Tuesday, April 30, 2013
"Hideous monsters"
Let's be clear about at least one of the problems I raised here. The Pentagon is formulating policy on "religious tolerance" by consulting (inter alios) a person, Mikey Weinstein, who demonizes Christians. Read this Huffington Post by Mr. Weinstein and tell me with a straight face that Weinstein does not demonize Christians. It doesn't matter that he doesn't (explicitly) demonize *all* Christians; it is sufficent that he demonizes some Christians. Does anyone here disagree that demonizing Christians is deeply wrong? Is there a category of those who follow Christ who deserve to be demonized? Bob Hockett seeks to save the situation by granting that Weinstein is "rhetorically adolescent." Please. When an adult calls Christians "hideous monsters" and other such things, the problem is not an extended adolescence. Would someone here at MOJ try to save the reputation of a columnist/commentator who wrote of "hideous Jews" on the putative ground of extended adolescence? The question answers itself. Why do Christians deserve less respect than, say, members of the Jewish faith? We should *start* by facing the fact that Weintsein's Christophobia is vile, vicious, and culpable.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Spiritual Rape and Treason
Sharing the Gospel is now akin to rape. Did you get that? Sharing the Gospel is a version of spiritual rape, and, furthermore, doing so in the Armed Services is "treason," the penalty for which, of course, is death. Or so an official consultant to the Pentagon, Mikey Weinstein, wrote at the Huffington Post. Weinstein has been retained by the Pentagon to assist in preparing a policy on "religious toleration," and there appears to be no vile thing the poor man won't say about Christians. You can read all about it here. You can also read there about how the American people are "dialing it down" as they acquiesce in their own government's widening assault on Christians and Chrisitianty. Not to see a pattern here is, I would suggest, either naive, willful, or stupid. Evil enters the world in more ways than one.
If you think "evil" is too strong a diagnosis of what Weinstein brings to the Pentagon table, here is a sample, in Weinstein's own words, of the mentaility of someone now advising our government on "religious tolerance:"
"If these fundamentalist Christian monsters of human degradation … and tyranny cannot broker or barter your acceptance of their putrid theology, then they crave for your universal silence in the face of their rapacious reign of theocratic terror. Indeed, they ceaselessly lust, ache, and pine for you to do absolutely nothing to thwart their oppression. Comply, my friends, and you become as monstrously savage as are they. I beg you, do not feed these hideous monsters with your stoic lethargy, callousness and neutrality. Do not lubricate the path of their racism, bigotry, and prejudice. Doing so directly threatens the national security of our beautiful nation." (Mikey Weinstein)
God help us.
Friday, April 26, 2013
In the name of toleration, I shall not tolerate YOU
Micah Schwartzman and Rich Schragger have a new paper (here) arguing against the freedom of the Church. They are especially unhappy about my own unvarnished defense of the Church's understanding of her divine right to freedom, and this leads them, ironically, to some impressive intolerance. Check it out! An insightful reader of the Schwarztman-Schragger paper sent me the following pertinent observation:
"One not only can, but the Catholic Church always has, tolerated those who do not believe in God’s whole truth. It is the liberal fundamentalist who cannot tolerate those who disagree with him. The fatuity of liberal fundamentalism is that it consists, often enough, in saying 'tolerate the intolerable or else, in the name of toleration, I shall not tolerate you.' Liberal fundamentalists add hypocrisy to error."
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Why should the Church care?
In a comment on a recent post reporting Archbishop Piero Marini's personal opinion on the desirability of civil unions for homosexuals, my colleague Ellen Wertheimer asks the following question: "Why should the Church care" if homosexuals marry? Prof. Wertheimer answers her own question, probably inadvertently. The answer: because the Church *cares* -- the Church CARES about the salvation of souls. The issue of civil encouragement of homosexual union "affect[s] the Church" (to quote Prof. Wertheimer) because such union endangers souls inasmuch as it encourages and ratifies behavior that violates the moral order. Believe me, I *understand* that Prof. Wertheimer (along with many others) rejects the proposition that such conduct violates the moral order. That contingent rejection, however, should not obscure the fact that when the Church encourages some social forms and denies the legitimacy of others, the work is always the same: to teach the truth about the moral order so that all can be saved (I Tim. 2:4). If Prof. Wertheimer (and others) were to *approve* of terrorism or torture or unjust economic structures, for example, obviously that approval would not properly operate as a reason for the Church to cease to *care* to condemn such conduct or conditions. The Church seeks to correct and transform the culture for the sake of salvation; the Church is not on the side of the grand coalition in favor of the status quo and of a world that increasingly denies Gospel truths. Like any good parent, the Church does indeed *care*. The Church is not a libertarian parent. The Church cares about all of humanity, not just those who have already heard the Gospel and believed and been forgiven (over and over and over). The Church cares because Christ cares about all of humanity.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
"fascist, retrograde, and incapable of understanding diversity"
Those who are quick to hurl the epithet "fascist" will be hopping mad about this development concerning now-Mr. Alessio of Argentina. He has been laicized for (as he puts it) "thinking differently."
Monday, April 15, 2013
Our very own Susan Stabile
My colleague Michael Moreland just made the following very welcome announcement to the Villanova Law community:
I am pleased to announce that the 37th annual Giannella Lecture will be delivered by Susan Stabile, the Robert and Marion Short Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) School of Law. Professor Stabile is one of the nation's leading employee benefits and pensions scholars as well as a noted author in the area of Catholic social thought and law. In addition to editing the leading casebook Pension and Employee Benefit Law, 5th ed. (Foundation Press, 2010), Professor Stabile recently published Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation (Oxford University Press, 2012). Professor Stabile received her BA from Georgetown University and her JD from New York University School of Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the NYU Law Review. After graduation from law school, she was associated in New York and Hong Kong with the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton, where she practiced corporate and securities law and later specialized in employee benefits and executive compensation matters. Prior to joining the St. Thomas faculty, Professor Stabile was the Dean George W. Matheson Professor of Law at St. John’s University School of Law. We look forward to welcoming Professor Stabile back to Villanova next year.
Intentional confusion, alas
Michael Davies (and others) said it long ago: the documents of Vatican II are riddled with intended confusion. Now Walter Cardinal Kasper is saying what traditionalists knew all along. Can there be any wonder, then, that the "new spring time" of Vatican II feels so consistently wintry?
As I argue in a forthcoming paper, given last fall at a conference on the "The Liberty of the Church" sponsored by the Institute for Law and Religion at USD (thanks to Steve Smith and Larry Alexander), Dignitatis Humanae is Exhibit A for this intended confusion. While frequently celebrated for "developing doctrine," and while in parts *seeming* to do just that, Dignitatis *begins* by affirming that it "leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine" (integram relinquit traditionalem doctrinam Catholicam). Hence the endless debate about which "hermeneutic" to apply to the Council's documents.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
More nonsense
Bob Hockett asks with *obvious* generosity of spirit: "What must these people do to earn Patrick's forgiveness?"
Did I speak a word about "forgiveness"? No. Bob's just makin' that up. False start.
"Forgiveness" is not a relevant concept, Bob. The reasons for its irrelevance are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1428512
I am not interested in the hypothetical of "forgiving" the military. I condemn my government's speaking -- no matter the spokesperson or his/her level -- falsesehoods, *especially* about the Church. Don't you?
Friday, April 12, 2013
Getting (back) to the point
Bob Hockett persists in obscuring my principal point. The offense that I am complaining about (here) is that an official U.S. Army document [mysteriously, that document, which I just tried to reach again, can no longer be reached from the link I have] spoke grave untruth about the nature of the Church. (Bob, do you deny that?) An army author/presenter and publication, the job of which included officially reaching and officially sharing true judgments of fact (no?), told falsehoods about the Church. Whether the offence occurred intentionally or whether it occurred unintentionally is not material to my present point, about the need for hierarchical accountability for false statements of fact. The Army was quick to say that this falsehood came from "outside" of "the chain of command." Good, but too little too late. Let's be clear about the inappositeness of the question Bob won't (he says) bring himself even to type. When a priest or other "responsible" official in the Church rapes a child, such a crime is not perpetrated within the perceived scope of the criminal's office. That's obvious. The lie told by the Army official and publication about the Church -- equating her with al Qaeda, for relevant purposes -- was, by contrast, told within the scope of the official's putative office. I do indeed expect the Army to repudiate lies told in its official name. I do also expect the hierarchy of the Church to repudiate lies told in her name. And, needless to say, I grieve that our bishops did not do more to root about the evil of abuse of children. But raping priests are relevantly different from officials lying in their official capacity. Doesn't matter how lowly the *government* official is.
I am gratified that the Archdiocese for Military Services (USA) made the following statement, here. Perhaps Bob considers the Archdiocese's statement unwarranted?
Lessons from Hungary
Social atheism, such as the godless U.S. Constitution enshrines, is not inevitable. (I never thought it was, but some Hegelians do think that and therefore would march us all in that direction). Look at what's going on in Hungary. I celebrated the preconditions of Hungary's now turning its government schools over to religious institutions here, responding to James Davison Hunter's premature burial of religious institutions. Thirty-two percent of Americans want a Christian constitutional amendment, according to a Huffington Post/You Gov poll. The Framers knew what they were doing, alas, when they sought to make it virtually impossible to amend their godless Constitution.
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