Strange how it is that whenever we're overexposed and worn thin by 24/7 displays of the viciously bestial spectacle we call presidential campaigning, something in us starts craving displays of humanity by wild beasts.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Community-organizer-gate
While Giuliani's slam at Obama's community organizing experience only succeeded in reminding us what a smarmy scumbag he is, Palin's jab was far more subtle. I can't believe people are blurring the difference. Prof. Perry's back at his partisan worst:
True organizers are political ninjas and would never stoop to this sort of demonstrative, affected, self-centered whining over how their "profession" got snubbed by national politicians on the stump. That Catholic Democrats are stirring up this typical victimization/identity-politics resentment shows either how little they understand traditional community organizing or how much community organizing has become mainstreamed and thus cheapened by our therapeutic politics.
Palin's speech cheapened our public discourse on plenty of matters, but she simply did not malign Catholic community organizers. She was making the point that if Democrats give so much credit to organizers named Obama, maybe they should give her some due for being a small town mayor, which does intrinsically carry an enhanced set of responsibilities. It was designed to belittle Obama's organizing experience, to be sure, but its effectiveness derived from Obamamania's unprovoked belittling of small town mayors. This is just how national parties play politics. To be "shocked" and wax indignant about the GOP's insufficient respect for community organizing just makes these Catholic Democrats look no less crass and bullying than Rudy.
Finally, community organizing is at the heart of the USCCB's Campaign for Human Development (CHD), not of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) per se. It's an important distinction. CST doesn't directly endorse without qualification specific social forms other than the family, the parish, and the diocese. The CHD is primarily a national philanthropic fund for local community organizing, not an organic community in itself. It is just as vulnerable to bureaucratic self-interest as any other NGO with trans-local scope. These Catholic Democrats are trying to squeeze as much anti-GOP and pro-Democrat juice out this and they're producing more bitter pulp than juice. Let's just remember that by their own self-identification, Catholic Democrats have a conflict of interest: party first, local communities somewhere after that. True organizers know that and should brush these political charlatans off their rolled-up sleeves.
Something from a MOJ ReaderI trained and worked with Alinsky-school community organizers and one thing I always admired about them was their selflessness and independence from partisan nonsense. They didn't care about what sort of credit they were getting from politicos or media outside the community. It almost was a tacit point of pride among them that the more "invisible" but effective they were, the greater their organizing chops. The more misunderstood by the media machines the better. They preferred to manipulate, and not be manipulated by, the media. They preferred to operate under the radar of conventional political strategists intent on chopping up and controling local political power according to party self-interest, not according to the real interests of real subsidiary communities like parishes and local congregations.
from Mirror of Justice by Michael Perry
A MOJ reader sent this to me. I thought some other MOJ readers might like to see it. (I had not known about the web site Catholic Democrats, here.)
Palin Attacks Catholic Community Organizing by Senator Obama; No Mention of Economic Distress Across America
Minneapolis, Minn. - Sept 4, 2008 - Catholic Democrats is expressing surprise and shock that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's acceptance speech tonight mocked work that her opponent had done in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. She belittled Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago, work he undertook instead of pursuing a lucrative career on Wall Street. In her acceptance speech, Ms. Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Community organizing is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to end poverty and promote social justice.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has operated the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, its domestic anti-poverty and social justice program, since 1969. In 1986, the Bishops issued Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy, which said, "Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community." Senator Obama worked in several Catholic parishes, supported by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, helping to address severe joblessness and housing needs in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago.
"It is shocking that a vice presidential candidate would disparage an essential component of the Catholic Social Tradition with her condescending attack on urban community organizing," said Dr. Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats. "Her divisive rhetoric, repeatedly pitting small towns against urban communities, demonstrates not only a lack of charity toward the needs of some of the least among us but a fundamental disrespect for those who dedicate their lives to overcoming poverty across our country. Her sarcastic tone is also emblematic of the contempt that she and Senator McCain have shown toward actually addressing the economic distress that is gripping America in these difficult times. Economic issues, including extreme poverty, are among the most important to Catholics and other people of faith in this election."
"Why do Governor Palin and the McCain Campaign sarcastically attack efforts to organize unemployed Catholics and Protestants? Senator Obama has spoken warmly about his experiences as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago," said Lisa Schare, chair of Catholic Democrats of Ohio. "His work in helping people who were experiencing the real trauma of losing their jobs and livelihoods demonstrates an authentic Christian spirit and the real essence of Catholic Social Teaching, something strikingly absent from Governor Palin's remarks tonight."
True organizers are political ninjas and would never stoop to this sort of demonstrative, affected, self-centered whining over how their "profession" got snubbed by national politicians on the stump. That Catholic Democrats are stirring up this typical victimization/identity-politics resentment shows either how little they understand traditional community organizing or how much community organizing has become mainstreamed and thus cheapened by our therapeutic politics.
Palin's speech cheapened our public discourse on plenty of matters, but she simply did not malign Catholic community organizers. She was making the point that if Democrats give so much credit to organizers named Obama, maybe they should give her some due for being a small town mayor, which does intrinsically carry an enhanced set of responsibilities. It was designed to belittle Obama's organizing experience, to be sure, but its effectiveness derived from Obamamania's unprovoked belittling of small town mayors. This is just how national parties play politics. To be "shocked" and wax indignant about the GOP's insufficient respect for community organizing just makes these Catholic Democrats look no less crass and bullying than Rudy.
Finally, community organizing is at the heart of the USCCB's Campaign for Human Development (CHD), not of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) per se. It's an important distinction. CST doesn't directly endorse without qualification specific social forms other than the family, the parish, and the diocese. The CHD is primarily a national philanthropic fund for local community organizing, not an organic community in itself. It is just as vulnerable to bureaucratic self-interest as any other NGO with trans-local scope. These Catholic Democrats are trying to squeeze as much anti-GOP and pro-Democrat juice out this and they're producing more bitter pulp than juice. Let's just remember that by their own self-identification, Catholic Democrats have a conflict of interest: party first, local communities somewhere after that. True organizers know that and should brush these political charlatans off their rolled-up sleeves.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
I don't get "LifeNews"
Often I've found a link to a great article excerpted on someone's blog, only to click the link to a LifeNews.com or LifeSiteNews.com site. As soon as I see the words "Life" in the title, I then have to worry about its impartiality and credibility. Now I'm all for full-throated partiality and partisanship for the unborn, but that doesn't help me when I want to forward a LifeNews.com article to a pro-choice friend or one on the fence. Imagine getting a link to a news article reported on a site called "ChoiceNews.com."
Secondly, LifeNews.com articles, like this one on Justice Ginsberg's latest argument to a feminist group that abortion rights and slaves' rights are analogous, often have no external links to a less obviously partisan primary source. So now I have to wonder how seriously to take the piece. Now I have to Google it [sigh]. LifeNews should know LIFE is too short for pro-lifers to have to worry about these things.
Secondly, LifeNews.com articles, like this one on Justice Ginsberg's latest argument to a feminist group that abortion rights and slaves' rights are analogous, often have no external links to a less obviously partisan primary source. So now I have to wonder how seriously to take the piece. Now I have to Google it [sigh]. LifeNews should know LIFE is too short for pro-lifers to have to worry about these things.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Who's Afraid of Pat Buchanan?
That's a Google search I just did as I read all the frenzy of accusations against Palin for of all things, wearing a Buchanan button way back when. Not surprising that the Left thinks Buchanan's a right-wing neo-Nazi moonbat, even though he's held the Endearing Crazy Uncle chair at MSNBC longer than Olbermann's been doing Countdown. What is surprising is the GOP's total concession of the media-fabricated caricature of PB. No one is defending the poor guy. We all want to believe that the GOP has transformed itself overnight by swallowing the magic Palin pill. But it's the morning after and it's still an all too human political party. It's a shame the GOP isn't following through on this "libertarian-paleocon" window of opportunity. But then again, I was ready to hit the snooze button on McCain's VP announcement.
Lessons in Catholic Dissent
Our favorite pro-life Catholic legal turncoat, Doug Kmiec, has an interesting interview w/NYTimes:
Finally, Kmiec collapses into the Victim's Pose, demonstrating how he's worn out his brake pads in his headlong descent towards Victimization Derangement Syndrome.
Reflexive victimhood is the flagpin of liberal secularist thinking, regardless of the ideological content of your dissenting views. Whether you are a conservative dissenting from a liberal-dominated circle or a liberal dissenting from a conservative-dominated circle, it's liberal-secularist to publicly pose as the victim of some mean-spirited conspiracy to quash one's voice. Part and parcel of this pose is the bare assertion of a conspiracy or degenerate groupthink, which relies on the audience's readiness to presume the worst in the dominant circle from which one is dissenting.
A NYTimes audience is brimming with readiness to presume the Catholic Church is and has always been on that side of Hitler. Kmiec ought to know that and probably counts on it.
The ressourcement Catholics of the pre-Vatican II era knew how to dissent against Church hierarchy. Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar were both censured by the Magisterium and humbly understood their place and station, trusting that Truth tests all things and takes its own time to do it. Their spiritual disposition helped to ensure that many of their controversial insights would be vindicated. Respect for magisterial consensus and solidarity is a critical discipline in standing up for one's non-conforming beliefs. Above all, the dissenter must express the priority of the Body of Christ over one's own "revelations." To moralistically throw oneself a pity party for how a "bad" cleric imprudently denied him Communion and to impute that cleric's imprudence to the sensus fidelium is cheap and Oprah-school.
Q. Would you like to see Roe v. Wade overturned?These are solid points. I agree w/Kmiec that pro-lifers need to take the limits of overturning Roe more seriously. Of course, Kmiec's points here would make Obama and any Obama supporter cringe since they are Roe v. Wade defenders to the extreme. So let's see if he addresses this glaring contradiction.
A. Yes, but not on the terms usually suggested by Republicans. Roe is mistaken constitutional law not just because it invalidated state laws on the subject but because it is contrary to what is described as a self-evident truth in the Declaration of Independence, namely, that we have an unalienable right to life from our creator. It may surprise the general citizenry that not a single sitting justice utilizes the declaration as a source of interpretative guidance.
But even employing the jurisprudential methods applied by the modern court, there is no satisfactory showing that abortion as a matter of custom and tradition was properly found to be an implied aspect of the liberties protected by the 14th Amendment.
Q. Given those views, why do you support Barack Obama?@#$%^&!??? What happened to that glaring contradiction between Kmiec's stated rejection of Roe and Obama's absolutist devotion to Roe? It's one thing to argue that overturning Roe doesn't get pro-lifers where they want to go, but if you're going to advocate a candidate who will not tolerate any derogation from Roe and who has expressly declared his intent to legislatively enshrine Roe into black letter law and wipe out all moderate limitations on Roe, then you must answer how Obama's pro-Roe absolutism squares with Kmiec's anti-Roe relativism. They aren't symmetrically opposed to each other, granted. But I just don't see how endorsing a pro-Roe absolutist and crusader is the logical next step after accepting Kmiec's qualified rejection of Roe.
A. There is a widespread misconception that overturning Roe is the only way to be pro-life. In fact, overturning Roe simply returns the matter to the states, which in their individual legislative determinations could then be entirely pro-abortion. I doubt that many of our non-legally-trained pro-life friends fully grasp the limited effect of overturning Roe.
Secondly, pundits like to toss about the notion that the future of Roe depends on one vote, the mythical fifth vote to overturn the decision. There are serious problems with this assumption: first, Republicans have failed to achieve reversal in the five previous times they asked the court for it; and second, it is far from certain that only one additional vote is needed to reverse the decision in light of the principles of stare decisis by which a decided case ought not to be disturbed. Only Justices Thomas and Scalia have written and joined dissenting opinions suggesting the appropriateness of overturning Roe.
So given those views, the better question is how could a Catholic not support Barack Obama?
Applying this to the issue of abortion, the senator has repeatedly indicated that he is not pro-abortion, that he understands the serious moral question it presents, and, most significantly, that he wants to move us beyond the 35 years of acrimony that have done next to nothing to reduce the unwanted pregnancies that give rise to abortions.Again, if Obama is against 35 years of acrimony, then please explain his crusading pro-Roe absolutism? I stress "crusading" because of Obama's public proclamation to absolutize Roe through the Freedom of Choice Act and through pro-choice litmus-tested judicial appointments. How is Obama's extremist hostility towards the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act supposed to combat partisan acrimony? How is it NOT the epitome of in-your-face partisan acrimony?
Senator Obama’s articulated concerns with the payment of a living wage, access to health care, stabilizing the market for shelter, special attention to the needs of the disadvantaged and the importance of community are all part of the church’s social justice mission.
Finally, Kmiec collapses into the Victim's Pose, demonstrating how he's worn out his brake pads in his headlong descent towards Victimization Derangement Syndrome.
Q. You have been fiercely attacked by some Catholic abortion opponents and in one instance barred from receiving communion. How do you feel about that?How American. What dissenting Catholics almost always fail to comprehend is that there IS a uniquely Catholic way of dissenting with honor/grace and that there is a dishonorable, disgraceful worldly way of dissenting. Their inability to first of all distinguish the two, and secondly, to take the high road, represents the tragedy of American Catholic thinking today, because it is endemic regardless of one's position on abortion.
A. To be the subject of an angry homily at Mass last April 18 and excoriated as giving scandal for endorsing Senator Obama and then to be denied communion for that “offense” was the most humiliating experience in my faith life.
To be separated in that public manner from the receipt of the eucharist, and to be effectively shunned or separated from the body of Christ in the sense of that particular congregation, has left, I very much regret to say, a permanent spiritual scar. Thankfully, it has also given me a new appreciation for the significance of the sacrament in my daily worship. And the priest, having been called to order by Cardinal Roger Mahony, sent me an apology, which of course I have accepted.
Nonetheless, I remain deeply troubled that other church leaders not fall into similar traps. That would do untold damage to the church within the context of American democracy.
There are clearly partisan forces that want nothing more than to manufacture or stir up faith-based opposition to their political opponents. The church has been careful to underscore that Catholics have unfettered latitude to vote for any candidate so long as the intent of the Catholic voter is not to express approval of a grave evil.
Reflexive victimhood is the flagpin of liberal secularist thinking, regardless of the ideological content of your dissenting views. Whether you are a conservative dissenting from a liberal-dominated circle or a liberal dissenting from a conservative-dominated circle, it's liberal-secularist to publicly pose as the victim of some mean-spirited conspiracy to quash one's voice. Part and parcel of this pose is the bare assertion of a conspiracy or degenerate groupthink, which relies on the audience's readiness to presume the worst in the dominant circle from which one is dissenting.
A NYTimes audience is brimming with readiness to presume the Catholic Church is and has always been on that side of Hitler. Kmiec ought to know that and probably counts on it.
The ressourcement Catholics of the pre-Vatican II era knew how to dissent against Church hierarchy. Henri de Lubac and Yves Congar were both censured by the Magisterium and humbly understood their place and station, trusting that Truth tests all things and takes its own time to do it. Their spiritual disposition helped to ensure that many of their controversial insights would be vindicated. Respect for magisterial consensus and solidarity is a critical discipline in standing up for one's non-conforming beliefs. Above all, the dissenter must express the priority of the Body of Christ over one's own "revelations." To moralistically throw oneself a pity party for how a "bad" cleric imprudently denied him Communion and to impute that cleric's imprudence to the sensus fidelium is cheap and Oprah-school.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Let's play ball!
Sarah the Barracuda vs. Obama Yo Mama: one-on-one half-court. Inexperience issue settled. ...Ok, maybe not, but you know you could sell out MSG with that matchup.
during high school she was a point guard for its championship basketball team. "Everything I need to know, I learned on the basketball court," she once remarked.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Love you like you was mine...
but respect the Thin Line:
Biden-qua-politician should not be the object of special attention by ecclesiastical leadership. Rather, Biden-qua-Catholic should be. And he will be. ~ Ed Peters
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Great.
Now I'm never gonna be able to identify myself as a "devout Catholic" with a straight face ever again. I think an inventory of politically ambivalent (but theologically useless) adjectival modifiers for the noun "Catholic" is in order, just so we know what's left. If only we could copyright them and restrict them to "fair use."
They shoulda built a Greek Temple
From CNA:
The unprecedented gathering of Latinos went uncovered by the local news media. Instead, local news channels chose to cover a demonstration by about 1,500 anti-war protestors and a martial arts training session for protestors from the anti-war group Re-create 68, which was held in preparation for their first demonstration.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
FactCheck.org: Obama is wrong
I don't know exactly how successful FactCheck.org has been at remaining party-neutral, but their latest article confirms that I, and most pro-lifers, can still read and not lie, contrary to what Obama was telling us:
A June 30 Obama campaign statement responding to similar claims by conservative commentator William J. Bennett says that SB 1082 did not contain the same language as the federal BAIPA.Obama campaign statement, June 30: Illinois And Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Acts Did Not Include Exactly The Same Language. The Illinois legislation read, "A live child born as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law." The Born Alive Infant Protections Act read, "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being 'born alive' as defined in this section." [SB 1082, Held in Health and Human Services, 3/13/03; Session Sine Die, 1/11/05; BAIPA, Public Law 107-207]The statement was still on Obama's Web site as of this writing, Aug. 25, long after Obama had accused his detractors of "lying." But Obama's claim is wrong. In fact, by the time the HHS Committee voted on the bill, it did contain language identical to the federal act.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Who's Not A Cultural Catholic?
We should be wary to attack a fellow Catholic for being "culturally Catholic," a term which only has weight from within an historically anti-Catholic Protestant America. While Biden's Catholicism is in grievous error, it ain't chump change either. When orthodox Catholics resort to an ideological posture that tolerates no distinctions between pro-choice Catholics, orthodoxy loses. The distinction between a Biden and a Kerry Catholic is the difference between Notre Dame and Georgetown: both are elite schools torn up by post-V2 rifts within the Church, but one is far more grounded in the working class spirituality and ethos of the American Church (thereby handling Catholic identity with far more grace) and the other is hopelessly infected with Ivy-league wannabeism (thereby failing miserably on Catholic identity).
I also note how classically Irish-American Biden's faith is -- pugnacious yet endearing, proudly Roman yet insecure about its latent Puritanism. Look at most of our bishops; they're not that different in attitude. Unfortunately, the majority of American Catholics think exactly like Biden. We are complicit when Biden's errors merely reflect the severe anemia within our post-V2 Church, with which, it needs to be said, we are in communion. Consequently, the Dems have far more to gain nomminating a Biden Catholic than say a Brownback Catholic. But a Kerry Catholic would have been a loser too. The Dems calibrated it just about right politically.
The foolish assumption of most of the attacks on Biden from pro-life Catholics is that the Dems should select a Catholic that reflects Roman orthodoxy, as if Dems should care at all about the orthodox chunk of the Catholic vote when it's only a minority 1) rigidly locked into the GOP and 2) unstably or unconvincingly represented among swing-state Catholics. This is how catechesis and formation intersect with politics. Too many pro-life Catholics think we can solve the problem of pro-choice Catholics simply by more politics. But until we get our own house in order, we'll continue to send mixed messages and see Biden Catholics promoted to prominence.
How can we complain that much when we produce "Hear-&-See-No-Evil" Abps. Mahony, Egan, Niederauer, Wuerl, and the USCCB as our national Magisterium? We forget that they are the fruits of our harvest, not just the product of top-down machinations in the Curia.
The proper response to the Biden announcement is what Amy Welborn admonishes the bishops to do: TEACH, NOW.
CORRECTION: Abp. Wuerl is exercising his teaching muscles. Sorry, I was sounding off machine-gun style, or internet style.
CORRECTION II: Wow, Cardinal Egan's gone up to take a swing at Pelosi's spitter too! Come on Mahony, Niederauer, you're up next!
Of course, I am being facetious. Pelosi's not the only target here and merely criticizing her theological doublespeak just contributes to the Beltway Science Fiction Theatre. She's just a Speaker of the House of Americanized Catholics, a rather divided, confused house.
I also note how classically Irish-American Biden's faith is -- pugnacious yet endearing, proudly Roman yet insecure about its latent Puritanism. Look at most of our bishops; they're not that different in attitude. Unfortunately, the majority of American Catholics think exactly like Biden. We are complicit when Biden's errors merely reflect the severe anemia within our post-V2 Church, with which, it needs to be said, we are in communion. Consequently, the Dems have far more to gain nomminating a Biden Catholic than say a Brownback Catholic. But a Kerry Catholic would have been a loser too. The Dems calibrated it just about right politically.
The foolish assumption of most of the attacks on Biden from pro-life Catholics is that the Dems should select a Catholic that reflects Roman orthodoxy, as if Dems should care at all about the orthodox chunk of the Catholic vote when it's only a minority 1) rigidly locked into the GOP and 2) unstably or unconvincingly represented among swing-state Catholics. This is how catechesis and formation intersect with politics. Too many pro-life Catholics think we can solve the problem of pro-choice Catholics simply by more politics. But until we get our own house in order, we'll continue to send mixed messages and see Biden Catholics promoted to prominence.
How can we complain that much when we produce "Hear-&-See-No-Evil" Abps. Mahony, Egan, Niederauer, Wuerl, and the USCCB as our national Magisterium? We forget that they are the fruits of our harvest, not just the product of top-down machinations in the Curia.
The proper response to the Biden announcement is what Amy Welborn admonishes the bishops to do: TEACH, NOW.
CORRECTION: Abp. Wuerl is exercising his teaching muscles. Sorry, I was sounding off machine-gun style, or internet style.
CORRECTION II: Wow, Cardinal Egan's gone up to take a swing at Pelosi's spitter too! Come on Mahony, Niederauer, you're up next!
Of course, I am being facetious. Pelosi's not the only target here and merely criticizing her theological doublespeak just contributes to the Beltway Science Fiction Theatre. She's just a Speaker of the House of Americanized Catholics, a rather divided, confused house.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
How not to nix a liberal Catholic prof
That the Univ of San Diego is taking action against Rosemary Ruether's appointment to an endowed chair in "Roman Catholic Theology" is not my issue. I'm glad they did that. But there are many good reasons to "nix" her appointment, so why of all things would the university administration trot out her abortion stance as the single reason, as if she were running for political office?
Among the strongest arguments from liberals concerned about the friction between "Catholic identity" and "academic freedom" is the ideological ossification of Catholic thought. As a Catholic who cares about orthodoxy, I'm with the liberals on this point. The battle for Catholic identity on our campuses should never be framed in ideological terms -- no political litmus tests which are more applicable to the campaign trail than the white paper trail. As anti-abortion and pro-life I try to be, I cannot find much comfort in a Catholic administration that revokes a faculty appointment on the primary grounds that the appointee is pro-choice, not because I'm sympathetic to the views of pro-choicers or believe in their "right" to preach the abortionist gospel on a Catholic campus, but because litmus tests cheapen the Catholic vision of intellectual integrity and excellence.
What I would prefer to see more confidently expressed is the argument that academic freedom is MORE vibrant in pursuit of Catholic orthodoxy; that heresy is a throttling of the Truth; that the attempt to belittle and relativize Catholic orthodoxy on Catholic campuses in the name of academic freedom is really just liberal secularism/Protestantism imposing its own totalitarian vision of Truth on other communities who may dissent. USD could have mentioned that the theological disciplines can only be properly called a science if it is pursued ex corde Ecclesia.
So while Ruether's abortion stance is morally repugnant, it is, more importantly from a university's point of view, intellectually repugnant. The pro-choice position fails to meet academic standards that are intrinsic to any university much less a Catholic university.
Furthermore, as important as opposition to abortion is to Catholic theology, it is obviously not the primary object of study. The university should have made some reference to the substance of Catholic theology and how Ruether's work is of shoddy quality. She is without question one of the most overrated Catholic theologians of the post-V2 era, whose popularity derives not from the merits of her scholarship but from its incendiary posture of dissent and heresy which has value and utility only for liberal secularist and Protestant ideology. Catholic theology should proudly confidently put all ideological pursuits on notice as unbefitting of the "Queen of the sciences." We can easily find in Ruether's impoverished Christology, her anemic neo-pagan feminism, her sloppy relativistic ecumenism, and her weak attacks on hierarchy and patriarchy an ideological self-impairment that is simply not worthy of even a faculty position, much less a chair in Roman Catholic theology at a Roman Catholic university.
One of the great weaknesses of so-called "conservative Catholicism" in America is its casual adoption of ideological/political thinking on orthodoxy. We are told often that orthodoxy is neither conservative or liberal. Yet Catholics who appreciate orthodoxy, even in the apostolic sense, often fall into this trap anyway, in large part because ideology has crept into every nook and cranny of Catholic life, most disastrously in its liturgy and spirituality. Catholicism has become excessively Westernized and modernized, hence Sean Hannity thinks of himself as an orthodox Catholic.
In our collective amnesia, the Catholic and Apostolic mindframe that predates Trent is almost completely beyond our grasp, even though it is our birthright. This is why we now need a Pope to compensate for the other pillars of orthodoxy of our Apostolic past that we've neglected: liturgy, asceticism, monasticism, iconodulism, synodal subsidiarity, inter alia.
Kudos nonetheless to USD for caring enough about Catholic identity to block Ruether's accession to a theological cathedra.
Among the strongest arguments from liberals concerned about the friction between "Catholic identity" and "academic freedom" is the ideological ossification of Catholic thought. As a Catholic who cares about orthodoxy, I'm with the liberals on this point. The battle for Catholic identity on our campuses should never be framed in ideological terms -- no political litmus tests which are more applicable to the campaign trail than the white paper trail. As anti-abortion and pro-life I try to be, I cannot find much comfort in a Catholic administration that revokes a faculty appointment on the primary grounds that the appointee is pro-choice, not because I'm sympathetic to the views of pro-choicers or believe in their "right" to preach the abortionist gospel on a Catholic campus, but because litmus tests cheapen the Catholic vision of intellectual integrity and excellence.
What I would prefer to see more confidently expressed is the argument that academic freedom is MORE vibrant in pursuit of Catholic orthodoxy; that heresy is a throttling of the Truth; that the attempt to belittle and relativize Catholic orthodoxy on Catholic campuses in the name of academic freedom is really just liberal secularism/Protestantism imposing its own totalitarian vision of Truth on other communities who may dissent. USD could have mentioned that the theological disciplines can only be properly called a science if it is pursued ex corde Ecclesia.
So while Ruether's abortion stance is morally repugnant, it is, more importantly from a university's point of view, intellectually repugnant. The pro-choice position fails to meet academic standards that are intrinsic to any university much less a Catholic university.
Furthermore, as important as opposition to abortion is to Catholic theology, it is obviously not the primary object of study. The university should have made some reference to the substance of Catholic theology and how Ruether's work is of shoddy quality. She is without question one of the most overrated Catholic theologians of the post-V2 era, whose popularity derives not from the merits of her scholarship but from its incendiary posture of dissent and heresy which has value and utility only for liberal secularist and Protestant ideology. Catholic theology should proudly confidently put all ideological pursuits on notice as unbefitting of the "Queen of the sciences." We can easily find in Ruether's impoverished Christology, her anemic neo-pagan feminism, her sloppy relativistic ecumenism, and her weak attacks on hierarchy and patriarchy an ideological self-impairment that is simply not worthy of even a faculty position, much less a chair in Roman Catholic theology at a Roman Catholic university.
One of the great weaknesses of so-called "conservative Catholicism" in America is its casual adoption of ideological/political thinking on orthodoxy. We are told often that orthodoxy is neither conservative or liberal. Yet Catholics who appreciate orthodoxy, even in the apostolic sense, often fall into this trap anyway, in large part because ideology has crept into every nook and cranny of Catholic life, most disastrously in its liturgy and spirituality. Catholicism has become excessively Westernized and modernized, hence Sean Hannity thinks of himself as an orthodox Catholic.
In our collective amnesia, the Catholic and Apostolic mindframe that predates Trent is almost completely beyond our grasp, even though it is our birthright. This is why we now need a Pope to compensate for the other pillars of orthodoxy of our Apostolic past that we've neglected: liturgy, asceticism, monasticism, iconodulism, synodal subsidiarity, inter alia.
Kudos nonetheless to USD for caring enough about Catholic identity to block Ruether's accession to a theological cathedra.
Virtually, almost, nearly
Google anything on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and you'll get the smears and counter-smears. I was frustrated from not finding a direct side-by-side comparison of the Illinois and federal bills on the first search results page. Instead the first few search results pages are full of statements from the pro-life side merely asserting that the two bills are "virtually" or "almost" or "nearly" identical. Thanks but I can use thesaurus.com too. As I learned in college writing class, "Don't tell me, show me!"
I had to search within National Right to Life Committee's website to find it. Not even its front page has an obvious link to the comparison. But here it is. The 8/18/08 update by NRLC on the "Obama cover-up" is very informative too.
Hadley Arkes, in a new piece for The Catholic Thing, has a succinct dismissal of Obama's claim that the "neutrality clause" of the federal bill that was added to the IL bill was somehow critical to his interest in protecting Roe v. Wade. In essence, the added clause, which states that nothing in the amended definition of what constitutes a "born-alive infant" should be construed to affect the jurisprudence of Roe v. Wade whatsoever, is superfluous since a fetus born alive by definition is no longer a threat to the mother's health under Roe.
What hasn't been explained clearly enough by either side is how BAIPA actually operates. It doesn't actually mandate or ban any acts by anyone. It's just a defintional expansion to the rules of construction or interpretation on health care for neonates. It's protection by redefinition.
I had to search within National Right to Life Committee's website to find it. Not even its front page has an obvious link to the comparison. But here it is. The 8/18/08 update by NRLC on the "Obama cover-up" is very informative too.
Hadley Arkes, in a new piece for The Catholic Thing, has a succinct dismissal of Obama's claim that the "neutrality clause" of the federal bill that was added to the IL bill was somehow critical to his interest in protecting Roe v. Wade. In essence, the added clause, which states that nothing in the amended definition of what constitutes a "born-alive infant" should be construed to affect the jurisprudence of Roe v. Wade whatsoever, is superfluous since a fetus born alive by definition is no longer a threat to the mother's health under Roe.
What hasn't been explained clearly enough by either side is how BAIPA actually operates. It doesn't actually mandate or ban any acts by anyone. It's just a defintional expansion to the rules of construction or interpretation on health care for neonates. It's protection by redefinition.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
"above YOUR pay grade"
That's what Obama really meant to say at Saddleback. We're too dumb to appreciate the intricate nuances of his brilliance. We really are.
Warren, to his credit, didn’t pose a metaphysical question, or a biological one. He asked a legal question: “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?” Obama tried to dodge by saying that from a “theological perspective” or a “scientific perspective” the issue is “above his pay grade.” But Warren asked a more narrow question, and one that any politician who votes on abortion laws should be able to answer. And of course, as a supporter of Roe and Casey, Obama does have an answer: He thinks that a baby acquires rights when it’s born - well, perhaps depending on how and why it happens to be born - and lacks them at every juncture before birth. He just didn’t want to come out and say it. ~Ross Douthat