Sightings 4/18/05
Furious with Frist
-- Martin E. Marty
Consult the Sightings archive and you will find
few columns that display a preoccupation with the Christian right. Many do
discuss the evangelical cohort -- fundamentalist, evangelical, Pentecostal,
Southern Baptist, conservative Protestant -- because more than one fourth of
Americans are adherents thereto. However, our mission, to help frame
issues rather than to spew ideology, has us keeping doors open, lines fluid,
witnesses on all sides heard, poles depolarized, etc. Predictability is an
enemy of good journalism, and we don't want to be about the business of knee
jerking. Something has to be really egregious, outrageous, and dangerous
to the republic before we venture forth. This week something
is.
I was moved to write this column because I received
an email this week asking why progressives, liberals, and moderates in religion
don't fire back when something offensive gets lobbed from the right, and had to
confess, "I don't know." Yes, there is Jim Wallis, an evangelical himself,
best-selling as a counter-attacker. Yes, there is the Interfaith Alliance,
steadfast and steady. The budget of all such individuals and groups,
however, is exceeded by two minutes of fundraising yield on, say, one Pat
Robertson TV program. Why not counterattack? While the politically
far right minority in the camp mis-dubbed "evangelical" is mobilizable because
their churches and movements make a virtual creed out of certain political
commitments, "mainline" Catholics, Protestants, and Jews include people from a
spectrum of political commitments, and don't want to march
lockstep.
So to the point: The outrageous, egregious, and
dangerous affront was an attack by Senator Bill Frist, the Family Research
Council, advocates of "Justice Sunday," and some evangelical and Southern
Baptist notables who know better and usually do better. Tom DeLay is in
this camp, having pioneered this kind of blunderbuss attack on fellow believers
with whom they disagree politically. They have assaulted and are
mobilizing slanderers against millions upon tens of millions of Catholics,
Protestants, and Jews (and fellow evangelicals?) who politically support efforts
not to "go nuclear" and hence kill the filibuster potential in the Senate.
In Frist's language, "Democrats" is the term that covers all these enemies of
people of faith, but many Republicans also firmly oppose his efforts and name
calling. An advertisement running in newspapers poses their political
viewpoint alone as being on the side of the Bible.
Fortunately, Senator McCain and other Republicans
and numbers of responsible and civil evangelicals are speaking up, trying to
cool the fury and quench the fires. They worry about the increasing
triumphalist and theocratic expressions from the Fristian and DeLayan
right. They point out that one can disagree with many court decisions,
even on some basic issues, without relegating all political opponents to the
"against-faith" camp.
Most of the international religion stories these days
have to do with theocratic suppressors of freedom, would-be monopolizers of
religious expressions. We've been spared such holy wars here. But
Frist and company, in the name of their interpretation of American freedom,
sound more like jihadists than winsome believers. It would be healing to
see them on their knees apologizing to the larger public of
believers.
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Sunday, April 17, 2005
It is not often that a pope--especially a pope of the stature of John Paul II--dies. So it seems to me altogether fitting--unarguably fitting--to share with readers of this blog various reflections on the papacy of John Paul II--a papacy of unusually long duration--and on the future of the Church. Perhaps the most respected English-language Catholic weekly--certainly one of the most respected--is The Tablet, published in London. Not all of The Tablet's articles are published online, but some are. For reflections from the April 9th edition, click here; for reflections from the April 16th edition, click here.
Michael P.
This new book (2005) has just come to my attention, and I thought that some MOJ readers would be interested in it: Charles E. Curran, The Moral Theology of Pope John Paul II (Moral Traditions Series). Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College's Theology Department says: "For all who want a serious, critical analysis in relation to Catholic social tradition and the development of moral theology, this book is unsurpassed." John Pawlikowski of the Catholic Theological Union concurs: "No one serious about understanding Catholic social teaching can ignore this work." The publisher of the book--Georgetown University Press--offers this description of Father Curran's book:
Pope John Paul II is the second longest serving pope in history and the
longest serving pope of the last century. His presence has thrown a
long shadow across our time, and his influence on Catholics and
non-Catholics throughout the world cannot be denied. Much has been
written about this pope, but until now, no one has provided a
systematic and thorough analysis of the moral theology that underlies
his moral teachings and its astonishing influence. And no one is better
positioned to do this than Charles E. Curran, widely recognized as the
leading American Catholic moral theologian.
Curran focuses on the
authoritative statements, specifically the fourteen papal encyclicals
the pope has written over the past twenty-five years, to examine how
well the pope has addressed the broad issues and problems in the Church
today. Curran begins with a discussion of the theological
presuppositions of John Paul II's moral teaching and moral theology.
Subsequent chapters address his theological methodology, his ethical
methodology, and his fundamental moral theology together with his
understanding of human life. Finally, Curran deals with the specific
issues of globalization, marriage, conscience, human acts, and the many
issues involved in social and sexual ethics.
While finding much
to admire, Curran is nonetheless fiercely precise in his analysis and
rigorously thoughtful in his criticism of much of the methodological
aspects of the pope's moral theology—in his use of scripture,
tradition, and previous hierarchical teaching; in theological aspects
including Christology, eschatology, and the validity of human sources
of moral wisdom and knowledge; and in anthropology, the ethical model
and natural law. Brilliantly constructed and fearlessly argued, this
will be the definitive measure of Pope John Paul II's moral theology
for years to come.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
William M. Shea is the director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross. Shea's reflections, titled The Imperial Papacy, will appear in the May 6th Commonweal. To read the whole piece now, click here. Two excerpts:
Many other things must be said about the last papacy,
but I have the awful sense that over the past twenty-five years one
voice has filled the ecclesial airwaves, leaving little room for any
other. Pardon me a hyperbolic metaphor, but in this regard I would say
the Catholic Church has been undergoing asphyxiation. I see two large
problems in this. I hope the next pope can begin to resolve them, but I
have serious doubts that he will be able to do either. Both have to do
with governance of the church.
First, the last papacy revealed in acute form what
everyone knew already: the Catholic Church is a monarchy. That fact
grounds both the achievements and failures of John Paul II. Though the
intensity of the monarchical rule depends on factors ranging from
political context to the psychological character of the monarch,
historical inertia has lead to the centralization of power in the pope
and his curial servants and advisors. Though many regard this
centralization as having a supernatural root, I do not. To me it has
been and remains an unfortunate natural development resting on the myth
of Peter and the gradual and willful accretion of political and
ecclesial power to the bishops of Rome. This power has been hardened in
Catholic doctrines of the papacy and has displayed itself in the
popular revival of ultramontanism in the last papacy.
. . .
The second problem the next pope will face is reversing the quality of
the episcopate created by his predecessor. That Catholic bishops, like
Catholic popes, are and should be men of orthodox catholic faith,
well-versed in the classical creeds, conciliar teaching, and the
doctrines of the churches of Christ, seems evident. But there is no
need for Catholic bishops to be hermeneutical parrots. Bishops,
archbishops, and cardinals seem devoted to repeating, without nuance,
the never ending stream of papal and curial pronouncements under John
Paul. We need bishops with brains and the courage to use them, bishops
who believe that their job is to witness to the gospel in their own
circumstances without wary and pious eyes cast over their shoulders to
“the holy father,” waiting on him for enlightenment. They are appointed
to witness to Christ’s resurrection and to serve their churches, not to
witness to the papacy and serve it. They should be men capable of
telling the pope he is wrong. I am not sanguine about this possibility,
although under as powerful men as Pius XII and John XXIII such men were
raised to the episcopacy and revealed themselves at the council. The
full flown imperial papacy has been in place now for a quarter of a
century and one must ask whether reversal is any longer possible and
whether the bishops, most of them appointed by the deceased pope, are
capable of honest and decent rule of their churches. Surely they are
not up to a council and John Paul II could not have abided one.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Which side should we who affirm Catholic Social Thought be on: President Bush's side? The side of the 44 Republicans who signed the letter? Or is Catholic Social Thought indeterminate on this issue--and if it is, what's CST good for?
WASHINGTON (AP), April 14, 2005 -- President Bush's budget centerpiece to squeeze
billions of dollars from spending on health care for the poor ran into
jeopardy Thursday as 44 House Republicans signed a letter protesting
the cuts.
The lawmakers said reducing Medicaid spending over the next five
years by up to $20 billion as approved last month by the House ''will
negatively impact people who depend on the program and the providers
who deliver health care to them.''
[To read the whole article, click here.]
Michael P.
OME,
April 21 - Pope Benedict XVI is known to be conservative on social
issues, and no one expects his Roman Catholic Church to soften its
opposition to birth control. Still, a rising number of Catholics, in
the Vatican and outside, are urging the new pope to revisit what was
probably his predecessor's most divisive position - his opposition to
condom use in the fight against AIDS.