Tim Townsend, religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch since 2004, has gained quite a lot of attention for his analysis of various religions' divergent views on when human life begins, first posted on the Post-Dispatch website on August 22nd under the headline, New Mo. abortion law counters some philosophy, theology.
Several other media outlets that ran the piece thought they could improve on the title:
The Huffington Post (and evidently Religion News Service) named it Life Begins at Conception, New Mo. Law Says.
The National Catholic Reporter ran with Mo. lawmakers answer when life begins.
The weekly Houston Belief section of the Houston Chronicle got fancier: When does life begin? Laws attempt to apply Christian theology to answer question.
None of these, alas, captured Townsend's point as cogently as the original headline. For his real point is that several respectable religions have widely divergent views on when human life begins--and that the First Amendment's freedom of religion clauses prevent federal, state and local governments from favoring any one of them in legislation to control abortions. That, of course, has been a persistent view of mine since the 1960s.
But that, of course, has not prevented the Roman Catholic Church from trying to impose its specific abortion teaching on the rest of us throughout those decades. Rome has always tried to argue that its position is grounded, not on religious belief but on the so-called natural law--which, church officials argue, is accessible to all people of good will through reason alone, apart from any revelation by anyones God. Trouble is, Catholic church officials are the only religious leaders who accept their version of natural law. Thus the Catholic description of natural law is at bottom a religious belief--and, as such, one among others. No wonder after so many decades of trying, Rome has gotten only two of our states to agree legislatively that human life begins at conception.
Townsend's best contribution to the discussion is pointing out that until the late 19th century Rome's reading of the natural law was different than it has been since, and in fact much closer to the views of today's Protestants, Jews and Muslims than those of today's Catholic conservatives. This being the case, why make it the litmus test for Catholic orthodoxy and why, above all, insist that it can be imposed on other believers or those who exercise their right not to believe at all?
The following paragraphs are Townsend's succinct summary of the positions of various religions on when life begins. They explain why freedom of religion must mean freedom from legislating the Catholic position on abortion.
Aquinas, and Augustine before him, wrestled with concepts introduced by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. Aristotle believed that a soul could inhabit a fetus only when that fetus began to look human, a timetable he set at 40 days for men and 90 days for women.
The 40-day notion prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church until the 19th century, when Pope Pius IX removed the distinction between souled and unensouled fetuses from church doctrine.
Since then, the Catholic Church has conceded that man can never know empirically when an embryo gains its soul.
Protestant denominations have a variety of positions on life's beginnings, although more conservative evangelical churches largely embrace the Vatican's absolutist views.
But other faith traditions disagree, and have for centuries.
"The Talmud says that from the moment of fertilization until 40 days, the embryo has a status of being nearly liquid," said Rabbi Yehiel Poupko, Judaic scholar at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. "The question for Jewish law is not when does life begin, but when is the embryo entitled to the justice and compassion of society?"
Islamic law closely follows Jewish law, though different streams within Islam have various views, said Abdulaziz Sachedina, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Virginia and author of Islamic Biomedical Ethics.
Most Sunni Muslims "believe that life begins at the turn of the first trimester," Sachedina said.
Hindus believe in reincarnation, so life beginning "at conception" creates theological problems. "Life cannot begin at conception when our lives have not ended in the first place," said Cromwell Crawford, a retired professor at the University of Hawaii and author of Hindu Bioethics for the Twenty-First Century.
In its Declaration on Religious Freedom, Vatican II officially moved the Catholic church beyond its earlier claim that it had the right to tell others, believers and non-believers, how to believe. On the issue of abortion legislation, Rome has yet to follow the council's decree. How long, oh Lord, how long?
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Blessed John Henry Newman: The Faithful Often Save the Church from Its Bishops
Robert McClory, author of Faithful Dissenters: Men and Women Who Loved and Changed the Church, says Cardinal John Henry Newman, who converted to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England, would be aghast that Pope Benedict XVI is about to beatify him for being an opponent of dissent.
On the contrary, says McClory, "Newman was as singular a voice for responsible dissent and the rights of the laity as the Roman Catholic church has ever seen."
And as McClory points out, apart from Newman the Catholic Church would have no clue about development of doctrine and the essential role of the consensus of the faithful.
Although my Ph.D. dissertation argues that Newman's specific description of doctrinal development was an instance of misplaced concreteness (in Alfred North Whitehead's sense of the term), the church owes Newman a tremendous debt for staking his faith on notion that the development of Christian doctrine is real and observable--even though Pope Pius IX and other church officials of Newman's day were certain he was wrong and perhaps even heretical.
The following is McClory's take on Newman, posted today on the website of the National Catholic Reporter.
There is stark irony in the words Pope Benedict XVI chose when he announced last February his plan to visit England this year and there pronounce John Henry Newman as among the “blessed,” just one step from canonization as a saint. He cited Newman as an example for all the world of opposition to dissent. “In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises,” said the pope, “it is important to recognize dissent for what it is and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.”
If Newman’s remains had not decomposed -- as Vatican investigators discovered when they attempted to dig up his coffin in 2008 seeking evidence of his sanctity -- he would have been spinning in his grave. For Newman was as singular a voice for responsible dissent and the rights of the laity as the Roman Catholic church has ever seen. He paid dearly for his convictions and was very nearly silenced or worse when he became embroiled in 1859 in a controversy over the development of doctrine.
The idea of development was not popular at the time, especially among the hierarchy. So Newman, using history to make his point, wrote about the Arian heresy of the 4th century. Twenty-five years before, he had produced a massive, scholarly history of the Arians and how they failed, despite a 50-year, emperor-supported campaign to impose as church doctrine the belief that Christ was not divine; rather, he was a most elevated, godlike being, but creature nevertheless. Now in a lengthy, pointed article, titled “On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine,” Newman argued that the Arian position, shared by the overwhelming majority of the bishops and endorsed by at least one pope, did not become Catholic doctrine because a great mass of the laity along with a handful of priests and bishops resisted. Despite beatings, seizures of property and in some cases martyrdom, they refused, they dissented. They clung to the doctrine of the Council of Nicea, which, they were assured, had been discredited. Only at the First Council of Constantinople was the Arian position repudiated.
Belief in Christ’s divinity was maintained during the greater part of the 4th century, wrote Newman, “not by the unswerving firmness of the Holy See, Councils or Bishops, but … by the consensus fidelium [consent of the faithful]. On the one hand, I say, there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens [the teaching church]. The body of the Bishops failed in their confession of the faith. … There were untrustworthy Councils, unfaithful Bishops; there was weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless, hopeless, extending itself into nearly every corner of the Catholic church.”
To explain how such a thing happened (and could happen again), Newman relied on his own, well developed ideas about the “sense” and the “consent” of the faithful. Church teaching, he argued cannot be a top-down enterprise, a one-way street. It must be the result of a conspiratio, literally a breathing together of the faithful and the bishops. It is the first responsibility of the episcopacy and papacy, he said, to listen carefully before teaching doctrine.
And to what must they listen? Said Newman, “I think I am right in saying that the tradition of the Apostles, committed to the whole Church … manifests itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy, sometimes by the doctors, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies … customs, disputes, movements, and all those other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history. It follows that none of these channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect.” This is not to undercut the teaching authority of the bishops, insisted Newman; they must wade through all these sources. And, he added, of all the sources, “I am accustomed to lay stress on the consensus fidelium.”
Newman strove for most of his life as a Roman Catholic to open the minds of English Catholics, lay and clerical. In this he had scant success, living for most of his remaining years under a cloud of suspicion. At one point, he was labeled “the most dangerous man in England.” Then in Newman’s final days Pope Pius IX died and his successor, Leo XIII, removed the cloud by naming Newman a cardinal. It was at the Second Vatican Council that Newman found a larger measure of vindication.
Theologians by then had embraced and expanded on his ideas of doctrinal development and the importance of consulting the faithful. The fingerprints of Newman can be found on many council documents, most notably the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. Pope Paul VI went so far as to say Vatican II was “Newman’s council.”
The beatification of John Henry Newman now seems more a scandal than cause for celebration as those who are determined to rewrite Vatican II seek to enlist Newman in their misrepresentation. He will not join the movement.
On the contrary, says McClory, "Newman was as singular a voice for responsible dissent and the rights of the laity as the Roman Catholic church has ever seen."And as McClory points out, apart from Newman the Catholic Church would have no clue about development of doctrine and the essential role of the consensus of the faithful.
Although my Ph.D. dissertation argues that Newman's specific description of doctrinal development was an instance of misplaced concreteness (in Alfred North Whitehead's sense of the term), the church owes Newman a tremendous debt for staking his faith on notion that the development of Christian doctrine is real and observable--even though Pope Pius IX and other church officials of Newman's day were certain he was wrong and perhaps even heretical.
The following is McClory's take on Newman, posted today on the website of the National Catholic Reporter.
There is stark irony in the words Pope Benedict XVI chose when he announced last February his plan to visit England this year and there pronounce John Henry Newman as among the “blessed,” just one step from canonization as a saint. He cited Newman as an example for all the world of opposition to dissent. “In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises,” said the pope, “it is important to recognize dissent for what it is and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.”
If Newman’s remains had not decomposed -- as Vatican investigators discovered when they attempted to dig up his coffin in 2008 seeking evidence of his sanctity -- he would have been spinning in his grave. For Newman was as singular a voice for responsible dissent and the rights of the laity as the Roman Catholic church has ever seen. He paid dearly for his convictions and was very nearly silenced or worse when he became embroiled in 1859 in a controversy over the development of doctrine.
The idea of development was not popular at the time, especially among the hierarchy. So Newman, using history to make his point, wrote about the Arian heresy of the 4th century. Twenty-five years before, he had produced a massive, scholarly history of the Arians and how they failed, despite a 50-year, emperor-supported campaign to impose as church doctrine the belief that Christ was not divine; rather, he was a most elevated, godlike being, but creature nevertheless. Now in a lengthy, pointed article, titled “On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine,” Newman argued that the Arian position, shared by the overwhelming majority of the bishops and endorsed by at least one pope, did not become Catholic doctrine because a great mass of the laity along with a handful of priests and bishops resisted. Despite beatings, seizures of property and in some cases martyrdom, they refused, they dissented. They clung to the doctrine of the Council of Nicea, which, they were assured, had been discredited. Only at the First Council of Constantinople was the Arian position repudiated.
Belief in Christ’s divinity was maintained during the greater part of the 4th century, wrote Newman, “not by the unswerving firmness of the Holy See, Councils or Bishops, but … by the consensus fidelium [consent of the faithful]. On the one hand, I say, there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens [the teaching church]. The body of the Bishops failed in their confession of the faith. … There were untrustworthy Councils, unfaithful Bishops; there was weakness, fear of consequences, misguidance, delusion, hallucination, endless, hopeless, extending itself into nearly every corner of the Catholic church.”
To explain how such a thing happened (and could happen again), Newman relied on his own, well developed ideas about the “sense” and the “consent” of the faithful. Church teaching, he argued cannot be a top-down enterprise, a one-way street. It must be the result of a conspiratio, literally a breathing together of the faithful and the bishops. It is the first responsibility of the episcopacy and papacy, he said, to listen carefully before teaching doctrine.
And to what must they listen? Said Newman, “I think I am right in saying that the tradition of the Apostles, committed to the whole Church … manifests itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy, sometimes by the doctors, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies … customs, disputes, movements, and all those other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history. It follows that none of these channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect.” This is not to undercut the teaching authority of the bishops, insisted Newman; they must wade through all these sources. And, he added, of all the sources, “I am accustomed to lay stress on the consensus fidelium.”
Newman strove for most of his life as a Roman Catholic to open the minds of English Catholics, lay and clerical. In this he had scant success, living for most of his remaining years under a cloud of suspicion. At one point, he was labeled “the most dangerous man in England.” Then in Newman’s final days Pope Pius IX died and his successor, Leo XIII, removed the cloud by naming Newman a cardinal. It was at the Second Vatican Council that Newman found a larger measure of vindication.
Theologians by then had embraced and expanded on his ideas of doctrinal development and the importance of consulting the faithful. The fingerprints of Newman can be found on many council documents, most notably the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. Pope Paul VI went so far as to say Vatican II was “Newman’s council.”
The beatification of John Henry Newman now seems more a scandal than cause for celebration as those who are determined to rewrite Vatican II seek to enlist Newman in their misrepresentation. He will not join the movement.
Protest the Pope: Why Dignify Benedict's Long Train of Abuses with a State Visit?
CNN has posted a speech given in London last month to members of the Protest the Pope movement by Australian activist Peter Tatchell, who campaigns for human rights, democracy, lesbian and gay freedom and global justice. The campaign said Pope Benedict XVI had committed atrocities against several groups of human beings and that the UK government should not be dignifying him with a state visit. Tatchell's speech is a handy summary of Joseph Ratzinger's failings, both as Roman Catholicism's chief doctrinal enforcer under Pope John Paul II and as John Paul's successor. CNN's posting follows.As a democrat, I defend the right of Pope Benedict XVI to visit Britain and to express his opinions. But people who disagree with him also have a right to protest against his often harsh, intolerant views.
The Protest the Pope campaign is calling on the British government to disassociate itself from the pope's opposition to women's rights, gay equality and the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. On these and many other issues, Benedict is out of step with the majority of British people, including most Catholics.
We do not believe that the pope should be honored with a state visit, given his role in the cover up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy. Even today, he is refusing to hand the Vatican's secret sex abuse files to the police in countries worldwide. He is protecting the abusers. This makes him complicit with sex crimes against children. Such a person does not deserve the honor of a state visit.
We also object to part of his visit being funded by the taxpayer. The British public never funds visits by the Grand Mufti of Mecca or the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Why should the pope's visit get privileged financial support?
On many important social issues, the pope rejects equality and human rights.
Pope Benedict opposes women's ordination. Women are deemed unfit to be priests. This is an insult to the whole female sex. The implication of the pope's teaching is that women have no moral capacity for spiritual leadership as clergy. This is pure patriarchy and misogyny.
The pope says artificial contraception is a sin. He condemns poor parents in developing countries to have large families that they can't care for adequately. In some countries, priests promote scare stories that contraception makes women sick and will kill them.
Benedict XVI opposes IVF fertility treatment. He wants to deny childless couples the chance of parenthood. This is odd. The Catholic Church says having children is God's will yet it rejects giving the option of parenthood to infertile couples.
The pope rejects potentially life-saving embryonic stem cell research, which could help find cures for fatal illnesses like motor neurone disease -- saving lives and improving people's quality of life. Surely this research is fulfilling Christian values and ideals?
Benedict XVI has denounced the use of condoms, even to stop the spread of HIV. A husband with HIV must not use a condom to protect his wife from infection, according to Papal doctrine. He has also claimed that condoms "increase" the rate of HIV infection. His dishonest teachings discourage a proven way to reduce HIV transmission; thereby putting millions of lives at risk.
The pope has colluded with the Vatican's promotion of the lie that condoms spread HIV because latex is porous to the virus. This is an outrageous falsehood and has been condemned as untrue and irresponsible by scientists and medical professionals. Yet Benedict has never withdrawn or repudiated the Vatican nonsense that condoms have tiny holes through which HIV can pass.
In 1986 and 1992, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he authored a Vatican document that condemned the homosexuality as an "objective disorder" and the mere fact of being gay as a "strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil" -- even if a gay person never has sex. Rejecting the concept of gay human rights, the document asserted that there is no "right" to laws protecting homosexual people against discrimination, suggesting that the civil liberties of lesbians and gay men can be "legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct."
The pope has attacked same-sex marriages as "evil" and vilified supporters of gay equality as "gravely immoral." He has also denounced homosexual equality as a "deviant trend" and condemned same-sex love as being "without any social value." He even threatened to excommunicate Catholic legislators who voted for gay rights laws.
While condemning loving, consenting adult same-sex relations, the pontiff played a role in shielding Catholic clergy guilty of child sex abuse from prosecution.
In 2001, Pope Benedict wrote a letter to all Catholic Bishops, which ordered "Papal secrecy" concerning allegations of child sex abuse. He instructed the Bishops to report all such cases to him in Rome, so the idea that he did not know about sex abuse by priests is nonsense. His letter did not tell Bishops to report the abusers to the police.
The esteemed Catholic theologian, Hans Kung, said the pope bears co-responsibility for the cover-up and that Benedict has failed to apologize for his own personal shortcomings during the child sex abuse scandal.
For more than two decades, as a Cardinal and as a Pope, Joseph Ratzinger has attempted to reverse the liberalizing trends of the Second Vatican Council -- pushing the whole church back to a more orthodox, conservative agenda. He's strengthening the hierarchy and autocracy of the Vatican and the Papacy.
This has prompted a grassroots Catholic revolt -- the "We are Church" movement -- which seeks a more democratic, transparent, accountable Church. It asserts that the people are the Church, not the pope.
The Pope has condemned liberation theology, as espoused by Catholic theologians such as Gustavo Gutierriz and Leonardo Boff, and he has opposed the worker priest movement. He preaches social justice but attacks those clergy who advocate political action to reform society and make it more just.
Last year, Pope Benedict rescinded the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson who, in 2008, denied key elements of the Holocaust; claiming that a maximum of 300,000 Jews died in concentration camps and that none were gassed by the Nazis. Williamson remains a part of the Catholic church, with the Pope's blessing, despite the furore over his holocaust denial.
Benedict has also paved the way for eventual sainthood of Pope, Pius XII, despite the war-time pontiff's failure to speak out publicly, either during or after the Holocaust, against the Nazi mass murder of six million Jews and millions of others, including Russian, Polish, disabled, gay and Roma people -- and many more.
Pius XII was no saint. The fact that Pope Benedict wants to makes him a saint shows how far he has strayed from the moral and ethical values of most Catholics and most of humanity.
Monday, August 23, 2010
JFK Was Better on Church-State Separation Than Current Crop of "Cafeteria Bishops"
"I do not speak for the church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."
This was one of the ways John F. Kennedy described the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state in his historic appearance before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 16, 1960, during the campaign that led to his election as the nation's first Catholic president.
In recent years it has become fashionable among ultra-conservative U.S. bishops--and especially in the public utterances of the upwardly aspiring Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver--to argue that bishops do have the authority to tell Catholic politicians what to say and how to vote and that Kennedy had it all wrong. And, after all, Chaput felt compelled to add, what would you expect from "Kennedy, who wore his faith loosely anyway."
Patrick T. Reardon made a valuable contribution to this discussion in an analysis entitled JFK and the cafeteria bishops in the August 6, 2010 print edition of the National Catholic Reporter. The link in the previous sentence is to the August 10th version on the NCR website, indentical except for giving Reardon the wrong middle initial on the by-line. His name is correct in the biographical blurb at the end of the article, which describes Reardon as "a freelance writer living in Chicago."
Actually, Reardon is a bit more than that. In the early 1970s I was in a religious order seminary with him in Southern California. He left the program not long after and went on to become a widely respected urban affairs and features writer for the Chicago Tribune. It appears that he retired around 2009 but, in addition to free-lancing, still writes the Burnham blog for the Burnham Plan Centennial. Burnham was one of the visionaries who crafted a 1909 plan that guided the development of the greater Chicago region for the next century.
Given this background and the accuracy of his analysis of church-state separation from the perspective of U.S. Catholic history, Reardon's article has not received the attention it deserves--either by most of those who have left comments on the online version or even by the editors of NCR, who in an editorial Private beliefs and public acts gave Chaput too much credit and Kennedy much too little.
Despite a lot of comments to NCR that had little relevance to Reardon's main points, a commentator identified only as "stefano" made a very important observation: Kennedy had major help writing his Texas speech from Bishop John Joseph Wright of Worcester, MA. Wright was orthodox enough to later be named Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, where he served in Rome from 1969 to his death in 1979. The NCR commentator notes that at the time highly regarded Msgr. John Tracy Ellis regarded Wright as one of the few intellectuals in the U.S. hierarchy, and that Wright's thinking was much closer to the thought of U.S. Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray, which is very much enshrined in Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom.
What Reardon's piece documents so well is that Murray, Wright, Kennedy and the bishops at Vatican II grasped something very central --something which Chaput and his fellow Neanderthals today repeatedly decline to address: that the First Amendment does not permit the adherents of any particular religion to impose their distinctive moral beliefs on people who do not share the same moral assumptions and conclusions--whether those other people are adherents of other religions or even adherents of ethical systems that eschew religion.
The U.S. bishops, especially on the issue of abortion, have been refusing to address this stubborn reality of the First Amendment since the 1960s. Reardon rightly points out that this refusal seems restricted mainly to a couple conservative issues, like abortion and gay marriage, even though the bishops clearly seem to get the point when it comes to not forcing Catholic politicians to pursue Catholic positions on capital punishment or international military aggression. In so doing, the bishops become the kind of "cafeteria Catholics" they accuse others of being--except that they pick only from the conservative political side of the menu while ignoring official teachings they regard as too liberal.
I think Reardon is right. One day church historians will conclude that what John F. Kennedy said to Protestant ministers in Houston in September 1960 will come to be seen as exactly the position which both the First Amendment and the Declaration on Religious Freedom require:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source."
This was one of the ways John F. Kennedy described the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state in his historic appearance before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 16, 1960, during the campaign that led to his election as the nation's first Catholic president.
In recent years it has become fashionable among ultra-conservative U.S. bishops--and especially in the public utterances of the upwardly aspiring Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver--to argue that bishops do have the authority to tell Catholic politicians what to say and how to vote and that Kennedy had it all wrong. And, after all, Chaput felt compelled to add, what would you expect from "Kennedy, who wore his faith loosely anyway."
Patrick T. Reardon made a valuable contribution to this discussion in an analysis entitled JFK and the cafeteria bishops in the August 6, 2010 print edition of the National Catholic Reporter. The link in the previous sentence is to the August 10th version on the NCR website, indentical except for giving Reardon the wrong middle initial on the by-line. His name is correct in the biographical blurb at the end of the article, which describes Reardon as "a freelance writer living in Chicago."
Actually, Reardon is a bit more than that. In the early 1970s I was in a religious order seminary with him in Southern California. He left the program not long after and went on to become a widely respected urban affairs and features writer for the Chicago Tribune. It appears that he retired around 2009 but, in addition to free-lancing, still writes the Burnham blog for the Burnham Plan Centennial. Burnham was one of the visionaries who crafted a 1909 plan that guided the development of the greater Chicago region for the next century.
Given this background and the accuracy of his analysis of church-state separation from the perspective of U.S. Catholic history, Reardon's article has not received the attention it deserves--either by most of those who have left comments on the online version or even by the editors of NCR, who in an editorial Private beliefs and public acts gave Chaput too much credit and Kennedy much too little.
Despite a lot of comments to NCR that had little relevance to Reardon's main points, a commentator identified only as "stefano" made a very important observation: Kennedy had major help writing his Texas speech from Bishop John Joseph Wright of Worcester, MA. Wright was orthodox enough to later be named Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, where he served in Rome from 1969 to his death in 1979. The NCR commentator notes that at the time highly regarded Msgr. John Tracy Ellis regarded Wright as one of the few intellectuals in the U.S. hierarchy, and that Wright's thinking was much closer to the thought of U.S. Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray, which is very much enshrined in Vatican II's Declaration on Religious Freedom.
What Reardon's piece documents so well is that Murray, Wright, Kennedy and the bishops at Vatican II grasped something very central --something which Chaput and his fellow Neanderthals today repeatedly decline to address: that the First Amendment does not permit the adherents of any particular religion to impose their distinctive moral beliefs on people who do not share the same moral assumptions and conclusions--whether those other people are adherents of other religions or even adherents of ethical systems that eschew religion.
The U.S. bishops, especially on the issue of abortion, have been refusing to address this stubborn reality of the First Amendment since the 1960s. Reardon rightly points out that this refusal seems restricted mainly to a couple conservative issues, like abortion and gay marriage, even though the bishops clearly seem to get the point when it comes to not forcing Catholic politicians to pursue Catholic positions on capital punishment or international military aggression. In so doing, the bishops become the kind of "cafeteria Catholics" they accuse others of being--except that they pick only from the conservative political side of the menu while ignoring official teachings they regard as too liberal.
I think Reardon is right. One day church historians will conclude that what John F. Kennedy said to Protestant ministers in Houston in September 1960 will come to be seen as exactly the position which both the First Amendment and the Declaration on Religious Freedom require:
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source."
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Phoenix Bishop Failed to Grasp "Toxemias of Pregnancy," Denver Physician Tells NCR
A posting here in May covered the unfortunate case of Mercy Sister Margaret Mary McBride, declared excommunicated by Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead, who said she had endorsed an abortion to save a mother's life. Olmstead based his position, in part at least, on advice given him by Rev. Brian Johnstone, the diocese's ethics advisor.
The July 9th print edition of the National Catholic Reporter had a letter to the editor from Denis L. Keleher, a medical doctor from Denver, which challenges Olmstead and Johnstone's understanding of the medical condition which the mother and her developing child both faced.
Keleher's input is important in two ways: first, it shows that Sr. McBride was misjudged; second, it highlights the inadequacy of the official church policy on abortion in such circumstances. Keleher sheds major new light on the issues in the case. His letter deserves a lot more attention than it has received.
I re-publish his letter below. (I'd provide an electronic link, but I can't find one on the NCR website.)
When I was a seminarian in the 1960s before I studied medicine, I was taught that theology proceeded by close analysis of valid distinctions. Both Bishop Thomas Olmstead (broadly) and Fr. Brian Johnstone (subtly) have not made the essential distinction (NCR, June 11). The bishop has said, "A child is not a disease," and Fr. Johnstone said that the danger to the mother's life is the presence of the embryo in her womb. Wrong. It is the pathological process of pregnancy iself that threatens both mother and child in this case.
It has been known for ages that some healthy women will sicken and die in pregnancy and it is not caused by an identifiable disorder of the child. I'm a physician, and I own an obstetrics textbook from the faculty of Johns Hopkins more than a century old that devotes several hundred pages to the "toxemias" of pregnancy from which the mother will die unless the pregnancy is interrupted. These still occur. The child that this woman was carrying was also a victim of this disease state, distinct from itself. The ethicists and bishops of this world should meet their obligation to know the science and medicine about which they judge. Canon law is not enough.
The July 9th print edition of the National Catholic Reporter had a letter to the editor from Denis L. Keleher, a medical doctor from Denver, which challenges Olmstead and Johnstone's understanding of the medical condition which the mother and her developing child both faced.
Keleher's input is important in two ways: first, it shows that Sr. McBride was misjudged; second, it highlights the inadequacy of the official church policy on abortion in such circumstances. Keleher sheds major new light on the issues in the case. His letter deserves a lot more attention than it has received.
I re-publish his letter below. (I'd provide an electronic link, but I can't find one on the NCR website.)
When I was a seminarian in the 1960s before I studied medicine, I was taught that theology proceeded by close analysis of valid distinctions. Both Bishop Thomas Olmstead (broadly) and Fr. Brian Johnstone (subtly) have not made the essential distinction (NCR, June 11). The bishop has said, "A child is not a disease," and Fr. Johnstone said that the danger to the mother's life is the presence of the embryo in her womb. Wrong. It is the pathological process of pregnancy iself that threatens both mother and child in this case.
It has been known for ages that some healthy women will sicken and die in pregnancy and it is not caused by an identifiable disorder of the child. I'm a physician, and I own an obstetrics textbook from the faculty of Johns Hopkins more than a century old that devotes several hundred pages to the "toxemias" of pregnancy from which the mother will die unless the pregnancy is interrupted. These still occur. The child that this woman was carrying was also a victim of this disease state, distinct from itself. The ethicists and bishops of this world should meet their obligation to know the science and medicine about which they judge. Canon law is not enough.
GTU's Episcopal School Gets $400,000 Grant to Craft Same-Sex Blessing Ceremonies
The National Catholic Reporter has posted a July 20th report by Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service that a gay rights foundation has donated over $400,000 to the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) to craft ceremonies that can be officially adopted by the Episcopal Church USA for blessing same-sex relationships, unions and marriages.
CDSP is one of the member schools of Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, from which I earned my Ph.D. through the Franciscan School of Theology.
The grant will supplement the relatively meager $25,000 that had been allocated to the project by the church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. The NCR posting says "A major part of the grant will go to funding a conference next March where two representatives from each of the church's 110 dioceses will be able to offer suggestions and share work that's already been done."
Other excerpts from the article follow:
A Michigan-based gay rights foundation has given more than $400,000 to a California seminary to help craft formal liturgies for the Episcopal Church to bless gay and lesbian relationships.
The Episcopal Church still officially considers marriage between a man and a woman, reflected in the marriage rite of its Book of Common Prayer. Many dioceses, however, unofficially allow priests to bless same-sex relationships and even marriages.
Because the church puts a high value on scripted liturgies, many same-sex couples want their own marriage/blessing rite since many bishops are reluctant to use the traditional husband-wife marriage liturgy for same-sex unions.
The church's 2009 General Convention gave the green light to collecting “theological and liturgical resources” that would form the basis of an official same-sex rite that could be added to the list of approved ceremonies.
Many observers expect the church, when it gathers again in 2012, to approve rites for same-sex unions, or at least give official approval to start the process, which can take several years.
The $404,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation to the Church Divinity School of the Pacific will help facilitate the process; the church's official Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has only $25,000 designated for the project.
“Developing liturgical resources for blessing same-sex unions is a once-in-a-lifetime generation change, and we want to do it well,” said the Rev. Ruth Myers, a professor of liturgy at the seminary in Berkeley, Calif.
Though ultimate decisions and recommendations will be left to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, the seminary hopes the grant will help keep the process going, with the necessary funds to match.
CDSP is one of the member schools of Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, from which I earned my Ph.D. through the Franciscan School of Theology.
The grant will supplement the relatively meager $25,000 that had been allocated to the project by the church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. The NCR posting says "A major part of the grant will go to funding a conference next March where two representatives from each of the church's 110 dioceses will be able to offer suggestions and share work that's already been done."
Other excerpts from the article follow:
A Michigan-based gay rights foundation has given more than $400,000 to a California seminary to help craft formal liturgies for the Episcopal Church to bless gay and lesbian relationships.
The Episcopal Church still officially considers marriage between a man and a woman, reflected in the marriage rite of its Book of Common Prayer. Many dioceses, however, unofficially allow priests to bless same-sex relationships and even marriages.
Because the church puts a high value on scripted liturgies, many same-sex couples want their own marriage/blessing rite since many bishops are reluctant to use the traditional husband-wife marriage liturgy for same-sex unions.
The church's 2009 General Convention gave the green light to collecting “theological and liturgical resources” that would form the basis of an official same-sex rite that could be added to the list of approved ceremonies.
Many observers expect the church, when it gathers again in 2012, to approve rites for same-sex unions, or at least give official approval to start the process, which can take several years.
The $404,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation to the Church Divinity School of the Pacific will help facilitate the process; the church's official Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has only $25,000 designated for the project.
“Developing liturgical resources for blessing same-sex unions is a once-in-a-lifetime generation change, and we want to do it well,” said the Rev. Ruth Myers, a professor of liturgy at the seminary in Berkeley, Calif.
Though ultimate decisions and recommendations will be left to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, the seminary hopes the grant will help keep the process going, with the necessary funds to match.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Authority Gushes from Official Catholicism as Cultural of Clericalism Implodes
I highly recommend and heartily endorse the following editorial, posted today on the website of the National Catholic Reporter:
The first half of 2010 has been a particularly bumpy patch for the papacy of Benedict XVI. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This pope had as goals to sharpen the teaching of the world’s largest Christian denomination, to do battle with secularism and relativism, and to convince the world, Catholic and otherwise, that Christianity authentically lived is more about possibilities and new freedom than about “thou shalt nots” and other restrictions.
His program has been seriously sidelined by the lingering effects of the sex abuse scandal in the United States; the explosion of the scandal in Ireland, Germany, Italy and now Belgium; and the diminishment of the episcopal office, particularly in those countries most affected by the scandal.
Are we witnessing the ecclesial equivalent of one of those slow-motion depictions of implosion, the kind where a seemingly invulnerable structure falls in upon itself, laid waste by some well-placed explosives? Perhaps.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that what is imploding is the church. The church is, in many ways, just fine. What is imploding, rather, is a culture of clericalism, especially the hierarchical layer of that culture, which has become so disconnected in many of its expressions from the core mandates of Christian scripture that it seems to barely function at all.
The authority that has been slowly leaking from the structure for decades is now gushing out as bishops contort themselves in attempts to convince the world of their good intentions and transparency while simultaneously railing against those within the church and without who are working to reveal the truth.
The shocking raid of a bishops’ meeting in Belgium is but the latest indication of the degree to which the old protections and privileges enjoyed by the clerical culture are disintegrating. It stands as a clear symbol that an age is ending.
The disintegration could be seen occurring during the past quarter century in the United States under the grinding weight of revelations that the Catholic hierarchy had repeatedly protected those who had sexually molested children and had hidden the crimes from the church and the wider community.
It continued in Catholic Ireland, where the deep betrayal of the community caused a serious exodus from the church amid lingering anger. In one of the greater absurdities of this period of crisis, church leaders in Rome have decided to send bishops from the United States to determine what happened in the Irish church.
The erosion goes on, at a quicker pace, ugly in details that keep heaping up for the world to see. The pope’s brother admits to slapping choir students who didn’t perform properly -- a human imperfection made all the more perceptible in an arena long wrapped in a façade of seeming perfection.
Meanwhile, the world outside this favored culture is beginning to realize that one of the most powerful men within it during Pope John Paul II’s papacy, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, once secretary of state and now dean of the College of Cardinals, took money from the likes of the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ. Maciel was a favorite of the former pope, and a man who abused his young seminarians and is accused of fathering children, including a son, whom he also allegedly repeatedly abuse.
Sodano was one of Maciel’s most ardent backers.
That Sodano should be nowhere near any level of control at the Vatican is apparent to most everyone who has given this scandal the slightest thought. But there he is, still posturing, offering paeans to a beleaguered pope during liturgies, and dismissing the growing chorus of charges against fellow bishops as petty gossip.
And when one of those fellow bishops, Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn of Austria, dares to call him out, as someone should, in one of the more rational comments that anyone inside the culture has yet made, Sodano is able to manipulate a meeting with Schönborn and the pope. The world is subsequently informed that such criticism is not to occur cardinal to cardinal. Such power is reserved for the pope alone. The pope remains silent and Sodano remains influential.
The protection from scrutiny previously enjoyed by the culture, a reflection more than anything of royal prerogatives and palace behavior, has disintegrated to the point where the U.S. Supreme Court gave approval for a suit that seeks to hold the Vatican responsible for the transfer of pedophile priests from place to place, transfers that occurred without warning to law enforcement bodies or to the communities involved.
The sex abuse crisis, as we’ve said in this space before, is a crisis of the clerical culture, a crisis of authority and ecclesiology. The sex abuse crisis is the awful symptom of much deeper problems.
Projection is occurring on a global scale as the bishops grasp for ways to explain how so much has gone so wrong so quickly. Relativism! Secularism! Cultural influences! All those bad things out there, they reason, are influencing the people to revolt, to backslide, to not believe as they should, to disregard the hierarchy’s rulings and pronouncements. It is the bishops who fail to recognize that they, themselves, are the best living examples of the relativism and secularism they decry.
The great irony in all of this, of course, is that the hierarchy need not thrash about wondering how to adjust their culture and lives to the demands of an educated church in the 21st century.
The great questions of this age -- and its demands for accountability and transparency -- were anticipated by the church, which began to deal with them during the Second Vatican Council, the reform gathering of the mid-1960s.
There was reason -- perhaps the Spirit responds when so many openly seek its guidance -- why the texts of that council’s documents were different from any before, why those texts are filled with notions of dialogue, of acceptance, of restraint in judgment and punishment, of the new description of church as the people of God.
Perhaps those at the council anticipated that the hierarchy of the future would have to structure itself differently, lead differently, and see the world differently.
What seems clear at this moment is that the hierarchy as it has evolved in the past half millennium is deeply damaged from within. And there is little evidence of the imagination, the creativity, the spirit, necessary to repair or rethink the structure.
The second half of 2010, it seems, may be just as disheartening to the Holy Father, just as bumpy, as the first.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Vatican Claim of Sovereign Immunity in Sex Abuse
I was traveling last week and did not realize until I returned that the Vatican has suffered a significant legal setback in it's claim to sovereign immunity from U.S. prosecution for the actions of pedophile priests and of bishops who repeatedly reassigned them and hid their crimes from local prosecutors.
I first became aware of the development as one of several listed by National Catholic Reporter Senior Correspondent John Allen Jr. in a July 2nd analysis entitled Seven Days That Shook the Vatican. Allen noted "A decision by the Supreme Court in the United States to allow a sex abuse lawsuit against the Vatican in Oregon to proceed, and the filing of a new lawsuit against the Vatican (as well as the Salesian order) in Los Angeles just two days later."
A Google search led me to more specific coverage, including articles in Reuters and The Huffington Post. The articles said that a lower court in Oregon had held that the case met one of the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976. An appeals court had agreed, ruling that the plaintiff in the case had sufficiently alleged that the priest charged in the civil suit was "an employee of the Vatican acting within the scope of his employment under Oregon law." The Supreme Court declined to hear the Vatican's appeal of the rulings by the two lower courts.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's attorney for all sex abuse claims naming it in the United States, tried to spin the development as positively as possible, telling Catholic News Agency that the decision was not on the merits of the case and that the Supreme Court rejection merely meant that the case was being returned to the Oregon court to hear other defenses.
This, however, minimizes the significance of the development drastically. Sovereign immunity has been one of the pillars of the Vatican defense for several years, and this case marks the first time the courts have called the Vatican claim bogus. Having lost all the way to the Supreme Court in the Oregon case, the Vatican ought to assume that it will face similar losses in others.
As observed here before, the claim that priests and bishops do not function as employees of the Vatican does not comport with reality in parishes and chancery offices around the globe. It is disingenuous for the Vatican's attorney to push such a claim, and all it does is fuel the public perception that the Vatican has something to hide. The Vatican needs to abandon the claim and own up to its civil and criminal liability for child abuse.
I first became aware of the development as one of several listed by National Catholic Reporter Senior Correspondent John Allen Jr. in a July 2nd analysis entitled Seven Days That Shook the Vatican. Allen noted "A decision by the Supreme Court in the United States to allow a sex abuse lawsuit against the Vatican in Oregon to proceed, and the filing of a new lawsuit against the Vatican (as well as the Salesian order) in Los Angeles just two days later."
A Google search led me to more specific coverage, including articles in Reuters and The Huffington Post. The articles said that a lower court in Oregon had held that the case met one of the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976. An appeals court had agreed, ruling that the plaintiff in the case had sufficiently alleged that the priest charged in the civil suit was "an employee of the Vatican acting within the scope of his employment under Oregon law." The Supreme Court declined to hear the Vatican's appeal of the rulings by the two lower courts.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's attorney for all sex abuse claims naming it in the United States, tried to spin the development as positively as possible, telling Catholic News Agency that the decision was not on the merits of the case and that the Supreme Court rejection merely meant that the case was being returned to the Oregon court to hear other defenses.
This, however, minimizes the significance of the development drastically. Sovereign immunity has been one of the pillars of the Vatican defense for several years, and this case marks the first time the courts have called the Vatican claim bogus. Having lost all the way to the Supreme Court in the Oregon case, the Vatican ought to assume that it will face similar losses in others.
As observed here before, the claim that priests and bishops do not function as employees of the Vatican does not comport with reality in parishes and chancery offices around the globe. It is disingenuous for the Vatican's attorney to push such a claim, and all it does is fuel the public perception that the Vatican has something to hide. The Vatican needs to abandon the claim and own up to its civil and criminal liability for child abuse.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Belgian Police in Sex Abuse Probe Detain Bishops, Search HQ, Homes and Tombs
The National Catholic Reporter has some excellent coverage of a Belgian police action against sexual abuse stonewalling June 24th: bishops gathered for a scheduled meeting were detained in their assembly room, their cell phones and some documents seized, and their headquarters searched, along with some of their personal residences and even the tombs of two deceased cardinals.
The coverage describes the Vatican as officially shocked and outraged at the conduct of the Belgian authorities. But the article about that makes it clear that the actions came after several years of investigators being stonewalled by the bishops.
A separate analysis by John Allen Jr., NCR's Senior Correspondent, provides additional background on the decades of sexual abuse and church obstruction that led up to the police action.
Perhaps Belgium will be the first nation to shatter the fiction that the church and its officials are immune from prosecution as functionaries of the Vatican State--and the first to subject a few bishops to criminal prosecution for an international conspiracy to obstruct justice in several countries.
The coverage describes the Vatican as officially shocked and outraged at the conduct of the Belgian authorities. But the article about that makes it clear that the actions came after several years of investigators being stonewalled by the bishops.
A separate analysis by John Allen Jr., NCR's Senior Correspondent, provides additional background on the decades of sexual abuse and church obstruction that led up to the police action.
Perhaps Belgium will be the first nation to shatter the fiction that the church and its officials are immune from prosecution as functionaries of the Vatican State--and the first to subject a few bishops to criminal prosecution for an international conspiracy to obstruct justice in several countries.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Presiding Bishop Tells Canterbury That Episcopal Church Will Keep on Valuing Gays
The National Catholic Reporter has posted a June 8th article by Daniel Burke of Religion News Service, reporting that Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, has declared that the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion will continue to value gay people, gay priests and gay bishops, and will continue to resist the anti-gay moralizing of the Communion's more conservative national churches.
Bishop Jefferts Schori was especially critical of efforts by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to enforce global uniformity in the Communion's stance toward gay people. She insisted that each national church has the right and the obligation to develop its own moral, pastoral and liturgical guidelines toward gay individuals and same-sex couples--and that the Episcopal position reflects 50 years of discernment and debate from which the church will not retreat.
Schori's position reflects historic characteristics of Anglicanism that I have applauded previously here. Is it time for Catholics who agree more with the Episcopal position than Rome's to consider swearing allegiance to the Episcopal Church, and to bishops who are more open to what the Spirit is doing and saying in the lives of Christian people?
Excerpts from Burke's article follow:
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has forcefully defended her church's embrace of gays and lesbians, and firmly rejected efforts to centralize power or police uniformity in the Anglican Communion.
Anglicans should be led by local communities rather than powerful clerics, Jefferts Schori argued in a June 2 letter to her church's 2 million members. And, after 50 years of debate, the Episcopal Church is convinced that gays and lesbians are “God's good creation” and “good and healthy exemplars of gifted leadership within the church, as baptized leaders and ordained ones.”
In May, the Episcopal Church consecrated its second openly gay bishop despite warnings the move would increase tensions in the worldwide Anglican Communion, many parts of which view homosexuality as a sin.
Last month, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said Episcopalians, who form the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member communion, are out of step with fellow Anglicans and should not fully participate in ecumenical dialogue and doctrinal discussions.
Jefferts Schori firmly rejected the push to centralize power and discipline, saying that Anglicanism, and the Episcopal Church, were founded by Christians who wished to escape the strong hand of an established hierarchy.
“Unitary control does not characterize Anglicanism; rather, diversity in fellowship and communion does,” she said.
Imposing uniformity on the 77 million Anglicans scattered across the globe runs the risk of repeating the “spiritual violence” and “cultural excesses” of colonial missionaries who built the communion on the back of the British Empire, the presiding bishop added.
“We live in great concern that colonial attitudes continue,” said Jefferts Schori, “particularly in attempts to impose a single understanding across widely varying contexts and cultures.”
The presiding bishop also said that criticism of the Episcopal Church often comes from parts of the communion that bar women from becoming priests or bishops; and charged that other Anglican churches allow gay bishops under an unofficial don't ask/don't tell agreement.
“In our context, bowing to anxiety by ignoring that sort of double-mindedness is usually termed a `failure of nerve,'” Jefferts Schori said.
Liberal Episcopalians applauded Jefferts Schori's letter, which was remarkable for its full-throated defense of Episcopal Church policies.
“It is an understated declaration of independence,” said Jim Naughton, editor of the blog Episcopal Cafe. “The presiding bishop is not going to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish the terms of the debate anymore.”
Jefferts Schori's rehashing of Anglican history may seem innocuous to outside observers, said church historian Diana Butler Bass, but her strong defense of democratic Anglicanism is a “call to arms.”
“Those are fighting words,” Butler Bass said. “She's saying, `this is our tradition and you're violating it.' She is accusing Williams of being an imperialist.”
Bishop Jefferts Schori was especially critical of efforts by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to enforce global uniformity in the Communion's stance toward gay people. She insisted that each national church has the right and the obligation to develop its own moral, pastoral and liturgical guidelines toward gay individuals and same-sex couples--and that the Episcopal position reflects 50 years of discernment and debate from which the church will not retreat.
Schori's position reflects historic characteristics of Anglicanism that I have applauded previously here. Is it time for Catholics who agree more with the Episcopal position than Rome's to consider swearing allegiance to the Episcopal Church, and to bishops who are more open to what the Spirit is doing and saying in the lives of Christian people?
Excerpts from Burke's article follow:
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has forcefully defended her church's embrace of gays and lesbians, and firmly rejected efforts to centralize power or police uniformity in the Anglican Communion.
Anglicans should be led by local communities rather than powerful clerics, Jefferts Schori argued in a June 2 letter to her church's 2 million members. And, after 50 years of debate, the Episcopal Church is convinced that gays and lesbians are “God's good creation” and “good and healthy exemplars of gifted leadership within the church, as baptized leaders and ordained ones.”
In May, the Episcopal Church consecrated its second openly gay bishop despite warnings the move would increase tensions in the worldwide Anglican Communion, many parts of which view homosexuality as a sin.
Last month, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said Episcopalians, who form the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member communion, are out of step with fellow Anglicans and should not fully participate in ecumenical dialogue and doctrinal discussions.
Jefferts Schori firmly rejected the push to centralize power and discipline, saying that Anglicanism, and the Episcopal Church, were founded by Christians who wished to escape the strong hand of an established hierarchy.
“Unitary control does not characterize Anglicanism; rather, diversity in fellowship and communion does,” she said.
Imposing uniformity on the 77 million Anglicans scattered across the globe runs the risk of repeating the “spiritual violence” and “cultural excesses” of colonial missionaries who built the communion on the back of the British Empire, the presiding bishop added.
“We live in great concern that colonial attitudes continue,” said Jefferts Schori, “particularly in attempts to impose a single understanding across widely varying contexts and cultures.”
The presiding bishop also said that criticism of the Episcopal Church often comes from parts of the communion that bar women from becoming priests or bishops; and charged that other Anglican churches allow gay bishops under an unofficial don't ask/don't tell agreement.
“In our context, bowing to anxiety by ignoring that sort of double-mindedness is usually termed a `failure of nerve,'” Jefferts Schori said.
Liberal Episcopalians applauded Jefferts Schori's letter, which was remarkable for its full-throated defense of Episcopal Church policies.
“It is an understated declaration of independence,” said Jim Naughton, editor of the blog Episcopal Cafe. “The presiding bishop is not going to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to establish the terms of the debate anymore.”
Jefferts Schori's rehashing of Anglican history may seem innocuous to outside observers, said church historian Diana Butler Bass, but her strong defense of democratic Anglicanism is a “call to arms.”
“Those are fighting words,” Butler Bass said. “She's saying, `this is our tradition and you're violating it.' She is accusing Williams of being an imperialist.”
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Hierarchy Uses Sex Prohibitions as Last-Gasp Efforts to Control Priests and Laity
Author James Carroll has posted a commentary in the Boston Globe and the National Catholic Reporter saying that mandatory celibacy "cuts to the heart of what is wrong in the church today." Carroll says: "I write from inside the question, having lived as a celibate seminarian and priest for more than a decade when I was young."
On celibacy as a stand-alone issue, Carroll echoes many of the critiques of mandatory celibacy documented in earlier postings here. What is novel about his analysis, however, is how he ties together the hierarchy's attempts to control priests through celibacy with its efforts to control lay people with sexual prohibitions directed toward them, especially the teachings on birth control and abortion (although I would include other prohibitions, such as masturbation and homosexual relationships, as well).
Carroll sees these as parallel tactics in the hierarchy's last-gasp effort to cling to power by asserting an absolute right to control Catholics' sex lives. And he ties these tactics to the very interesting historical fact that birth control and celibacy were the only issues during Vatican II on which Pope Paul VI intervened and prevented the world's Catholic bishops from discussing.
Here are some excerpts from the NCR version of Carroll's commentary:
Celibacy began in the early church as an ascetic discipline, rooted partly in a neo-Platonic contempt for the physical world that had nothing to do with the Gospel. The renunciation of sexual expression by men fit nicely with a patriarchal denigration of women. Nonvirginal women, typified by Eve as the temptress of Adam, were seen as a source of sin.
But it was not until the Middle Ages, at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, that celibacy was made mandatory for all Roman Catholic clergy -- a reform bracing clerical laxity and eliminating inheritance issues from church property. But because the requirement of celibacy is so extreme, it had to be mystified as sacrificial -- “a more perfect way” to God. Monastic orders of both males and females had indeed discovered in such sexual sublimation a mode of holiness, but that presumed its being both freely chosen and lived out in a nurturing community... But when the monastic discipline of “chastity” was imposed on all priests as “celibacy,” something went awry. The system broke down during the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the Counter-Reformation hierarchy more attached to it than ever.
Not sex, but power was the issue. The imposition of sexual abstinence was a mode of control over the interior lives of clergy, since submission in radical abstinence required an extraordinary abandonment of the will. In theory, the abandonment was to God; in practice, it was to the “superior.” The stakes were infinite, since sexual desire marked the threshold of hell. The normally human was, for priests, the occasion of bad faith.
Obsessive sexual moralism, along with that bad faith, spilled out of pulpits. The confessional booth became a cockpit for screening “mortal sins,” with birth control emerging as the key control mechanism over the laity. If they were willing to abide by this intrusion and its burdens, it was only because the celibate priest could be seen to have made an even greater sacrifice. They were subject to an even greater control.
As is suggested by the contemporary hierarchy’s apparent equanimity about the exodus of tens of thousands of priests, and the crisis of ministry it has caused, church authorities will pay any price to maintain a vestige of that control. That is why bishops have exchanged their once ample influence on matters of social justice for a strident single-issue obsession with abortion, a last-ditch effort to control the intimate sexual decisions of laypeople. When it comes to their clergy, the single-issue obsession remains celibacy.
This nearly changed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), when the bishops prepared to reconsider both birth control and celibacy. Until then, an insufficiently historically minded church had regarded such contingent questions as God-given absolutes. What was the point of even discussing them, since change was out of the question? But change was suddenly in the air. What? St. Peter was married? Even before the council acted, the myth that these disciplines were eternally willed by God was broken.
The conservative wing of the hierarchy panicked. Pope Paul VI astonished the council fathers, and the Catholic world, by making two extraordinary interventions that violated the letter and the spirit of the council. In late 1964, just as the fathers were about to debate the question of “responsible parenthood,” the pope ordered them not to take up the question of “artificial contraception.” Snap! Birth control was “removed from the competence of the council.”
But there was every sign that the council fathers, when they inevitably took up the subject of the priesthood, were still going to discuss celibacy, as if change were possible there. Yet it was politically unthinkable that the church could maintain the prohibition of birth control, the burden belonging to the laity, while letting clergy off the sexual hook by lifting the celibacy rule.
Therefore, in late 1965, Paul VI made his second extraordinary intervention to forbid any discussion of priestly celibacy. A council had initiated the discipline, but a council was now not qualified even to discuss it. The power play was so blatant as to lay bare power itself as the issue. And just like that, Catholics had reason to suspect that celibacy was being maintained as a requirement of the priesthood because of internal church politics, not because of any spiritual motive. God was not the issue; the pope was.
The abrupt elimination of the mystical dimension of vowed sexual abstinence left it an intolerable and inhuman way to live, which sent men streaming out of the priesthood, and stirred in many who remained a profound, and still unresolved, crisis of identity. Paul VI sought to settle the celibacy question with his 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, which proved to be a classic instance of the disease calling itself the cure.
The celibacy encyclical, maintaining the weight of “sacrifice” on clergy, prepared the way for the laity-crushing Humanae Vitae in 1968, with its re-condemnation of birth control.
In response to the pope’s initial removal of birth control from the “competence” of the council, one of its leading figures, Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Belgium, rose immediately with a warning; “I beg you, my brother bishops, let us avoid a new ‘Galileo affair.’ One is enough for the church.” Galileo was famously forced to renounce what he had seen through his telescope, an imposition of dishonesty. (“And yet it moves,” he was reported to have muttered under his breath.)
Paul VI’s twin re-impositions of the contraception and celibacy rules plunged the whole church into a culture of dishonesty. Catholic laypeople ignore the birth control mandate. Catholic priests find ways around the celibacy rule, some in meaningful relationships with secret lovers, some in exploitive relationships with the vulnerable, and some in criminal acts with minors. If a majority of priests are able to observe the letter of their vow, how many do so at savage personal cost? Well-adjusted priests may live happily as celibates, but how many regard the broad discipline as healthy? Insisting that celibacy is the church’s “brilliant jewel,” in Paul VI’s phrase, defines the deceit that has corrupted the Catholic soul.
But the most damaging consequence of mandatory celibacy lies in its character as the pulse of clericalism. The repressively psychotic nature of this inbred culture of power has shown itself in the still festering abuse scandal. Lies, denial, arrogance, selfishness and cowardice -- such are the notes of the structure within which Catholic priests now live, however individually virtuous many of them nevertheless remain. Celibacy is that structure’s central pillar and must be removed. The Catholic people see this clearly. It is time for us to say so.
On celibacy as a stand-alone issue, Carroll echoes many of the critiques of mandatory celibacy documented in earlier postings here. What is novel about his analysis, however, is how he ties together the hierarchy's attempts to control priests through celibacy with its efforts to control lay people with sexual prohibitions directed toward them, especially the teachings on birth control and abortion (although I would include other prohibitions, such as masturbation and homosexual relationships, as well).
Carroll sees these as parallel tactics in the hierarchy's last-gasp effort to cling to power by asserting an absolute right to control Catholics' sex lives. And he ties these tactics to the very interesting historical fact that birth control and celibacy were the only issues during Vatican II on which Pope Paul VI intervened and prevented the world's Catholic bishops from discussing.
Here are some excerpts from the NCR version of Carroll's commentary:
Celibacy began in the early church as an ascetic discipline, rooted partly in a neo-Platonic contempt for the physical world that had nothing to do with the Gospel. The renunciation of sexual expression by men fit nicely with a patriarchal denigration of women. Nonvirginal women, typified by Eve as the temptress of Adam, were seen as a source of sin.
But it was not until the Middle Ages, at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, that celibacy was made mandatory for all Roman Catholic clergy -- a reform bracing clerical laxity and eliminating inheritance issues from church property. But because the requirement of celibacy is so extreme, it had to be mystified as sacrificial -- “a more perfect way” to God. Monastic orders of both males and females had indeed discovered in such sexual sublimation a mode of holiness, but that presumed its being both freely chosen and lived out in a nurturing community... But when the monastic discipline of “chastity” was imposed on all priests as “celibacy,” something went awry. The system broke down during the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the Counter-Reformation hierarchy more attached to it than ever.
Not sex, but power was the issue. The imposition of sexual abstinence was a mode of control over the interior lives of clergy, since submission in radical abstinence required an extraordinary abandonment of the will. In theory, the abandonment was to God; in practice, it was to the “superior.” The stakes were infinite, since sexual desire marked the threshold of hell. The normally human was, for priests, the occasion of bad faith.
Obsessive sexual moralism, along with that bad faith, spilled out of pulpits. The confessional booth became a cockpit for screening “mortal sins,” with birth control emerging as the key control mechanism over the laity. If they were willing to abide by this intrusion and its burdens, it was only because the celibate priest could be seen to have made an even greater sacrifice. They were subject to an even greater control.
As is suggested by the contemporary hierarchy’s apparent equanimity about the exodus of tens of thousands of priests, and the crisis of ministry it has caused, church authorities will pay any price to maintain a vestige of that control. That is why bishops have exchanged their once ample influence on matters of social justice for a strident single-issue obsession with abortion, a last-ditch effort to control the intimate sexual decisions of laypeople. When it comes to their clergy, the single-issue obsession remains celibacy.
This nearly changed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), when the bishops prepared to reconsider both birth control and celibacy. Until then, an insufficiently historically minded church had regarded such contingent questions as God-given absolutes. What was the point of even discussing them, since change was out of the question? But change was suddenly in the air. What? St. Peter was married? Even before the council acted, the myth that these disciplines were eternally willed by God was broken.
The conservative wing of the hierarchy panicked. Pope Paul VI astonished the council fathers, and the Catholic world, by making two extraordinary interventions that violated the letter and the spirit of the council. In late 1964, just as the fathers were about to debate the question of “responsible parenthood,” the pope ordered them not to take up the question of “artificial contraception.” Snap! Birth control was “removed from the competence of the council.”
But there was every sign that the council fathers, when they inevitably took up the subject of the priesthood, were still going to discuss celibacy, as if change were possible there. Yet it was politically unthinkable that the church could maintain the prohibition of birth control, the burden belonging to the laity, while letting clergy off the sexual hook by lifting the celibacy rule.
Therefore, in late 1965, Paul VI made his second extraordinary intervention to forbid any discussion of priestly celibacy. A council had initiated the discipline, but a council was now not qualified even to discuss it. The power play was so blatant as to lay bare power itself as the issue. And just like that, Catholics had reason to suspect that celibacy was being maintained as a requirement of the priesthood because of internal church politics, not because of any spiritual motive. God was not the issue; the pope was.
The abrupt elimination of the mystical dimension of vowed sexual abstinence left it an intolerable and inhuman way to live, which sent men streaming out of the priesthood, and stirred in many who remained a profound, and still unresolved, crisis of identity. Paul VI sought to settle the celibacy question with his 1967 encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, which proved to be a classic instance of the disease calling itself the cure.
The celibacy encyclical, maintaining the weight of “sacrifice” on clergy, prepared the way for the laity-crushing Humanae Vitae in 1968, with its re-condemnation of birth control.
In response to the pope’s initial removal of birth control from the “competence” of the council, one of its leading figures, Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Belgium, rose immediately with a warning; “I beg you, my brother bishops, let us avoid a new ‘Galileo affair.’ One is enough for the church.” Galileo was famously forced to renounce what he had seen through his telescope, an imposition of dishonesty. (“And yet it moves,” he was reported to have muttered under his breath.)
Paul VI’s twin re-impositions of the contraception and celibacy rules plunged the whole church into a culture of dishonesty. Catholic laypeople ignore the birth control mandate. Catholic priests find ways around the celibacy rule, some in meaningful relationships with secret lovers, some in exploitive relationships with the vulnerable, and some in criminal acts with minors. If a majority of priests are able to observe the letter of their vow, how many do so at savage personal cost? Well-adjusted priests may live happily as celibates, but how many regard the broad discipline as healthy? Insisting that celibacy is the church’s “brilliant jewel,” in Paul VI’s phrase, defines the deceit that has corrupted the Catholic soul.
But the most damaging consequence of mandatory celibacy lies in its character as the pulse of clericalism. The repressively psychotic nature of this inbred culture of power has shown itself in the still festering abuse scandal. Lies, denial, arrogance, selfishness and cowardice -- such are the notes of the structure within which Catholic priests now live, however individually virtuous many of them nevertheless remain. Celibacy is that structure’s central pillar and must be removed. The Catholic people see this clearly. It is time for us to say so.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
BP's Gulf Gusher Proves: "Our Addiction to Oil Is Making Our Lives Dysfunctional"
National Catholic Reporter staff writer and columnist Rich Heffern specializes on Christianity's duty to steward God's creation in a way that upholds the inherent value of all creatures and to resist the self-destructive evil of every assault on the global environment. Yesterday he posted an important perspective on BP's oil attack on the Gulf of Mexico by Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine.
Wallis says that as long as we rely on fossil fuels for most of our transportation, each one of us is complicit in BP's crime. And we cannot re-wire our energy grid until we first re-wire "ourselves, our assumptions, demands, expectations, our requirements." Heffern's interview with Wallis follows:
Jim Wallis is an evangelical Christian writer and political activist, best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine and of the Washington, D.C.-based community of the same name. He is author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper) and The Soul of Politics (HarperCollins). I interviewed him June 2.
What are your feelings about the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the technological solutions continue to fail?
I think the announcement last weekend that the top kill had failed marked a critical shift in the issue. The conversation up until then has been dominated by technological issues, how to make oil drilling safe. The fact that they can’t fix it now until late summer shifted the whole picture.
To me, it’s a picture of addiction. What happens with addiction is that after a while it makes your life not work. There’s a lot of denial until you lose your job or family or home or self respect, then finally there is a moment of epiphany and conversion. “Hello, my name is John S. and I’m an alcoholic.” That’s a moment of redemption and redirection.
What we see in the heartbreaking pictures of out-of-work shrimpers, wheezing clean-up workers, or oil-soaked wildlife are the effects of this addiction. I was doing the Chris Matthews show last weekend; his focus was on politics, BP and Obama. But now these pictures from Louisiana show that our life as we have organized it isn’t working. Our addiction to oil is making our lives dysfunctional.
Whether it’s the Gulf coast wetlands, tourism, or livelihoods -- when this touches Florida then it will become a national issue. Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana are just southern states but Florida is America, the destination state for East coasters.
What does our Christian moral and spiritual vision bring to the discussion?
It’s heartbreaking as we see how this is spilling out of control. The only redemptive thing here will be if it really does change us, if we take a long look in the mirror. It reminds me of Chesterton when asked what he thought was most wrong with the world. He responded, “I am.”
We did a powerful piece on our blog by a young woman, Tracy Bianchi, who drove her family from Illinois to Wisconsin on the Memorial Day weekend. She reflected on being in bumper to bumper traffic as Illinois people conveyed themselves to Wisconsin “ …so we could be next to a lake watching all this unfold and criticizing BP. But rarely do I hear anyone getting angry with themselves. Really though, I am part of the reason for that oil spill. As I sat on the highway with thousands of motorists, all fresh off a weekend that chugged down gallons of gas to fuel boats and other recreational toys, I was reminded once again of the total dichotomy that is my life. On the one hand I want to sit back all smug and hope for the demise of BP and all things petroleum. But I cannot be so quick to hate the oil companies since I really like their product. It gets me from point A to B on a daily basis and it launches me into the state of Wisconsin whenever I need a vacation.”
It’s not just that BP is lying. BP is a lie. Everything BP stands for is a lie. It’s not just them, though, it’s our participation as well.
I’m not often touched by advertising but some of the ads I’ve seen of soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that to change our lifestyle would be hard but no harder than what we all asked those soldiers to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, have gotten to me.
“I was fighting because I thought my country was under attack, not for oil companies,” they say.
We’ve had many teachable moments over the last 10 years, like 9/11 or Katrina, which we chose to move beyond without learning much. Whether this can be another moment we can miss or one that finally gets our attention is the question.
The faith community can and should now get involved. When it was a who’s in charge, who’s going to pay issue, there wasn’t much role for us but now there is. Chris Matthews told me: “Well, Jim, you’re going further and deeper than we usually get on this show.” He was right: Further and deeper is what is called for.
The nation needs a moral teacher. Matthews is convinced it can only be politicians but I think we of the Christian faith community need to step in. To move from fossil fuels to clean energy sources will take a re-wiring of our energy grid but it also will take a re-wiring of ourselves, our assumptions, demands, expectations, our requirements. I think this could be the beginning of a serious national reflection about our whole way of life. I’m not saying it will be so, because the forces against that are enormous, to keep us from really looking at how we live.
We have a moment of opportunity, especially as the quick fixes fail. It’s clearly a moral issue. It’s time for moral reflection about our whole way of life, and the Christian community has a key role to play. It’s bipartisan as well. Both parties are equally guilty. Once you move beyond politics it’s about a conversion process, about changing our habits of the heart, our way of living.
Wallis says that as long as we rely on fossil fuels for most of our transportation, each one of us is complicit in BP's crime. And we cannot re-wire our energy grid until we first re-wire "ourselves, our assumptions, demands, expectations, our requirements." Heffern's interview with Wallis follows:
Jim Wallis is an evangelical Christian writer and political activist, best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine and of the Washington, D.C.-based community of the same name. He is author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper) and The Soul of Politics (HarperCollins). I interviewed him June 2.
What are your feelings about the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the technological solutions continue to fail?
I think the announcement last weekend that the top kill had failed marked a critical shift in the issue. The conversation up until then has been dominated by technological issues, how to make oil drilling safe. The fact that they can’t fix it now until late summer shifted the whole picture.
To me, it’s a picture of addiction. What happens with addiction is that after a while it makes your life not work. There’s a lot of denial until you lose your job or family or home or self respect, then finally there is a moment of epiphany and conversion. “Hello, my name is John S. and I’m an alcoholic.” That’s a moment of redemption and redirection.
What we see in the heartbreaking pictures of out-of-work shrimpers, wheezing clean-up workers, or oil-soaked wildlife are the effects of this addiction. I was doing the Chris Matthews show last weekend; his focus was on politics, BP and Obama. But now these pictures from Louisiana show that our life as we have organized it isn’t working. Our addiction to oil is making our lives dysfunctional.
Whether it’s the Gulf coast wetlands, tourism, or livelihoods -- when this touches Florida then it will become a national issue. Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana are just southern states but Florida is America, the destination state for East coasters.
What does our Christian moral and spiritual vision bring to the discussion?
It’s heartbreaking as we see how this is spilling out of control. The only redemptive thing here will be if it really does change us, if we take a long look in the mirror. It reminds me of Chesterton when asked what he thought was most wrong with the world. He responded, “I am.”
We did a powerful piece on our blog by a young woman, Tracy Bianchi, who drove her family from Illinois to Wisconsin on the Memorial Day weekend. She reflected on being in bumper to bumper traffic as Illinois people conveyed themselves to Wisconsin “ …so we could be next to a lake watching all this unfold and criticizing BP. But rarely do I hear anyone getting angry with themselves. Really though, I am part of the reason for that oil spill. As I sat on the highway with thousands of motorists, all fresh off a weekend that chugged down gallons of gas to fuel boats and other recreational toys, I was reminded once again of the total dichotomy that is my life. On the one hand I want to sit back all smug and hope for the demise of BP and all things petroleum. But I cannot be so quick to hate the oil companies since I really like their product. It gets me from point A to B on a daily basis and it launches me into the state of Wisconsin whenever I need a vacation.”
It’s not just that BP is lying. BP is a lie. Everything BP stands for is a lie. It’s not just them, though, it’s our participation as well.
I’m not often touched by advertising but some of the ads I’ve seen of soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that to change our lifestyle would be hard but no harder than what we all asked those soldiers to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, have gotten to me.
“I was fighting because I thought my country was under attack, not for oil companies,” they say.
We’ve had many teachable moments over the last 10 years, like 9/11 or Katrina, which we chose to move beyond without learning much. Whether this can be another moment we can miss or one that finally gets our attention is the question.
The faith community can and should now get involved. When it was a who’s in charge, who’s going to pay issue, there wasn’t much role for us but now there is. Chris Matthews told me: “Well, Jim, you’re going further and deeper than we usually get on this show.” He was right: Further and deeper is what is called for.
The nation needs a moral teacher. Matthews is convinced it can only be politicians but I think we of the Christian faith community need to step in. To move from fossil fuels to clean energy sources will take a re-wiring of our energy grid but it also will take a re-wiring of ourselves, our assumptions, demands, expectations, our requirements. I think this could be the beginning of a serious national reflection about our whole way of life. I’m not saying it will be so, because the forces against that are enormous, to keep us from really looking at how we live.
We have a moment of opportunity, especially as the quick fixes fail. It’s clearly a moral issue. It’s time for moral reflection about our whole way of life, and the Christian community has a key role to play. It’s bipartisan as well. Both parties are equally guilty. Once you move beyond politics it’s about a conversion process, about changing our habits of the heart, our way of living.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Nun "Excommunicated" Over 'Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care'
Well, immigration policy isn't the only thing Arizona is infamous for.
Conservatives there have run amok on yet another issue, the National Catholic Reporter says.
This time it's religious conservatives: Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead has declared that Margaret McBride, the highest ranking Sister of Mercy at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, excommunicated herself when she interpreted a gray area in the U.S. Bishops 2001 'Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services' (ERD) as allowing a therapeutic abortion of an 11-week old non-viable fetus to save the life of a mother of four.
NCR reports that the hospital disagrees that it did not follow the bishops' guidelines:
"In a statement, Suzanne Pfister, a hospital vice president, said that the facility adheres to the Ethical and Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. But, she argued, the directives leave some gray areas.
"'In those instances where the Directives do not explicitly address a clinical situation -- such as when a pregnancy threatens a woman's life -- an Ethics Committee is convened to help our caregivers and their patients make the most life-affirming decision,' she said. 'In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother's life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy.'
"Pfister issued the statement on behalf of the hospital, its parent company Catholic Healthcare West, and the Sisters of Mercy, McBride's religious order.
"A letter sent May 10 from Catholic Healthcare West, signed by Sr. Judith Carle, board chairwoman, and President and CEO Lloyd Dean, asks Olmsted to provide further clarification about the directives. Agreeing that in a healthy mother, pregnancy is 'not a pathology,' it says this case was different. The pregnancy, the letter says, carried a nearly certain risk of death for the mother.
"'If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it,' the letter says. 'We are convinced there was not.'"
The article quotes a Catholic News Service report "that in a letter to the editor of The Arizona Republic May 18, Dr. John Garvie, chief of gastroenterology at St. Joseph's, called McBride 'the moral conscience of the hospital' and said 'there is no finer defender of life at our hospital.'"
So far the NCR article has generated five pages of reader comments. Most of the them are strongly critical of the bishop's interpretation of the health care guidelines and his cavalier assertion that Sister McBride procured a direct abortion and therefore incurred automatic excommunication under canon law.
A number of commentators point out that there is in fact a gray area between two different provisions in the ERD.
Directive 45 reads: "Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers."
However, Directive 47 adds: "Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child."
The ethics committee and the hospital argue that in this case the mother's pulmonary hypertension was a pathological condition requiring treatment and that allowing the pregnancy to continue would have killed both the mother and the fetus. They saw this specific situation as not being clearly addressed in the directives and believed that saving the only life which could be saved was their clear priority.
Obviously there is room for an alternate interpretation by the bishop and his ethics advisers. However, because there is room for more than one interpretation, the hospital and its ethics committee members should not be penalized for conscientiously doing their best with the guidelines they had.
For the bishop to construe the situation as Sister McBride directly procuring an abortion in violation of Directive 45 is arbitrary, unwarrantedly excessive and unjustifiably punitive. And for him to show no commitment toward saving the life of the mother of four existing children seriously undercuts his credibility as a moral theologian. If the church is pro-life, surely it favors life continuing for the living.
The bishop should retract his intemperate, ill-considered remarks and join the rest of us in affirming Sister Margaret McBride as a Catholic in good standing with the church.
Conservatives there have run amok on yet another issue, the National Catholic Reporter says.
This time it's religious conservatives: Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmstead has declared that Margaret McBride, the highest ranking Sister of Mercy at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, excommunicated herself when she interpreted a gray area in the U.S. Bishops 2001 'Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services' (ERD) as allowing a therapeutic abortion of an 11-week old non-viable fetus to save the life of a mother of four.
NCR reports that the hospital disagrees that it did not follow the bishops' guidelines:
"In a statement, Suzanne Pfister, a hospital vice president, said that the facility adheres to the Ethical and Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. But, she argued, the directives leave some gray areas.
"'In those instances where the Directives do not explicitly address a clinical situation -- such as when a pregnancy threatens a woman's life -- an Ethics Committee is convened to help our caregivers and their patients make the most life-affirming decision,' she said. 'In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother's life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy.'
"Pfister issued the statement on behalf of the hospital, its parent company Catholic Healthcare West, and the Sisters of Mercy, McBride's religious order.
"A letter sent May 10 from Catholic Healthcare West, signed by Sr. Judith Carle, board chairwoman, and President and CEO Lloyd Dean, asks Olmsted to provide further clarification about the directives. Agreeing that in a healthy mother, pregnancy is 'not a pathology,' it says this case was different. The pregnancy, the letter says, carried a nearly certain risk of death for the mother.
"'If there had been a way to save the pregnancy and still prevent the death of the mother, we would have done it,' the letter says. 'We are convinced there was not.'"
The article quotes a Catholic News Service report "that in a letter to the editor of The Arizona Republic May 18, Dr. John Garvie, chief of gastroenterology at St. Joseph's, called McBride 'the moral conscience of the hospital' and said 'there is no finer defender of life at our hospital.'"
So far the NCR article has generated five pages of reader comments. Most of the them are strongly critical of the bishop's interpretation of the health care guidelines and his cavalier assertion that Sister McBride procured a direct abortion and therefore incurred automatic excommunication under canon law.
A number of commentators point out that there is in fact a gray area between two different provisions in the ERD.
Directive 45 reads: "Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers."
However, Directive 47 adds: "Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child."
The ethics committee and the hospital argue that in this case the mother's pulmonary hypertension was a pathological condition requiring treatment and that allowing the pregnancy to continue would have killed both the mother and the fetus. They saw this specific situation as not being clearly addressed in the directives and believed that saving the only life which could be saved was their clear priority.
Obviously there is room for an alternate interpretation by the bishop and his ethics advisers. However, because there is room for more than one interpretation, the hospital and its ethics committee members should not be penalized for conscientiously doing their best with the guidelines they had.
For the bishop to construe the situation as Sister McBride directly procuring an abortion in violation of Directive 45 is arbitrary, unwarrantedly excessive and unjustifiably punitive. And for him to show no commitment toward saving the life of the mother of four existing children seriously undercuts his credibility as a moral theologian. If the church is pro-life, surely it favors life continuing for the living.
The bishop should retract his intemperate, ill-considered remarks and join the rest of us in affirming Sister Margaret McBride as a Catholic in good standing with the church.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Clergy Sex Abuse: U.S. Legal Strategy Fuels Perception That Vatican Is Dishonest
Disingenuous. That was the first word that came to mind this morning when I read MSNBC's posting of an Associated Press report on how a U.S. attorney plans to defend the Vatican in a Kentucky courtroom today--against claims that church officials in Rome are liable for mishandling the clergy sex abuse scandal and intentionally trying to hide it over several decades.
Because it is disingenuous, the strategy will again fuel the perception, among the public and in the pews, that the Vatican is still trying to evade responsibility for its administrative malfeasance in the crisis and still marshaling bogus, untruthful arguments to avoid being held civilly and criminally liable.
The strategy is disingenuous on three counts.
First, according to the article, the attorney plans to claim that bishops and other clergy are not employees of the Vatican, and that therefore the Vatican cannot be held liable if bishops or priests violate civil or criminal laws.
The argument is bogus because it directly contradicts the way the Catholic church has operated for centuries--and is still operating today.
It is true that the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s tried to reassert the role of bishop as the chief shepherd in each diocese. But it is also true that the Vatican worked over the next four decades to prevent that reform from having much effect and that it actually strengthened a military-like chain of command running from the pope as commander in chief, through the bishops as his field commanders, to the priests as the officers on the front line. The Vatican exercised absolute control over every bishop and priest, and it is directly liable for decisions to repeatedly reassign those who known to be abusing children into new settings where they could repeat the behavior.
Second, the attorney will contend that a document issued by the Vatican in 1962 and reaffirmed by the Vatican in 2001 did not require bishops to report sexually abusive priests only to the Vatican and never to local public officials.
The argument is a lie, as documented by a Houston attorney and covered in a posting here on April 23, 2010. The plaintiff's attorney in Kentucky is entirely correct in maintaining that these documents are the smoking gun in the Vatican's international conspiracy to cover up the crimes.
Third, the article says the attorney plans to ask the court "to dismiss the case on the grounds that the court doesn't have jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects sovereign states from being sued in U.S. courts except under certain circumstances." This rehashes the Vatican's claim that the pope and the members of his curia should be shielded from all civil liability as a head of state. The State Department agreed with the claim in the Houston case, and the pope was dismissed as a defendant.
As observed here previously, the argument is bogus because Rome's absolute authority over its clergy is not exercised by the pope as head of a state, but rather as the chief official of a worldwide religion. The chief official is specifically liable for (a) the procedures he dictates for reassigning priests, (b) the secrecy he dictates when they violate civil and criminal laws, and (c) the legal strategies he dictates to evade liability.
Eventually some court, somewhere, is going to see these arguments for the frauds they are. Pope Benedict XVI ought to have the wisdom to see that writing on the wall. And he ought to have the fortitude instruct his attorneys, in the United States and elsewhere, to stop making claims that can only diminish the church further in the eyes of reasonable men and women. Otherwise, whatever the Vatican gains in litigation it will more than lose in allegiance from the public and even from ordinary Catholics.
Because it is disingenuous, the strategy will again fuel the perception, among the public and in the pews, that the Vatican is still trying to evade responsibility for its administrative malfeasance in the crisis and still marshaling bogus, untruthful arguments to avoid being held civilly and criminally liable.
The strategy is disingenuous on three counts.
First, according to the article, the attorney plans to claim that bishops and other clergy are not employees of the Vatican, and that therefore the Vatican cannot be held liable if bishops or priests violate civil or criminal laws.
The argument is bogus because it directly contradicts the way the Catholic church has operated for centuries--and is still operating today.
It is true that the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s tried to reassert the role of bishop as the chief shepherd in each diocese. But it is also true that the Vatican worked over the next four decades to prevent that reform from having much effect and that it actually strengthened a military-like chain of command running from the pope as commander in chief, through the bishops as his field commanders, to the priests as the officers on the front line. The Vatican exercised absolute control over every bishop and priest, and it is directly liable for decisions to repeatedly reassign those who known to be abusing children into new settings where they could repeat the behavior.
Second, the attorney will contend that a document issued by the Vatican in 1962 and reaffirmed by the Vatican in 2001 did not require bishops to report sexually abusive priests only to the Vatican and never to local public officials.
The argument is a lie, as documented by a Houston attorney and covered in a posting here on April 23, 2010. The plaintiff's attorney in Kentucky is entirely correct in maintaining that these documents are the smoking gun in the Vatican's international conspiracy to cover up the crimes.
Third, the article says the attorney plans to ask the court "to dismiss the case on the grounds that the court doesn't have jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects sovereign states from being sued in U.S. courts except under certain circumstances." This rehashes the Vatican's claim that the pope and the members of his curia should be shielded from all civil liability as a head of state. The State Department agreed with the claim in the Houston case, and the pope was dismissed as a defendant.
As observed here previously, the argument is bogus because Rome's absolute authority over its clergy is not exercised by the pope as head of a state, but rather as the chief official of a worldwide religion. The chief official is specifically liable for (a) the procedures he dictates for reassigning priests, (b) the secrecy he dictates when they violate civil and criminal laws, and (c) the legal strategies he dictates to evade liability.
Eventually some court, somewhere, is going to see these arguments for the frauds they are. Pope Benedict XVI ought to have the wisdom to see that writing on the wall. And he ought to have the fortitude instruct his attorneys, in the United States and elsewhere, to stop making claims that can only diminish the church further in the eyes of reasonable men and women. Otherwise, whatever the Vatican gains in litigation it will more than lose in allegiance from the public and even from ordinary Catholics.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Louisiana Using Mississippi River Diversions to Push Oil Away from Coastal Wetlands
The Times-Picayune of New Orleans is reporting on a creative effort by the State of Louisiana to pump flowing water from the Mississippi River through flood-diversion channels into the coastal wetlands, in the hope of pushing the oil slick back into the Gulf. Water is flowing out of seven diversions and a navigation lock at a combined rate of 29,550 cubic feet per second. Most of the article follows:
The state has opened gates at the Bayou Lamoque freshwater diversion in Plaquemines Parish to use Mississippi River water to help protect the parish's fragile network of wetlands.
The opening will send around 7,500 cubic feet per second of river water into wetlands adjacent to Black Bay and Breton Sound, the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said.
The hope is that the river water will help push any oil from the Gulf oil spill away from the coastal wetlands.
"The potential effects of this oil spill could last for decades, so we are using every means at our disposal to try to lessen the devastation the oil could inflict on our wetlands," Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Department Secretary Robert Barham said.
Garret Graves, chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said the Lamoque diversion joins several others already pressed into service.
"We have been using diversions, siphons and locks on both the east and west side for more than 10 days to try and push the oil away from our coastal wetlands. Louisiana's coastal wetlands are a maze of marshy islands, grass beds, bayous, ponds and lakes. It will be nearly impossible for us to clean the oil out of these areas for years if it gets in there," Graves said.
The state said seven diversions and siphons and one navigation lock are now in use to send river water into the coastal wetlands. The total measurable flow from these diversions is 29,550 cubic feet per second.
The state has opened gates at the Bayou Lamoque freshwater diversion in Plaquemines Parish to use Mississippi River water to help protect the parish's fragile network of wetlands.
The opening will send around 7,500 cubic feet per second of river water into wetlands adjacent to Black Bay and Breton Sound, the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said.
The hope is that the river water will help push any oil from the Gulf oil spill away from the coastal wetlands.
"The potential effects of this oil spill could last for decades, so we are using every means at our disposal to try to lessen the devastation the oil could inflict on our wetlands," Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Department Secretary Robert Barham said.
Garret Graves, chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said the Lamoque diversion joins several others already pressed into service.
"We have been using diversions, siphons and locks on both the east and west side for more than 10 days to try and push the oil away from our coastal wetlands. Louisiana's coastal wetlands are a maze of marshy islands, grass beds, bayous, ponds and lakes. It will be nearly impossible for us to clean the oil out of these areas for years if it gets in there," Graves said.
The state said seven diversions and siphons and one navigation lock are now in use to send river water into the coastal wetlands. The total measurable flow from these diversions is 29,550 cubic feet per second.
Texans Should Just Ignore State Board of Education, Houston Chronicle Says
The Houston Chronicle recently had a great editorial, summarizing the most recent antics of the infamously dysfunctional Texas State Board of Education--and suggesting it would be best for all Texans to just ignore the board's latest curriculum mandates. Editorial follows:
How bad is the new history curriculum now under consideration by the Texas State Board of Education?
It's so bad that Jon Stewart made fun of it on TV. He played footage of the board voting to remove Oscar Romero from a list of great political and moral figures of the 20th century — because one board member said she'd never heard of the archbishop assassinated by an El Salvador death squad. “That,” cracked Stewart, “is how Oscar Romero got disappeared by right-wingers for the second time!”
The proposed curriculum is so bad that it would strike Thomas Jefferson from a list of Enlightenment thinkers who influenced the world. So bad that it plays down the civil rights and women's rights movements — in a state where minorities and women easily form a majority.
It's so bad that to date, more than 1,200 historians and professors have signed a letter complaining that the revisions “undermined the study of the social sciences in our public schools by misrepresenting and even distorting the historical record and the functioning of American society.”
But you know what? There's something even worse than that curriculum. And that's the multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall facing Texas.
So we think it makes sense for the Legislature to put off buying $800 million in history books based on that curriculum. “There's no rush necessary,” argues Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio. “We have plenty of time to do it right.”
In these lean times, students and teachers can make do with their old textbooks. And certainly, using them for another year or two beats investing in bad books that would stick around for a decade.
In the meantime, the state board can redeem itself by formulating a less-embarrassing curriculum. Or maybe the Legislature can reformulate the board by putting it up for a sunset review.
To slash the state budget, the Texas Legislature will have to make lots of hard choices. But not buying lousy textbooks? That's a no-brainer.
Let's disappear that curriculum. And let's bring back Thomas Jefferson and Oscar Romero.
How bad is the new history curriculum now under consideration by the Texas State Board of Education?
It's so bad that Jon Stewart made fun of it on TV. He played footage of the board voting to remove Oscar Romero from a list of great political and moral figures of the 20th century — because one board member said she'd never heard of the archbishop assassinated by an El Salvador death squad. “That,” cracked Stewart, “is how Oscar Romero got disappeared by right-wingers for the second time!”
The proposed curriculum is so bad that it would strike Thomas Jefferson from a list of Enlightenment thinkers who influenced the world. So bad that it plays down the civil rights and women's rights movements — in a state where minorities and women easily form a majority.
It's so bad that to date, more than 1,200 historians and professors have signed a letter complaining that the revisions “undermined the study of the social sciences in our public schools by misrepresenting and even distorting the historical record and the functioning of American society.”
But you know what? There's something even worse than that curriculum. And that's the multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall facing Texas.
So we think it makes sense for the Legislature to put off buying $800 million in history books based on that curriculum. “There's no rush necessary,” argues Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio. “We have plenty of time to do it right.”
In these lean times, students and teachers can make do with their old textbooks. And certainly, using them for another year or two beats investing in bad books that would stick around for a decade.
In the meantime, the state board can redeem itself by formulating a less-embarrassing curriculum. Or maybe the Legislature can reformulate the board by putting it up for a sunset review.
To slash the state budget, the Texas Legislature will have to make lots of hard choices. But not buying lousy textbooks? That's a no-brainer.
Let's disappear that curriculum. And let's bring back Thomas Jefferson and Oscar Romero.
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