least one point of view.
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Paul:
I don't wonder that at all. I'm wondering who these mysterious protestant converts are that Janice says protested the CDF document. Answering that question by saying "Charismatics irk me" is not especially germane. So far the only concrete people she has mentioned are Tom Kreitzberg, who is not a convert and is a thorough-going Thomist, and Sherry Weddell, who wrote:
So often, we don't carefully read church teaching because we approach simply as fuel for our pre-existing ideological conflicts. Is it "for" or "against" my position? But if we can get past the defensiveness and read in a spirit of faith, hope, and docility, very exciting things start to pop out.
Forgive me, but this doesn't sound much like a protest against Church teaching.
So: who are these protestant converts protesting the CDF document? Surely an expert in "the Problem of Protestant Evangelical Converts" has these facts ready to hand?
And that brings me to an important matter that needs to be mentioned:
"Ecumenical considerations have also exercised an influence on the reform of the Eucharistic liturgy. Although this has never been expressed in official Documents, the air of openness and a lofty sense of ecumenism, prevalent in the times of the Council, were regarded negatively in various Church sectors. Some thought that by changing the liturgical forms, especially of the Eucharist, and by making them more acceptable to those who are not in communion with us, that ecumenism would be facilitated.
However, we know well that the reality is quite otherwise.
Achieving Christian unity, now fragmented because of human weakness, is far beyond our own feeble forces and theological formulations. Ecumenism, therefore, is far from easy and will be served by intensifying the mystical communion that occurs in it, rather than by making the Eucharistic celebration more attractive to our separated brethren."
http://www.catholicculture.org/l...&
searchid=28649
http://www.adoremus.org/
0406Euch...irituality.html
Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith has spoken the truth while others are still silent, or unaware. The so-called 'Ecumenical Movement since Vatican II' has done damage to the Catholic Church and the Holy Mass - obscured the Eucharistic Sacrifice - confused Catholic liturgical worship of God. If the 'Ecumenical Movement' being promoted in the Church in theory, practice and implementation is not an outright heresy (or a 'semi' heresy), it is still rather hard for some Catholics to stomach the real negative influences it has had on the so-called Vatican II Reform, and on our spiritual identity and lives.
So when I hear things like 'let us make room for those Protestants (their culture, outlook, energy, liturgical understandings, practices, etc) that will come, or have already come, etc. into the Church', - although I want the Church to be open and accommodating in the right way, I just do not believe anymore or have confidence that this will result.
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Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith wrote:
"Ecumenism, therefore, is far from easy and will be served by intensifying the mystical communion that occurs in it"
BTW, I am not sure what Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith meant by this 'mystical communion' part of what he wrote, so I do not endorse or accept it. I do not deny it, but it will need to be properly explained. Maybe he will do that in the future. I see nothing very mystical or good about how our liturgy was 'protestantized', 'modernized' and 'secularized'; I hope the Archbishop would agree. I think he does.
==
...by which Paul apparently means, "I have no idea who Janice means when she says that protestant converts protest the CDF document, but I would like to reiterate that I don't much care for protestant converts."
Fair enough. I didn't really expect you to know who Janice was talking about. Still, it would be nice to know if *Janice* knew who she was talking about, or if she too was really just saying, "I don't like Protestant converts."
So: who are these protestant converts protesting the CDF document?
"Ecumenism, therefore, is far from easy and will be served by intensifying the mystical communion that occurs in it"
You know, the Catholic Church was already 'ecumenical'; but it is darn hard for me to get 'mystical' about the so-called modern ecumenical movement, and worked up over 'communion' with the Protestants, whatever that means.
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Mr. Shea, please do not put words in my mouth.
Janice I suspect would agree with what I wrote here:
"So when I hear things like 'let us make room for those Protestants (their culture, outlook, energy, liturgical understandings, practices, etc) that will come, or have already come, etc. into the Church', - although I want the Church to be open and accommodating in the right way, I just do not believe anymore or have confidence that this will result."
In other words (if it was not clear), I think that the Catholic Church will be harmed (further) by the influx of Protestant ideas, doctrines, cultures, outlooks, energy, liturgical understandings, practices, movements, etc).
==
The so-called 'modern Ecumenical movement' was probably one of those 'Protestant' things brought into the Church that are not working out that well.
==
You are, for one, Mr. Shea. I was reading Jimmy Akin's blog, where he commented on lay ecclesial ministry and the feminization of the Church. He suggested that ". . . as a former Evangelical, I have an experience of what it's like to be in a church that has a more masculine spirituality." When I saw that, I recalled that you had written something similar. And your friend Ms. Weddell actively campaigns to use evangelical-inspired techniques and content (signs and wonders, etc.) in her evangelization.
The point is: this is contrary to what the Pope said in Brazil where he opposed the use of the proselytism employed by the sects (evangelicals and Pentecostals). Moreover, Mr. Akin connected this more “masculine spirituality” to the NT Church: “the Catholic Church's early zeal to evangelize was driven by a masculine impulse ("Convert those heathen!").” This is a recurrent practice on the part of evangelical converts to Catholicism, i.e., to justify the importation of evangelical methods on the basis that they conform to NT or early Christian practices. They may or may not, but the point is that the Catholic Church is not repristinatory. You act as though the Church does not have a history, culture, or development of Her own that should be respected. There is such a history, etc., between the NT and the present day. You cannot just cite the Book of Acts and go on from there.
In addition, to claim that the spirituality of Catholicism is “feminine” is to misunderstand Catholicism. It has many spiritualities within it. I would prefer not to categorize them or dichotomize them as you do. To refer to a demanding, ascetic, contemplative spirituality as feminine simply because the one who practices it is not all up in someone’s face asking about their personal relationship with Jesus is a calumny. Not to consider the real contributions of the enclosed religious is another. It seems to me that using “masculine” here is simply code for evangelical protestant and the Catholic Church has been far too protestantized over the last 40 years as it is.
The CDF document, with its engagement of the Catholic meaning of “church” and my reference to the blogs Disputations and Intentional Disciples was what started this. It seems to me that evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church.
"'protestantized', 'modernized' and 'secularized'", and... ecumenicalized?
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Paul,
That's right. The ecumenical movement basically means that we respect those with whom we disagree. It does not mean we give away the store.
Janice,
Good grief. You call DeVree out for contentiousness?!
Your posts are typically very helpful to me, and you are quite obviously brilliant. But on the point of Protestants, you are also obviously more than somewhat blinkered.
"...The evangelical protestant knowledge of Jesus, conducted on a purely personal, subjective level, completely free of any ecclesial criteria, and completely subject to one’s own personal desires and demands...."
How many years ago did you read Bouyer to have such a misconception of the communities in question? If your sole encounters are via web conversations, you are better off witholding judgement.
Moreover, Mr. Akin connected this more masculine spirituality” to the NT Church: “the Catholic Church's early zeal to evangelize was driven by a masculine impulse ("Convert those heathen!").” This is a recurrent practice on the part of evangelical converts to Catholicism, i.e., to justify the importation of evangelical methods on the basis that they conform to NT or early Christian practices. They may or may not, but the point is that the Catholic Church is not repristinatory. You act as though the Church does not have a history, culture, or development of Her own that should be respected. There is such a history, etc., between the NT and the present day. You cannot just cite the Book of Acts and go on from there.
First of all, Jimmy Akin didn't mention any particular methods at all. He only spoke in general of the missionary, evangelising drive that animated the early Christians -- and continued to animate pious Catholics from that time until the 20th century. So I don't see any basis for a claim that Jimmy is calling for the importation of allegedly Protestant evangelical methods. Anyway, we don't need to go all the way back to the Book of Acts as our model for evangelisation (though Ressourcement is a good thing, is it not?) -- we can also look at the examples of saints like Palladius, Patrick, Augustine, Aidan, Boniface, Willibrord, Anskar, Cyril and Methodius, Francis Xavier, Isaac Jogues . . . . The Great Commission is not optional, and zeal for souls is a good thing.
As for what has been called feminine spirituality, Jimmy Akin thinks it's a good thing, not an insult or a calumny to say that someone has a feminine spirituality. He called for balance between the two, not dominance of one over the other, or exclusion of one in favor of the other.
You are, for one, Mr. Shea.
Hmmm... Of course, there is the little mystery of why I've just spent several days on my blog defending the CDF document. Plus the fact that I have not said a word against, and in fact, heartily endorse, its teaching, the teaching of Dominus Iesus (a teaching you called "neuralgic" if memory serves), and the teaching of the Council (which you seem to be eager to reject if "getting rid of subsistit and going back to esse" is any indication).
I will leave it to the reader to try to figure out how somebody could say I have "protested" the CDF document by being cited by Jimmy Akin in an article he wrote months ago. My remarks on Catholic "feminine" and Evangelical "masculine" culture have, of course, nothing to do with the doctrine of the Church per se, but have instead to do with affirming that "elements of truth" exist in other ecclesial bodies and that these element are part of the rightful patrimony of the Church. They also have to do with saying, as you yourself say, that Catholics don't always live their faith perfectly. Saying that individual Catholics can profit from the gifts of their Protestant brethren is not, I repeat for the third time, the same as saying Protestantism possesses aspects of revelation absent in the Catholic communion.
So: I flatly deny the claim that I protest the CDF document. This is bearing false witness against your neighbor and you should retract it. I do not protest the CDF document. I defend it and believe its teaching wholeheartedly. So does Jimmy Akin. So does every other Evangelical convert I know. Do you have any evidence at all, other than tendentious misreadings of writings wholly unrelated to the CDF document, for your claim?
Likewise, I ask again, "I trust you do believe the Church's teaching that each member of the body of Christ is to help build up the others in love?"
Joe,
I'm sorry if I have offended you. My encounters are not solely on the internet. But there really aren't any criteria by which evangelicals, pentecostals and independent Christians assemblies are constituted. Of course, reading Scripture is an encounter with Christ, but they do it outside a "church" and outside a "liturgy." Of course, as I said previously, Catholics have lectio divina and contemplation, which are paraliturgical also. And there is no doubt that many evangelicals, et al., can have a relationship with Jesus Christ. But, in my view, it is not as profound as it could be, objectively speaking, because this relationship lacks the Mass, the Eucharist, and Eucharistic adoration. This doesn't mean every Catholic is superior to or holier than every evangelical or that every Catholic has a more profound relationship with Jesus Christ because they have the Mass and Eucharist available to them. But the seeds of subjectivity, arising out of Luther's "pro me" theology are there. So is extreme individualization, to the slighting of the communal aspect of the faith. These aspects are not as pronounced in the mainline Protestant churches as they are in the evangelicals, but they are there, nonetheless.
I have no problem with Protestants, per se. I do have a problem with Protestant converts bringing in their former theologies and practices into the Catholic Church. That's basically it.
As for what has been called feminine spirituality, Jimmy Akin thinks it's a good thing, not an insult or a calumny to say that someone has a feminine spirituality. He called for balance between the two, not dominance of one over the other, or exclusion of one in favor of the other.
And he's right. The Church is both contemplative *and* missionary.
I do have a problem with Protestant converts bringing in their former theologies and practices into the Catholic Church.
And it appears to be such a problem for you that you see it where it doesn't even exist. As somebody on the receiving end of your Inquisition, who emphatically denies that Evangelical converts could ever add a thing to the revelation, I suggest that you cancel this little jihad until you know who is actually being "arrogant" and "hubristic" here.
Actually, it does exist, Mr. Shea. And I think this era will be notable for continuing clarification about Catholic identity, including which methods are congruent. Certainly, as in the case of methods and approaches for the interpretation of the Bible (Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, 1993), the Church does not claim any specific method of evangelization or catehesis as Her own. But, again, as in the case of the historical-critical method, there are places where one draws the line. I think that encouraging the use of evangelically-inspired methods of evagelization and catechesis is misguided, because content usually follows form.
The post-Vatican II era, where "anything goes" was subject to many Protestantizing theologies and practices. With the recent death of Giuseppe Alberigo of the Bologna School (History of Vatican II), who insisted that Vatican II was the beginning of everything, not the continuation of things, it seems like a good time to take stock of where the Church is and re-evaluate. And retrieval and strengthening of the Church's legitimate tradition is one of the things that is certainly under discussion in many places.
Actually, it does exist, Mr. Shea.
So you say. But when you make the false claim that protestant converts protest the CDF document and back that false claim up with yet another false claim that Jimmy Akin, Sherry Weddell, and I protest it, you throw your credibility as an expert on such matters into serious doubt. Further, when your claims are shown to be rubbish, you now change the subject, rather than retract your documentably false claims, which throws your claims of expertise in the "problem of Protestant Evangelical Converts" into even deeper doubt.
Why should anybody believe a word you say on this matter after such a performance?
And, by the way, I'm still asking: Do you have any evidence at all, other than tendentious misreadings of writings wholly unrelated to the CDF document, for your claim that protestant converts protest the CDF document?
Likewise, I ask again, "I trust you do believe the Church's teaching that each member of the body of Christ is to help build up the others in love?" Since that's what I'm referring to by "mutual edification" not some bogus notion that Evangelical converts possess revelation denied the Church which we graciously stoop down and impart to it with our conversion, it would helpful to know if you affirm this elementary teaching of Scripture.
"This doesn't mean every Catholic is superior to or holier than every evangelical or that every Catholic has a more profound relationship with Jesus Christ because they have the Mass and Eucharist available to them. But the seeds of subjectivity, arising out of Luther's "pro me" theology are there."
O.K. I can jive appreciate this contention.
I suppose my observation of the fundamental plus a Protestant can 'bring' to the table is the importance of personal involvement that should be integrated with or is a part of genuine sacramentalism. Thus when Newman wrote, "It is face to face, 'solus cum solo', in all matters between man and his God," it was a Catholic truth, but one that had been unintentionally diminished.
And there are indeed umpteen zillion variations of Protestantism, but it seems like the newer wave of some notables is in fact strengthening the Church.
All that said, heat has subsided. Thanks.
Joe
Mr. Shea,
I merely said that you offered some questionable evangelically-inspired interpretations of spirituality. I didn't say you "protested" the CDF document as such, but that many evangelical converts did not understand the Catholic concept of Church. I pointed out that Ms. Weddell had chosen to highlight on her blog one of the few Catholic interpretations of the CDF document that took a slap at the Church (and, by the way, it was also posted on YOUR blog). That seemed odd to me, given that she did not bother even to acknowledge the existence either of the MP or the CDF document. I took it as one more instance of her tendency to find fault with the Catholic Church (and she regularly does).
I never said Mr. Akin protested it. I merely took issue with his interpretation of the feminine in the Church.
I don't think and I never said that you or other evangelical converts were bringing private revelation to the Catholic Church. I said you were bringing methods and in some cases evangelical content. That's different.
Now go have a good weekend, Mr. Shea. You sound like you could use one.
I seriously doubt that Janice shares my fundamental questioning of the Vatican II - post-Vatican II 'ecumenical' enterprise, so let no one misunderstand or twist things to put on her what I wrote. I have no reason to think she is anything but a practicing Catholic in good standing.
That reminds me. One Catholic priest, many years ago, told me to hit the road, that, given my perspectives on issues, including the so-called liturgical reform (and related iconoclasm), the ecumenical movement (the present position of the Church), and especially interreligious prayer and dialogue, he thought I belonged elsewhere. I never spoke with him in conversation again. He was a convert, but I doubt that mattered in this case. I am sure the Bishop would have thought the same, so it was not his fault.
"I did read somebody the other day falsely prophesy that the CDF document was "getting rid of subsistit and going back to esse" (as though a CDF document would, could or should trump or reverse the council)."
Well, I honestly wish Janice would have been right; on the basis of what I had heard, I thought it was maybe possible (not to "trump or reverse the council", but to clarify this and other issues of Vatican II and post-Vatican II eccesiology), though unlikely. It seems the our leaders like things contorted, and the Church off-balance, for the sake of ecumenism and dialogue in part I suppose. There is still much confusion about this subject and weakness, and the CDF document helped make matters worse I suspect. Too bad.
==
"Grand Inquisitor Says Catholic Church is Defective"
This title is crap, IMHO. Sorry, but I have no patience to think of another word at the moment. How this title (provocation?) by John da Fiesole (at the Disputations blog) can be considered exceptional by anyone is beyond my understanding. Is this part of the new evangelization? What a strange form it takes.
==
Janice:
You write:
I didn't say you "protested" the CDF document as such
That's odd. You wrote previously:
Now if protestant converts (especially evangelicals) do not fully understand the Catholic concept of "Church," (and judging from the protests that greeted the new CDF document, ****they**** do not) which is not something devised by humans, but is something which has been revealed (cf. Gal. 4.26; CCC #795), they do not understand Jesus, the liturgy, the sacraments or any of the rest of Catholicism.
I then asked who these "protestant converts" were who greeted the CDF document with protests.
You ignored my question. So I asked again who these protestant converts who protest the CDF document are.
You did not tell me "Protestant converts do not protest the document." Instead, you said, "You are, for one, Mr. Shea." You also indicted Jimmy Akin and Sherry Weddell as somehow protesting the document.
When I documented that this claim was rubbish, you did not retract it. You just changed the subject. Now, you still don't retract it. Instead, you deny that you said what you very obviously said and even reiterated. Oh, and you imply that there is something wrong with me for holding you accountable for what you said.
I took it as one more instance of her tendency to find fault with the Catholic Church (and she regularly does).
Weddell finds fault with the failure of Catholics to live out the teaching of the Church. In that, she is rather like every Catholic who ever lived. Indeed, she is rather tame compared to somebody who calls a bishop a "dumbass". But she utterly fails to attack Holy Church Herself. Indeed, she manifestly and documentably counsels "docility" to the Church's teaching and leaves it to experts on the "problem of Protestant Converts" to falsely prophesy the reversal of conciliar teaching about the Church.
So, in conclusion: you falsely claimed that protestant converts protest the CDF document. You reiterated and elaborated on that claim by specifically saying that I am protesting the document and that Akin and Weddel are also somehow complicit. When this lie was shown to be a lie, you changed the subject. And when that dodge was pointed out, you openly lied about what you originally claimed. And you insulted me for documenting your false claims, lies, and dodges.
A retraction and an apology would be much simpler and will be gladly accepted. Right now you're just digging a hole for your credibility.
This title is crap, IMHO.
This title is dry wit. Humor-impaired people should read Disputations with great caution.
Is this part of the new evangelization?
Yes. John Paul II is personally responsible in perpetuity for everything Tom Kreitzberg posts. Also, the Second Vatican Council.
"This title is dry wit. Humor-impaired people should read Disputations with great caution."
So should I have read your commentary on the Prophet's urine, etc. in the same light, Mr. Shea? Remember? Did YOU apologize to me?
==
"Yes. John Paul II is personally responsible in perpetuity for everything Tom Kreitzberg posts."
I do not know who Tom Kreitzberg is, or why John Paul II (and the Second Vatican Council) is responsible in perpetuity for everything Kreitzberg posts.
==
Shea wrote: "...by which Paul apparently means, "I have no idea who Janice means when she says that protestant converts protest the CDF document, but I would like to reiterate that I don't much care for protestant converts."
Fair enough."
Start with an apology for this, please. Thank you.
==
"Did YOU apologize to me?"
Actually, I think I should apologize to you, for not getting the joke.
==
Mr. Shea,
The sentence you have quoted means this: evangelicals do not understand what the concept of "church" means, in Roman Catholic terms. Judging from the protests from Protestants to the CDF document they clearly (unlike the Orthodox) do not understand the Catholic notion of Church. This does not bode well for evangelicals who convert to Catholicism, since they will have difficulty crossing the boundary from their evangelical notion to the Catholic definition. [My "mistake," if you will, was in my not clarifying the "they" in my parenthetical comment, which referred only to Protestants, not to converts from Protestantism. The principle, however, is the same. Both groups, current Protestants, as well as converts from Protestantism, come out of self-created "churches," whereas the Catholic Church has been bequeathed to us by Jesus Christ. And on that concept a whole host of other concepts depend.
And, no, Mr. Shea, I did not indict Mr. Akin for protesting anything. Nor did I "indict" Ms. Weddell for anything other than constantly bashing the Catholic Church, which she does. And you posted the same silly column from Disputations that she did, saying that, yes, the CDF finds fault with none other than the Catholic Church Herself. And, for the umpteenth time, she managed to find the time in her busy schedule to post that notice, when she couldn't find the time to acknowledge the MP or the CDF document previously.
By the way, Cardinal Kasper IS a dumbass. I've read his theology. He's a disgrace to the Roman Curia and a disgrace to the cardinalate. Other than that, he's a swell guy (pace Mr. Potter).
And speaking of apologies, given the load of opprobrium you heap on everyone, all day long on your blog, you should make a recording that says "I'm sorry" and put it on a loop.
Joe,
If you're still out there, I should tell you that one area in which Catholics are truly indebted to their Protestant brethren is that of Biblical studies. Protestants, because they've been at it longer and more assiduously, are far better at this, even today, than most Catholics. For example, Rudolf Bultmann, although he got many things wrong (like demythologizing the NT) wrote a splendid commentary on John. Martin Hengel (Lutheran) is a prolific writer (I have most of his books), particularly on the relationship between Hellenism and Judaism. Peter Stuhlmacher (Lutheran) is another Biblical scholar, who has made big strides in revisiting the Pauline doctrine of justification. Joachim Jeremias (Lutheran) has written definitive books on the parables. Etc., etc., etc.
Janice, you must be careful and clear about your writing, because being in the Catholic public eye (so to speak), some will be out to get you, and so forth.
For me, I am just amazed at the problems relating to ecclesiology seemingly created by Aggiornamento and the Council.
==
This reminds me, I want to reread that awesome part of Kasper's Jesus the Christ where he slays Bultmann.
"Cardinal Kasper IS a dumbass"
Is there not a better way to say that you are not impressed or think he is wrong? You are a scholar, so I know you can do better. No offence.
==
I feel bad/sorry for fighting with Mr. Shea. I was trying to be a better person on the blogs. One step forward, two steps back. My fault. It figures.
==
I suppose Catholicism is in crisis, and me with it.
==
Anyways, I wish no harm to any convert to Catholicism, any Catholic, or to the Catholic Church. But I suppose I am part of the problem.
==
We appear to be getting slightly closer. Still not an apology, but better than nothing. You now clarify:
[My "mistake," if you will, was in my not clarifying the "they" in my parenthetical comment, which referred only to Protestants, not to converts from Protestantism.
Now, I'm not sure why you put "mistake" in scare quotes, which suggests it was not a mistake, but I'll take your word for it. You actually meant to refer to Protestants, not protestant converts, as the sentence originally read. That, of course, doesn't explain why, when I asked who the protestant converts were who were protesting the CDF document, you said I was one and then dragged in Akin and Weddell as well. But I'll just take it that you were reflexively trying to CYA and deny a blunder and could only be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledging a mistake (or a "mistake" as you reluctantly call it). I will also take it that that's probably as far as you will go since "IknowyouarebutwhatamI?" seems to be as close as you get to apologizing for all this.
Now, of course, all we are left with is the mystery of why an alleged expert on "the Problem of Protestant Converts" would embrace a rank fallacy of Guilt by Association in order to make any pronouncements whatsoever on what protestant converts make of the CDF document or the Church's ecclesiology. The notion that protestant converts must ipso facto retain a protestant ecclesiology merely by virtue of their background is an impressive piece of mindreading from somebody who appears to not be very skilled in the art.
In my case, as Mr. Potter pointed out, my tradition is now Catholic and has been for nearly 20 years. So is the tradition of Weddell and Akin--for similar lengths of time. I (and they) accept the teaching of the Church--even going to the remarkable extreme of using strange and unprotestant words like "docility" in Weddell's case. It is an attitude that reflects my own views. Where Protestant teaching contradicts Catholic teaching, I reject Protestant teaching and accept Catholic teaching. And where Catholic teaching challenges my personal opinions, I try very hard (though God alone knows how well I succeed) to go with Catholic teaching. That's why, for instance, I'm in no hurry to prophesy that the teaching of the Council will be overturned in favor my superior understanding of things (as, for instance, the false prophet who foretold that the CDF was "getting rid of subsistit and going back to esse" did.) I'm content with Church teaching and with the authority of the Magisterium to develop it.
That's why I have no idea what you mean when I ask who the protestant converts protesting the CDF document are and you reply "You are, for one, Mr. Shea." Your ever-shifting story now says that you never said that and that you *really* mean "Both groups, current Protestants, as well as converts from Protestantism, come out of self-created "churches," whereas
...the Catholic Church has been bequeathed to us by Jesus Christ. And on that concept a whole host of other concepts depend."
Well, yes, Protestant converts do come from Protestantism. You have me there. But then, that's why we're *converts* now, innit? Because we accept the Catholic concept of the Church and not the Protestant one(s). That's kind of what sets us off from Protestants who *don't* convert. Indeed, it's what also sets us off from many a cradle Catholic who have no sinister Evangelical past at all, yet who hold an ecclesiology that is indistinguishable from Benny Hinn or Joel Osteen. So I don't quite know why Evangelical converts get singled out by you as the locus of subjectivism and individualism in the Church. In my experience, the evangelical converts I know (including Weddell and Akin) are gung-ho advocates of magisterial teaching on ecclesiology. In my experience, it's far more often the cradle Catholics who don't see why the Church can't shout "y'all come and receive the Eucharist!" to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the pew, baptized or not.
It would genuinely benefit the Church if you address the reality that subjectivism and individualism have basically nothing to do with conversion from protestantism. Indeed, it would be helpful if an alleged "expert" on the Problem of Protestant Converts had enough of a clue to realize that Evangelical converts are far more statistically likely to affirm the Church's magisterial teaching on ecclesiology as on other matters, than their cradle Catholic brethren. But instead you appear to be pursuing a twin agenda of working out your private prejudices against protestant converts and covering your ass when you get caught doing so. ("It was a "mistake", but I'm still right, because once a Protestant, always a Protestant. And besides, you're a jerk!"). Too bad, because you have an opportunity to really do some good which you appear to be ready to waste on nourishing your own private psychodrama.
Pity the poor Liturgy Society folk who will mistake you for an "expert" on the "problem" of Protestant Converts.
Mark,
Mr Guthrie flatly states that protestants have taken offense with the CDF docvument. Why don't you ask him which ones they are, and confine your feral gotchas to your own blog?
Your middle school level fascination with the sexuality of just about everything, even apologetics and catechesis, is embarrassing to everyone but you, so perhaps you should go to a secluded place and discuss it with yourself.
Paul, maybe you were harsh in this instance, I don't know. But I want to tell you that on a consistent basis you edify me as an ardent and well-meaning Catholic. Just my two cents--I believe you set a good example, at least for me. So thanks.
Mark, don't worry, Ralph is obsessing about masturbation lately.
(My personal theory is that he's probably in love with himself.)
Paul:
Don't sweat it.
Ralph:
Thanks for your input.
Shea wrote: "...by which Paul apparently means, "I have no idea who Janice means when she says that protestant converts protest the CDF document, but I would like to reiterate that I don't much care for protestant converts."
Fair enough."
Mr. Shea, you were wrong to write this about me.
==
Kathy:
It is curious how a couple of articles I wrote years ago come to constitute "middle school level fascination with the sexuality of just about everything". I have somewhere between 200-300 published articles on my site. I can think of maybe three that play with the "masculine/feminine" analysis of Evangelical and Catholic culture, all written in fairly close proximity in time, when I was struck by the idea.
That's it. Aside from using in my Mary trilogy to explain some of the visceral Evangelical horror of Mary (and to show why that horror is ill-founded) I seldom discuss the idea. The only reason I discussed it here was because Janice brought it up.
So one does indeed detect an obsessive, but I don't think he's me. What do you think, you stalker who is in love with Ralph? Is there perhaps somebody else here who drags in irrelevancies about sex and blows them out of all proportion and sense?
Paul:
My apologies.
I don't know, Mark, it seems such a middle-school thing to do that it's probably my feverished, unrequited imagination wondering. And you being such and obsessive as well... So it's probably more about us than about Ralph (gosh, it makes me giggly just to say his name).
Even so, I'd be glad to drop the whole matter and get back to dissing you people who haven't fully converted to Catholicism, bringing in your filthy Protestant boots all over our nice clean carpet. Oh, and gifts of the Holy Spirit for the common good, that too.
Shea wrote: "Indeed, it would be helpful if an alleged "expert" on the Problem of Protestant Converts had enough of a clue to realize that Evangelical converts are far more statistically likely to affirm the Church's magisterial teaching on ecclesiology as on other matters, than their cradle Catholic brethren. But instead you appear to be pursuing a twin agenda of working out your private prejudices against protestant converts [...].
I am not aware of any information or data that would permit anyone to say that converts to Catholicism, or cradle Catholics, are "statistically" more or less likely to affirm or reject the Catholic Church's teaching on ecclesiology and other matters.
I think that everyone should be careful about saying or writing things that may be unproven, or unprovable.
That said, I still think that when we and our Church leaders fear or are too fuzzy to say that the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Jesus Christ in this world, etc. - then we have a big problem, and a grave crisis, as the last 40 years have shown. I blame it in part on the 'ecumenical movement' objectives (trying to get union with Protestants and Eastern Orthodox, etc.) of the Council.
==
Ooops! In my last combox post
Shea wrote: "Indeed, it would be helpful if an alleged "expert" on the Problem of Protestant Converts had enough of a clue to realize that Evangelical converts are far more statistically likely to affirm the Church's magisterial teaching on ecclesiology as on other matters, than their cradle Catholic brethren. But instead you appear to be pursuing a twin agenda of working out your private prejudices against protestant converts [...]." *
* I neglected the closing quotation mark last time. Sorry.
I wrote the rest, starting at "I am not aware of any information...".
==
1. I took it as one more instance of [Weddell's] tendency to find fault with the Catholic Church (and she regularly does).
2. It seems to me that evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church.
3. Cardinal Kasper IS a dumbass. I've read his theology. He's a disgrace to the Roman Curia and a disgrace to the cardinalate.
4. So often, we don't carefully read church teaching because we approach simply as fuel for our pre-existing ideological conflicts. Is it "for" or "against" my position? But if we can get past the defensiveness and read in a spirit of faith, hope, and docility, very exciting things start to pop out.
Three of the above statements are from Janice Kraus. One is from Sherry Weddell. I will leave the reader the insoluble puzzle of figuring out how to reconcile who said which and how Ms. Kraus can possibly make sense to any speaker of English.
And, to be clear, I hold no brief for Cardinal Kasper. I simply don't know how Janice, Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts, appoints herself Inquisitor and brings the charge of "bashing the Church" with a straight face, particularly against Weddell while making free with such statements. I'd also be intrigued to hear how, say, Akin, Moss, Armstrong, Hahn, Franklin, Currie, Blosser, Ray, Brumley, Olson and a whole bunch more I can't think of right now "only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church."
When a person claiming to be an Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts says something that gobsmackingly ignorant, not to say demented, who on earth should ever again listen to her views on what time it is, much less on Protestant converts.
John da Fiesole wrote:
"But yesterday's document also includes a knock against the Catholic Church! A gentle knock, to be sure, but a knock nonetheless:
'On the other hand, because of the division between Christians, the fullness of universality, which is proper to the Church governed by the Successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him, is not fully realised in history.'
This, I take it, is part of the development and deepening of the Catholic doctrine on the Church that occurred at the Second Vatican Council. Sure, the Orthodox are hosed up by not being in communion with the Successor of Peter. And sure, the other Christian communities are even more hosed up by lacking apostolic succession and all that implies.
But Catholics are also hosed up! We lack the fullness of universality, the "plenitudo catholicitatis"! The Catholic Church may possess the mark of catholicity, but she isn't fully catholic in history as long as there are Christian communities outside her. (The commentary on the CDF document distinguishes "the fullness of the means of salvation," which the Catholic Church has, and "the fullness of catholicity proper to her," which "still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners.")"
http://
disputations.blogspot.com...067016374679309
If correct, what this tells me is that the Catholic Church can never be Catholic, ever. As John da Fiesole wrote: "We lack the fullness of universality, the "plenitudo catholicitatis"!" We lack... the fullness of Catholicism, because many of our members could go to hell? And the Protestants and Eastern Orthodox refuse until the end of time if ever to (re)enter her? Bah! Whatever. This sounds absurd. This is more than talking about the wound of schism.
==
Continued....
Put aside for one moment the Christians (heretics, schismatics, etc) separated from the Catholic Church (which seems the focus of John da Fiesole and all the ecumenical movement lovers, that seemingly are 'joyful' that the Church is not really 'Catholic' in history without union with the separated brethren), and think, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PAGANS (non-Christian religions, past and present and future) and the JEWS past and present and future, and the SECULAR HUMANISTS, ATHEISTS and so on, past and present and future? Are they not also meant in some way to be in the Catholic Church (as Christians, or whatever) in salvation history? Ordered towards communion with her? But insofar as they are not in that communion, then is it correct to conclude or assume from this fact that
"We [the Catholic Church] lack the fullness of universality, the "plenitudo catholicitatis"! The Catholic Church may possess the mark of catholicity, but she isn't fully catholic in history as long as there"
are any people anywhere outside her - as long as there are any people, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Wiccan, Islamic, etc outside her, i.e. not at some point Catholic members of the Church?
This sounds quite absurd too.
One heck of a "knock against the Catholic Church" that would be, eh? Pretty funny. Are we ever hosed up! Not.
==
Ooops! Forgot to make a correction. Should be:
"We lack... the fullness of Catholicism, because many of our members go into schism? And the Protestants and Eastern Orthodox refuse until the end of time if ever to (re)enter her? Bah!
==
"If correct, what this tells me is that the Catholic Church can never be Catholic, ever."
At least not in time and the world. She never *is* Catholic, she only becomes.... and becomes.... and becomes...
Maybe she was 'Catholic' at the start, but then Judas broke off, so.....
==
There will be a Catholic Church in Heaven, probably. Thank goodness.
==
Paul:
What puzzles me is why you go to the trouble of this monologue in which you declare what Kreitzberg is saying (despite the fact he is saying nothing of the kind), ridicule and dismiss it, and then declare yourself the winner of the monologue. Seems like it would make more sense to take your comments to the Disputations blog and actually find out what Tom thinks rather than tell him what he thinks.
Excuses: I am "Humor-impaired"; I could not even haul my butt over to Mr. Cork's blog either; Cardinal Levada might see me there; and the Pertinacious Papist has not excommunicated me yet.
"find out what Tom thinks rather than tell him what he thinks."
I read what he wrote. I need not invite or visit the four horsemen of the apocalypse in order to comment on them.
I like it here. It is pointless to fight the ecumania, and so on. Think what you wish, I suspect you will in any case. Sorry.
==
Janice, You are right-I do not know what you do in the "hurly burly." But that is not the point is it. The simple fact of the matter is that you are contending that somehow protestant converts such as Mr. Shea, Dr. Blosser and others are somhow heterodox in their outlook because somehow their upbringing somehow has tainted their Catholicity. Catholic apologists have used their prior traditions and outlooks for 2000 to help them discern Catholic truth. Paul used his Pharisaical training and traditions, Justin Martyr and Augustine used their Platonic philosophic notions, etc... Catholics who were Protestants are no different. We all use what we know -what we have learned through experience and through education.
My comment is directed to the fact that so many of your comments, not only during this thread, but others in the past, seem to have an underlying animus against converts. You seem to doubt that they are truly Catholic.
If I am in error or have misjudged you-I apologize. In my defense, my particular legal background influences my views. As a criminal defense attorney for most of my 20+ years practicing law, I am a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And it is my perception, that when it comes to converts, you presume that they are guilty not being Catholic enough due to prior association until they meet some undefined criteria you have established in your mind.
I agree with you that any Catholic (convert or otherwise) who expresses a viewpoint which appears to go against a teaching the Church should be corrected. But you should at least give concrete examples.
You suggested in your initial comment "that judging from the protests that greeted the new CDF document, [Protestant converts] do not understand the Catholic concept of "Church." I have heard far more complaints about the document from lifelong Catholics who apparently did not learn what the Catholic concept of "Church" from their time at Catholic school or PSR than from converts. I would suggest that many converts have a far better appreciation of the Catholic concept of Church than many Catholics from birth because the converts had to take an affirmative step of acknowledging the concept in order to become Catholic in the first place.
To summarize, I have far more occasion to doubt the Catholicity of many cradle-to-grave Catholics who never cared to learn anything beyond what was necessary to be confirmed than I do of most converts who took serious time to learn about our faith before they embraced it. Have you ever wondered why so many Catholic apologists were former Protestants? If there is anything that I have learned by paricipating in internet discussions, is how much more there is to learn about my faith.
I could not even haul my butt over to Mr. Cork's blog either
I have no idea what Cork has to do with anything, unless you mean to imply that Tom is apostate, which is a rather serious claim. Obviously you were able to haul your butt over to Tom's blog to cut and paste quotes. What you seem not to have the courage to do is accuse him to his face of the many things you accuse him of here. That's your choice, but it hardly seems Christian to bear false witness against a man behind his back, before a hostile audience, and give him no chance to reply to the false ideas you attribute to him. Maybe this is a pre-Vatican II thing.
Mr. Shea
Again you accuse me of motives and actions that are not mine. Why do you persist in doing so?
"unless you mean to imply that Tom is apostate, which is a rather serious claim."
No, I meant that I like to hang out here. I comment on things that cross my path here. When a person writes something here, I generally comment on it here. When Mr. Cork was writing nonsense about Purgatory on his site, I did not leave this blog to write about it - as the issue was also under discussion here. So I commented on it - here. The issues were raised by Janice here, not there.
I was not saying "Tom is apostate". I think John da Fiesole has an attitude, but you say it is wit - fine.
"Obviously you were able to haul your butt over to Tom's blog to cut and paste quotes."
Funny, I did this merely to present part of what he wrote (in order to comment on it); I thought that was a good thing, and proper courtesy - instead of just making it up on my own. Or putting words in his mouth.
"What you seem not to have the courage to do is accuse him to his face of the many things you accuse him of here."
Accuse? No, I just did not like the post, and the attitude. That is hardly an accusation in the proper sense of the word. If I dislike a movie, I do not accuse its makers, if I disagree with a book, my critique is not an accusation of apostasy, heresy unless I use those words against the author. I did no such thing. Think what you want, but you are wrong - again. I comment on it here, because you, Janice and others are here, not there. Maybe you are doing to me what you accuse Janice of?
"That's your choice, but it hardly seems Christian to bear false witness against a man behind his back, before a hostile audience, and give him no chance to reply to the false ideas you attribute to him."
I was not doing anything behind anyones back, but you continue to distort and twist everything. But that is a distortion of my intention, and if you were a fair man, you would see it.
==
Continued...
"Christian to bear false witness against a man behind his back"
How dare you write that. I may not be much of a Catholic anymore (which I am happy to admit), and a sinner, but I hope I at least deserve a little respect. I called no one "apostate". We do not write to Cardinal Levada in order to comment on his work, to get permission to do so, so as not to go behind his back, etc, I think this is reasonable - the work is in the public domain. So was the post I was commenting on - in the public domain. And what I probaly did not make clear, is that I have more issues with the Vatican document than with the post. I did not find the Vatican document helpful, and thought it would create even more confusion.
"and give him no chance to reply to the false ideas you attribute to him. Maybe this is a pre-Vatican II thing."
My interpretations and the conclusions I drew may be wrong; I may have wrong ideas about his post, and about the Vatican document. You are here, set me straight Mr. Apologist instead of attacking my person, for things I never did. Or John da Fiesole can reply, if he wants. He has a blog, and/or can come here.
Finally, why take a cheap shot at the pre-Vatican II Church, and insult 1,962 years of Catholics and Catholicism? *LOL*
==
Good for Stan Guthrie.
On the issue of converts versus cradle Catholics I have a personal anecdote. I'm a cradle Catholic, went to parochial school in the 1970's. The big controversy at my confirmation Mass - in the conservative midwest, not in wacky California or the Kennedy-Catholic east coast - was over the music. The students wanted to sing "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. The lay teachers and nuns were outraged, not because of doctrinal heterodoxy, but specifically because Stairway to Heaven is a "drug song". The nuns insisted that instead, in the interest of avoiding the drug issue, we sing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkle. Because it isn't a drug song. Really. Sail on, Silver Girl.
True story.
It isn't at all clear to me, as a cradle Catholic, that cradle Catholics per se or on average have any present-day advantage over Protestant converts in terms of contributing to the orthodoxy of catechesis and praxis. Though it is doubtless true that the only possible thing to which I can attribute my own ongoing presence aboard the Ark of Salvation, is grace.
How dare you write that.
I think he wrote it because you are attributing your own fairly obviously inaccurate paraphrases to Tom Kreitzberg without actually having a discussion with Tom Kreitzberg; a discussion which is readily available to you, yea verily, but a mouse-click away. I think you will find, if you attempt such a conversation, that there are very few people on this earth with whom it is easier to have a reasonable, and charitable, and respectful in the sense of not pretending to agreement when there isn't agreement, discussion. And I say this as someone who has had more than a few disagreements with Tom over the years.
"your own fairly obviously inaccurate paraphrases to Tom Kreitzberg"
I made no paraphrases. I quoted a chunk (for all to read - and compare with what I made of it - that seems like fair and 'scholarly' use, however poorly done on my part), commented on it, and drew some conclusions I though were right, and explored the issue as it might relate to non-Christians.
I quoted, I made no paraphrases. Just as he did with the Vatican document. If I have committed an error, I am sorry. You will need to take it up with Pertinacious Papist. I would be happy to have all my posts removed on this topic if I have broken important rules or ethical norms. I might have. Thank you.
==
"...drew some conclusions I thought were right..."
==
It appears to me that you paraphrased him as saying: "If correct, what this tells me is that the Catholic Church can never be Catholic, ever." (That is an example of a quote of your words in the comments above, apparently attributing a conclusion to Tom).
Again, if you want to dispute him, I recommend that you carefully read and comment at Disputations. You will find, I think, that the level of acrominy in whatever discussion you have there will reflect precisely the amount of acrimony you personally bring to it: no more, and no less, since it will all be your own.
Zippy
If I have committed an error, I am sorry. I do not think I have. Should you still feel strongly about it, take it up with Pertinacious Papist, the blog owner. I would be happy to have all my posts removed on this topic if I have broken important rules or ethical norms. I would remove them myself right now if I could, just to please you and Mr. Shea. Thank you.
Whatever "acrimony" you think I have against this person is a misinterpretation. I probably have some 'acrimony' against (IMHO) the inadequate, and confusion causing, eccesiology of Vatican II and post-Vatican II era. I also have much "acrimony" against distortions in liturgy and ecclesiological doctrine motivated, caused or done for 'ecumenical' reasons, or from false irenicism.
Finally, I have no "acrimony" against converts from Protestantism to Catholicism. Let me quote what I wrote:
"I am not aware of any information or data that would permit anyone to say that converts to Catholicism, or cradle Catholics, are "statistically" more or less likely to affirm or reject the Catholic Church's teaching on ecclesiology and other matters.
I think that everyone should be careful about saying or writing things [on this matter] that may be unproven, or unprovable."
==
"Whatever "acrimony" you think I have against this person is a misinterpretation."
That said, I did not like the tone of his post. And I thought he was a bit too happy about his 'discovery' that "...Catholics are also hosed up!", and so on. I need not repeat myself.
==
"Grand Inquisitor Says Catholic Church is Defective"
I wonder what Cardinal Levada
Wherever Mark Shea goes, his shadow follows, this time under the pseudonym Zippy, formerly under the pseudonym AAG. Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney.
"Grand Inquisitor Says Catholic Church is Defective"
I wonder what Cardinal Levada would say about this title?
==
But hey, I think lots of things are 'defective' in the Church - live and let live I guess.
==
From above:
"Paul:
My apologies.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 07.13.07 - 9:57 pm | #"
Dear Mr. Shea, in light of your continued negative and abusive behaviour towards me, I cannot accept your apology at this time. Very sorry. Thank you.
==
Wherever Mark Shea goes, his shadow follows, this time under the pseudonym Zippy, formerly under the pseudonym AAG. Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney.
You are a funny little man, Ralph, and wrong on all counts. (N.B. I've been posting as Zippy and only Zippy for around five years now).
Paul,
Don't take it personally. Mark Shea treats everyone that way. Then Zippy jumps down from his shoulder and says "You're right, Mark", "Great point Mark", "Right on the money, Mark", and the neo-Cath peanut gallery explodes in applause.
Then Zippy jumps down from his shoulder and says ...
... and says hello, fellas, the post you are commenting on - or avoiding commenting on to the man's face, is what seems to be the unavoidable conclusion - is right here, and if you want to chat to the guy who posted it his combox seems to be open.
Zippy - I have no dog in the argument in this thread, but, please, give up the "wacky" Califorinia stuff. There is dissent and liturgical free-for-all going on all over, including the so-called traditional midwest. Can't help it if so many discntented souls came to San Francisco, one of the most Catholic cities in America, in the 60's and 70's, from your neck of the woods.
I'm beginning to think "NeoCath", like "neocon" is becoming an all-purpose term of abuse. According to Ralph, I'm a NeoCath. According to Fr. O'Leary, Janice is a NeoCath indistinguishable from me and all the other evangelical converts she so fears. Indeed, I'll bet Ralph is a NeoCath according to O'Leary. It appears to mean "rather conservative Catholics I dislike".
I'm also enjoying the thought that Ralph seems to seriously believe I'm posting under multiple identities or something. Apparently he finds it impossible to think that Tom Kreitzberg might have more people who like him than just me. Or else he find it beyond the pale of reason to think somebody might agree with me in a combox thread. At any rate, I would urge Ralph to contact Phil and allay his paranoia with a quick IP check. I post under my name and have no aliases or sock puppets. Nor do I solicit friends to act as cheerleaders. This peculiar paranoia, like Ralph's "everything I ever write is about sex" fantasy, suggest much more about Ralph than about reality.
That said, I think the thread has gone rather far afield from the original post. The topic was originally "Evangelical reaction to the CDF". Janice hijacked that to ride her hobby horse as an Expert in the Problem of Protestant Converts. Unfortunately she rode it into the ground. Then various others chimed in to talk about how they don't like ecumenism, charismatics, Tom Kreitzberg's crap, and me. Other suggested that the appropriate place to discuss Tom Kreitzberg's heretical failing might be to his face rather than behind his back. Ralph chimed in with some trademark insulting irrelevancies, sexual obsessions, and paranoid conspiracy theories. Zippy made a quick hash of Ralph's junk. Now were here, light years from the subject of the post.
So: may I say, I like Guthrie's manful response. Much preferable to Protestants who reject the Church's teaching and then get offended when the Pope says, "You reject the Church's teaching."
Sorry Rob k - let me be explicit about something, since my semi-ironic manner has apparently led you to think that I shake the dust off my boots when I leave the Golden State.
I love California. I lived there for ten years or so, and I would never have left if I had not been dislodged by some rather extreme events. Living in California made me appreciate the whimsy involved in God's decision to become incarnate in a Mediterranean climate, which I had always confused with the tropical. There is no more naturally beautiful and climatically delightful place in all the earth than California. And its history is rooted in Catholicism to a greater degree than just about everywhere else in the United States.
Is that a sufficient mea culpa? 
Dr. Blosser,
I think your last comment needs some nuancing. The "dictatorship of relativism," is taken from Cardinal Ratzinger's pre-conclave homily of 18 April 2005. Here is the relevant quotation:
"How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."
It seems to me that the first relativists were the Protestants themselves. It was Luther and those in the Reformed Tradition who chose to set up their own churches, self-created churches, which began the slide toward this dictatorship of relativism, picked up, for different reasons, by Enlightenment philosophy, and culminating, as we see, today, with people going from one denomination to another, as they desire, or to one New Age cult, depending on their mood at the moment.
To Paul Borealis,
In France catholic charismatics are.... very catholic. If one whant to find great catholicism, deeply rooted in catholic tradition, go and see the Beatitude community or the Emmanuel community. Beautiful liturgy (respecting the Ordo), eucharistic adoration, Church teaching seriously taught, great tradition of the Church (Emmanuel is closely linked to Paray Le Monial and the sacred Heart revelation).
Bob,
Don't Catholic "charismatics" in general tend to be more contemplative than anything else?
"I'm beginning to think "NeoCath", like "neocon" is becoming an all-purpose term of abuse. According to Ralph, I'm a NeoCath. According to Fr. O'Leary, Janice is a NeoCath indistinguishable from me and all the other evangelical converts she so fears. Indeed, I'll bet Ralph is a NeoCath according to O'Leary. It appears to mean "rather conservative Catholics I dislike"."
Well it seems obvious that you guys do not get along easily - but why would anybody be really surprised by that since your general attitude is one of 'we know - we truly believe - we defend'.
I suspect the catholic church will not be able to deliver all the things some desire.
For instance it seems to me that many of the most verbal 'catholic internet aplogetics' have a pretty solid american political conservative agenda to them - which is fine - we all have our opinions - what seems telling on the other hand is if one of the fellow apologetics happen to disagree with conservative pet views - like Shea on torture or Vree on Iraq - than all hell breaks loose and the same vicious unapologetic rethoric (and philosophy) that one throws arround typically towards the less informed and stupid liberals and AM churchies and abortionist and horrible Vatican II folks and everybody who happens to be more modern and contemporary etc etc. turns onto itself.
It is also intersting for me to see that quite a few of this stellar apologetics are onto their second marriages. It is a bit like in republican politics it seems - much talk about family values but when everything is said and done we have a field that sports mostly divorcees -besides the single Mormon with a impressive family.
I think we all need plenty of merci -
and we should be a bit more forgiving with each other.
I actually view this CDF document very negative - an arrogant powergrab - the fact that many of our fellow christians shrugg it off as the usual catholic rethoric does not sit well with me.
Opposition to torture is a "conservative pet view"? News to me. Polls show that conservatives tend to favor torture. As a rule, my fiercest opponents on the question have virtually all been self-identified "conservatives".
And the Catechism shows that opposition to torture is not my "pet view" but simply the teaching of the Church.
But that's neither here nor there in this thread. Janice chose to hijack the thread and try to smear Weddell as "bashing the Church" and ride her particular "Once a Protestant, always a Protestant" hobby horse over the good names of several people. I chose to try to stop her. I don't see why that's wrong.
Finally, for the life of me, I can't imagine how the CDF could concievable "grab power". That doesn't even make sense.
Ooooooh noooo! Not The Torture Debate again. Aaaaauuugh!!!
It's worse than that! It's the Meta-Debate *about* the Torture Debate!
Muuuuwahahahahaha!
Talk about hi-jacking.
It seems to me that the first relativists were the Protestants themselves.
Well, if we are talking about Christian relativists we might start with the nominalist Ockham and the textual positivist Wyclif. It is even possible that Wyclif's logocentrism was a product of interaction with Islam, through his patron John of Gaunt and Gaunt's secretary Geoffry Chaucer. Islam only seems to be the most "absolutist" of surviving religions because people think of textual positivism with respect to sacred texts as "absolutism"; because what we think of as "fundamentalism" arises from anti-sacramental textualism (anti-sacramental because anti-authority and therefore inherently anti-priest). In Islam the Salat recitation, where the words of the Koran are recited aloud, (putatively) brings Muslims into the Real Presence of Allah in a way that seems to have been swiped quite directly from the Eucharist. Thus Abrahamic religions are come to be viewed as Peoples of the Book, rather than Peoples of the Bread: text-as-substitute-for-Eucharist as a way of appropriating the authority of Priest and Bishop, Priest and Bishop come from another land and to whom one does not wish to religiously submit.
As an historical matter it is a large and interesting and at this point - and perhaps for always - very speculative subject. But relativist trees grown from positivist seeds have been around for a very long time; and it is doubtful that many of us have wholly escaped their influence.
Mr. Shea,
Your incoherence is exceeded only by your incompetence at argument. No one smeared Weddell. Her Catholic-bashing is clear for all to read on her web site.
As far as once a Protestant, always a Protestant is concerned: I did not say that. I do have a special concern about "former" evangelicals because they have such a chasm to bridge.
Evangelicals are used to encountering Jesus Christ privately and individually. As John Paul II writes: "The Church is the place where men and women, by encountering Jesus, can come to know the love of the Father, for whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (cf. Jn 14:9)." [Ecclesia in America, #10]
In this same document, when the Pope discusses the New Evangelization, one aspect of which is that: "The Church, which draws her life from the permanent and mysterious presence of her Risen Lord, has as the core of her mission a duty “to lead all people to encounter Christ” (#6."
As to the "sects," which John Paul calls the evangelicals and pentecostals, he says: "The proselytizing activity of the sects and new religious groups in many parts of America is a grave hindrance to the work of evangelization. The word “proselytism” has a negative meaning when it indicates a way of winning followers which does not respect the freedom of those to whom a specific kind of religious propaganda is directed. The Catholic Church in America is critical of proselytism by the sects and, for this reason, rejects methods of this kind in her own evangelizing work. Presenting the Gospel of Christ in its entirety, the work of evangelization must respect the inner sanctuary of every individual's conscience, where the decisive and absolutely personal dialogue between grace and human freedom unfolds (#73)."
This is why, Mr. Shea, any activity of the Catholic Church, which uses methods or content derived from or reflective of that of protestant evangelical or pentecostal bodies is to be avoided. These methods are inimical to Catholicism. They may "work," but they are not the way that the Catholic Church wishes to attract adherents (as Pope Benedict said in Brazil).
Our Resident Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts writes:
Her Catholic-bashing is clear for all to read on her web site.
Time to replay "One of These Quotes is not Like the Other":
1. I took it as one more instance of [Weddell's] tendency to find fault with the Catholic Church (and she regularly does).
2. It seems to me that evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church.
3. Cardinal Kasper IS a dumbass. I've read his theology. He's a disgrace to the Roman Curia and a disgrace to the cardinalate.
4. So often, we don't carefully read church teaching because we approach simply as fuel for our pre-existing ideological conflicts. Is it "for" or "against" my position? But if we can get past the defensiveness and read in a spirit of faith, hope, and docility, very exciting things start to pop out.
Three of the above statements are from Janice Kraus. One is from Sherry Weddell. I will leave the reader the insoluble puzzle of figuring out how to reconcile who said which and how Ms. Kraus can possibly make sense to any speaker of English.
And, to be clear, I hold no brief for Cardinal Kasper. I simply don't know how Janice, Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts, appoints herself Inquisitor and brings the charge of "bashing the Church" with a straight face, particularly against Weddell while making free with such statements. I'd also be intrigued to hear how, say, Akin, Moss, Armstrong, Hahn, Franklin, Currie, Blosser, Ray, Brumley, Olson and a whole bunch more I can't think of right now "only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church."
When a person claiming to be an Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts says something that gobsmackingly ignorant, not to say demented, who on earth should ever again listen to her views on what time it is, much less on Protestant converts.
I would also add that anybody who believes that "evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church" is probably not going to be the best judge of whether Weddell "bashes the Church" since she lives under the delusion that *all* evangelical converts "bash the Church", even while she is prophesying dissent from the Council and calling cardinal dumbasses.
Mr. Shea,
You're repetitive and your use of the word "gobsmackingly" is tedious. Give it a rest. If you don't have an original riposte, then take a breather and refresh yourself. Then come back and take your best shot.
If you can't reply to John Paul II (which you can't) and to Weddell's constant recommendations for the use of evangelical-inspired method and content, then study up and then come back and reply.
Neither John Paul nor Benedict want evangelical-style evangelization or catechesis used in the Catholic Church. Ergo, don't use it. Even Ms. Weddell should be able to understand that.
Greetings, folks. I spend a weekend away from my blog, and look at all the action I've missed!
I can't say I've read every comment posted here, but I think I have the gist of the debate.
Some general observations. I find myself sympathetic to the concerns of both sides in the debate concerning 'ecumenism.' I agree that there are dangers. I agree that a genuine ecumenical undertaking cannot be separated from genuine evangelization.
I think some of the negativism toward Protestantism comes from genuine abuses witnessed from Protestantism as well as lack of acquaintance with that which is truly positive within Protestantism. (Please don't roll your eyes here.) Often Catholics have no living experience of positive models of Protestantism. Their images of Protestantism are shaped only by stock hucksters found in the bog world of televangelism and cynical Hollywood portrayals of Fundamentalism. But there are solid, strong models of Protestantism, which, whatever their doctrinal defects, remain strongly rooted in Church tradition and have stalwart enviable theological insights, as far as they go. Try reading Herman Bavinck, or G.C. Berkouwer, or Abraham Kuyper. These are the kinds of Protestant theologians Catholics should be reading, if they want to interact with the best of modern Protestantism – most emphatically not Rudolph Bultmann, Paul Tillich, or Bishop Spong.
Does a Catholic need anything offered by good Protestant theologians? This depends what you mean. If you mean can Catholics survive without them: sure. Catholic Tradition offers the fullness of the faith, and, in that sense, these extra-Catholic traditions are dispensable. But the consequences of such indifferentism toward the best of Protestantism would be to return onself to the pre-Vatican II “ghetto” of insular intermural Catholic discussions about the Faith with no interaction with the yield of the Holy Spirit’s action outside of formal Catholicism (as acknowledged by Vatican II). If Vatican II was about "opening the shutters" of the Church to the world, this should have led to productive conversations with the best of Protestantism, instead of, as unfortunately happened, opening the flood gates to the worst Protestant stepchildren of Enlightenment skepticism – the German “higher critics” and their Bible-deconstructing red haired offspring in the Jesus Seminar. Remember “Reformed Former Converget,” who argued for John Dominic Crossan as the best example of contemporary Catholic biblical scholarship? That’s the whirlwind we reap from the post-Vatican II debacle. There’s no future in such faux-ecumenism. True ecumenism hat einen anderen Geist”!
Some additional more specific responses to comments:
Mr. Shea: What was illumined?
Answer: Janice’s remark about the response of Sherry Weddell, whose views have been the subject of conversations between myself and Janice.
Janice: You express considerable optimism regarding the “first generation of Reformers, who were Catholic and brought up that way.”
Answer: With no disagreement on all those elements in the first generation of Protestant Reformers which remained profoundly Catholic (e.g., Luther's Marian devotion in his work, as expressed in his treatise on the Magnificat), I would still raise my own concern that these Reformers (as well as many Catholics of the same period) were steeped in the atmosphere of late medieval Nominalism, which I see as the writing on the wall for the impending Protestant Revolt, as far as its basic presuppositions is concerned.
Janice: You mention the “strong arm tactics” of evangelicals.
Answer: I agree that such tactics are widespread, but I would offer the observation that the forte of Evangelicals doesn’t lie in such tactics as driving around church buses with advertisements for free hamburgers, fries, and sodas for any kids who come to their Vacation Bible School programs. Their forte lies in what is aboriginally properly Catholic: the courage of their evangelical convictions. What’s the last time you met a Catholic (on a plane, bus, train, or restaurant, etc.) openly and warmly sharing his Christian faith with a complete stranger, inviting him to his church? What’s the last time you met one knocking at your door inviting you to his church? Most often Catholics today have come to regard such behavior (with the general secular population at large) as obnoxious intrusions into private, personal matters that are nobody else’s business. St. Augustine (in Letter #172, AD 416), by contrast, comments favorably upon Luke 14:12-23, in which the Lord enjoins his servant to “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Augustine writes: “The sheep which is compelled is driven whither it would not wish to go, but after it has entered, it feeds of its own accord in the pastures to which it was brought.”
Janice: " . . . using examples from other Christian denominations is risky because content follows form."
Answer: true, but using examples from within official Catholicism may also be risky because content may follow defective form: e.g. the history of the Renew International movement. (http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/renew/index.html)
As to the question of whether Catholicism has a ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ spirituality. I take the question to be related to recent discussion such as Leon J. Podles book, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity. In this case, the talk about Catholicism’s “feminine spirituality” would apply to recent developments within the Church rather than to Catholicism simpliciter. There is little ‘masculine’ about today’s AmChurch ‘hymnody’ (I use the term lightly), for example; whereas the choirs of Russian Orthodoxy, for another example, are rich in notation for base rigisters capable of beign sung only by men. But that's probably a discussion for another time, perhaps when we can also discuss Thomas Day's Why Catholics Can't Sing.
Janice:
Since I know Weddell is actually critical of attempts to graft Evangelical forms and content into the Faith, I become even further convinced that your prejudice against Evangelical converts is governing your reading of her. As I say, anybody who can seriously contend that "evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church" is highly unlikely to be a reliable guide to what Weddell (or any other evangelical convert) has to say.
I do not know Dr. Blosser -for me you write very much your personal opinion when you say:
"That’s the whirlwind we reap from the post-Vatican II debacle."
I find it a bit selfserving when you - like it seem to be commonly understood any selfrespecting american apologetic write about Vatican II as a "debacle". I bet the Pope does not view it as a debacle - it is a constant process yes. Vatican II was exactly what the church decided was needed - now 40+ years later well it might be that the church is not able to keep it up. The customers run away for various reasons.
If you are a person that prefers strict scripture interpretation - most protestants and evangelicals do that much better.
If you like pomp and beautiful ceremonies - our russian orthodox friends run circles around us.
"There’s no future in such faux-ecumenism. True ecumenism hat einen anderen Geist”!""
Well your opinion - I beg to differ.
For me the discussion here demonstrates nicely that there is certainly not a very good future for church informed by the tastebuds of american neocaths.
"neocaths"!
There's that mysterious swear word again!
What does it *mean*?
Dr. Blosser,
It's fine to criticize Catholics for not openly avowing their Catholicism in public (and I think that's a rather general statement), but when two successive Popes have said they do not want the proselytism of the evangelicals sects to be the model of evangelization, rather contrasting it with the "attraction" that the Church offers, how do you answer that?
Often, the aggressive proselytism of evangelicals and pentecostals begins with this "sharing" of their faith against (as John Paul put it in Ecclesia in America) the very "freedom" of the one to whom they are speaking. It's not really a one-to-one conversation; it's prosecutorial.
And there are other ways to witness to one's faith: wearing a cross, corporal and spiritual works of mercy, living one's life in a Christian manner, when others see you go to Mass .... Why do those out of the Protestant milieu always think people have to be badgered with words?
Why do those out of the Protestant milieu always think people have to be badgered with words?
An excellent question. It's one of the very things criticized by Evangelical convert Mark Brumley in How Not to Share Your Faith: The Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic Apologetics. So apparently protestant converts don't "always" think this. I would think an Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts would be aware of this book and not make such sweeping statements.
Indeed, I don't recall any Pope, nor St. Francis, ever saying, "Share the gospel at all times. Never use words."
Mr. Shea,
I didn't say "never" use words, but I don't see the point in simply conversing about one's faith in Jesus Christ and a lot of protestant "fellowship" seems to be just that. It's superficial and it's shallow. I'd much rather a Catholic have a profound encounter with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and then go out and perform some corporal works of mercy. That speaks much more succinctly and much more profoundly to the message of the Gospel than a lot of hot air about what Jesus means to me.
And by the way, Mr. Shea, that's the model that the "cultural Catholics" that Ms. Weddell so despises have followed for centuries. Look up all the medieval confraternities and their descendents in America. They've all practiced this kind of faithful witness to Christ.
Janice wote:
I'd much rather a Catholic have a profound encounter with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and then go out and perform some corporal works of mercy. That speaks much more succinctly and much more profoundly to the message of the Gospel than a lot of hot air about what Jesus means to me.
I respond:
Is there no room for both? It is a completely artificial thing to separate living the gospel and proclaiming it in words. Even so, are you saying that sharing the gospel with words is never effective--that no one can be drawn to faith by someone sharing about their relationship with Christ and His Church? When Philip met the Ethiopian, should he not have shared the fullnes of the gospel message with him? What of Paul? Francis? Dominic?
Sure, there preaching can never be separated from their life witness, but neither can that of a lay Catholic who "talks about what Jesus means to me."
It is a strange gospel that must be proclaimed by every part of the person except the tongue and mouth.
Janice wrote:
And by the way, Mr. Shea, that's the model that the "cultural Catholics" that Ms. Weddell so despises have followed for centuries. Look up all the medieval confraternities and their descendents in America. They've all practiced this kind of faithful witness to Christ.
You have an amazing ability to read the hearts and minds of those whom you have never met and never actually spoken with.
I don't think that anyone is suggesting that the Catholic Church give up faithful witness to Christ in one's lifestyle. Why do you insist on separating lifestyle witness with verbal sharing and witness? Why do you insist on judging one as greater than another?
Does the Church teach that we are only to live out our faith and never talk about it?
M Blosser, can you explain what the "late medieval Nominalism" is? I would be happy to discover what it involves in protestant mind....
To Janice,
The communities I've just spoken about are very contemplative and very involved in charity works too (contempl-active). They are making lot of evangelisation, but they are not just concerned in "purely spiritual things". See for the Beatitude Community, the Alliance Internationales created to help poor country to developp themselves ( http://alliances-internationales.org/ ) or for the Emmanuel Community, the Fidesco ( http://www.emmanuel.info/
rubriqu...set_language=en )
I'm not suggesting that one separate faithful witness in life and talking about it. What I do have a concern about is the constant nattering on about one's relationship with Jesus as if that is all there is. I think it creates a self-enclosed group. Ideally, one's relationship with Jesus is played out concretely, in action.
In Deus caritas est, the Pope quotes St. Augustine, who says: "If you see charity, you see the Trinity." Just as Jesus brought God, so we may also bring God to our neighbors in our charitable actions, our corporeal and spiritual works of mercy. This is authetically Catholic outreach and missionization. Moreover, it is not focused on those with whom we agree, it is given to all, whether they are of our faith or not. Our true "fellowship" is with all humanity, especially those in need. As Pope Benedict writes: "The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable (DCE, #25)." This kind of work is the primary and best sort of missionization and the best way to reflect Jesus Christ and His teachings.
What I do have a concern about is the constant nattering on about one's relationship with Jesus as if that is all there is.
So do Evangelical converts, who agree with the Church's teaching. That again, is why they are *converts*. You keep pointing to Evangelical praxis and then claiming that evangelical converts think exactly the way non-Catholics do. You also keep pointing to Sherry Weddell, attributing ideas to her that she does not hold, and then generalize those ideas to all Evangelical converts. So far on this thread, you have claimed that protestant converts protested the CDF document, backed that up with a specific claim that I protested the CDF document, tried to prove that by implicating Jimmy Akin and Weddell in protesting the CDF document, lied that you never claimed converts were protesting the CDF document, declared that Weddell is constantly finding fault with "the Church" (by which you apparently mean "criticized the inability of many lay Catholics to articulate their faith", which is hardly the same thing--especially given your own proclivities for calling cardinal "dumbasses"), declared that "evangelical converts only perk up and get happy when there’s something that bashes the Catholic Church", and now tried to make the preposterous claim that "those out of the Protestant milieu always think people have to be badgered with words". Aside from the constant assumption "Once a protestant, always a Protestant" and the cartoonish notion that protestant converts place no value on corporal and spiritual works of mercy, do you have a single informed or intelligent remark to offer to the poor souls at the Liturgy Society who are, alas, expecting you to be an Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts?
The longer you talk the more it appears when you say "protestant converts" you mean "protestant infiltrators" and when you mean "protestant infiltrators" you mean "Sherry Weddell". Virtually all the grand generalizations you are making about "protestant converts" seem to come back to your manifest hostility to her and your sotto voce conviction that she is a sort of theological half-breed.
It's a free country and you can hold that opinion if you like (though you don't know what you are talking about). But to pose as an Expert on the Problem of Protestant Converts after saying this many egregiously stupid things ought to cause you *some* embarrassment (and, I suspect, has given your tendency to change the subject, insult your critic, and glide away).
M Blosser, can you explain what the "late medieval Nominalism" is? I would be happy to discover what it involves in protestant mind....
Bob, this paper by Dave Armstrong will probably help explain things for you:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...ockham-
and.html
Thank you Jordan, I go immediately to see the paper...
Mr. Shea,
You are ignorant. There are many problems with evangelicals who convert (and many articles on that subject and many people whining about it). My paper isn't going to waste time on bloggers, with their half-baked opinions and programmes. It's theological in nature.
Mr. Shea,
As important as I know you think you are, the topic at the liturgy conference is Benedict XVI and the Liturgy. As your blog always make clear, you file such things under "Liturgy Stuff." So what difference does it make to you?
Could have something to do with knowing so many (not to mention being one of) those "problems" you claim such expertise in. So far you have given less than zero evidence that you have the slightest idea what you are talking about as an Expert in the Problem of Protestant Converts. Hand waving about others agreeing with you changes nothing. Your grasp of the theological opinions of the vast majority of protestant converts is essentially nil, given all you've said so far.
Janice:
"My paper isn't going to waste time on bloggers, with their half-baked opinions and programmes. It's theological in nature."
You obviously think rather highly of yourself -
the arrogance of the new Graduates perhaps -
today I master my Origen tomorrow the World- I assume Dr. Blosser and other more accomplished Theologians/Academics/Philosophers have to smirk at some of your 'youthfull' follies.
Certainly we all just hope you do not run into fellow 'academic' folks that call you the kind of names you so freely assign to others.
In preperation for your grandiose talk you might also want to read up on some 'refreshing' novel swearwords to properly frame the debate.
Do not get me wrong I very much enjoy your refreshing opinions and admire your smarts - but nobody can mistake you for a charmer anytime soon.
P.S.
Should Mr. Shea feel bad that you just grace him with a rather mild "You are Ignorant" while you reserve the more meaty and potent "Dumbass" for Cardinal Kasper? LOL
You are ignorant. There are many problems with evangelicals who convert (and many articles on that subject and many people whining about it).
Translation: What would an evangelical convert who knows dozens of evangelical converts know about evangelical converts? I, Janice Kraus, happen to be an Independent Scholar and I have in my possession a number of articles by people who know just as much as I do about evangelical converts. I've read all about it and I have even (brrrrr!) talked to evangelical converts on ocassion. (Though I prefer to just read what Evangelicals, who are exactly the same thing, think.) All you and your kind love to bash the Church, believe in evangelization through haranguing, and have a defective ecclesiology. If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.
Minion! How can the crude "experience" or "professed beliefs" of a puny blogger such as yourself compare to the Majestic Treasures of Theory About You which I possess?
"Evangelical Catholics
by Dwight Longenecker"
http://www.holyspiritinteractive...ntevents/
06.asp
Who is Longenecker?
==
Evangelical Catholicism
http://www.stmarysgvl.org/discip...cal-
catholicism
http://www.stmarysgvl.org/discip...cal-
catholicism
http://www.dwightlongenecker.com/
==
Paul:
What is your point?
Janice wrote: As Pope Benedict writes: "The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable (DCE, #25)." This kind of work is the primary and best sort of missionization and the best way to reflect Jesus Christ and His teachings.
Janice,
Thanks for posting that. I wholeheartedly agree--although I would probably say that it is the best sort of evangelization. I don't see why, however, you cast such aspersions on sharing about "what Jesus means to me--" particularly if it is part of this interrelated witness.
Keith
I would venture to say, after reading numerous posts on various places across the intarweb that Janice doesn't even know Protestants that well, much less ones that convert to the Catholic church.
But what would a silly Protestant like me know about Protestants?
Janice:
You said that "encouraging the use of evangelically-inspired methods of evagelization and catechesis is misguided, because content usually follows form."
I note a logical flaw here: you state that X is (always?) misguided because Y is usually true. How does usually jump into always?
It is true (and Mark has mentioned it) that Y, being possible, means that X is possible, when he observes that some converts may convert for the wrong reasons -- a protest against an Evangelical (church in the) past. And that makes logical sense.
The logic you gave, on the other hand, makes too wide a leap.
What you said does tell a fascinating tale, however. Assuming that content usually follows form, let us be thankful for the fact that the Holy Spirit continues to inform the content of Evangelical/Protestant theology, Christology and liturgy. Let us be thankful that the Holy Spirit also guided Judaism, so that we received what is of God from Judaism as well.
But what about undesirable content which, following form, might trickle into the Catholic faith? This is where anxiety has no place if we trust that "never shall the gates of hell prevail" against the Church.
It *is* possible that converts will influence Catholic theology with Protestant forms. But our rock is God, who gives us the Magisterium and continues to guide us with sound doctrine. The same Holy Spirit who wrote through St. Paul "hold fast to what is good" will continue to work in the Church. And how can the same Spirit, who works efficaciously with Protestants, allow what is contradictory to enter into the Catholic faith?
"It is true (and Mark has mentioned it) that Y, being possible, means that X is possible, when he observes that some converts may convert for the wrong reasons -- a protest against an Evangelical (church in the) past. And that makes logical sense."
Oops.. this is incomplete. The logic here is that it is possible for converts to come in for the wrong reasons, bringing the wrong mindset, and therefore bring the wrong content, which in this case is a false expectation, leading them perhaps to embrace the Two-Church theory [Cautionary Tales, Catholic Exchange, July 12, 2007].
If anyone loves to bash, it's Mark Shea. He makes his living at it. It puts meatloaf and mashed potatoes on his plate.
He just bristles at Janice because she picks the wrong targets.
To claim that one's citations and one's scholarship concerning Evangelical converts and the issues their behavior raises are irrelevant because "I am a Evangelical convert and I say so" is to reduce this issue beyond the point of absurdity, all the way to lazy, self-interested bluster.
But that's what Mark Shea does for a living.
I've visited the Intentional Disciples blog several times. It is a strange experience. I would compare it to a Catholic visiting a hippie commune. There is no disagreement, no hurly-burly, no meaty discussions of any kind. It's all white noise, easy-listening Evangelical patter with a patina of Catholicism. If a row of cabbages could talk . . . .
And they are very strict about maintaining uniformity of thought. There is no controversy, no debate, no back-and-forth in their brand of Catholicism. It is patently unreal: this is not the way human beings -- pious or otherwise -- behave.
Whereas medieval monasteries were correctly balanced between form and content, so to speak, these dudes are all about form. Attention to content is almost an afterthought, perhaps sometimes even a non-thought. Catholic hare krishna. No thanks.
"But what about undesirable content which, following form, might trickle into the Catholic faith? This is where anxiety has no place if we trust that "never shall the gates of hell prevail" against the Church."
Jeff,
It's too bad you were not around to soothe Pope Paul's anxiety "that from somewhere or other the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God." He could have used a good pull on your giggle pipe.
Christ's promise that His Church would prevail does not mean that we are excused from taking evil seriously -- nor does the magisterium proscribe our doing so.
Ralph, I trust that you did read through all that Mark said and all that Janice said? Because I don't see the same picture. Mark kept asking for the proof of her claim. If any bashing was done, it was done against Mark who was labelled ignorant. How does this sound to you?
"My paper isn't going to waste time on bloggers, with their half-baked opinions and programmes. It's theological in nature."
And you think Mark was guilty of "lazy, self-interested bluster." You also ought to take a look at what you wrote yourself.
"Christ's promise that His Church would prevail does not mean that we are excused from taking evil seriously"
My giggle pipe had nothing to do with it. The way Paul explains the work of the Holy Spirit is anything but chaotic. We are given different gifts and called to different ministries. That's how God wants it. While we are not told to close our eyes and sing away our blues, it is not the job of every individual to pontificate.
We take evil seriously at every level where appropriate. To jump up and down in panic because we are being inundated by converts from Protestantism is precisely the sort of anxiety that goes too far. To express caution is fine. But the extent of the angst and anxiety shown by Janice seems greatly disproportionate to me.
"it is not the job of every individual to pontificate."
But it is your job?
And Mark's job?
And Sherry's job?
And everyone else please show respectful silence, or leave the commune immediately.
This might work if you, and Mark, and Sherry, et al, constituted the magisterium.
Instead of being folks pulling from the same giggle pipe.
Ralph,
it amazes me how you ignore, sidestep or bend around even the kindest and most sensitive written comments.
I found that Jeff summed it up as nice as one could possibly do that.
But yes we all pontificate plenty around the internet if voicing an opinion counts as that.
I am not surprised nor shocked that people have opinons but what is concerning is that many leave almost no room for disagreement with deep respect of the other person.
What are you expecting Ralph- about half the population will perhaps have very different religious views as well as political and cultural preferences - your aggressive rethoric certainly will not charm anybody into coming to your side.
And it seems that in your life you needed as much merci as the next one.
Ralph:
Me? Pontificate? My giggle pipe made me do it! (What on earth is a giggle pipe anyway?)
Seriously, these are opinions, not pontifications. On the other hand, Janice is about to speak to a wide audience in a conference, with religious leaders in attendance. That's fine in and of itself, but it is worrying that her caution appears (in the comm box) to jump right into anxiety and no small lack of charity.
And of course, I did cite that her logic had a small problem. Since she is writing a theological paper, it's only fair that she considers possible flaws in her arguments.
It was also worrying when Mark kept asking for specific cases of converts being dissenters, and Janice stayed silent.
"everyone else please show respectful silence"
What does this mean, exactly? No one is allowed to voice opinion? Not even Janice? Not even you?
Jeff,
Do you know what Janice is going to say? Do you have even the slightest clue? "No" is the honest answer, and, since you know precisely nothing about it, why don't you show some of that non-worrying confidence you pontificated about earlier, and quit sweating bullets over Janice?
If you ask her real nicely, perhaps she will show you a copy of her remarks after her address. Then you and your associates can carve it up good and proper.
Ralph,
The subjects of my critiques have been Janice's posts in the comm box, not her paper, which is why I wrote,
"it is worrying that her caution **appears (in the comm box)** to jump right into anxiety and no small lack of charity."
You also fail to see the contradiction. First, you say that I have a giggle pipe on, and imply that my trust in God's gift of the Magisterium is unrealistic. Now you're saying I'm sweating bullets.
To clarify, I'm not worried. I did say these:
"it is worrying that her caution appears (in the comm box) to jump right into anxiety and no small lack of charity."
"It was also worrying when Mark kept asking for specific cases of converts being dissenters, and Janice stayed silent"
I'm not personally worried, but I was pointing out that something was missing in both cases. In the first case, a lack of sufficient cause to make what I thought was a huge jump from caution to anxiety (on Janice's part). In the second case, the lack of particular cases to support one of Janice's claims, which Mark had asked for.
So I'm not worried; merely offering opinion. Janice shared her concerns in the comm boxes. I was offering critique, and thought that I could offer a reason NOT to be too anxious about converts. Fair enough?
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