The defining crisis of our age is the failure of masculinity as: paternity, quiet strength, commitment and fidelity, courage, chastity and protection. The disordered male psyche moves in two opposite directions: violence, rage, lust, egotism, assault or weakness, indecision, discouragement and impotence. You end up with Donald Trump or Woody Allen! The understandable feminine reaction is anxiety, hysteria, and suspicion of men.
The "Me-Too Movement" is, on the whole, a just and reasoned response to men as aggressors. But the liberal response to the Kavanaugh hearings is something else: hysteria!
Hysteria (a recklessly non-PC-term) is the tendency of the feminine psyche in its essential openness, receptivity, and vulnerability (to invasion or hostile penetration), to a pervasive, internal, diffuse and profound anxiety. Undefined, crippling anxiety is the consequence of a woman being unprotected...by father, husband, etc...and therefore vulnerable to assault.
For example, in my line of work, (boarding home) I cannot mention the b-word to most women ("b-d b-g") because it immediately elicits spasms of hysteria; by contrast, the male response is to crush, exterminate, and annihilate because of the underlying anatomical structure of protrusion, extension, donation. Men are, of course, capable of anxiety and women of aggression but fundamentally they differ in their psychic dynamics.
And so we see that the left's response to the new justice is entirely disordered and reflective of a deeper, primal suspicion of virility itself. We know that the Supreme Court is all about the right to a legal abortion. The "right to chose" is itself rooted in distrust of men: the anxious conviction that the father (of the child, of the mother) will not provide for mother-with-child but having violated the woman will abandon her and the new life.
I challenge anyone to find another accomplished man who equals Brett Kavanaugh in his tenderness and reverence for his mother, wife, daughters, basketball players, clerks, woman friends and co-workers! He is a paragon of masculine virtue in regard to women...except for the alleged assault.
Unfortunately, the hysteria of the left is fueled by the opposite pathology: our President's infantile machismo, bravado, bullying, egotism, and crudeness. We have the worst of both worlds: a caricature of vile, belligerent, narcissistic, dysfunctional masculinity; and anxious, frightened, irrational femininity at the other end.
The narrative presented by the accuser, Dr. Ford, is (to my mind) entirely probable as an event, not of deliberate sexual assault, but of intoxicated, immature male stupidity and insensitivity: some kind of crude, mindless and heartless prank or horseplay. It is typical of the adolescent male propensity for idiotic, aggressive discharge of libido, anxiety and hormonal energy. Unknown to the aggressors, the attack had a grave and lasting impact on the sensitive, fragile 15-year-old girl. The incident is iconic of male crudeness and female sensitivity! It is a tragedy about which the assailant had and has no clue! Somehow, I suspect that if anyone understood the entire Drama it was his wife Ashley, sitting behind him during the hearing...sad, somber, pensive. It was Ashley who prayed with their daughter for Dr. Ford. It is probably Ashley...almost a modern Pieta...who understands the real suffering of the victim even as she loves the assailant precisely in his own masculine weakness.
For me, the real take-away is not political but moral-spiritual: we men have failed our women...violated them in our lust, selfishness, insensitivity...in our rage and aggression...in our impotence, infidelity, and cowardice. We men desperately need to admit our sins against women, repent, seek God's grace and mercy, support each other in our tender care and reverence for our women!
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Saturday, October 13, 2018
A Church in Crisis
A few months ago I dismissed as alarmist voices that claimed our Catholic Church was in deep crisis. The events of this past summer have convinced me that I was wrong: that we are possibly facing the deepest ecclesial catastrophe since the French Revolution or perhaps the Reformation. It is not one scandal but a "perfect storm"...a convergence of at least 10 crises which have infused each other in a synergy of evil.
1. The basic priest scandal was an epidemic of primarily homosexual predatory abuse of adolescent boys and erupted in the specific time frame of 1965-85 immediately following the sexual revolution.
2. The episcopal cover-up whereby these abusers were protected and moved from place to place and so allowed to molest more victims. This scandal infuriated many Catholics more than the first.
3. A new wave of abuse was unveiled this summer: that by bishops and even cardinals. McCarrick is one of many but he is a blatant example because he was not just protected by a coalition of ranking hierarchs, but he was promoted to Cardinal, disciplined (albeit informally it seems) by Benedict, and then rehabilitated under Francis. It is now undeniable that at the highest levels of the Church there is an alliance of power-brokers who protect homosexual predators.
4. The financial crisis in the Vatican continues. Vigano found $50 million in hidden funds during his short tenure at Vatican City and was then removed to the USA lest he find more. The thorough audit ordered by Francis was aborted for reasons unexplained. Clearly the financial corruption at the heart of the Vatican is untouchable.
5. The China pact of this summer between the Vatican and Peking effectively gave control of the Church there to the communist, atheistic, totalitarian regime. The contrast is startling: if John Paul undermined the Soviet Empire, Francis is giving the Church over the the Party!
6. Institutionally the Church is in trouble. It is clear that bishops and pope are really not accountable to anyone so that they can do what they want. The Vatican has remained largely silent and not felt obliged to offer the slightest explanation for the McCarrick debacle. Clearly we need something like constitutional controls within the Church to check abuse by papacy and episcopacy. More profoundly, however, it is clear that the non-essential Church institutions...schools, hospitals, social agencies...have expanded into huge bureaucracies such that their maintenance has become a priority and threatens the primary Church mission: holiness, worship, truth. For 50 years I have been resisting Ivan Illich's proposal that the Church de-institutionalize itself in order to preserve itself. This summer I have finally surrendered: the ministerial Church must surrender to the laity the secular enterprises that are essential but complex and demanding. Part of the reason McCarrick was promoted was surely that he was a sharp administrator and an outstanding fundraiser. EWTN, our own little Magnificat Home, and the many initiatives coming out of the ecclesial movements are all examples of the wave of the future: all are independent of pope and bishop.
7. A grave crisis of Truth is apparent in the theological confusion and incoherence flowing from the Vatican. A blatant example is the "death penalty correction" to the Catechism in which a prudential, actually sentimental and emotional, subjective judgment has been elevated into a allegedly-permanent moral absolute, casually dismissing tradition and natural law and without any consultation with the broader Church. In general there is an emotivism, a sentimentality and an anti-intellectualism operative at the highest levels that dismisses the brilliant retrieval, under the previous two popes, of a "Splendor of Truth" that yearns to unveil to faith-and-reason.
8. Politicization of the hierarchy has compromised the Church as specific political, ideological agendas (climate control, immigration, death penalty, equality) have become the primary concerns of our current leaders. We as a people become polarized and divided as the Church mimics a political party. Under current leadership our Church is mimicking Trump-era American politics in which rage and resent reign and we demonize and despise each other. In living memory we have never seen cardinals and bishops insulting each other!
9. Acceptance of evil has become fashionable as some of our leaders explicitly reject the simple but profound adage "hate the sin, love the sinner" in favor of an "accompaniment" that makes everyone feel accepted and cherished and eschews a harsh, demanding, paternal love.
10. The crisis of the papacy is the hard reality that Pope Francis, an admirable and gifted man in many ways, himself embodies and intensifies all of these problems, except the first. He is impulsive, incoherent, emotional and basically incompetent as Pope. He clearly is listening to the wrong people as he is intensifying all of the deplorable dynamics identified above.
The always-underlying crisis is that of holiness: we are not close to God the Trinity; we do not trust; we do not surrender and obey. This is the ultimate, defining crisis or drama for each of us...every day of our lives. So we can relax and breathe easy: despite the problems, God is with us. We are His bride and He is our groom. We can rest in this. We can commit ourselves to seek Truth, humbly, as we love each other, even and especially in conflict. We can allow Him to fill us with His mercy and love!
1. The basic priest scandal was an epidemic of primarily homosexual predatory abuse of adolescent boys and erupted in the specific time frame of 1965-85 immediately following the sexual revolution.
2. The episcopal cover-up whereby these abusers were protected and moved from place to place and so allowed to molest more victims. This scandal infuriated many Catholics more than the first.
3. A new wave of abuse was unveiled this summer: that by bishops and even cardinals. McCarrick is one of many but he is a blatant example because he was not just protected by a coalition of ranking hierarchs, but he was promoted to Cardinal, disciplined (albeit informally it seems) by Benedict, and then rehabilitated under Francis. It is now undeniable that at the highest levels of the Church there is an alliance of power-brokers who protect homosexual predators.
4. The financial crisis in the Vatican continues. Vigano found $50 million in hidden funds during his short tenure at Vatican City and was then removed to the USA lest he find more. The thorough audit ordered by Francis was aborted for reasons unexplained. Clearly the financial corruption at the heart of the Vatican is untouchable.
5. The China pact of this summer between the Vatican and Peking effectively gave control of the Church there to the communist, atheistic, totalitarian regime. The contrast is startling: if John Paul undermined the Soviet Empire, Francis is giving the Church over the the Party!
6. Institutionally the Church is in trouble. It is clear that bishops and pope are really not accountable to anyone so that they can do what they want. The Vatican has remained largely silent and not felt obliged to offer the slightest explanation for the McCarrick debacle. Clearly we need something like constitutional controls within the Church to check abuse by papacy and episcopacy. More profoundly, however, it is clear that the non-essential Church institutions...schools, hospitals, social agencies...have expanded into huge bureaucracies such that their maintenance has become a priority and threatens the primary Church mission: holiness, worship, truth. For 50 years I have been resisting Ivan Illich's proposal that the Church de-institutionalize itself in order to preserve itself. This summer I have finally surrendered: the ministerial Church must surrender to the laity the secular enterprises that are essential but complex and demanding. Part of the reason McCarrick was promoted was surely that he was a sharp administrator and an outstanding fundraiser. EWTN, our own little Magnificat Home, and the many initiatives coming out of the ecclesial movements are all examples of the wave of the future: all are independent of pope and bishop.
7. A grave crisis of Truth is apparent in the theological confusion and incoherence flowing from the Vatican. A blatant example is the "death penalty correction" to the Catechism in which a prudential, actually sentimental and emotional, subjective judgment has been elevated into a allegedly-permanent moral absolute, casually dismissing tradition and natural law and without any consultation with the broader Church. In general there is an emotivism, a sentimentality and an anti-intellectualism operative at the highest levels that dismisses the brilliant retrieval, under the previous two popes, of a "Splendor of Truth" that yearns to unveil to faith-and-reason.
8. Politicization of the hierarchy has compromised the Church as specific political, ideological agendas (climate control, immigration, death penalty, equality) have become the primary concerns of our current leaders. We as a people become polarized and divided as the Church mimics a political party. Under current leadership our Church is mimicking Trump-era American politics in which rage and resent reign and we demonize and despise each other. In living memory we have never seen cardinals and bishops insulting each other!
9. Acceptance of evil has become fashionable as some of our leaders explicitly reject the simple but profound adage "hate the sin, love the sinner" in favor of an "accompaniment" that makes everyone feel accepted and cherished and eschews a harsh, demanding, paternal love.
10. The crisis of the papacy is the hard reality that Pope Francis, an admirable and gifted man in many ways, himself embodies and intensifies all of these problems, except the first. He is impulsive, incoherent, emotional and basically incompetent as Pope. He clearly is listening to the wrong people as he is intensifying all of the deplorable dynamics identified above.
The always-underlying crisis is that of holiness: we are not close to God the Trinity; we do not trust; we do not surrender and obey. This is the ultimate, defining crisis or drama for each of us...every day of our lives. So we can relax and breathe easy: despite the problems, God is with us. We are His bride and He is our groom. We can rest in this. We can commit ourselves to seek Truth, humbly, as we love each other, even and especially in conflict. We can allow Him to fill us with His mercy and love!
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
The Kavanaugh Controversy is Simple: It is All About Abortion!
The redeeming moment of the Kavanaugh judicial hearings was when the Judge tearfully spoke of his wife and daughter praying for Dr. Ford, his alleged-victim. That single act of a child-and-mother more than overcame the character assassination, the obnoxious circus antics, the narcissistic hystrionics of Cory-Sparticus-Booker and the cruelty of leaking and outing Dr. Ford.
It helps to recall that all this activity is about a single issue: abortion! Everything else is small potatoes! I was reminded: if your defining and consuming cause is legalized destruction of the fragile, powerless human person than why would you hesitate, for a single second, in destroying man's reputation and family as well as violating the privacy of a previously abused woman? The moral rot at the core of the Democratic Party has corrupted so deeply over half a century that it contaminates even the very best and worthwhile elements of the Party. Consider the hypocricy: Bill, almost certainly a habitual abuser, and his enabler-protector Hillary, continue to be luminaries of the Left solely because they are pro-choice! Me-too, identity politics, health care, economic equality, immigration and even dump-Trump all bow to the god, constitution, the soul of the Party: abortion!
If you love legalized abortion, you will hate Kavanaugh! If you hate legalized abortion, you will love Kavanaugh. It really is that simple!
Dr. Ford, by virtue of her sincerity, sweetness, fragility, precision, intelligence, and modest certainty was captivating, endearing, and absolutely convincing. It is, to me, inconceivable that she is lying. It is, to me, overwhelmingly probable that she experienced what she related. During her testimony my lawyer-son texted me: "The nation is literally weeping!" I know that I was. Her narrative was entirely credible: specific, clear, internally consistent and entirely coherent with what we know of 17-year-old Brett.
Her credibility, the seriousness of the matter, the sensitivity of the abuse of women in our society today, and the high bar we set for Supreme Court justices all make a reasoned case against the Judge.
Those considerations, however, do not overcome the case for him. The allegation, albeit convincing, is entirely uncorraborated. The event, as described by her, with the alcohol and laughter, seems not to be a deliberate rape but some kind of prank or horseplay on the part of the alleged attacker. But we will probably never know the full truth. Most importantly, the alleged event is not part of pattern of abuse of women: if it happened, it is an anomaly, an exception, an aberration; an impulsive, intoxicated, adolescent stupidity, albeit with horrendous consequences upon this delicate 15-year-old. By all accounts, he reveres and advances women and is a man of exceptional character and enormous competence.
I am proud that Dr. Ford was given a respectful, gentle hearing. Even Donald behaved (relatively) well! I am glad there is an FBI investigation although I think it will be far less thorough than what has already been done by the media and investigators for the abortion lobby. Unless there is a serious revelation, he should be confirmed. And we would all do well to join mother Ashley and daughter in prayers for the Ford and Kavanaugh families as well as for the good of our country!
It helps to recall that all this activity is about a single issue: abortion! Everything else is small potatoes! I was reminded: if your defining and consuming cause is legalized destruction of the fragile, powerless human person than why would you hesitate, for a single second, in destroying man's reputation and family as well as violating the privacy of a previously abused woman? The moral rot at the core of the Democratic Party has corrupted so deeply over half a century that it contaminates even the very best and worthwhile elements of the Party. Consider the hypocricy: Bill, almost certainly a habitual abuser, and his enabler-protector Hillary, continue to be luminaries of the Left solely because they are pro-choice! Me-too, identity politics, health care, economic equality, immigration and even dump-Trump all bow to the god, constitution, the soul of the Party: abortion!
If you love legalized abortion, you will hate Kavanaugh! If you hate legalized abortion, you will love Kavanaugh. It really is that simple!
Dr. Ford, by virtue of her sincerity, sweetness, fragility, precision, intelligence, and modest certainty was captivating, endearing, and absolutely convincing. It is, to me, inconceivable that she is lying. It is, to me, overwhelmingly probable that she experienced what she related. During her testimony my lawyer-son texted me: "The nation is literally weeping!" I know that I was. Her narrative was entirely credible: specific, clear, internally consistent and entirely coherent with what we know of 17-year-old Brett.
Her credibility, the seriousness of the matter, the sensitivity of the abuse of women in our society today, and the high bar we set for Supreme Court justices all make a reasoned case against the Judge.
Those considerations, however, do not overcome the case for him. The allegation, albeit convincing, is entirely uncorraborated. The event, as described by her, with the alcohol and laughter, seems not to be a deliberate rape but some kind of prank or horseplay on the part of the alleged attacker. But we will probably never know the full truth. Most importantly, the alleged event is not part of pattern of abuse of women: if it happened, it is an anomaly, an exception, an aberration; an impulsive, intoxicated, adolescent stupidity, albeit with horrendous consequences upon this delicate 15-year-old. By all accounts, he reveres and advances women and is a man of exceptional character and enormous competence.
I am proud that Dr. Ford was given a respectful, gentle hearing. Even Donald behaved (relatively) well! I am glad there is an FBI investigation although I think it will be far less thorough than what has already been done by the media and investigators for the abortion lobby. Unless there is a serious revelation, he should be confirmed. And we would all do well to join mother Ashley and daughter in prayers for the Ford and Kavanaugh families as well as for the good of our country!
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
The Francis Agenda
Five years into his pontificate and coming out of the "summer of shame" (McCarrick, Pennsylvania report, death penalty, Vigano, China) the agenda of Pope Francis has become crystal clear. It is not from what he says that this pattern emerges: in what he says he is complex, contradictory, impulsive, incoherent and irrational. It is in what he does that a logic emerges: his decisions and especially his appointments. His priorities are:
1. The politicization of the papacy and episcopacy on behalf of a liberal program, especially welcome to immigrants and protection of the earth. These are the heart of his papacy. They are worthwhile goals, befitting of a politician, social activist or policy advocate. Not a pope! In this he accommodates to the ideology of secular Western elites and it is why he is their darling. Previous popes offered a framework of moral teachings to use in evaluating specific policies and practices without becoming partisan. Francis is the hero of the secular, liberal West. He is also the Anti-Trump!
2. Communion-for-the-divorced (and remarried without annulment) is the signature initiative by which he has polarized the Church. When his behind-the-stage maneuvers at the Synod were decisively rejected by the bishops he defiantly endorsed it in regard to the Argentine bishops' interpretation of Laetitiae Amoris and then slipped this into the official Church records. In one swap, he dismissed the clear teaching of St. John Paul of just a few years previous, the tradition of millennia, and the explicit will of the synod of bishops. To be sure Francis is no sexual libertarian or gay militant; he himself seems to be of two minds and has at times disappointed his progressive collaborators. But he lacks the stomach, fortitude or intellect to engage, in confident conflict, Cultural Liberation in the manner of his two predecessors. Instead he has clearly accommodated himself to the gay lobby and distanced himself from his predecessors in favor of a soft, welcoming, uncritical "accompaniment" approach to sexual license.
3. In China, he hopes to expand the reach of the Church by subservience to the Communist Party through giving them veto power over the choice of bishops. This is probably the single most catastrophic decision he will make. China will only have pro-abortion bishops who are devoid of any capacity speak Truth or to confront that dreadful government, overtly or covertly. Again we see the spirit of accommodation. And again, we see an indifference to Truth.
4. Elected to clean up the mess in the Vatican, he has now been exposed by the McCarrick/Vigano revelations to be the prime protector of the curia's web of financial irresponsibility, gay sexual immorality, and a heterodox theology of sexual liberation. John Paul seems to have been given over to his mission and blissfully unaware of the culture of sin that was growing around him. Benedict apparently recognized it, attempted to discipline McCarrick, but found himself without the personal stamina and social capital to confront it and so resigned with dignity. Francis has befriended this network because it helps him with his agenda: a progressive internationalism, a softening on sexuality, and normalization in China. McCarrick may be seen as iconic of all these concerns.
5. Accommodation is the substance of his agenda: accommodation to progressive politics, sexual liberation, Chinese communism, and the lavender mafia of the Curia. With his customary verbal flourish, he prefers the expression "accompaniment" which lends a cherubic glow to all he does as welcoming, warm, and nurturing. The underlying spirit of this pontificate is an emotivism that disdains objective Truth in favor of sentiment and a mercy without justice. He clearly has internalized the secular West's stereotypical view of the Catholic Church as rigid, regressive, heartless. Reactive against that, he distances himself from demands, theology, authority, tradition, dogma, and law. Everything with him is feeling, passion, sentiment. When he is mad (at capitalist, clerics, mafia) he spews venom and resentment, demonizing his enemy even as he cloaks himself in righteousness. Entirely lacking is judicial sobriety, temperance, or the patient correction of a confident father.
There seems to be a "splitting" in the dense, strange personality of this Pope: the good Francis and the bad Francis. Clearly, the good Francis is welcoming, merciful, kind, and sweet. The bad Francis is cold, calculating, Machiavellian and brutal in use of power. Like his counterpart, Trump, his dictatorial instincts equip him to remake the Church in his own image without regard to protocol, tradition, or due process. His manipulation of the Synod was quite grotesque. His appointments to the college of cardinals have discarded normal procedures and favored those closest to him in ideology. Liberal Thomas Reese S.J. admitted that had John Paul or Benedict been so subjective and partisan in their appointments that he and other liberals would have been enraged. He has steadily eliminated opposition from within the Vatican (Burke, Mueller,) and surrounded himself with fellow-travelers. John Paul and Benedict were academics, comfortable in the give-and-take of intellectual debate and confrontation; both confronted the repression of Nazism and Communism; both valued freedom even as they protected the Truth entrusted to their care. Francis is instinctively a Peronist in that he weilds power to eliminate his foes and achieve his political goals.
The Church is now in a full-scaled civil war about this pontificate. It is a cold war, a quiet war, a behind-the-scenes war. It is no longer possible to see continuity between Pope Francis and his predecessors: the contradictions are glaring! It is hardly possible to be loyal to the Tradition and the past and to this pope. It is like being in Spain in the 1930s! The moderates and mediators (Dolan, O'Malley ) will have to decide, in ways dramatic and hidden. Every thinking Catholic will have to decide!
1. The politicization of the papacy and episcopacy on behalf of a liberal program, especially welcome to immigrants and protection of the earth. These are the heart of his papacy. They are worthwhile goals, befitting of a politician, social activist or policy advocate. Not a pope! In this he accommodates to the ideology of secular Western elites and it is why he is their darling. Previous popes offered a framework of moral teachings to use in evaluating specific policies and practices without becoming partisan. Francis is the hero of the secular, liberal West. He is also the Anti-Trump!
2. Communion-for-the-divorced (and remarried without annulment) is the signature initiative by which he has polarized the Church. When his behind-the-stage maneuvers at the Synod were decisively rejected by the bishops he defiantly endorsed it in regard to the Argentine bishops' interpretation of Laetitiae Amoris and then slipped this into the official Church records. In one swap, he dismissed the clear teaching of St. John Paul of just a few years previous, the tradition of millennia, and the explicit will of the synod of bishops. To be sure Francis is no sexual libertarian or gay militant; he himself seems to be of two minds and has at times disappointed his progressive collaborators. But he lacks the stomach, fortitude or intellect to engage, in confident conflict, Cultural Liberation in the manner of his two predecessors. Instead he has clearly accommodated himself to the gay lobby and distanced himself from his predecessors in favor of a soft, welcoming, uncritical "accompaniment" approach to sexual license.
3. In China, he hopes to expand the reach of the Church by subservience to the Communist Party through giving them veto power over the choice of bishops. This is probably the single most catastrophic decision he will make. China will only have pro-abortion bishops who are devoid of any capacity speak Truth or to confront that dreadful government, overtly or covertly. Again we see the spirit of accommodation. And again, we see an indifference to Truth.
4. Elected to clean up the mess in the Vatican, he has now been exposed by the McCarrick/Vigano revelations to be the prime protector of the curia's web of financial irresponsibility, gay sexual immorality, and a heterodox theology of sexual liberation. John Paul seems to have been given over to his mission and blissfully unaware of the culture of sin that was growing around him. Benedict apparently recognized it, attempted to discipline McCarrick, but found himself without the personal stamina and social capital to confront it and so resigned with dignity. Francis has befriended this network because it helps him with his agenda: a progressive internationalism, a softening on sexuality, and normalization in China. McCarrick may be seen as iconic of all these concerns.
5. Accommodation is the substance of his agenda: accommodation to progressive politics, sexual liberation, Chinese communism, and the lavender mafia of the Curia. With his customary verbal flourish, he prefers the expression "accompaniment" which lends a cherubic glow to all he does as welcoming, warm, and nurturing. The underlying spirit of this pontificate is an emotivism that disdains objective Truth in favor of sentiment and a mercy without justice. He clearly has internalized the secular West's stereotypical view of the Catholic Church as rigid, regressive, heartless. Reactive against that, he distances himself from demands, theology, authority, tradition, dogma, and law. Everything with him is feeling, passion, sentiment. When he is mad (at capitalist, clerics, mafia) he spews venom and resentment, demonizing his enemy even as he cloaks himself in righteousness. Entirely lacking is judicial sobriety, temperance, or the patient correction of a confident father.
There seems to be a "splitting" in the dense, strange personality of this Pope: the good Francis and the bad Francis. Clearly, the good Francis is welcoming, merciful, kind, and sweet. The bad Francis is cold, calculating, Machiavellian and brutal in use of power. Like his counterpart, Trump, his dictatorial instincts equip him to remake the Church in his own image without regard to protocol, tradition, or due process. His manipulation of the Synod was quite grotesque. His appointments to the college of cardinals have discarded normal procedures and favored those closest to him in ideology. Liberal Thomas Reese S.J. admitted that had John Paul or Benedict been so subjective and partisan in their appointments that he and other liberals would have been enraged. He has steadily eliminated opposition from within the Vatican (Burke, Mueller,) and surrounded himself with fellow-travelers. John Paul and Benedict were academics, comfortable in the give-and-take of intellectual debate and confrontation; both confronted the repression of Nazism and Communism; both valued freedom even as they protected the Truth entrusted to their care. Francis is instinctively a Peronist in that he weilds power to eliminate his foes and achieve his political goals.
The Church is now in a full-scaled civil war about this pontificate. It is a cold war, a quiet war, a behind-the-scenes war. It is no longer possible to see continuity between Pope Francis and his predecessors: the contradictions are glaring! It is hardly possible to be loyal to the Tradition and the past and to this pope. It is like being in Spain in the 1930s! The moderates and mediators (Dolan, O'Malley ) will have to decide, in ways dramatic and hidden. Every thinking Catholic will have to decide!
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Our President, Our Pope, and the Flight from Truth into Emotivism
If my father is diabetic, schizophrenic or alcoholic, it is neither reverence nor charity to deny, ignore or dismiss it. The first step towards health for a dysfunctional family or community is recognition of the underlying pathology. Genuine respect, compassion and justice...informed by Truth rather than unthinking obeisance or pious, saccharine sentimentality...require sober, clear-minded scrutiny and evaluation, of a President and even more importantly of a Pope. It is worth considering Ross Douthat's suggestion about the similarities between President Trump and Pope Francis.
The most significant, astonishing characteristic of our President is his absolute, relentless disregard for truth. His pathology is much deeper than that of a compulsive liar because the concept of "lying" implies a truth or objectivity that is distorted, deliberately, for gain. And so a lie-detector test probably detects the mind's dissonant awareness of incongruity between the truth and the lie. Trump might well pass every lie detector test because he is oblivious of a Reality exterior to his preferences, needs, impulses. Developmentally, he is about 2-years old. His is a pathology that (to my knowledge) has not to date been identified (as in the DSM IV). It resembles the psychopath or sociopath who lacks any conscience (regard for good and evil) and empathy (for the suffering of another) but it is distinct: he is indifferent to Truth. If we understand "intellect" classically as the ability of the human mind to receive, grasp or understand Reality or Being, we might name him an: intellectopath, one who is unaware of and indifferent to Reality and thereby inclined to deceive and manipulate facts for his own purposes. In the case of Donald Trump, this pathology exceeds, in moral gravity, even as it informs all his blatant defects of character: boundless narcissism, incompetence, incoherence regarding policy, inconsistency, disrespect for women, and the vile contempt for those who resist him in any way.
His intellectual pathology has catastrophic consequences for our society: it is not only his followers who mimic his disregard for facts, but his adversaries on the left by an inverted imitation increasingly demonstrate that same emotionalism, irrationality, and will to power (witness the histrionics at the recent hearings for Judge Kavanaugh!) Our society is polarized now even more than during the Vietnam War and the crises of the 1960s. We would probably have to go back to the Civil War to find such division but even that conflict had about it a dignity and honor that is entirely lacking in our body politic today.
Trump did not create this condition, but he is a prime symptom and a vast inflamation of it. Alasdair MacIntyre, in After Virtue, notes the rise of "emotivism" as the basis for ethics in modernity as there has been a loss of tradition and of the cultivation of intelligence as the apprehension of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Trump can be viewed as the final and absolute embodiment of this trend: almost an Anti-Christ of Untruth. The ultimate expression of Pilate's skepticism: "What is Truth?"
Pope Francis has a much milder form of this malady, to be sure, but it is more significant because of his office and mission: he is The Custodian of Truth. Like Trump, his pontificate has been characterized by impulsiveness, inconsistency, incoherence, polarization, emotionalism, and an extraordinary disinterest in Truth and facts. He has an aversion to dogma, rules, and tradition. He is at pains to set himself against the past, rather than develop in continuity with it. He is sentimental, histrionic and wholly unpredictable. Like our President, he has around him those who would restrain his impulses: his Kelly/Matis is Mueller/Sarah/Burke.
He is a people-pleaser who responds sympathetically to whoever is close to him. When mad at the mafia, he tells them they are going to hell; when talking with an aging agnostic, he assures him God sends none to hell. He supports conscientious objector Kim Davis and a few days latter has Fr. Lombardy peddeling furiously away from that posture. He brutally castigates the Chilians who alleged sex abuse only to apologize later and blame bad information. He has attacked gay marriage as an artifice of the devil and then he surrounds himself in the curia with the gay mafia. There are increasing suspicions of mental or emotional disorder. (http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2018/09/12/francis-a-pope-who-says-one-thing-and-the-opposite/ ). As with Trump, his is not a conventional psychological disorder but a profound character pathology which makes him incapable of a coherent, intelligent vision of reality. Actually, he is lucid and steadfast in his political ideology but that is not what we look for in our pope. As a Jesuit he hardly embodies the rich intellectual legacy started by St. Ignatius in favor of an emotionalism and sentimentality. Perhaps that explains that he chose for his papal name that of the least intellectual of our saints: Francis of Assis.
The Pope's response...actually, complete lack of response...to the dubia presented by a group of Cardinals for clarification is significant. He offers no answer, no rebuttal, no clarification. He does not operate in the world of theological discourse. He prefers to be left free to follow his feelings, impulses, and passions. His "pastoral approach" of "accompaniment" would allow priests and ministers to follow sentiments of empathy and kindness, unrestrained by objective truths, dogmas, rules or by the moral order.
Worst of all is his response to the Vigano testimony. A simple yes, no or clarification on the allegations is all that is required. He dances around that question with a breath-taking contempt for facts and truth. "You make your mind up" he tells the journalists. And he ends with: "It is a matter of faith." He can only be saying by this: "If you are against me and my papacy, you will believe these allegations with my right wing enemies. If you are with me and my agenda (global warming, immigration, death penalty, etc.) you will care about Vigano's testimony as much as I cared about the sex life of Fr. McCarrick, a marvelous ally in my political crusade." Just recently he speaks in his daily homily about the strategy of the Accuser (Satan) in unveiling the sins of bishops so as to scandalize the faithful. Again: disdain for Truth. He has forgotten that Satan is the father of lies; that Jesus is the Truth; that the "truth will make you free." He proclaims a mercy that is cheap: depleted of justice, truth, contrition.
In a startlingly narcissistic, self-regarding twist, Pope Francis, in his daily homilies, has cloaked his silence before the dubia and Vigano in a robe of prayer and profundity, identifying himself and his McCarrickian cadre with the silence of Christ before Pilate as he slanders the whistle-blowers as agents of The Accuser! The subtlelity and depth of this self-deception is something the crude and superficial Trump could only envy.
John Paul was the great prophet of Mercy but this message was enriched, also by Benedict, through the retrieval of "The Splendor of Truth." This dual pontificate recovered the ancient reverence for reason as complimentary of faith as reception, wonder and grasping of Reality in all its Beauty. At the same time, they incorporated all that is best in contemporary science and philosophy. Francis appears to lack the slightest appreciation for this priceless legacy. He is a man of emotion, heart, spirit, and impulse. As The Theologian of the World, he is the endearing scarecrow of the Wizard of Oz.
His absolute condemnation of the death penalty follows this pattern: his feeling is all prisons systems present and future will be adequate; his sentiment is that capital punishment offends haman dignity. He offers no philosophical argument; nor any exhaustive social science research. He dismisses the tradition of natural law that has always seen that the state must protect innocent life and the common good, if necessary by use of lethal force (military, police, execution.) He neglects to consult with bishops around the world but inserts his opinion into the Catechism in a dictatorial fashion.
He is referred to as a "Peronist" for his tyrannical impulses and in this again resembles our President and the regrettable worldwide strengthening of dictatorships. When he was rebuked by the Synod of Bishops (notably the Africans) on communion for the divorced, he high-handedly approved the Argentinian interpretation of Amoris Laetitiae and installed his letter and their document into the official Church record. Thereby, he covertly and tyranically elevated his sentimental view, even as he pays lip service to diversity, collegiality and decentralization.
Both pope and president present as populists but are brazenly elitist in important, but contrasting ways. Trump is a wealthy celebrity whose tax and tariff initiatives are seen as promising for lower income folks by only the most optimistic (possibly delusional) Trumpistas. Pope Francis is a sharp contrast. He is champion of the poor, immigrants and the environment. In this he has emerged as the symbolic world-leader of Western liberalism: darling of our media and all democrats. He faces off against Trump-Putin-et.al who represent the opposing emergent ideology of nationalism, zenophobia fear and rage. Strangely (and painfully, for many of us) the Trump-Putin axis is more protective of innocent life, traditional marriage/family, and religious liberty than is Pope Francis who is contradictory but mostly guided by the lavender mafia surrounding him.
With both pope and president, we have left the cosmos of objective truth, moral order, stability and tradition and been thrust into the chaos of unending marxist-nietzchian conflict: one interest group against the other, the clash of wills and interest, the triumph of dionysian passion and feeling. To be sure, Francis is different as he practices a sentimentality of kindness and compassion for the victimized even as he expresses hatred for those he perceives as oppressors.
Jorge Bergoglio is an admirable man and priest in many ways. He would be a superb counselor-therapist; chaplain for prisons, youth, hospitals or military; spiritual director or retreat leader; social worker; community organizer or political activist. He is simply a very bad pope. A person might be a saint but a bad teacher or mechanic or CEO. Bergoglio is a catastrophe as a pope because he is theologically-challenged. The first job of pope (in my mind) is to teach; the second is to govern the Church. His two immediate predecessors were splendid in the first task but not strong in the administration of a Church bureaucracy that has grown beyond bounds. Pope Francis is a failure in the first task of teaching but worse in the second of governing: he has not just lost control (the way Benedict apparently realized so that he retired) but surrounded himself with a corrupt, secretive network that covertly propagates a culture of perversion and publicly advocates the agenda of Western, elite liberalism.
I am told that in Rome he is disliked by conservatives but also by liberals since he has failed to deliver them their agenda. He is unpredictable and unreliable. Does this remind you of someone who is despised by liberals and by many (economic and moral) conservatives as well?
In the wake of this Summer of Shame (McCarrick, death penalty, Pennsylvania report, Vigano) we now know the the hierarchical Church is corrupted beyond what most of us would have guessed even months ago. A drastic cleansing is required. It is vastly improbable that this Pope, curia and college of cardinals are capable of it. We will probably need a drastic reduction of the Church in its bureaucracy, property, and organizational reach. Until this cleansing is underway, many of us will be diverting our resources away from "the Church" ...that is to say the institutional Church, not the Church our Mother, the body and bride of Christ, the servant of the poor and herald of the Gospel. To do differently would be to enable our dysfunctional pope and hierarchy. Meanwhile, Pope Francis and his lieutenants are tightening their veil of silence and conspiracy with the fierceness of a Mafia family under attack.
We need to practice a kind of detachment from our hierarchy, renouncing patterns of co-dependence and enabling. Something like Al-Anon for families of alcoholics, we might call it "cleric/bishop/pope-anon." We remind ourselves that we belong not to Peter or Paul, not to John Paul or Benedict or Francis but to Christ even as we cherish, protect and develop the legacy of Mercy-in-Truth that is being squandered by the current pontificate.
This grieving process involves working through unavoidable feelings of hurt, disappointment and anger and has a particular twinge for those of us who have enjoyed such a tender, ennobling intimacy with St. John Paul and our Pope Emeritus. But this sober, lucid scrutiny of our leadership can serve to deepen and purify us in filial loyalty to Pope Francis and truthful charity for Jorge Bergoglio, like ourselves, a poor sinner and brother-in-Christ who has consistently asked for our prayers.
Slowly but surely, the Truth will be manifest. The civil authorities will help. The Church is pathetic, embarrassing, and even tragic! But the Holy Spirit is at work and will prevail. This crisis of moral corruption, financial wrongdoing, and politicization of the Church, nevertheless, in no way inhibits our own growth in holiness but can be a stimulus for it. We can wait patiently and observe as Christ purifies His Bride and Body. And so, we continue to hope, pray, support each other and all our good priests and bishops in our shared life with the Holy Trinity, our Blessed Mother and the Communion of Saints.
The most significant, astonishing characteristic of our President is his absolute, relentless disregard for truth. His pathology is much deeper than that of a compulsive liar because the concept of "lying" implies a truth or objectivity that is distorted, deliberately, for gain. And so a lie-detector test probably detects the mind's dissonant awareness of incongruity between the truth and the lie. Trump might well pass every lie detector test because he is oblivious of a Reality exterior to his preferences, needs, impulses. Developmentally, he is about 2-years old. His is a pathology that (to my knowledge) has not to date been identified (as in the DSM IV). It resembles the psychopath or sociopath who lacks any conscience (regard for good and evil) and empathy (for the suffering of another) but it is distinct: he is indifferent to Truth. If we understand "intellect" classically as the ability of the human mind to receive, grasp or understand Reality or Being, we might name him an: intellectopath, one who is unaware of and indifferent to Reality and thereby inclined to deceive and manipulate facts for his own purposes. In the case of Donald Trump, this pathology exceeds, in moral gravity, even as it informs all his blatant defects of character: boundless narcissism, incompetence, incoherence regarding policy, inconsistency, disrespect for women, and the vile contempt for those who resist him in any way.
His intellectual pathology has catastrophic consequences for our society: it is not only his followers who mimic his disregard for facts, but his adversaries on the left by an inverted imitation increasingly demonstrate that same emotionalism, irrationality, and will to power (witness the histrionics at the recent hearings for Judge Kavanaugh!) Our society is polarized now even more than during the Vietnam War and the crises of the 1960s. We would probably have to go back to the Civil War to find such division but even that conflict had about it a dignity and honor that is entirely lacking in our body politic today.
Trump did not create this condition, but he is a prime symptom and a vast inflamation of it. Alasdair MacIntyre, in After Virtue, notes the rise of "emotivism" as the basis for ethics in modernity as there has been a loss of tradition and of the cultivation of intelligence as the apprehension of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Trump can be viewed as the final and absolute embodiment of this trend: almost an Anti-Christ of Untruth. The ultimate expression of Pilate's skepticism: "What is Truth?"
Pope Francis has a much milder form of this malady, to be sure, but it is more significant because of his office and mission: he is The Custodian of Truth. Like Trump, his pontificate has been characterized by impulsiveness, inconsistency, incoherence, polarization, emotionalism, and an extraordinary disinterest in Truth and facts. He has an aversion to dogma, rules, and tradition. He is at pains to set himself against the past, rather than develop in continuity with it. He is sentimental, histrionic and wholly unpredictable. Like our President, he has around him those who would restrain his impulses: his Kelly/Matis is Mueller/Sarah/Burke.
He is a people-pleaser who responds sympathetically to whoever is close to him. When mad at the mafia, he tells them they are going to hell; when talking with an aging agnostic, he assures him God sends none to hell. He supports conscientious objector Kim Davis and a few days latter has Fr. Lombardy peddeling furiously away from that posture. He brutally castigates the Chilians who alleged sex abuse only to apologize later and blame bad information. He has attacked gay marriage as an artifice of the devil and then he surrounds himself in the curia with the gay mafia. There are increasing suspicions of mental or emotional disorder. (http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2018/09/12/francis-a-pope-who-says-one-thing-and-the-opposite/ ). As with Trump, his is not a conventional psychological disorder but a profound character pathology which makes him incapable of a coherent, intelligent vision of reality. Actually, he is lucid and steadfast in his political ideology but that is not what we look for in our pope. As a Jesuit he hardly embodies the rich intellectual legacy started by St. Ignatius in favor of an emotionalism and sentimentality. Perhaps that explains that he chose for his papal name that of the least intellectual of our saints: Francis of Assis.
The Pope's response...actually, complete lack of response...to the dubia presented by a group of Cardinals for clarification is significant. He offers no answer, no rebuttal, no clarification. He does not operate in the world of theological discourse. He prefers to be left free to follow his feelings, impulses, and passions. His "pastoral approach" of "accompaniment" would allow priests and ministers to follow sentiments of empathy and kindness, unrestrained by objective truths, dogmas, rules or by the moral order.
Worst of all is his response to the Vigano testimony. A simple yes, no or clarification on the allegations is all that is required. He dances around that question with a breath-taking contempt for facts and truth. "You make your mind up" he tells the journalists. And he ends with: "It is a matter of faith." He can only be saying by this: "If you are against me and my papacy, you will believe these allegations with my right wing enemies. If you are with me and my agenda (global warming, immigration, death penalty, etc.) you will care about Vigano's testimony as much as I cared about the sex life of Fr. McCarrick, a marvelous ally in my political crusade." Just recently he speaks in his daily homily about the strategy of the Accuser (Satan) in unveiling the sins of bishops so as to scandalize the faithful. Again: disdain for Truth. He has forgotten that Satan is the father of lies; that Jesus is the Truth; that the "truth will make you free." He proclaims a mercy that is cheap: depleted of justice, truth, contrition.
In a startlingly narcissistic, self-regarding twist, Pope Francis, in his daily homilies, has cloaked his silence before the dubia and Vigano in a robe of prayer and profundity, identifying himself and his McCarrickian cadre with the silence of Christ before Pilate as he slanders the whistle-blowers as agents of The Accuser! The subtlelity and depth of this self-deception is something the crude and superficial Trump could only envy.
John Paul was the great prophet of Mercy but this message was enriched, also by Benedict, through the retrieval of "The Splendor of Truth." This dual pontificate recovered the ancient reverence for reason as complimentary of faith as reception, wonder and grasping of Reality in all its Beauty. At the same time, they incorporated all that is best in contemporary science and philosophy. Francis appears to lack the slightest appreciation for this priceless legacy. He is a man of emotion, heart, spirit, and impulse. As The Theologian of the World, he is the endearing scarecrow of the Wizard of Oz.
His absolute condemnation of the death penalty follows this pattern: his feeling is all prisons systems present and future will be adequate; his sentiment is that capital punishment offends haman dignity. He offers no philosophical argument; nor any exhaustive social science research. He dismisses the tradition of natural law that has always seen that the state must protect innocent life and the common good, if necessary by use of lethal force (military, police, execution.) He neglects to consult with bishops around the world but inserts his opinion into the Catechism in a dictatorial fashion.
He is referred to as a "Peronist" for his tyrannical impulses and in this again resembles our President and the regrettable worldwide strengthening of dictatorships. When he was rebuked by the Synod of Bishops (notably the Africans) on communion for the divorced, he high-handedly approved the Argentinian interpretation of Amoris Laetitiae and installed his letter and their document into the official Church record. Thereby, he covertly and tyranically elevated his sentimental view, even as he pays lip service to diversity, collegiality and decentralization.
Both pope and president present as populists but are brazenly elitist in important, but contrasting ways. Trump is a wealthy celebrity whose tax and tariff initiatives are seen as promising for lower income folks by only the most optimistic (possibly delusional) Trumpistas. Pope Francis is a sharp contrast. He is champion of the poor, immigrants and the environment. In this he has emerged as the symbolic world-leader of Western liberalism: darling of our media and all democrats. He faces off against Trump-Putin-et.al who represent the opposing emergent ideology of nationalism, zenophobia fear and rage. Strangely (and painfully, for many of us) the Trump-Putin axis is more protective of innocent life, traditional marriage/family, and religious liberty than is Pope Francis who is contradictory but mostly guided by the lavender mafia surrounding him.
With both pope and president, we have left the cosmos of objective truth, moral order, stability and tradition and been thrust into the chaos of unending marxist-nietzchian conflict: one interest group against the other, the clash of wills and interest, the triumph of dionysian passion and feeling. To be sure, Francis is different as he practices a sentimentality of kindness and compassion for the victimized even as he expresses hatred for those he perceives as oppressors.
Jorge Bergoglio is an admirable man and priest in many ways. He would be a superb counselor-therapist; chaplain for prisons, youth, hospitals or military; spiritual director or retreat leader; social worker; community organizer or political activist. He is simply a very bad pope. A person might be a saint but a bad teacher or mechanic or CEO. Bergoglio is a catastrophe as a pope because he is theologically-challenged. The first job of pope (in my mind) is to teach; the second is to govern the Church. His two immediate predecessors were splendid in the first task but not strong in the administration of a Church bureaucracy that has grown beyond bounds. Pope Francis is a failure in the first task of teaching but worse in the second of governing: he has not just lost control (the way Benedict apparently realized so that he retired) but surrounded himself with a corrupt, secretive network that covertly propagates a culture of perversion and publicly advocates the agenda of Western, elite liberalism.
I am told that in Rome he is disliked by conservatives but also by liberals since he has failed to deliver them their agenda. He is unpredictable and unreliable. Does this remind you of someone who is despised by liberals and by many (economic and moral) conservatives as well?
In the wake of this Summer of Shame (McCarrick, death penalty, Pennsylvania report, Vigano) we now know the the hierarchical Church is corrupted beyond what most of us would have guessed even months ago. A drastic cleansing is required. It is vastly improbable that this Pope, curia and college of cardinals are capable of it. We will probably need a drastic reduction of the Church in its bureaucracy, property, and organizational reach. Until this cleansing is underway, many of us will be diverting our resources away from "the Church" ...that is to say the institutional Church, not the Church our Mother, the body and bride of Christ, the servant of the poor and herald of the Gospel. To do differently would be to enable our dysfunctional pope and hierarchy. Meanwhile, Pope Francis and his lieutenants are tightening their veil of silence and conspiracy with the fierceness of a Mafia family under attack.
We need to practice a kind of detachment from our hierarchy, renouncing patterns of co-dependence and enabling. Something like Al-Anon for families of alcoholics, we might call it "cleric/bishop/pope-anon." We remind ourselves that we belong not to Peter or Paul, not to John Paul or Benedict or Francis but to Christ even as we cherish, protect and develop the legacy of Mercy-in-Truth that is being squandered by the current pontificate.
This grieving process involves working through unavoidable feelings of hurt, disappointment and anger and has a particular twinge for those of us who have enjoyed such a tender, ennobling intimacy with St. John Paul and our Pope Emeritus. But this sober, lucid scrutiny of our leadership can serve to deepen and purify us in filial loyalty to Pope Francis and truthful charity for Jorge Bergoglio, like ourselves, a poor sinner and brother-in-Christ who has consistently asked for our prayers.
Slowly but surely, the Truth will be manifest. The civil authorities will help. The Church is pathetic, embarrassing, and even tragic! But the Holy Spirit is at work and will prevail. This crisis of moral corruption, financial wrongdoing, and politicization of the Church, nevertheless, in no way inhibits our own growth in holiness but can be a stimulus for it. We can wait patiently and observe as Christ purifies His Bride and Body. And so, we continue to hope, pray, support each other and all our good priests and bishops in our shared life with the Holy Trinity, our Blessed Mother and the Communion of Saints.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
It Is All About Homosexuality
It is not hard to connect the dots:
1. The Church sex scandal overwhelmingly (81%) involves neither pedophilia nor women but young adolescent men. It is a homosexual problem. Married and women priests have nothing to do with it.
2. There was a surge of this activity in 1965-85 when there was an invasion of homosexual, especially actively gay, men into the priesthood. (Why I do not know.) Relatively few allegations outside of that time immediately after the sexual revolution. The good news: we are 30 years out of the storm!
3. The compulsive obsession with young men has been prevalent in gay culture and lifestyle since the Greeks. It is part of the condition.
4. Those gay men who came into the priesthood in that period are now in late adulthood (60s and 70s) and many are in high positions in the Church. They compose the Vatican's "lavender mafia" that protected McCarrick and provoked the Vigano testimony.
5. Pope Francis is probably not homosexual (by attraction) and certainly not gay (by lifestyle or ideology); he is ambiguous and confused as he has spoken on both sides of this polarizing issue. He is, however, zealous about his own agenda: climate change, immigrants, death penalty, and a softer and more people-pleasing Church. Therefore, he has accepted as his allies and advisors McCarrick and his mafia comrades. He befriends the gay lobby the way we pro-lifers in the USA are partnered with the conservatives (economically, diplomatically, etc.) and social-justice Catholics align with legalized abortion, gay marriage, embryo destruction and compulsive contraception taxation.
You cannot make this stuff up: this summer, as the McCarrick, Pennsylvania, and Vigano bombs all exploded, our Pope had Fr. James Martin and Cardinal Farrell in Dublin proclaiming, to the Conference on the Family (!!!!!) the values of homosexuality.
The big relief from the Vigano revelation is that now we know what is happening! Now we have, if not a cure, an accurate diagnosis! At the highest levels and widely beyond Rome, our Church is in the hands of a corrupt, secretive, pedarist network which has aligned its hidden, shameful intentions with the progressive political agenda of Pope Francis.
There is not much we can do about it. It is highly unlikely that our Pope will unveil the truth, clean up the mess, or resign from the papacy. The Vatican is clammed up like the very best of the "good fellows." To their credit, a critical mass of American bishops and leaders have demanded transparency but the pontiff retains monarchical powers and is unlikely to authorize a real investigation. The civil authorities, as in Pennsylvania, will chip away at the truth.
McCarrick and his cronies remind me of the 85-year-old mafia boss, feeble and senile and sickly, who is given a 50-year prison sentence and pleads "Your honor: I will never make it!" and is reassured by the judge "Just do your best!" This cadre of cardinals are now old and in decline. They have done immense damage to victims and to the entire Church. But they are pathetic: secretive, sterile, and depleted of virility, generosity, fruitfulness, and hope.
On our part, we are to wait, pray, hope, suffer, and do the good that is offered to us. A wise young man, when I had confided a tormenting situation, once told me: "Some things must be suffered." This curia and this pontificate must be suffered...patiently, peacefully, hopefully. This is all about the weeds and the wheat!
1. The Church sex scandal overwhelmingly (81%) involves neither pedophilia nor women but young adolescent men. It is a homosexual problem. Married and women priests have nothing to do with it.
2. There was a surge of this activity in 1965-85 when there was an invasion of homosexual, especially actively gay, men into the priesthood. (Why I do not know.) Relatively few allegations outside of that time immediately after the sexual revolution. The good news: we are 30 years out of the storm!
3. The compulsive obsession with young men has been prevalent in gay culture and lifestyle since the Greeks. It is part of the condition.
4. Those gay men who came into the priesthood in that period are now in late adulthood (60s and 70s) and many are in high positions in the Church. They compose the Vatican's "lavender mafia" that protected McCarrick and provoked the Vigano testimony.
5. Pope Francis is probably not homosexual (by attraction) and certainly not gay (by lifestyle or ideology); he is ambiguous and confused as he has spoken on both sides of this polarizing issue. He is, however, zealous about his own agenda: climate change, immigrants, death penalty, and a softer and more people-pleasing Church. Therefore, he has accepted as his allies and advisors McCarrick and his mafia comrades. He befriends the gay lobby the way we pro-lifers in the USA are partnered with the conservatives (economically, diplomatically, etc.) and social-justice Catholics align with legalized abortion, gay marriage, embryo destruction and compulsive contraception taxation.
You cannot make this stuff up: this summer, as the McCarrick, Pennsylvania, and Vigano bombs all exploded, our Pope had Fr. James Martin and Cardinal Farrell in Dublin proclaiming, to the Conference on the Family (!!!!!) the values of homosexuality.
The big relief from the Vigano revelation is that now we know what is happening! Now we have, if not a cure, an accurate diagnosis! At the highest levels and widely beyond Rome, our Church is in the hands of a corrupt, secretive, pedarist network which has aligned its hidden, shameful intentions with the progressive political agenda of Pope Francis.
There is not much we can do about it. It is highly unlikely that our Pope will unveil the truth, clean up the mess, or resign from the papacy. The Vatican is clammed up like the very best of the "good fellows." To their credit, a critical mass of American bishops and leaders have demanded transparency but the pontiff retains monarchical powers and is unlikely to authorize a real investigation. The civil authorities, as in Pennsylvania, will chip away at the truth.
McCarrick and his cronies remind me of the 85-year-old mafia boss, feeble and senile and sickly, who is given a 50-year prison sentence and pleads "Your honor: I will never make it!" and is reassured by the judge "Just do your best!" This cadre of cardinals are now old and in decline. They have done immense damage to victims and to the entire Church. But they are pathetic: secretive, sterile, and depleted of virility, generosity, fruitfulness, and hope.
On our part, we are to wait, pray, hope, suffer, and do the good that is offered to us. A wise young man, when I had confided a tormenting situation, once told me: "Some things must be suffered." This curia and this pontificate must be suffered...patiently, peacefully, hopefully. This is all about the weeds and the wheat!
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Pope Francis on the Death Penalty
The 1992 Catholic Catechism on the death penalty: 2267 "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor,"
Pope Francis has replaced that paragraph: 2267 "Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good. Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide."
Is this a change in teaching"? A "development of doctrine?" No and No! The Pope cannot just change, by fiat, the moral law: what was good for millennia cannot become evil in July 2018! Nor is it an authentic development of doctrine: it is not organicaly, coherently, logically and inherently flowing from Truth as already revealed. This change is best understood as the insertion, into the Catechism, of a temporary, prudential judgment. The language is key: "increasing awareness"..."new understanding"..."more effective systems of detention have been developed." In other words, changes in attitude and organizational effectiveness...in the judgment of the Pontiff...make executions unnecessary. This means further changes in attitude or institutions may again change this practical judgment: an outbreak of kidnappings, or of terror and child-molestation, or a breakdown in penal systems could reverse the judgment. The operative word is "inadmissible"... a weak, indecisive word, hardly adequate for the expression of the moral good and evil. The Pope is not teaching a moral truth,an absolute...as in "thou shall not commit adultery"...that pertains always and everywhere; he is not defining an inherent evil like torture or targeting of civilians...but making a situational calculation: right now we don't need the death penalty.
I agree that in the USA in 2018, for a host of contingent, practical reasons, we can do away with executions. But this kind of judgment doesn't belong in the Catechism. It is not an eternal truth that pertains in all circumstances. I can imagine that in Afghanistan or in Mexico, intelligent, good Catholics might consider the death penalty a necessity. If I were commander of paratroopers who were raping, torturing and killing innocent women and children I would have no moral reservation about executing them, legally and with due process, to protect innocent life; nor would I hesitate to approve the death penalty for the ISIS warriors who viciously abused women and children.
Punishment traditionally has four purposes: protection, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. Contemporary discussion strangely ignores the last three. But let us consider each of them.
Regarding protection, it is widely assumed that the strength of contemporary prisons ensure the prisoner cannot do more damage. This is patently false. Consider: the horrific power waged by gangs within prisons; the escape of drug lords from prisons in Mexico; the weakness of penal systems in much of the world; the murder of priest-pedophile Geohgan in a prison near Boston. Just last week the news reported two murders within prisons, one of a guard, by convicted murderers.
As a deterrent, capital punishment is useless, in the USA, because it is so rarely used. Studies show that it not the gravity so much as the certainty of punishment that deters. American juries are disinclined to use execution so it is worthless as a deterrent. This is not to say, however that it would not be helpful, even necessary, in another environment.
The third purpose, retribution, is widely confused with revenge. They are completely different, almost opposites. Revenge is a form of resentment or hatred in which a person passionately, emotionally violates the other in reaction to a received violation. It is violence responding to violence. Retribution, by contrast, is a sober exercise of restoration or reparation that corrects the wrong and reestablishes justice and order. For example, the moment after death, at the particular judgment when we encounter Christ in all his mercy, justice, and suffering in relation to our own sins, we will (I believe) beg for purgatory, we will insist upon doing our restitution or retribution before receiving the glory and joy of heaven. It is arguable that a Timothy McVeigh or another terrorist who deliberately kills thousands, a serial murderer or rapist, a molester of children... that such a person has a debt to pay that must be more than life in prison, but certainly less than torture which is a real violation of the person's dignity. We might differ on this question, some favoring mercy and others a stricter justice. But it is clearly a worthy discussion, not to be dismissed by a paragraph inserted into the catechism.
Rehabilitation means more than restoration to a positive role in society; ultimately, we hope for the salvation of the soul of the criminal. Avery Dulles, surely the premier American Catholic theologian of the past century, pointed out that the certainty of one's imminent execution could provoke a conversion. This again, like retribution, is an area of mystery and uncertainty but a conversation worth having rather than foreclosing by a simplistic ultimatum.
The Pope has closed down all conversation about these dimensions with an appeal to "human dignity." It is not clear to me (nor to generations of saints, popes, doctors, thinkers, councils) that human dignity, properly understood, rules out the death penalty. The prevalent, fashionable view of human dignity advocated by our papacy/episcopacy draws from a secular perspective that denies or downplays the two deepest human realities: Evil in its profundity and power; and the holy, the transcendent, the supernatural as the source of all human authority.
The longstanding teaching of the Church is that some cases of evil are so grave that the death penalty is required. But secularism and Pope Francis have a more sentimental view: that natural death is a final, rather than a relative evil and that execution by the state is an absolute violation of human dignity. Today's popes and bishops are possibly the least qualified to deal firmly and justly with real Evil: with psychopaths, serial killers, sexual predators, power-hungry dictators, borderline personalities and criminals. This is because by nature and background they are mostly: privileged, innocent, protected, wholesome, generous and merciful. Who would you rather confront Hitler: Dorothy Day, Pius XII, or Winston Churchill? We need the non-saint, the last of the three to protect civilization! By a perverse irony, just now when it is clear that our hierarchy has been catastrophically incapable of protecting our young and weak from its own predators, our pontiff condescends to dictate to the secular state how to protect our innocent. Robert Royal is right: the pope might take a moratorium, abstain from pontificating, and lead a penitential movement for all in authority who have violated or covered up.
Perhaps more important is the divine origin (as St. Paul says) of all human authority. The father/mother, policeman, lifeguard, and judge all derive their power from God. It is a sacred trust. It is not just a utilitarian function of protection against aggression. The aversion to execution assumes a leveled, democratic, disenchanted view of authority as force of a human will against another. In a sacred cosmos, the necessary, just, paternal, authorized use of lethal force is a hallowed, honorable task. Contrast the swat member with the sniper: they are opposites as the later is violating innocents, the former is protecting them. The material act is the same, pulling a trigger; the purpose, the form, the final end of one is an absolute contradiction of the other. Similarly with the death penalty, where needed. The trajectory of Pope Francis' emotionalism and theological confusion is towards a vague pacifism (he does not approve of life in prison either) that draws from a secular sentimentality rather than a hard-edged, classic grasp of sin and evil, of the supernatural and the diabolic.
Aware that we will be confronting violence until the coming of Christ... that it could become worse...and skeptical of the efficacy of penal technology...we need to honor and even consecrate those entrusted with the holy use of lethal force. I propose a quasi-sacramental anointing of all who are legitimately authorized to take aggressive human life: police, soldiers, executioners, prosecutors and so forth. We would implore the Holy Spirit to descend with gifts of restrain, prudence, courage, justice and mercy. This could include a penitential, purifying rite for those forced to use such force as their spirit, inevitably, should be repulsed by their dreadful but necessary duty. The executioner or officer will need a healing himself as he, in his flesh, participates in a tragedy, however necessary and just.
Additionally, this change to the Catechism is a kind of cultural imperialism: insisting upon a viewpoint that has come to dominate the secular West. Has he consulted with African bishops? What Council approved this? What happened to collegiality? What happened to decentralization of power? How about Yasidee and Christian women in Iraq who have been kidnapped, tortured, raped, shamed and killed? How about victims of drug violence in Mexico and Columbia where the prisons are weak? How about the poor and weak in Yemen, Sudan and Rwanda? What about humility before Tradition? Or respect for diversity?
The fervent papal crusade to abolish the death penalty is futile. Executions are now eliminated across Europe and in all Catholic-majority countries. Most occur in China, Pakistan, Iran and other Muslim countries: Does Pope Francis think the communists and Muslims care what he thinks? They have become rare in the US: we haven't had one in NJ in over 50 years. Over 50% of American Catholics favor use of it in some circumstances. These, probably many Trump supporters, despised by liberal elites as ignorant, fearful, and bigoted, may actually be more deeply in touch with moral realities such as vulnerability to Evil, need for restitution, and mortal sin as worse than physical death. Pope Francis, heralded as the populist pope, is not only indifferent to these concrete, valid concerns but moralistic and judgmental against them.
This correction also displays the subtle clericalism, the arrogance so common on the left: the assumption that we lay people need specific directions from our clergy about practical policies regarding walls, immigration, death penalty and the environment. Clergy are trained in theology not social policy; the Church's infallibility applies to faith and morals, not to partisan political decisions. The propensity of the liberal cleric is to correct us laity and dictate our politics. The implication is that the clergy as an elite have superior insight while the laity are ignorant and incapable without explicit directives on policy. As noted above, however, the clergy themselves are severely challenged in regard to the secular, brutal confrontation with raw Evil.
Our papacy and the emergent Francis episcopacy are in a serious crisis. In their weakened state, prone to ideologies of the left, they offer a feeble, emasculated Magisterium as they advocate a cheap mercy, depleted of virile qualities of truth, holiness, justice, accountability. We need to look elsewhere, at least for now, for spiritual guidance: to the bishops of Africa (Cardinal Sarah) where the Church is flourishing and orthodox; to the lay leaders raised up by the Holy Spirit (Kiko, Ralph Martin and the lay movements; D.L. Schindler and his Communio comrades; Reno and the First Things crowd; Scott Hahn and the new-Oxford influx of converts; Gil Baile, Neal Lozano, Robert Royal, Phil Gleason, Ross Douthat, Raymond Arroyo, and even Wild Bill Donohue!); and of course to the precious, profound legacy of Popes John Paul and Benedict.
I remain loyal to the traditional Church teaching on the death penalty, even as I oppose it's use in current circumstances. In this I follow luminaries like Cardian Dulles and Archbishop (Why is he not a Cardinal?) Chaput! I understand the Catechism correction in light of tradition as a pragmatic suggestion. Respectfully, with a serene, confident conscience, I reject the apparent elevation of this judgment into an absolute. I would encourage Catholic judges, prosecutors, legislators, governors, soldiers and others responsibility for protection, order and justice to exercise their God-given, lay intelligence, expertise, conscience, charism and responsibility in the light of the tradition and accept this correction to the Catechism for what it is: a tentative, prudential suggestion, masquerading as a moral absolute.
Pope Francis has replaced that paragraph: 2267 "Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good. Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide."
Is this a change in teaching"? A "development of doctrine?" No and No! The Pope cannot just change, by fiat, the moral law: what was good for millennia cannot become evil in July 2018! Nor is it an authentic development of doctrine: it is not organicaly, coherently, logically and inherently flowing from Truth as already revealed. This change is best understood as the insertion, into the Catechism, of a temporary, prudential judgment. The language is key: "increasing awareness"..."new understanding"..."more effective systems of detention have been developed." In other words, changes in attitude and organizational effectiveness...in the judgment of the Pontiff...make executions unnecessary. This means further changes in attitude or institutions may again change this practical judgment: an outbreak of kidnappings, or of terror and child-molestation, or a breakdown in penal systems could reverse the judgment. The operative word is "inadmissible"... a weak, indecisive word, hardly adequate for the expression of the moral good and evil. The Pope is not teaching a moral truth,an absolute...as in "thou shall not commit adultery"...that pertains always and everywhere; he is not defining an inherent evil like torture or targeting of civilians...but making a situational calculation: right now we don't need the death penalty.
I agree that in the USA in 2018, for a host of contingent, practical reasons, we can do away with executions. But this kind of judgment doesn't belong in the Catechism. It is not an eternal truth that pertains in all circumstances. I can imagine that in Afghanistan or in Mexico, intelligent, good Catholics might consider the death penalty a necessity. If I were commander of paratroopers who were raping, torturing and killing innocent women and children I would have no moral reservation about executing them, legally and with due process, to protect innocent life; nor would I hesitate to approve the death penalty for the ISIS warriors who viciously abused women and children.
Punishment traditionally has four purposes: protection, deterrence, retribution, and rehabilitation. Contemporary discussion strangely ignores the last three. But let us consider each of them.
Regarding protection, it is widely assumed that the strength of contemporary prisons ensure the prisoner cannot do more damage. This is patently false. Consider: the horrific power waged by gangs within prisons; the escape of drug lords from prisons in Mexico; the weakness of penal systems in much of the world; the murder of priest-pedophile Geohgan in a prison near Boston. Just last week the news reported two murders within prisons, one of a guard, by convicted murderers.
As a deterrent, capital punishment is useless, in the USA, because it is so rarely used. Studies show that it not the gravity so much as the certainty of punishment that deters. American juries are disinclined to use execution so it is worthless as a deterrent. This is not to say, however that it would not be helpful, even necessary, in another environment.
The third purpose, retribution, is widely confused with revenge. They are completely different, almost opposites. Revenge is a form of resentment or hatred in which a person passionately, emotionally violates the other in reaction to a received violation. It is violence responding to violence. Retribution, by contrast, is a sober exercise of restoration or reparation that corrects the wrong and reestablishes justice and order. For example, the moment after death, at the particular judgment when we encounter Christ in all his mercy, justice, and suffering in relation to our own sins, we will (I believe) beg for purgatory, we will insist upon doing our restitution or retribution before receiving the glory and joy of heaven. It is arguable that a Timothy McVeigh or another terrorist who deliberately kills thousands, a serial murderer or rapist, a molester of children... that such a person has a debt to pay that must be more than life in prison, but certainly less than torture which is a real violation of the person's dignity. We might differ on this question, some favoring mercy and others a stricter justice. But it is clearly a worthy discussion, not to be dismissed by a paragraph inserted into the catechism.
Rehabilitation means more than restoration to a positive role in society; ultimately, we hope for the salvation of the soul of the criminal. Avery Dulles, surely the premier American Catholic theologian of the past century, pointed out that the certainty of one's imminent execution could provoke a conversion. This again, like retribution, is an area of mystery and uncertainty but a conversation worth having rather than foreclosing by a simplistic ultimatum.
The Pope has closed down all conversation about these dimensions with an appeal to "human dignity." It is not clear to me (nor to generations of saints, popes, doctors, thinkers, councils) that human dignity, properly understood, rules out the death penalty. The prevalent, fashionable view of human dignity advocated by our papacy/episcopacy draws from a secular perspective that denies or downplays the two deepest human realities: Evil in its profundity and power; and the holy, the transcendent, the supernatural as the source of all human authority.
The longstanding teaching of the Church is that some cases of evil are so grave that the death penalty is required. But secularism and Pope Francis have a more sentimental view: that natural death is a final, rather than a relative evil and that execution by the state is an absolute violation of human dignity. Today's popes and bishops are possibly the least qualified to deal firmly and justly with real Evil: with psychopaths, serial killers, sexual predators, power-hungry dictators, borderline personalities and criminals. This is because by nature and background they are mostly: privileged, innocent, protected, wholesome, generous and merciful. Who would you rather confront Hitler: Dorothy Day, Pius XII, or Winston Churchill? We need the non-saint, the last of the three to protect civilization! By a perverse irony, just now when it is clear that our hierarchy has been catastrophically incapable of protecting our young and weak from its own predators, our pontiff condescends to dictate to the secular state how to protect our innocent. Robert Royal is right: the pope might take a moratorium, abstain from pontificating, and lead a penitential movement for all in authority who have violated or covered up.
Perhaps more important is the divine origin (as St. Paul says) of all human authority. The father/mother, policeman, lifeguard, and judge all derive their power from God. It is a sacred trust. It is not just a utilitarian function of protection against aggression. The aversion to execution assumes a leveled, democratic, disenchanted view of authority as force of a human will against another. In a sacred cosmos, the necessary, just, paternal, authorized use of lethal force is a hallowed, honorable task. Contrast the swat member with the sniper: they are opposites as the later is violating innocents, the former is protecting them. The material act is the same, pulling a trigger; the purpose, the form, the final end of one is an absolute contradiction of the other. Similarly with the death penalty, where needed. The trajectory of Pope Francis' emotionalism and theological confusion is towards a vague pacifism (he does not approve of life in prison either) that draws from a secular sentimentality rather than a hard-edged, classic grasp of sin and evil, of the supernatural and the diabolic.
Aware that we will be confronting violence until the coming of Christ... that it could become worse...and skeptical of the efficacy of penal technology...we need to honor and even consecrate those entrusted with the holy use of lethal force. I propose a quasi-sacramental anointing of all who are legitimately authorized to take aggressive human life: police, soldiers, executioners, prosecutors and so forth. We would implore the Holy Spirit to descend with gifts of restrain, prudence, courage, justice and mercy. This could include a penitential, purifying rite for those forced to use such force as their spirit, inevitably, should be repulsed by their dreadful but necessary duty. The executioner or officer will need a healing himself as he, in his flesh, participates in a tragedy, however necessary and just.
Additionally, this change to the Catechism is a kind of cultural imperialism: insisting upon a viewpoint that has come to dominate the secular West. Has he consulted with African bishops? What Council approved this? What happened to collegiality? What happened to decentralization of power? How about Yasidee and Christian women in Iraq who have been kidnapped, tortured, raped, shamed and killed? How about victims of drug violence in Mexico and Columbia where the prisons are weak? How about the poor and weak in Yemen, Sudan and Rwanda? What about humility before Tradition? Or respect for diversity?
The fervent papal crusade to abolish the death penalty is futile. Executions are now eliminated across Europe and in all Catholic-majority countries. Most occur in China, Pakistan, Iran and other Muslim countries: Does Pope Francis think the communists and Muslims care what he thinks? They have become rare in the US: we haven't had one in NJ in over 50 years. Over 50% of American Catholics favor use of it in some circumstances. These, probably many Trump supporters, despised by liberal elites as ignorant, fearful, and bigoted, may actually be more deeply in touch with moral realities such as vulnerability to Evil, need for restitution, and mortal sin as worse than physical death. Pope Francis, heralded as the populist pope, is not only indifferent to these concrete, valid concerns but moralistic and judgmental against them.
This correction also displays the subtle clericalism, the arrogance so common on the left: the assumption that we lay people need specific directions from our clergy about practical policies regarding walls, immigration, death penalty and the environment. Clergy are trained in theology not social policy; the Church's infallibility applies to faith and morals, not to partisan political decisions. The propensity of the liberal cleric is to correct us laity and dictate our politics. The implication is that the clergy as an elite have superior insight while the laity are ignorant and incapable without explicit directives on policy. As noted above, however, the clergy themselves are severely challenged in regard to the secular, brutal confrontation with raw Evil.
Our papacy and the emergent Francis episcopacy are in a serious crisis. In their weakened state, prone to ideologies of the left, they offer a feeble, emasculated Magisterium as they advocate a cheap mercy, depleted of virile qualities of truth, holiness, justice, accountability. We need to look elsewhere, at least for now, for spiritual guidance: to the bishops of Africa (Cardinal Sarah) where the Church is flourishing and orthodox; to the lay leaders raised up by the Holy Spirit (Kiko, Ralph Martin and the lay movements; D.L. Schindler and his Communio comrades; Reno and the First Things crowd; Scott Hahn and the new-Oxford influx of converts; Gil Baile, Neal Lozano, Robert Royal, Phil Gleason, Ross Douthat, Raymond Arroyo, and even Wild Bill Donohue!); and of course to the precious, profound legacy of Popes John Paul and Benedict.
I remain loyal to the traditional Church teaching on the death penalty, even as I oppose it's use in current circumstances. In this I follow luminaries like Cardian Dulles and Archbishop (Why is he not a Cardinal?) Chaput! I understand the Catechism correction in light of tradition as a pragmatic suggestion. Respectfully, with a serene, confident conscience, I reject the apparent elevation of this judgment into an absolute. I would encourage Catholic judges, prosecutors, legislators, governors, soldiers and others responsibility for protection, order and justice to exercise their God-given, lay intelligence, expertise, conscience, charism and responsibility in the light of the tradition and accept this correction to the Catechism for what it is: a tentative, prudential suggestion, masquerading as a moral absolute.
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