Leads to...

I've worked in science and technology almost all of my adult life (I had a flurry of varied and interesting jobs in my teens and twenties). History has always been something of a hobby for me (which is nice, because it gives me both the History Channel and the Discovery Channel to fall back on when I can't sleep), but I did not start to study Church history in any real earnest until I got older.

I started because I thought it might help me grow in my faith. On some occasions, it feels like it has. But I probably have kept it up for the simple reason that I find it exceedingly interesting.

A couple of days ago, I got involved in an online discussion about the history of Christmas. I basically cited the conventional Church history, which you would find in a textbook or the Catholic Encyclopedia. Basically, Christians did not celebrate Christmas as a feast until about 200 AD (ex. doesn't appear in Tertullian's list of feasts). From then until the mid forth century, Christians generally celebrated either the Epiphany in January, or specifically Christ's birth later in the spring (some celebrated both). Starting in the fourth century, some Christians began using December 25th, seemingly usurping pagan solstice rites, which had been largely combined in 279, and centered on the traditional birth date of Mithras.

I didn't expect this to be particularly controversial, but some heads seemed to explode. The suggestion that Christmas has not been celebrated on Dec. 25th since the beginning is a direct attack on faith - written historical records be damned!

I did try to remain kind and charitable (rather I succeeded is another matter). But one of the 'offenses' I was called to task for was noting that evergreens and wreaths are a long standing Pagan practice. I seemed to be challenged to 'prove' my presumably heretical claim. I started to give a long history of archaeological sites with seeming ties to solstice worship, going back to about 3000 B.C., then I erased that long, tedious monologue and noted simply that the Prophet Jeremiah condemned the pagan practice in about 600 BC (Jeremiah 10:2-4) and the Latin apologist Tertullian condemned it again in the third century ("On Idolatry" XV).

I had hoped (and continue to hope) that my studies would help lead me to a deeper understanding and strengthened faith. But I do sometimes wonder if the endeavor has principally lead to my being even more annoying; something I would have thought to be impossible (my wife can attest that I have long held master status in the art).

Merry Christmas and may the Peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

"How much more...."?

I have been giving a lot of thought about the latest revelations that the US's reversal on it's 'no torture' policy (dating back to George Washington) came from the top of government. There have been good posts on Street Prophets and Mark Shea's blog, so I wasn't sure what I could really add.

Several years ago, I finally started to feel the torture issue in a very visceral way. I was trying to listen to a homily, when I suddenly connected this particular incident to something in the second reading from St. Paul. Something about the reference to evil withering in the light (an analogy he used in both Romans and Galatians). I literally felt sick to my stomach and unworthy for communion.

I do not expect all Catholics to feel so strongly. After all, I took time to start to feel the matter as emotional and personal. But I am continuously baffled by Catholics who are dismissive or even supportive of the practice. I am put in mind of something that Pope Stephen V wrote late in the 9th century:

"If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a
murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a
child even one day old?" - Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

I've actually seen this cited a few times as proof of the Church's long standing position on abortion. But the subject was actually infanticide. The Pope appears to be saying, 'look we hold that it is murder to kill a child before it is born, of course you cannot tolerate your flock burying unwanted or unhealthy newborns alive!' It is hardly a unique topic. Infanticide was a major problem among the gentile faithful for the first millennium. Thankfully, that practice has become rare and isolated among Christians. But I think the reasoning is still relevant today.

Roughly 50% of all fertilized ovum are never even born, but we hold destroying them to be gravely evil. Of course you cannot torture and murder fully formed and ensouled human beings!

We're #1!

Sometimes, coming in first is not something to be proud of.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias for posting about this.

Context...

I've been thinking a lot lately about context and intent. The other morning I heard a report about "The Drivers" in Saudi Arabia. Basically a group of Saudi women drove vehicles until they were arrested as a form of protest. The periodically re-unite and note that the ongoing prohibition on women driving creates fiscal hardship and other problems.

An interesting story in its own right, with plenty of food for thought. For example, Rome has identified "religious freedom" as a non negotiable moral principle in voting, but what about when religious practices start to collide with social justice? It is easy to think of the Saudi situation for woman and driving as very backward and alien, but we have a similar moral conflict ourselves. We have an obligation to uphold and protect the Family, but gay unions do raise some issues of legitimate social justice.

But what really caught my attention was a statement near the end of the report:

A handful of women caught driving this year were only briefly detained, according to press reports, and a university student was called a heroine after she drove her badly burned father to the hospital.

In the right context, serious sin became a virtue. This is hardly a novel concept. If I was robbed and then hunted down the thief and killed him, I would be acting immorally, even by Old Testament standards. But if I tried to protect an elderly woman from armed robbery and the thief was accidentally killed in the struggle I would seem to be on sounder moral ground.

It appears that, even with very serious outcomes, our intent matters. In VERITATIS SPLENDOR, Pope John Paul II explains, convincingly, that we cannot, as Catholics, accept morality as a purely relative matter. Some acts are intrinsically evil, because they are never licit. I can accept this, there is no reason, not even my own life or the lives of the people I love most, for, say, genocide. But it it is still very difficult to escape context and intent.

For example, in EVANGELIUM VITAE, the pope makes it clear that direct abortion is always a grave moral disorder. Yet, when Catholics combine this seemingly infallible proclamation with the concepts of VERITATIS SPLENDOR in political discourse, we often end up with some seemingly very incoherent chains of thought.

'You cannot vote for Obama, abortion is intrinsically evil, an absolute!'

'But McCain supports abortion in some cases, so why can you vote for him?'

'That's different, I am trying to limit the harm, which is licit!'

'Yes, in the same Encyclical that the pope declared direct abortion to always be a grave moral disorder, he introduced the concept of "limiting the harm", the direct abortion is intrinsically evil, but abortion voting may or may not be licit depending on one's intent and sincere belief.'

'You're just rationalizing what you want to do! It's INTRINSICALLY EVIL, an ABSOLUTE!'

If you are patient and thick skinned, you can repeat this conversation in circular fashion until someones head explodes. I think that the core problem is that we can convince ourselves that we have good intentions, but our typical political discourse is currently one of divisiveness and demonization. People don't just disagree, They hate America, They hate Our good values...

But the point I am really trying to make is that, even with a moral absolute, it is very hard to eliminate context and intent from the equation. Even if we move from voting about abortion to actually procuring them, or tendency is still towards moral relativism. If you ask a 'pro-life political militant' about ectopic, or tubal pregnancy, the vast majority will state, in absolute terms, that such abortions are licit because of double effect. But that is hardly clear. The USCCB's Directives for Health Care Providers specifically prohibits direct abortion for ectopic pregnancies. And the 1902 decision from the Tribunal of the Holy Office seems to have prohibited indirect abortion, that is, removing the fetus unharmed and letting 'nature take its course', in the same situation.

The double effect argument concerning salpingectomy vs. salpingostomy has always been a bit dubious, and it appears that most modern Catholic Bioethicists have abandoned it. Now if you search the National Catholic Bioethics Center for "ectopic" you will find papers purporting the licit use of Methotrexate (MTX), a chemical abortificant. The argument is that some of these are not pregnancies at all, but interrupted miscarriages, so the fetus is "dead or dying". The distinction would seem important, but the issue of direct euthanasia, another absolute teaching, is not addressed...

The Church has not taken a formal position on these specific applications. But it is worth noting that in countries with Catholic majorities, such applications are generally prohibited by law and the local bishops seem wholly supportive of such laws.

In light of all this, it seems fair to say that the issue is at least morally grey, yet many of the same people who view voting for abortion as unarguably evil (at least if the voting differs from their own) will be quite adamant that abortion itself is absolutely licit in some cases. The difference, of course, is again context and intent. Could the Church really expect me, or someone I love, to risk sterility or even possible death for a pregnancy that cannot possibly reach term?

While I do not purport to have the definitive answer to that question, I would again reiterate that the only principles we truly hold dear are the ones that we are willing to stand by in a context that costs us dearly.

I'm not holding my breath...

I freely admit that George Weigel's writing consistently upsets me. I literally can taste the enamel grinding off my teeth as I clench my jaw and try to force myself to try to hear what he has to say with an open mind. My long standing complaint is that, for all the mountains of writing he has done on Iraq, he has never really discussed his relationship with PNAC, which has a much less ideological interest in Iraq occupation.

Something I have noted before is that my father believed that the only principles we really believe in are the ones we will stand by when they cost us something. Anything else is just a principle of convenience. When I saw that the Senate Armed Forces Committee has released a report on the treatment of detainees in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, I recalled this column which Weigel had once written. Interestingly, the archive copy differs a bit from the version that was published in The Tidings (I cut it out and kept it). In the version I first read, Weigel is less ambiguous, if torture is a matter of policy, not deviant behavior, then ius in bello, the rules governing the waging of a just war are broken.

The Catechism covers this succinctly in CCC 2313. We cannot mistreat detainees and the standard given is international law, not our own discretion.

It has been clear for a very long time that torture and indefinite detention have officially entered US policy. This breaks a long standing precedent going back to George Washington, who ordered his troops not to respond to atrocities by the enemy in kind, but to treat all prisoners humanely. Books like The Dark Side, whose title comes from a quote from Vice President (and fellow PNAC participant) Dick Cheney, have done a very good job of tying together all the evidence that has tricked out over the last 5 years - including President Bush's public insistence that he, personally, was involved.

So the Senate report really just confirms what we already knew. Yet, Weigel continues to write about the war in Iraq and the so-called 'war on terror' as if they are unarguably just and historically vindicated. It is not terribly Christian of me, but this makes me wonder if the problem is disassociation from reality, or insincerity when it comes to the theological principles he invokes in his columns.

I suppose the charitable interpretation is that he does not yet find the evidence of torture as official policy compelling, but when a certain threshold is met he will acknowledge the moral implications and alter his position. But like the title says...

"But even if he will not..."

A few days ago I made reference to Daniel 3, focusing on the beginning of verse 18. My point was that faith was not conditional on a good outcome. In the story, the three faithful men are saved, but the passage makes it clear that the men would not be shaken from their faith even when the situation looked dire.

I have been thinking about a lot of things lately, but I was incredibly moved by the interview with Don Yun Yoon's interview on TV the other day. I really can't imagine losing my family, and I have serious doubts about rather I would have such Christian instincts in the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy. In Daniel, the three men are saved from a fiery death, Yoon's family were not saved. There was no divine intervention. But even though 'He did not', Yoon's faith and charity can be seen even in his obvious grief.

In addition to sad, this makes the situation very humbling for me. I went searching to see if there was something Yoon or his friends wanted those of us expressing sympathy to do; donate to a charity, a fund to help with the material loss, that sort of thing. I did find this, and would encourage people to help if they can. But I was actually surprised at how little discussion Google turned up. I thought that this would be a topic for all the blogs and forums, but if that is occurring, I don't see it.

The same thing happened with the illegal immigrant who stopped and helped the boy whose mother had been killed in an accident in the desert, even though it meant his own arrest and deportation. If a high profile Catholic or politician said, in passing, "you know, if I were a woman and I was raped and beaten by Satan, I probably would at least consider an abortion..." there would be countless posts with endless pages of comments connected to them. Most from red faced people beating their own heads hard enough to make their ears bleed proclaiming that anyone not in lock step agreement with them was an obvious agent of evil...

But when we hear actually stories about people being good Christians under adversity, we do not seem very interested. My first thought was that perhaps the problem is that the people involved are not white. After all, plenty of people applauded the "fine Christian example" of Sarah Palin's unwed pregnant daughter. A more depressing thought is that, perhaps, our faith has become just another stick that we use to whack each other.

If you collapse "the least among" us to fertilized zygotes and sexual morality to not being gay, you get all the benefits of moral indignation and self righteousness, without any of the inconvenience of self realization or introspection. If the point is no longer humble service in the spirit of Christ's teachings, then stories like Yoon's are not so interesting. After all, his message is forgiveness, gratitude, and unity. Most our religious dialog is focused on establishing who is 'good' and who is 'bad' (with the people doing the speaking inevitably in the 'good' group themselves).

Another sobering possibility is that, like racism, we might be missing another of Jesus' often repeated lessons. We tend to think of the Pharisees as obviously bad people, but Jesus' audience would have considered them ultra religious war heroes. They were overt nationalists and xenophobes. So, if we are disinterested because of race, we are ignoring all Jesus' pointed references to the strangers among us, or his repeated use of despised and mistrusted foreigners as examples of righteousness in parables. But Jesus also aggressively challenged another widely held belief, that success and misfortune are closely tied to grace. A horrible disability was not an unfortunate twist of fate, but much deserved punishment from God. Spiritual and material wealth were widely seen as connected...

As far as I can tell, these ideas are very much alive and well today. You are poor because you are lazy. The idea that someone's poverty might be influenced by how the wealthy utilize their power is just 'bleeding heart excuses from people who like wasting other people's money'. I see something similar with my son. Many people still assume that his behaviors are evidence of poor parenting, not his severe neurological disability.

Similar thoughts seem to surround our concept of 'heroic'. In victory, the definition of 'hero' is pretty broad. But in failure, the word 'hero' is only used in a few narrow circumstances. Perhaps that is why we are so indifferent to all the devastating head injuries that are the symbol for the war in Iraq. A 'hero' is someone with steely eyes whose dignified bearing is marred by only the slightest of limps. A man in a wheel chair, who no longer recognizes his own children and who is fed baby food with a plastic spoon...

We are a clearly a results oriented society. Paris Hilton was born spectacularly wealthy, but making yourself more famous by glorifying selfishness and stupidity or performing sex acts with a cheeseburger on a car, that is something we can look up to... But our faith is about how we act, regardless of the outcome. It is probably best exemplified in situations like Yoon's, when we are facing tragedy or failure.

In that light, perhaps it is not so surprising that we are not interested. Yoon's spiritual victory over horrible personal tragedy just isn't the sort of 'winning' we are used to celebrating.

Update: Beauty and Depravity (which I found just yesterday searching for the Church/Autism story) asks the same question.

Thank goodness for odd...

I was actually going to write about this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/21/autistic-boy-banned-from_n_102953.html

I had a somewhat related experience with my own son this Sunday, though my interaction with the pastor and celebrant have been a lot more positive. It actually opens a bunch of issues that are a bit hard to write about, so I had been putting it off, digesting. Then I found this:

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=343586&GT1=28102

The first two paragraphs are almost two weird for comment:

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Madonna is causing
"crazy enthusiasm" and "impure thoughts" on her first concert visit to Chile, a
prominent retired cardinal complained on Wednesday, as he paused in a tribute to
a late dictator to denounce the pop star.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina criticized the flamboyant singer
during his homily at a Mass in honor of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, who
oversaw the deaths of some 3,200 dissidents during his 1973-1990 rule.

I'm not that surprised that a Cardinal would object to a Madonna invasion on the grounds of public morality, but the words "Mass in honor of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet" were already hard enough to get my head around without a bumping and grinding Madonna thrown into the mix. But I guess you can't look at this:



Without thinking of this:



I think it is the boots and hat.

How is this a Food or a Drug?

Over the last 8 years I have seen a lot of evidence that the FDA is seriously broken. As an outsider to the process it is hard to know the complete story. But controversies like the furor over BPA seem to give the strong suggestion that science is not in the driver's seat at the agency. And it certainly does not bode well for the agency's effectiveness that the AMA issued a study finding that prescription drug related deaths are on the rise.

The Government Accountability Office found that the agency does not even have clear policies for dealing with health and safety issues that might arise after something is approved. And ex-employees of the agency claim that the agency is as lax with food safety as it is with drugs. None of this speaks to a well oiled and effective Federal entity.

But on the sheer stupid side, this must take the cake. My son is "handicapped", in the very real sense. He could use many things, but an adaptive gun is not one of them. Do not misunderstand, I accept that, in a pluralistic, democratic republic, I have to accept that such things might get made and sold. A sad commentary on the state of our society, but seemingly unavoidable.

But this seems a bit much:

"Thanks to the gun's designation as a medical device, doctors could eventually write prescriptions for it and then be reimbursed by Medicare..."

Excuse me? Last year children living in hunger in the US jumped to 700,000. Before the most catastrophic job numbers in decades, about 50,000,000 Americans were living without any health insurance. We have a clear moral obligation to take care of our elderly. But if resources are finite and we have to make compromises, I would vote that children do not go to bed hungry and everyone gets catastrophic health care coverage before we make sure that grandma and grandpa have plenty of handguns and Viagra...

Letter to the Editor...

I wrote the following to our Archdiocese newspaper, The Tidings, in response to the reader comments in the most recent issue. Clearly, many people have not yet adjusted to the realities of the election being over.

To Whom It May Concern:

If the recent reader comments in The Tidings are any indication, tempers have not yet cooled in the aftermath of the recent election. I humbly submit that, as Catholics, we might all benefit from a quick review of two of the instructions in our Catechism. First, CCC 1790:

“A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.”

In heated political rhetoric, we are usually aware of our own certainty but often forget that our opponents are typically certain of their positions as well. The Church makes it clear that each of us must act on the moral certainty we feel, but we must also never forget that we, ourselves, may still be in error. This is a little reminiscent of marriage, though 25+ years have taught me that those situations are often best handled by not acting on my certainty and simply acknowledging, up front, that I am in error!

Second, CCC 2478, which begins “To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way…” It then goes on to quote some wonderful advice from St. Ignatius of Loyola on how we should listen, discuss, and even correct each other only in love and charity.

The most “favorable way” that I can think of to interpret the differences between my voting and some of my fellow Catholics is to recognize that our teaching on life is enormous, and that I, personally, cannot love enough. Consider Pope John Paul II’s clear, simple statement on the “right to life” in CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI (#38). It is “every human being” in “every phase of development” and in “every condition”.

Mentally, I can accept this. It is a logical extension of loving my neighbor as myself. Emotionally, it is not so easy. God can, and does, love infinitely but my capacity is seemingly all too limited. When it was my own children still in the womb or my own father facing the end of his life, I felt love akin to what I hold for my own skin. But when it comes to, say, the 4,000 children who die every day for lack of two buckets of clean water, I feel sadness, but not the same burning emotions. Moving farther, to someone like a suicide bomber or a death row inmate, it becomes hard for me to even muster sympathy.

Since I cannot fit the entire teaching in my heart I cannot reasonably expect my fellow Catholics to do so either. As I see it, we each fit in as much as we can, as best we can. With a teaching so broad, and with each of us having unique life experiences, some differences seem inevitable. Instead of viewing these differences as disaster, I am trying to see them as strength. Perhaps the differences help make our collective heart larger. The USCCB makes a similar point in its document on FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP (#29):

“Clearly not every Catholic can be actively involved on each of these concerns, but we need to support one another as our community of faith defends human life and dignity wherever it is threatened. We are not factions, but one family of faith fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ.”

Each week at Mass, we collectively pray for unity and peace. To show our seriousness we even demonstrate by offering each other a sign of peace. I, for one, am not going to start making that gesture conditional on how the Catholics around me voted. And I sincerely hope that none of them will start putting any such precondition on me!

Isn't Faith enough?

I happened to catch this news story today, and glanced at the referenced research. I have no doubt that in a day or so I will be able to find multiple posts declaring that the research is obviously false and an equal number citing it as proof that anti-abortionists are, as a group, moral hypocrites.

The way I see it, we are all moral hypocrites, so the latter isn't really news. That was like the media telling me, all last year, that Britney Spears had done something self destructive and stupid. Telling me, again and again, that Britney Spears is emotionally broken is not news, it is perverse pleasure in one person's suffering. News would be Spears turning her life around, which it appears she now somewhat has.

As far as the research being false, I find that doubtful. Like the WHO's research into secular law's limited impact on abortion (it found that half the abortions in the world each year are illegal) or the Guttmacher Institute's research regarding the seeming ineffectiveness of abstinence only education, the numbers speak pretty clearly for themselves, and the methodologies used appear very sound.

I know that there are personal testimonials, 'I was so depressed, I never forgave myself...' But I have a son with autism, a poorly understood developmental disability. I have lost count of how many heartfelt testimonials I have heard for treatments and interventions which show no value in controlled clinical studies. The problem is that physical and mental health is very complicated, so a statistical universe of one is a terrible foundation for deducing causal relationships.

Heartfelt anecdotes notwithstanding, I've wondered for a long time why so many Catholics become so adamant in rejecting this type of research. I could probably understand if it was only research which, at least on the surface, appears to support the current secular climate on abortion, but I have seen more than one Catholic become so angry that he/she lost the power of speech at the mention that secular research shows a link between abortion and poverty (the majority of procured abortions in the US are for women living in or near poverty, about half of them are also already mothers).

Personally, I find this faith reaffirming. "Gospel" comes from "Good News", as in "bringing the Good News to the poor". The idea that Jesus' call to service and social justice is directly relevant to moral issues in which the Church is very interested in today seems like affirmation, not a threat, to me.

I cannot know what motivates my peers, but it seems to me that it might be a lack of confidence in the practicality of our faith in everyday life. Sure, it sounds great on Sundays, but in the real world there are scary people, so we have to torture... Real progress on abortion can only come through the political process...

I have been reading more of the Old Testament of late, with the 'Apocalyptic style' of many of the Prophets seeming to fit the end of the Church's year and the beginning of Advent. When I started thinking about this subject I recalled something that I had read a few days ago in Daniel 3. Bad King Nebuchadnezzar wants to make the faithful young men worship his wicked golden statue, but even the threat of fiery death does not sway them. They refuse to submit and are rewarded, they are saved. Good triumphs over evil, much like a Gunsmoke episode, except that we have divine intervention instead of the quick draw and bullets...

But in reading the chapter more closely, there seems to be some very important messages in the admittedly melodramatic tale. Consider verse 18, which starts "But even if he will not..." The three men have no doubt that God can save them, but their faith is not dependant on the actual outcome. The practical and pragmatic do not enter into it. No 'we'll tell him what he wants to hear so we can escape to practice the faith and serve God...' Or, 'that statue is the state religion, so we had best capitulate, since we can then at least accomplish some good...'

Surely even young men have enough life experience to know that the typical outcome from fiery encounters is death. Miraculous salvation would be the exception, not the rule. Which leads to the question, where they being faithful, or impractical?

Over our seemingly endless election season I heard more than one Catholic chastised for stating that he/she intended to vote for write-ins because the alternative was to vote for an intrinsically evil position on abortion. In fact, this was the subject of my very first post here. The argument is that if one does not join the practical effort, evil will win. But the longer I ponder this, the more the retort resonates with me. If we limit ourselves to choosing between evils, are we not insuring that evil always wins?

I think that the same principle applies here. Morality and practicality do not have to overlap. Oregon is rated very abortion friendly in terms of its laws. But it has been a national leader in reducing its abortion rate over the last 30 years. A lower abortion rate is a good thing, but if the path that led to it is greater promotion and access to contraceptives, it is still an immoral situation in Catholic doctrine. Like the three in Daniel, the end does not justify the means in our faith. It is the means, or the upholding the faith that will count in the end.

When we devote a lot of energy into trying to justify everything in secular terms, particularly dubious secular terms like seemingly invented mental health problems, we obscure that.

Blogger formatting...

First, thank you to friends who have emailed me to point out that some messages are formatted oddly. I appreciate that anyone is reading this at all.

FWIW, this appears to be an ongoing battle between me and Blogger.com's editing/formatting. I create posts, preview them, post them, then find them all screwed up. I open them for editing, end up mucking with the raw HTML code, and eventually convince myself that the post in question is readable enough.

I know, I am supposed to be highly computer literate. Perhaps my broad swathes of ignorance on the subject of Catholicism is somehow rubbing off...

When Faith and Political Blogging collide...

I have mentioned in the past that I enjoy the political blogging of Steve Benen, currently at WashingtonMonthly.com. Although I do not always agree with him, I like his wit and appreciate that he clearly does make an effort to read what his political opposites have to say. Also, although it may seem counter intuitive, his history in working on Church/State separation tends to make him a bit more 'Faith savvy' than most political commentators.

I also follow Stephen Bainbridge's blog. I feel like I have to make an honest attempt to hear different points of view. And, while Bainbridge often sounds like a Fox News transcript, he does occasionally show the coherent reasoning skills one would expect from a law professor. More importantly (or at least more entertaining to me) he is not utterly without self realization. That is, he periodically seems to grasp that his political ideology, which is very Evangelical Protestant in nature, sometimes clashes with his Catholic faith. He can never seem to express these realizations with a generous and humble heart. Inevitably, the language includes the presumption of membership in an unarguably more devout and righteous group. But at least the thoughts are acknowledged an expressed. A perfect example would be this recent post.

"It’s worth remembering from time to time that cafeteria Catholicism is not soly the province of the political left..."

Yes, Luke 18:9-14 does seem to suggest that we should be mindful of our own moral failings. But I think that we have heard the tale so much that we no longer perceive "Pharisee" as Jesus' first audience did. Pope Benedict has pointed out that the same lesson can be found in Luke 15:11-32, which Benedict has suggested we refer to as a parable of two sons, not one. The same lesson seems to appear in its starkest form in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 7:1-5). In that light, "soly" (sic) is probably not a word I would choose.

Please don't misunderstand, I am just as much a flawed, inconsistent sinner as any. It is just that my failings differ from Bainbridges. I freely acknowledge that I am a 'cafeteria Catholic', but while I see us all as cafeteria Catholic's (hence the words "Lord I am not worthy to receive you..." at every Mass), Bainbridge seems to believe that "cafeteria Catholicism" is something separate from himself, which can identified and admonished.

Bainbridge's musings on faith do not normally get picked up on by other political blogs, especially a more left leaning blog like Benen's. But recently Bainbridge discussed Douglas Kmiec's possible selection as ambassador to the Holy See.

Benen then wrote a piece commenting on the issue, essentially stating that he was baffled by the objections. In response, Bainbridge updated his article with the following comment:

Did Benen even bother to read--let alone try to understand--the argument? Nowhere did I say that voting for Obama is a deal breaker. Obviously, Obama is going to appoint someone who supported him.

The question is whether this specific Obama supporter ought to be chosen. The point has been that Kmiec presents a unique combination of facts that I find problematic.

All I can say, is that the Washington Monthly has gone way down hill since Kevin Drum left. Although I rarely agreed with Drum, at least he was willing to have an intellectually honest discussion. benen is just shoddy.

There are a lot of problems with this. Perhaps first, and foremost, Benen specifically states that he finds Bainbridge's arguments "quite odd". So the first question seems answered, yes, he read it, no he did not understand it in the sense that he found it to be coherent and compelling. Benen then simply gives his reasons, principally, large Catholic support for Obama (50% of regularly practicing Catholics, 54% of Catholic overall) and Kmiec's long standing as a conservative Catholic who is in public agreement with the Church on high profile issues like abortion.

Second, much as the Pharisee needed to look to his own spiritual well being, not the Publican's, when it comes to to being "intellectually honest" and avoiding the "shoddy", Bainbridge's piece leaves a lot to be desired. For example, Bainbridge uses a snippet from Rome's Doctrinal Note on the Participation of Catholics in Public Life. He is using this to argue that abortion has special status. But if we look at the entire paragraph, and the paragraph that proceeds it, the meaning is quite different.

Presumably, Bainbridge justifies his own vote for a Presidential candidate with an intrinsically evil position on abortion as an application of "limiting the harm", but the proceeding paragraph in the doctrinal note specifically warns about elevating a teaching at the expense of others:

"In this context ["limiting the harm"], it must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good. Nor can a Catholic think of delegating his Christian responsibility to others; rather, the Gospel of Jesus Christ gives him this task, so that the truth about man and the world might be proclaimed and put into action."

The paragraph that follows, from which Bainbridge takes his snippet, is where the Church gives 9 examples of the sorts of "fundamental contents of faith and morals" we are talking about. Yes, abortion is in that list, but so are things like Peace, societies protection of minors, religious freedom, and a commitment to a socially just economy. We know that this list is "not negotiable" because Pope Benedict specifically says so in Sacramentum Caritatis (#83). The USCCB points out this same connection in its document on Faithful Citizenship.

To bolster his interpretation, Bainbridge next uses a quote from a fragment of a letter from Cardinal Ratzinger to the US bishops which has never been officially released. Even so, there is strong reason to believe that, again, the quote is being used deceptively. Bainbridge's interpretation would require the presumption that Ratzinger was disagreeing with the Doctrinal Note, which not only was also written by Ratzinger, but approved for distribution by Pope John Paul II. The more common interpretation is that, in the section quoted, Ratzinger is referring to the subject at hand, which was a question from the Bishops on rather or not communion could be denied to politicians who supported the war in Iraq or the death penalty. In this context, Ratzinger is not discussing elevating of specific teachings, but the proper application of Canon Law (specifically CIC 915).

Although Bainbridge links to only a fragment of the leaked letter, this interpretation is bolstered by more complete copies. Ratzinger goes on to discuss the distinction of direct support of an intrinsically evil position through voting, and an application of "proportionate reasons" where connection to the evil is remote. The specific case he gives is a Catholic licitly voting for a pro-abortion candidate.

But ultimately I think the problem rests not with Bainbridge's shoddy research and twisted quotes of Church and unofficial documents, but with something my father once referred to as the "true test". Basically, my father contended that the only principles we truly hold dear are the ones we stand by when they cost us something. He was talking about 'free speech' at the time, but it strikes me as a universal concept.

Law professor thinking and self justification make it inevitable that Bainbridge acknowledge the legitimacy of 'proportionate reasons' voting. The USCCB expressly explained the concept, and many individual US bishops have commented on it, including the very conservative Archbishop Burke. Just as important, the concept must exist, or Bainbridge himself would be voting in opposition to the Church on "fundamental and inalienable moral principles", including abortion (McCain's position on abortion is not licit).

But while Bainbridge can bring himself to acknowledge the existence of the principle, he cannot bring himself to accept any application other than his own. Aside from a little twisting of Church teaching, his argument fundamentally boils down to, 'I found these particular circumstances especially compelling in my voting.' This is fine, he can apply proportionate reasons and he must follow the certainty of his own moral conscience - CCC 1790. But he needs to read CCC 1790 in it's entirety. We are to always remember that our moral conscience is fallible. Just because Bainbridge and some other voices in the Church find something overwhelmingly compelling does not mean that they are, in fact, unarguably the most compelling factors for all Catholics.

The USCCB seems to go so far as to recognize this as a strength. We cannot all be involved in every issue important to the faith. But, although we are all answering different individual calls to faith, collectively this means we are more broadly answering Jesus' call to service.

Bainbridge appears to see this differently, there are "serious and loyal" Catholics, like himself, and the rest of us. If you reject that fundamental premise, that there is a subset of unarguably more righteous Catholics to which Bainbridge belongs, his entire argument appears to become moot.

AgingCatholic goes after the Church Lady

I went searching on the Catholic Answers forum for more posts from AgingCatholic, whom I quoted a few weeks ago. Seeing none for some time, I sent him an email to ask if he was OK (I had first contacted him to compliment him on the prior post). Apparently, he has been banned from Catholic Answers. This is not surprising, I have been banned myself and now only 'lurk'. But AgingCatholic did send me a question he posted to Judie Brown on the EWTN forums.

For those who are not familiar, Judie is the founder of http://www.all.org/, and often on the receiving end of some of my most uncharitable thoughts. I always seem to picture her as the Church Lady from SNL, wagging her finger. In this particular instance, I largely agree with AgingCatholic's take. She is utterly dismissive of Sister Welding's obvious compassion for poverty and other life issues. I would note that AgingCatholic's points should cut both ways. That is, we should be attempting to interpret Judie's actions in the most favorable light as well. In addition, I do not believe that Judie is being "dishonest", as AgingCatholic implies. I think that she is more akin to the ants in T.H. White's THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. Things are either 'done' (lock step with her) or 'not done' (any deviation). If you are 'not done', you are wrong and evil and receive the standard admonishments and reasoning.

As I have written before, I believe that the problem is that, lacking God's capacity for infinite love, we cannot, as humans, wholly comprehend our Catholic teaching on right to life. It is just too broad. Instead of just focusing on what calls to us personally, we should be striving to hear each other and attempting to grow together in love. I should be attempting to feel the love Sister Welding clearly has for the sick and poor. Likewise I should be attempting to feel more of Judie's apparent passion for the unborn. It is not a matter of picking who is right and who is wrong, but one of recognizing that we are all incomplete and will be a better representation of Jesus' instructions when we come together and support each other as a community of faith.

That said, here is the letter, without editing, as it was sent to me (and published here with permission:

********************************************

Judy,

Although I applaud your pro-life efforts, I must admit that I found this commentary to be downright offensive:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08120105.html

It is always a sin to profess to know the heart and mind of others, so this comment would be inappropriate at any time:

"The first and perhaps most obvious problem with this nun's letter is that she is clearly not only pro-abortion but feels fine attributing her views to God, the Author of Life!"

But when you continue:

"To equate the direct murder of a preborn baby with the "lesser of two evils," thus suggesting that some preborn children would be better off dead than to have to be born into poverty, is about as misguided and ill-conceived a notion as I have ever seen in print."

The spectre of blatant dishonesty is raised. Consider the nun's actual statement, which begins:

"Yes, abortion is the killing of an innocent life..."

Up front, she concedes that abortion is a dire evil, but then continues:

"So is war and violent killing on the street."

This is true, and wholly in keeping with the teaching of the Church. As Pope John Paul II explained in CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI (#38), the right to life is inviolate regardless of our stage of development or physical or spiritual state. Further, it is directly tied to the inalienable rights of the human person, as defined by the Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council (which the pope quotes).

Where the nun appears to drift from our specific teachings is in the sentence that follows:
"I have often seen many starving babies in hospitals in Honduras and witnessed their pain. In these cases, abortion might have been the lesser of two evils, and even the most merciful alternative."

You interpret this as comparing life in poverty to no life at all. However, the Catechism instructs us to interpret the words of others in the most favorable light possible (CCC 2478). I do not interpret the statement above to be a comparison of hunger to death, but one of slow, agonizing death to a quick one.

Such a thought would still be theologically incorrect, since we hold every moment of life to be precious, a gift of infinite value from our loving God. But it would be more emotionally understandable. Look closely at the statement, the nun is reporting a direct experience from her service to these children. It is the nature of our species to place more emphasis on individual experience. Those deaths, and the horrible ravages of poverty witnessed first hand, clearly pull directly on her moral conscience, which she is compelled to obey (CCC 1790).

But even if your interpretation is correct and I am wrong, two very serious problems remain. First, your reaction. Look again at CCC 2478, in particular the quote of St. Ignatius of Loyola:

"Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved."

You not only interpreted the words in the most unfavorable light (among other things, your interpretation would require the presumption that the nun is actively attempting to deceive), you call other Catholics to join you in judging her and attempting to extract retribution via her order. Compare this to the path of love and compassion endorsed by a saint.

The second problem with your interpretation is that it presumes that it is inarguable that poverty should be trumped by abortion. But, as Catholics, we are first, and foremost, Christians. Jesus specifically and repeatedly stated that ministering to the poor is the principle criteria on which we will be judged for salvation (ex. Luke 10, Matthew 25, etc.) In fact, the word "Gospel" is derived from "Good News", and in "Good News to the poor".

In CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI, Pope John Paul II explained that the right to life is the most fundamental of our rights (#38), but he also clearly stated that all the rights must be honored because they come directly from God. So our obligation to the weak is not negotiable, even when we are attempting to limit a grievous evil like abortion. In fact, in a Doctrinal Note on voting, Rome has gone so far as to state that elevating some teachings at the expense of others is "incoherent" and a potential "detriment" to the faith as a whole:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20021124_politica_en.html (see #4)

Rome explains that the faith is a cohesive and coherent whole. We cannot pick and choose values because they are intertwined. Poverty, in particular, is directly tied to vast numbers of innocent deaths. Thousands of children die each day for want of clean water. Even more die for lack of simple items like mosquito netting or from preventable childhood diseases.

In the US, children living in hunger doubled in 2007, to about 700,000. Since the majority of women who procure abortions in the US live at or near the poverty line, and about half of them are already mothers, it would seem foolish, in either moral or secular terms, to view the issues as wholly separate.

The opinions of individual bishops should be respected, but they are not 'Vicars of the Pope', they are only authentic teachers (teachers speaking with the authority of Christ) when they are in communion with the Holy See. As we can see, Rome, as the Sister, sees "pro-life" as much, much broader than just abortion. Further, the Vicar of Christ has seemingly rejected your concept of elevating a narrow application of pro-life to special status, even at the cost of other teachings.

In fact, in SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS Pope Benedict introduces the concept of "Eucharistic Consistency" (#83). The Doctrinal Note is cited, and its broad list of fundamental and inalienable moral principles in #4 are directly referred to as "not negotiable" and tied to fitness for Holy Communion in political life.

This leads to several questions:

Q1. Are you asserting that Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul are/were both incorrect? That is, are you asserting that it is a better application of Church teaching to elevate abortion to special status at the expense of other fundamental moral principles?

Q2. Are you asserting that the Church's understanding of the Gospels is incorrect in that it is wholly correct to rush to judgement and enlist others to join one in casting stones? We are, after all, not just talking about CCC 2478, which the Church ties to the 8th Commandment, but the Beatitudes and Pope John Paul II's explanation of the proper application of CIC 915.

Q3. Are you asserting the Catholic Church's definition of "pro-life" is too broad? Sister Welding invoked specific examples of innocent death, but you label her comments "ludicrous". The Church's official position is that all attacks on human life are illicit and must be considered (see the Doctrinal Note, EVANGELIUM VITAE, CHRISTIFIDELES LAICI, and the USCCB's document on Faithful Citizenship). Dismissing some attacks outright would appear to be a direct rejection of this position.

Peace

Sad news leading to better focus?

I missed the annual Thanksgiving Mass at our parish. For several years parishioners have brought wine and bread for a special blessing. I like it because it helps, at least for a moment, to give Thanksgiving more meaning for me than gluttony and a four day weekend.

I had intended to make it up with a few additional minutes of prayer each day, but must admit that went out the window as well. On Sunday, my disabled son and I arrived for the 7:30 Mass with just moments to spare so even my regular few moments of devotion were missed.

At the end of the Mass we had, as we always do, a few moments of announcements. What made this week a little different was a personal announcement from our pastor. Although most 'regulars' were aware that he had been having some health issues, they are apparently more severe than most of us (or at least I) realized. He told us that he had met with our bishop and, at his urging, would be taking a long medical leave of absence.

Sadly, among my first thoughts were 'what will happen to us?' While many parishes have no pastor we have been blessed with a very active one. Ashamed, my thoughts turned next to Thanksgiving, and how I had been reminded of how much I, personally, and we, the parish, had to be thankful for. Last, my thoughts turned to our pastor and his needs.

In retrospect, these thoughts show how far I still have to go as a Christian, but their order also seems to mirror God's gradual raising of the bar for us. I once heard a homily in which the priest proposed that God may have to teach us like we teach our own children. That is, we must crawl before we can walk. The example he gave was 'she hits him, he kills her in retaliation'. In the Old Testament, God raised the bar, limiting us to an 'eye for an eye'. Once we had accepted that concept, Jesus raised the bar further, both in words and in actions; love for hate, service over self.

My thinking seemed to follow a similar path. What about me? What about us? Then, thank you God for all you have given me. Finally, should I not try to help and serve one who has been so committed to serving others? In reading the Gospels, the bar seems to go even higher, I should be willing to serve the weakest among us, regardless of how I perceive their past actions.

Perhaps the simplest equation for our Faith can be found in Luke 10, where Jesus accepts the answer that salvation lies in loving God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. Considering my reaction on Sunday, it occurs to me that Thanksgiving, at least in spirit, can be an attempt to honor the first part of that equation. But if I am to honor both parts, I cannot simply be thankful, I must also answer the call to serve. So I am going to attempt to remember my pastor and his family in my daily prayers and try to do more to serve my parish. I know, it isn't much, but baby steps are an incremental move towards walking!