A Challenge to Catholic Scholars

In the post titled Embryos, Counter Culture, and Natural Law, Steve seems to suggest that Catholic values and American values diverge on issues such as fetal stem cell research and destruction, signalling an incoherence in the "first things project" of showing that "Catholic values are American values."  In my view, we need to look beneath the surface to see the convergence of values (which, as Steve suggests, is not evident on the surface).  The Catholic Church is appealing to the better angels of our nature, suggesting that our current desire (assuming the poll data is correct) for federally funding embryonic stem cell research is inconsistent with America's deeper and core commitment to the equal dignity and worth of every human being from conception to natural death.  MLK, Jr. acted similarly in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, when he suggested to white pastors that their racial views were inconsistent with their core beliefs.

All of this leads me to Peter Maurin's challenge to Catholic scholars.  Maurin, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement (with Dorothy Day) wrote a collection of short essays called Easy Essays.  One of them is called "Blowing the Dynamite of the Church":

"Writing about the Catholic Church, a radical writer says:  'Rome will have to do more than to play a waiting game; she will have to use some of the dynamite inherent in her message.'  To blow the dynamite of a message is the only way to make the message dynamic.  If the Catholic Church is not today the dominate social dynamic force, it is because Catholic scholars have failed to blow the dynamite of the Church.  Catholic scholars have taken the dynamite of the Church, have wrapped it up in nice phraseology, placed it in an hermetic container and sat on the lid.  It is about time to blow the lide off so the Catholic Church may again become the dominate social dynamic force."

Reprinted in the Houston Catholic Worker, September - October 2006