On why liberal arts programs are being eroded

At our academic institution, like many across the country, liberal arts programs are under the gun. They are seen as unproductive, often under-enrolled by students, in contrast to the "professional" programs like business, occupational therapy, nursing, and such, which are popular money-makers.

One of my colleagues recently suggested that the problem is over-specialization among the various liberal arts disciplines. Among other things, he also suggested that many liberal arts disciplines are seen as having little value. He said, "nothing so irritates Science and the Market as history, philosophy and religion. (I would add literature)." E.F. Schumacher in his Guide for the Perplexed, when talking about the "maps of life" furnished to students by most universities these days, writes:

The maps produced by modern materialistic Scientism (I would add Business Programs) leave all the questions that really matter unanswered; more than that, they deny the validity of the questions .... Questions like "What should I do?" or "What must I do to be saved?" are strange questions because they relate to ends, not simply to means. No technical answer will do, such as "Tell me precisely what you want and I shall tell you how to get it." The whole point is that I do not know what I want. Maybe all I want is to be happy. But the answer "Tell me what you need for happiness, and I shall then be able to advise you what to do"--this answer, again, will not do, because I do not know what I need for happiness.

Specialization may be part of the problem, but I'm not sure that's really the worst culprit. It seems to me that we're witnessing a significant shift towards the technical (the "how" questions) that represents an abdication of the reflective (the "why" questions). To put it in more Chestertonian terms, there is a thought that stops thought, and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped. As Chesterton puts it in his essay, "The Suicide of Thought" (Chapter 3 of Orthodoxy):

... what we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambigion. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert--himself.... For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

In other words, the assumption has settled into the philistine mind that questions of the sort raised in liberal arts classes can't be answered and are therefore not worth asking. As the philistine student, Peter Pragma (in Peter Kreeft's book The Best Things in Life), responded when faced with Aristotle's distinction between three kinds of knowledge (productive, practical, and theoretical) and asked what each of them improves: "Productive knowledge improves things in the world, practical knowledge improves our practice, and theoretical knowledge (knowledge for the sake of knowledge, such as we find in the liberal arts) improves nothing."

Whether it's a matter of specialization, excessive focus on technical know-how, or loss of confidence that anything really meaningful can be actually known, I do agree that it's a problem reflected in academe. I see it not only in the drift towards "professional" programs and majors, but even in the growing gap between administration and faculty. It used to be that college and university presidents were members of the faculty and taught one or two courses as part of their annual contract. That's all been lost as they've increasingly adopted CEO models of administration (reinforced by their corporate board members), along with "perfect professional distance" from members of their faculty, whom they seem inclined to treat increasingly as "employees." None of this helps, of course.

A good place to discover the heart and mind of Benedict XVI

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, granted an extended interview to Peter Seewald, a journalist who had left the Church and was wrestling with questions about the Faith. Significantly, Seewald himself returned to the Church sometime after the interview. In a recent newsletter Steve Wood, President of Family Life Center International, comments on this interview:

Sweewald's interview became the book, Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millenium: An Interview with Peter Seewald [Ignatius Press]. This book is one of the best places to start discovering what is inside the heart and mind of our new Holy Father. I highly recommend it. There are so many good things Cardinal Ratzinger says in this book it would be impossible in a newsletter to begin mentioning them all. My copy of the book is highlighted, underlined, and filled with asterisks. Here are just a few of the many things I found encouraging in Salt of the Earth:

Seewald: (P.114)

"In one of the documents bearing your signature you recalled the admonitions of the Apostle Paul: 'Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry'" [2 Tim 4:2-5].

Cardinal Ratzinger:

"I don't want to overreach myself, but I would say that this expresses the essence of what I consider to be my standard at this time."

Seewald (p. 82) -- Inquiring about his concerns as a bishop about the dissolution of tradition and authenticity and how he denounced the forces spinning everything into confusion.

Cardinal Ratzinger:

"The words of the Bible and of the Church Fathers rang in my ears, those sharp condemnations of shepherds who are like mute dogs; in order to avoid conflicts, they let the poison spread. Peace is not the first civic duty, and a bishop whose only concern is not to have any problems and to gloss over as many conflicts as possible is an image I find repulsive. Even today I am glad that in Munich I didn't dodge conflicts, because letting things drift is - as I have already said - the worst kind of administration.

Seewald (p.113)

"One often has the impression that you have been trying to preserve something, like a father who wants to preserve the inheritance created with so much hard work, if not for his own children, who apparently can't do credit to it or use it, then at least so that his grandchildren can still have access to it."

Cardinal Ratzinger:

"I like that idea of preserving something even for one's grandchildren. For what I really have at heart is keeping this precious treasure, the faith, with its power to enlighten, from being lost."

Seewald (p.166 & 168) -- Asking if the Church should be relaxing its standards to become more attractive to those with "modern" lifestyles:

Cardinal Ratzinger:

"More and more frequently we observe that young people are underchallenged. In fact, the increasing membership in sects with radical internal demands can be partly explained by the fact that, first, young people are looking for certainty, they want a secure shelter, but then also they want to be challenged. Somewhere deep down man knows: I have to be challenged, and I have to learn to form myself according to a higher standard and to give myself and to loose myself."

(Ignatius Press is in the midst of reprinting Salt of the Earth).

Apparently Ignatius Press has been inundated with orders for books by Ratzinger since he became Pope. [Gratia tibi, Steve Wood]

The Lasting Legacy of Pope John Paul II

In an article entitled "The Lasting Legacy of Pope John Paul II" in the on-line journal, The New Pantaguel, Eduardo J. Echeverria offers an insighful reflection on the abiding points of significance in the previous pontificate. These include, in summery form, the following:

First, John Paul II revitalized the papacy by recovering its evangelical roots. This is the thesis of papal biographer George Weigel. It means that he recovered the biblical teaching that the Church, and by implication the papacy, has a missionary nature, the great commission to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and this has revitalized the evangelical dynamism of the Church....

Second, John Paul II has provided an authoritative and authentic interpretation of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). In the wake of the Council, there seemed to be a mentality afoot that everything was up for grabs .... As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his own memoirs about this time, "The impression grew steadily that nothing was now stable in the Church, that everything was open to revision. More and more the Council appeared to be like a great Church parliament that could change everything and reshape everything according to its own desires."

In response to this mentality of liberalizing Christianity, John Paul has left the Church with a prolific and substantial body of writings--for example, books presenting the rich texture of his Catholic worldview including Crossing the Threshold of Hope and, most recently, Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium; great encyclicals including the "Splendor of Truth," the "The Gospel of Life" (Evangelium Vita), "Faith and Reason" (Fides et Ratio) and the "Mission of the Redeemer" ....

Third, John Paul II also provided a profound interpretation of the spiritual, moral, and intellectual dynamics of Western modern, secularist culture.... The Holy Father has left us the basic theological and philosophical framework in which to discern between the authentic and inauthentic, truth and falsity, good and evil in our culture, and thus to accomplish the task that the Apostle Paul gave us: "Test everything--hold on to what is good and avoid every form of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22)....

Fourth, John Paul II's commitment to authentic ecumenism is also a fundamental element of his legacy to the Church. Christ calls all His disciples to unity (John 17:20-23). Of course, as John Paul II correctly writes, "Love for the truth is the deepest dimension of any authentic quest for full communion between Christians" (Encyclical Letter, Ut Unum Sint--"That All May Be One," May 25, 1995, no. 36)....

Fifth, John Paul II's commitment to the youth of the world is certainly one of the most visible and, indeed, powerful signs of his papacy. In overwhelming numbers they responded positively to his message: "Christ alone is the cornerstone on which it is possible solidly to build one's existence. Only Christ--known, contemplated and loved--is the faithful friend who never lets us down, who becomes our traveling companion, and whose words warm our hearts (cf. Luke 24:13-35)." These words, spoken by John Paul II to an estimated six hundred thousand young people in Toronto on July 27, 2003 at the seventeenth, and, sadly, his last World Youth Day reflect the Holy Father's consistent message to young people since 1985....

Sixth, John Paul II's commitment to a society of peace, justice and freedom is also essential to his legacy. How does he define peace? ... "The order which prevails in society is by nature moral. Grounded as it is in truth, it must function according to the norms of justice, it should be inspired and perfected by mutual love, and finally it should be brought to an ever more refined and human balance in freedom." ....

In conclusion, the most important element of John Paul II's lasting legacy is his conviction that, as he often put it, Jesus Christ is the answer to the question that is every human life. This is the heart of the Gospel, and he tirelessly and boldly proclaimed it throughout his life: "Our age needs to hear the revealed truth about God, about man, and about the human condition. The moment is right for kerygma. The pastoral challenge ... is to proclaim with renewed vigor 'Jesus Christ, the one Savior of the world, yesterday, today and forever' (cf. Hebrews 13:8) ... The challenge is enormous, but the time is right. For other culture-forming forces are exhausted, implausible, or lacking in intellectual resources adequate to satisfy the human yearning for genuine liberation--even if those forces still manage to exercise a powerful attraction, especially through the media. The great achievement of the [Second Vatican] Council is to have positioned the Church to engage modernity with the truth about the human condition, given to us in Jesus Christ who is the answer to the question that is every human life."

[A tip of the hat to Ed Echeverria: gratia tibi!]

Advice for your bishop

In an article entitled "Helpful Hints for the Household of Faith," John W. Blewett recently observed:

Of the 65 million Catholics in the United States, seeminly the only ones who do not realize that the Catholic hierarchy in our country is in major trouble are the American bishops themselves. In the midst of ever-expanding sexual scandals, the relentless proliferation of the taking of innocent human lives through abortion and abortifacient contraception, and a crisis of ignorance and misunderstanding of Catholic teachings among the Faithful, the shepherds of the Catholic Church in America are conducting their affairs as though all is well, excepting a few problems which can be corrected with appropriate committee study and recommendations.

Consider the Novermber 2004 meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the pemirf "good ol' boys club" and model of oppressive bureaucratic government. The bishops' first aganda item was to elect a liberal bishop as president of the Conference to succeed another liberal bishop, who is presumably being rewarded for his service to the USCCB with his appointment as Archbishop of one of America's larger archdioceses....

The next order of business for the bishops following the election was to approve their massive 2005 budget. Perhaps the only thing more mystifying than the misplaced priorities of the bishops is the willingness of Catholics in America to financially support the agenda of the USCCB....

In the November 2004 meeting no resolution was reached on how bishops should deal with Catholic public officials whose policies contradict Catholic teachings on fundamental issues such as abortion. There was a discussion about joining a new ecumenical association, Christian Churches Together in the USA .... Nor was there any reported discussion of the diabolical sex education programs promoted by many bishops, the closing of churches and schools against the wills of the parishioners and the glaring problem of homosexuality among hierarcy, priests and seminarians. To summarize, the bishops do not seem to realize that they have lost their moral authority and credibility.... Their agenda is superficial and does not address the real problems that confront them and their charges. They thrive in the anonymity of the faceless bureaucracy and they build their own structures to prevent interference or communication with the laity and the clergy. Their mishandling of the sexual abuse scandals is a scandal in itself.

Without making light of the scandals occurring in the American Catholic Church, it is important to remember that the bishops are, like ourselves, all-too-human. More than anything else, perhaps, what they may really need, suggested Blewett, is to simplify their lives, to return to the basics that are fundamental to their appointment as successors to the apostles--namely, to teach, to govern, and to sanctify. On this note, Blewett offered a number of suggestions in the form of advice for his readers to pass on to their bishops. Some of them were:

1. Drop your membership in the USCCB [United States Converence of Catholic Bishops] and in your Country Club. You will imeediately find more time for prayer, spiritual reading and correspondence with orthodox, grass-roots Catholics who support you and respect your office.... Your diocesan bureaucracy will also shrink, when interfacing with USCCB bureaucrats and their committees is no longer necessary....

5. Throw out every sex education program in your diocese and disband the offices of Peace and Justice and Liturgy. If you're not connected with the USCCB, you won't need them anyway. Review your Religious Education programs and eliminate any heresy, dissidence or ambiguity contained therein, and fire the Director if he or she disagrees with you.

6. Go to confession once a week for a few months to different parish priests in your diocese. It will reinforce your role as servant of the humblest and you will soon know if this Sacrament is allive and well in your diocese. Spend some time with your priests and hear their concerns; they welcome sound counsel.

7. Ask your priests, religious and laity in your diocese to pray for you. You deserve their prayers and they deserve yours. Christ placed you in your position and the grace of office is yours for the asking.

[John W. Blewett is Managing Editor of The Latin Mass magazine. His article, "Helpful Hints for the Household of Faith." appeared in Spring, 2005 issue of The Latin Mass magazine, pp. 62-63.]

Jim Caviezel: "Shamelessly proclaim Christ!"

Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ, recently addressed the academic community at Thomas Aquinas College on his experiences in making The Passion. He was introduced to the audience by President Thomas Dillon with these words:

It is not often that we have reason to welcome a Hollywood celebrity to our campus. But today we are honored to have with us a man who in his acting career is known for his uncompromising witness to the Faith."

Caviezel began his talk by talking in a surprisingly hushed voice about how, during the filming of the movie, he stuggled to pick up the cross day after day, of how it "felt like it was a penance," of how it ripped his flesh. He spoke of the five weeks spent filming the crucifixion scene. The hours upon hours of hanging on the cross--in cold, rain, wind, and even lightening--gave him a special vantage point from which to ponder the prophet's description of the crucified Christ as "rejected and alone." It humbled him, he said.

Acknowledging the profound effect the film has had on audiences, Caviezel also revealed the seriousness with which he undertook his own role as Jesus [pictured in The Passion, right]. "Anything good you saw in the movie was the fasting, the prayer and the daily Masses," he said. "That was me simply as an instrument."

Caviezel also recounted his own journey of faith, one in which Our Lady and her Rosary played a central role. It was here that his pace quickened, and his voice began to take on a commanding tone. "A woman is calling us back to her Son," he said. We are being asked "to pray, to fast and to recite the Holy Rosary."

With mounting passion, he decried the pervasive corruption of our time, insisting that "only the faith and wisdom of the Church can save us." He exhorted his listeners to "pray for our bishops and our priests that they will preach an unpopular Gospel in season and out of season."

In a conclusion that mounted to a crescendo, Caviezel ralleyed the Thomas Aquinas College community with these words:

I see before me an army .... With Mary as your shield and Christ as your sword, have the courage to step into this pagan world and shamelessly proclaim Christ!"

Reflecting on Caviezel's visit, Dean Michael McLean stated: "Clearly, Mr. Caviezel's frequent reception of the sacraments and his devotion to Our Lady graced his work in The Passion of the Christ. It was an honor to have him visit the College and an inspiration for our students."

[Source: Thomas Aquinas College Newsletter (Winter 2005), p. 9.]

Protecting the Lavender Mafia?

by Ken Skuba
One of the requirements of teaching CCD in the Diocese of Scranton is attendance at a diocesan-sponsored training course on sexual abuse. So in November I attended one and watched the video Protecting God's Children at the local Catholic school.

Protecting God's Children, produced by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc., achieves its main objective: raising the awareness of diocesan volunteers and employees about the widespread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our society. What troubles me, though, about Protecting God's Children is that it misses the mark by diverting attention away from the root cause of the clergy sex abuse scandal, which was the catalyst for this course in the first place.

Arguably, the intention of the training course is not to find the exact coordinates of the scandal's epicenter, but rather to give Church workers a set of tools to identify and prevent sexual predators from causing harm to children. I think the course does this. However effective the course might be, I would argue that Protecting God's Children will fail to stop clergy sexual abuse. In order to solve a problem, one must understand its root cause. Knowing the root cause, one can then take corrective action that goes to the root of the problem. The best approach to problem-resolution is usually the most direct approach, the one that aims at the target and hits it. Using a hunting analogy, if I am hunting for a spring gobbler, I would not take aim at a hen. As I sat through the two-hour training course that night, I could not help thinking that the Church had shot the hen.

What is the root cause of the clergy sexual abuse scandal? Reading Michael Rose's Goodbye Good Men reinforced my growing realization about the nature of clergy sexual abuse: It was the work of homosexual predators in the priesthood. Were there cases of priests molesting girls? Yes. Were there cases of lay employees molesting young people? Yes. But the reason some 50 Church workers in my Diocese were attending a training course that night was because of homosexual priests.

As I watched the video recounting the stories of four abuse victims (two girls and two boys), I recalled one glaring statistic from the John Jay study, provided for the Church: 81 percent. Eighty-one percent of the victims in the Church's sexual abuse scandal were boys molested or raped by clergy. The following is a quote from the National Review Board's report onh the crisis: "That 81 percent of the reported victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy were boys shows that the crisis wa characterized by homosexual behavior."

Of the four victims interviewed in the video, only one was abused by a priest, and the victim was a girl. It was not at all representative of the overwhelming majority of cases of clergy sexual abuse, which involved priests preying on boys. The two male victims interviewed were molested by men who were not priests. The other female victim was abused by a female teacher.

The problem with Protecting God's Children is that zero percent of the abuse cases it portrays were representative of the scandal in the Church. Each one missed the target. Given that 81 percent of the victims were male, the video presentation we saw that night gave an entirely different impression of the crisis. I thought I should be looking over my shoulder at the dad sitting next to me or the old woman in the back for the tell-tale signs of a sexual offender, instead of focusing on what went overwhelmingly wrong in our Church and how to prevent its recurrence. The more I reflected on the video, the more I believed it was part of a great big charade by the bishops to divert attention away from the real crisis. That is a conclusion I still don't want to believe.

I have read recently that as many as 30 to 50 percent of priests in service today are homosexuals. I have also read estimates as low as two percent and as high as 70 percent. A close friend of mine, an ex-seminarian, says that based on his recent seminary experience, he believes the actual figure is closer to 50 percent. My friend says the solution to the problem of sexual abuse by homosexual priests is not to admit or ordain homosexuals. He says the homosexual subculture at the seminaries he attends is cause for continued concern about the future of the Church in America.

To stop clerical sexual abuse of the kind documented in the John Jay study, we need to stop ordaining homosexuals to the priesthood. There needs to be a massive overhaul of the seminaries in our country. We should train admissions staff to weed out candidates to the priesthood who are attracted to other men. It's crazy to put men with same-sex attractions into an all-male environment. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

A short time ago, another friend of mine called me, alarmed at something he had read. He read that inside the U.S. Catholic hierarchy there are a number of bishops, and chancery and seminary oficials, who were referred to as the "Lavender Mafia" because of their homosexual lifestyles, their tight control over vocations, and the power they wield in the American Church. The term "Lavender Mafia" was not new to me, but I was shocked that this well-read, orthodox friend of mine had only recently stumbled over the term. It just does to show that Catholics are not as well informed as they ought to be about the problems in the Church. Films such as Protecting God's Children, which is being implemented by a number of bishops, presents a grossly skewed picture of the crisis and serves to indulge our ignorance.

The problem is largely with the episcopacy. Some of our bishops seems to have purposely or naively concealed the homosexual crisis in the Church. Others are in denial.

Since returning to the Church eight years ago, I ahve struggled to learn the Faith. I've had no formal training in theology. Yet I am able to clearly see the root cause of the Church sexual abuse scandal--and many of our bishops cannot. There seems to be an ingrained institutional blindness in the hierarchy, perhaps a willful blindness. Where is the love of God and the Church? Are these bishops so immobilized by fear that they just sin on their hands in the chancery offices waiting for a cultural shift? Don't they know they are the ones who must create the shift? I give credit to our local ordinary, the Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino. His recent pastoral letter on chastity is a great piece of work and is evidence of the small but growing number of bishops who exhibit the courage to take on the sexual revolution.

As for the rest of them, the Church needs to find a way to send them into early retirement.

[Ken Skuba and his wife, Susan, and their five children reside in Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania. This article was originally published as a Guest Column in NEW OXFORD REVIEW (April 2005), pp. 45-47. Reprinted with permission from NEW OXFORD REVIEW, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A.]

No salvation outside the Church?

John Hick claims that "very few Catholics would dream of affirming this today (the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, or no salvation outside the Church), and most who are asked about it only find it embarassing." I say it depends on which Catholics you ask, those informed by liberal telenewsmagspeak, or those informed by an understanding of Catholic teaching. Read more.

Vatican fires warning shot across Jesuits' bow

The scuttlebut says that the Vatican has just fired a warning shot across the Jesuits' bow. Under pressure from the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), Thomas J. Reese, S.J., Editor in Chief of the Jesuit English language publication, America magazine, has apparently just been asked to step down. The magazine has long been under pressure from the Vatican for it's regular publication of articles attacking Vatican policy and Church teaching on controversial issues. You may expect to see the usual hue and cry in the pages of the National (Anti-)Catholic Reporter about "repression" and "Inquisition." Others will welcome voices that call a spade a spade, insisting that those who call themselves Catholic should be Catholic, and that those who call themselves Jesuits should write and behave like Jesuits. Partisans of the contemporary dictatorship of relativism won't understand why words and names ought to have any sort of stability as to essential meaning. In far away China, Confucius clearly understood this, as witnessed by his great principle of the Rectification of Names, according to which language must be used "in accordance with the truth of things," and names ought to be "spoken appropriately." In other words, if a journal or a religious order claims to be Jesuit, it ought to adhere to the values and mission of order's founder. And everyone knows that St. Ignatius Loyola [pictured right], the founder of the Society of Jesus, was anything but a insubordinate dissident, rankled by the authority of Rome. Freedom of thought and expression is not compromised by the demand for intellectual and moral integrity, which insists that those who represent themselves as Catholic should submit to the obedience expected of all Catholics, which is nothing less that a submission to truth. "The truth shall set you free," said Jesus. Intellectual slaves subject to the dictatorship of relativism, of course, cannot be expected to understand such freedom, which they will invariably construe as mindless servitude. How little they see or understand.

Luther: "Every man is born with a Pope in his belly"

In an article entitled "Do you have a Pope in your belly?" Al Kimel (Pontifications, May 6, 2005) offers a thoughtful and incisive review of liberal Catholic dissent against Church teaching and Papal authority. He analyzes responses to Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis ("On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone"), noting that the wording would seem to remove all doubt that this is a closed case, Roma locuta est, causa finita est:

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

He reviews the manner in which dissidents, despite the Responsum Ad Dubium issued by the CDF stating that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis was indeed infallible, have still pushed for women's ordination, responding to Rome by parcing the "level of infallibility" involved in such a declaration, qualifying to death the Pope's authority. The attitude is aptly summarized by Kimel thus: "How little can I get away with believing and still be considered a card-carrying Christian?"--an attitude he aptly says might well be described as "the liberal Protestant disease." Never mind that it has infected a huge party of Catholics who want to be, as they put it, "more Catholic and less Roman"--which translates: "Ecclesia? Mater, si; Magistra, no!" or "We are the world, Rome; so get off our backs!" Kimel takes issue with "Progressive Catholic," a blogger whose recent offerings include "Is the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium Infallible?" and "Truth, Certainty, Infallibility, and Dissent." He revisits the 1870 declaration of Papal Infallibility and the frequent and misleading dissident cavil that the only doctrines that have been defined infallibly are the doctrines of Papal Infallibility and the Assumption of Mary. He cites Newman's views on the question. He takes on Charlie Curran's self-styled heroic dissent against the Roman Inquisition in his essay "A Place for Dissent."

By the way, on the question of the ordination of women, the best rebuttal and overall popular treatment of this issue, in my opinion, is still Peter Kreeft's essay, "Gender and the Will of God: The Issue of Priestesses is Ultimately an Issue of God." It will rankle, it will provoke, it will offend, but it will also draw a line in the sand that will difinitively clarify the sides on which the opponents stand on this issue. I highly recommend it.

In all of this, I'm reminded of what Fr. Augustin DiNoia once said in response to a question concerning infallibility following one of his presentations at the Aquinas-Luther Conference at Lenoir-Rhyne College. After some give and take on the question, which took that all-too-inevitable turn towards qualifying to death the "infallible" status of the doctrine, DiNoia responded: "Who cares if it's infallible; the question is whether it's true!" The question of infallibility, after all, is ultimately a question of authority, calling for faith that God's providence will prevent the Church from falling into error. A prior question, one that cannot be answered definitively without faith but which is open also to the dialectic of empirical testing, is whether what the Church has taught throughout her history is true and, concomitantly, whether her teaching record bears witness, at least circumstantially, to her claim of infallible divine guidance.

"The Reform of the Reform" has already begun ...

As Sandro Magister observes, "The 'Reform of the Reform' Has Already Begun" (Roma, May 5, 2005, www.chiesa). His first acts as pontiff--from his words to the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel to the carefully chosen symbolism of his inauguration Mass--make clear the intended direction of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate.

He describes the Eucharist as "the permanent center and source of the Petrine ministry that has been entrusted to me." This from a pope who, as Cardinal, addressed the problems of the context of the Eucharist as it is celebrated all-too-often in contemporary Masses: "How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there!" "He," of course, refers to Jesus Christ crucified and risen, the overlooked Person in so many new liturgies, which have become "meaningless dances around the golden calf that is ourselves." His Holiness will take the reform of the liturgical reform seriously, if his writings are any indication. His remarks addressing the issue in Alcuin Reid's recent anthology, Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy With Cardinal Ratzinger: Proceedings of the July 2001 Fontgombault Liturgical Conference (St. Augustine Press, 2004), are but the most remarkable of his recent statements. His long friendship with his fellow Regensberger, the late Klaus Gamber, author of Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (reprinted by Roman Catholic Books, 2003), is well-known, as is his sympathy for traditionalists who would like to see a far broader and more generous implementation of Pope John Paul II's indult "Ecclesia Dei," granting permission for the continued celebration of the pre-Vatican II "Tridentine Mass," known for its dignity, reverence, and rich transcendent symbolism. [pictured right: Pope Benedict XVI celebrating a Tridentine Mass while still a cardinal--link]

Not only are the implications of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate clear for the reform of the reform where liturgy is concerned. There is no doubt as to his intentions regarding the truth of the Gospel. Before being elected pope, he was probably best known to the wider world for his August 6, 2000 declaration, "Dominus Iesus: on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church." This declaration, which insisted on Jesus Christ and His Church as the sine qua non of salvation for all peoples, met with vociferous hostility from liberal Catholics and from the world at large. Sandro Magister observes:

Benedict XVI did not cite this explicitly during his first week as pope. But in the opening mass of his pontificate, on Sunday, April 24, he did in fact repeat with great emphasis the central doctrine of "Dominus Jesus." This doctrine is the nucleus of the faith of the New Testament.

In his homily, he said that his agenda is not "to pursue my own ideas, but to listen to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him."

No sooner said than done. The first reading of the mass was from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, in which Peter says of Jesus:

"There is no salvation in anyone else, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are to be saved."

That same day, Sunday, April 24, in all the churches of the world the Gospel reading was from the fourteenth chapter of John, in which Jesus says of himself:

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."

When Benedict XVI says that his agenda is not "to pursue my own ideas, but to listen to the word and the will of the Lord, to be guided by Him," I have no doubt he is being utterly truthful and sincere. But nobody should expect this to mean he has any intention of compromising his commitment to the Lord Jesus and His Church. This commitment is the passion that has animated his entire life.

(Gratia tibi, Benjamin, Ad Limina Apostolorum, May 2, 2005)

The Vicar of Heterodoxy

Andrew Sullivan's dogma is a circular system that's immune to reasoned query

Note: In the May 2, 2005 issue of Time magazine, Andrew Sullivan published an article entitled "The Vicar of Orthodoxy: The Pope's dogma is a circular system that's immune to reasoned query" (also published in the Time online edition in the foregoing link). The following is a parody and a critique.]

He is an intellectual opposed to questioning the intellectual assumptions of that parish magazine of affluent and self-congratulatory liberal enlightenment, the New York Times. He is a critic with scant experience in critically reflecting on his own presuppositions. He is a product of post-Vatican II Catholicism, deeply opposed to the Catholicism of Vatican II. In these seeming contradictions, you can begin to see the contours of one of the most predictable and ordinary, moderately well-educated, liberal, self-styled gay Catholic men to become a journalist and a critic.

For the young Andrew Sullivan, struggling out of the spiritual abyss of England in the 1970s, acting provided a guiding light. At Harvard, he was best known for his acting, he once wrote, "appearing as Hamlet, Alan in Peter Shaffer's 'Equus,' and Mozart in Shaffer's 'Amadeus.'" In the summer of 1985, he travelled through thirty of the United States. While he also devoted himself to political science, finishing his doctorate at Harvard in 1987, and to writing for various journals, in the early 1990s Sullivan tested positive for HIV and became known for being openly homosexual and for pioneering such issues as same-sex marriage. His 1993 essay, "The Politics of Homosexuality," was credited by the Nation magazine as the most influential article of the last decade in gay rights. His 1995 book, Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, was greeted with positive reviews and became one of the best-selling books on gay rights. Sullivan grieves that the Church has not kept pace with the times, especially on sexual morality. "Does this mean that the Church should take a poll on its doctrines, or change its rules on celibacy or sex overnight? Of course not," he writes. "Obedience matters. But real obedience requires respect; and until the hierarchy listens ... obedience will be difficult, if not indefensible." Obedience, thus, dies the death of a thousand qualifications.

For Sullivan, faith is an acquisition, not a gift. In Christianity, humankind comes to itself not through what it accepts, but through what it does. The Christian identity is not simply received and passed down through tradition, but appopriated, throught through, and re-made by each generation. It is constituted and revisioned through "dialogue." Because it is not simply received, it can be altered. Failing to bring its sexual teachings in line with contemporary society, Sullivan suggests, may well imperil the Church's future. "This crisis is all the more appalling because it rests on differences about doctrines that are not central to the faith," he writes. None of these sorts of things--contraception, masturbation, homosexuality--he suggests, are part of a fixed revelation that has been consigned to us, which we have no right to reconstruct as we choose.

Alas, the Gospels do not tell us everything, he says. Jesus never mentions, say, abortion, homosexuality, or celibacy. Well, but of course St. Paul and early Church tradition do. But what if they didn't? Neither do they mention cannibalism, pedophilia, or torture. How do we know what is "revealed" about them? According to Sullivan, only "dialogue" with contemporary culture can decide that, a dialogue in which those like Sullivan have the last say as to what does or does not constitute the "essentials" of Christian doctrine. "Those who say the church can never change are simply wrong," writes Sullivan. "It has always been pragmatic about the nonessentials, accommodating itself to new cultures ... and to social change." Because truths concerning cannibalism, pedophilia or torture--like those concerning abortion, homosexuality, or celibacy--are not simply received from God and therefore nonnegotiable, we are free to follow our consciences with respect to them. Imagine ... Cannibalism in the privacy of your own home ... Who could possibly object as long as it was consensual? Faith, according to Sullivan, comes not from simply regurgitating what has been heard, but from reflecting upon it (as in philosophy) and dialoguing about it (as in politics). No wonder Sullivan, in his role as journalist and critic, has been so willing to criticize the guardians of the Church's Faith who have been so benightedly ignorant as to defend her unrevised traditions.

Sullivan has thus been emboldened to make several claims. Take the question of women's role in the Church. Their inclusion in the ranks of the ordained priesthood, he suggests, is within our power to change, under properly enlightened leadership. Never mind that in making this claim, Sullivan is claiming more authority than the Catholic Church has ever claimed for herself: the authority to change doctrine. The Catholic Church did not invent the priesthood. God did. The Catholic Church claims less authority than any other Christian church in the world; which is why she is so conservative. Protestant churches feel free to change the "deposit of faith" (e.g., by denying Mary's assumption, though this was passed down from the beginning) or morals (e.g., by allowing divorce and remarriage, though Christ forbade it). Sullivan claims authority that Pope John Paul II explicitly denied having himself in his Apostolic Letter On Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) when he declared "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women." Further, if Sullivan claims these things are not matters of faith and morals, but merely "inessentials," he is still claiming more authority than the Church by assuming the competence to judge what is matter of sacred tradition.

Women in society? The Church approved vocations of motherhood and virginity, says Sullivan, imply that a woman is less of a woman if she is a scientist of Prime Minister. Says who? What is there to prevent a mother or virgin from becoming a scientist or journalist or Prime Minister? Nothing. "What happens when nature suggests that some women are not cut out for motherhood or virginity?" asks Sullivan. But this is a red herring. When has the Church ever forced a woman into motherhood or virginity any more than it has forced any man into celibacy? A man is free to forgo celibacy by forgoing the priesthood, as a woman is free to forgo motherhood by not marrying. What Sullivan wants is a pretext for bending the Church's laws on the hot pelvic issues. An analogy: What happens when nature suggests that some men are not "cut out" for abstinence from violence or alcohol? Does this give license to assult and battery, rape and drunkenness? Whatever happened to self-control and self-mastery?

The chief obsession animating Sullivan's protest and dissent clearly surface when he asks: "What if biology gives us, say, a child with indeterminate gender or a transgendered person or a homosexual?" From the Church's viewpoint, nature has somehow gone awry in such cases, he suggests. People may be born with homosexual inclinations, the Church admits. But such inclinations are "objectively disordered" and directed towards "intrinsic moral evil." Sullivan finds this judgment intolerable: "A whole class of human beings naturally more disposed to evil than others? Don't ask the obvious questions. Just accept the answers. And if the result is enourmous human suffering, as women and gays labor under discrimination, condescension and prejudice? Suffering brings them closer to Christ." But what are the "obvious questions" here? Let's be realistic. If I am naturally disposed to migraine headaches, am I not more disposed to evil than those who aren't? Or if I am naturally disposed toward violent outbursts of rage, am I not more disposed to evil than those who aren't? Does this cause suffering? You can bet your sweet petooties. Who in their right minds would not admit that such dispositions would be an unwelcome cross to bear, even like St. Paul's "thorn in the flesh," which God did not remove from him despite his petitions. Whoever said life would be fair? Some get all the brains, good looks, good connections, and good luck, it seems; and others seem perpetually flat out of luck, not to mention the rest. So what to do: bend the Church's laws to allow for everyone's natural dispositions? So we can give those disposed to alchoholism, predatory homosexual activity, rape, pedophilia, and wife-battery reason to feel greater self-esteem? So the Church can offer forgiveness in God's name without repentance?

Reading Sullivan for a struggling straight, nonrevisionist Catholic like me is like reading a completely circular, self-enclosed system that is as intellectual at times as it is maddeningly immune to reasoned query. The dogmatism is flat-out astonishing. If you find yourself ill-disposed to accept a Church teaching, label your behavior a matter of "conscience," then it's no longer a sin. And if all this circular dogmatism permits you to remain "Catholic" without being Catholic, then so much the better for you. Syllivan once wrote: "Perhaps what American lay Catholics need to say more clearly is that the aim of our desire to change the church is not to undermine but to save it. We love our faith .... [Whatever happened to "He who loves me will keep my commandments"?] But what we have witnessed means we would be delinquent if we didn't fight for real change. We are actually being more faithful than those who want to perpetuate the conditions for further decline." That is his vision. If the Church withers to a mere shadow of its former self, it will not be because she has strayed from the apostolic deposit of faith, be because she lost touch with the 21st century and failed to accommodate herself to people where they find themselves--with their desires for recreational sex, homosexual liaisons, pedophilia, and other addictive disorders. Sullivan quotes Pope John Paul II, intending to transpose his sentiments into a context where he might make use of them:

"Be not afraid," the current Pope said in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope. "Of what should we not be afraid? We should not fear the truth about ourselves."

And what is this truth about ourselves? Not that we are acceptable just as we are--as unrepentant promiscuous, lustful sinners, as Sullivan seems to think. But precisely this: that we are sinners who do not want to change. Rather, we're inclined to want a Church magnanimous enough to accept us on our own terms without demanding the repentance of changed lives. Regardless of how long Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate is, Sullivan might just manage to get what he wants, but only at the cost of a schismatic AmChurch separated from Rome.

[Note: The foregoing is based on Andrew Sullivan's article, "The Vicar of Orthodoxy: The Pope's dogma is a circular system that's immune to reasoned query" Time online edition (also published in Time Magazine, May 2, 2005, p. 49). All quotations from Sullivan, as well as representations of his views, are taken from this article, as well as from various essays posted on his weblog at www.andrewsullivan.com.]

Recommended reading:

• Al Kimel, "The Apoplectic Andrew Sullivan" (Pontifications)
• Paul Likoudis, Amchurch Comes Out: The U.S. Bishops, Pedophile Scandals and the Homosexual Agenda (2002).

Laura Bush's bawdy humor creates hysteria

Should Laura Bush appear on Saturday Night Live? Check this out.

Pope Benedict's favorite beer

It would warm a German's heart: the Pope's favorite beer, apparently, is Franziskaner Weissbeer, a wheat beer brewed under the Franciscan label. He also likes an occasional glass of excellent wine from the Piedmont, says Manuela Macher co-owner of the Cantina Tirolese, a Bavarian restaurant near the Vatican where Pope Benedict XVI, before he was elected Pope, was a regular. Source: Franziskaner website; (gratia tibi, Christopher)

On the red herring that the Pope obstructed investigation into the sex scandal

"Jimmy Akin takes apart the liberal media's smear of Pope Benedict XVI and his alleged attempt to obstruct justice by reminding the bishops that internal church investigations of sex abuse allegations must be carried out in secret." Find Akin's analysis on his weblog, JimmyAkin.org, "Observe This," April 29, 2005. (Gratia tibi, St. Polycarp)

Why Pope Benedict XVI is not wrong about relativism

In an article entitled "WHY POPE BENEDICT XVI IS WRONG ABOUT RELATIVISM," published Friday (April 29, 2005) in NigeriaWorld.Com, Okezie Chukwumerije takes issue with a scathing attack on relativism made by Josef Cardinal Ratzinger in his homily during a Mass on April 18, before being elected Pope Benedict XVI. Chukwumeriji notes that Cardinal Ratzinger, in his homily before the conclave, was stating his views on the most important issues facing the Church "and trying to concentrate the minds of the cardinals on the kind of person that would address these issues as leader of the Catholic Church."

Chukwumerije then goes on to argue that Cardinal Ratzinger grossly misjudged the greatest threats faced by the Church:

People without food on their table, those inflicted with AIDS but who do not have the medicine with which to fight the disease, those who are unable to provide a decent quality of life for their children, do not sit and worry about the "dictatorship of relativism." ... If these indigent people in developing countries (a part of the world where there has been the largest increase of membership in the Catholic Church) were able to listen to the Pope's homily and understand it, they would probably have wondered why relativism trumped hunger, poverty and AIDS. Or, to put it differently, they would have wondered why the philosophical concerns of Westerners trump the practical problems of Catholics in the developing world.

Now I do not wish to dispute that the problems Chukwumeriji mentions are important. In fact, when all is said and done, the greatest social service organization in the world--clothing the naked and feeding the poor--is probably the Catholic Church. Certainly much larger than the United Nations. So there is no question these issues are important, and Chukwumeriji's article is a thoughtful and sensitive one, particularly in this respect.

What I do want to take issue with, however, is the way he procedes to politicize the debate over relativism. Ratzinger had noted that having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled "fundamentalism" today, whereas "relativism" is celebrated as a progressive outlook toward the modern or postmodern world. Chukwumeriji picks up on the reference to "fundamentalism" to play to its associations with repressive regimes of "Islamic fundamentalism" in the popular mind and public media. Fundamentalism is also associated, of course, with moral absolutism. He writes:

The danger with moral absolutism, however, is that if one truly believes in the absolute truth of moral propositions contained in religious texts, there is less incentive to negotiate with others about whether these propositions should be enforced by law. If I believe that abortion is evil because I believe the Bible says so, and I believe the bible is the absolute truth, and I believe that those who hold different positions on the issue are demonstrably wrong, there is limited space for me to engage in a public dialogue and negotiation about how society should deal with the issue of abortion. I have the truth. You don't. So shut up, listen to me, and do as I say.

By contrast, in Chukwumeriji's view, moral relativism looks positively enlightened:

Whatever one may think of the philosophical validity of moral relativism, there is no denying the fact that it promotes a healthy skepticism of the way society makes decisions about its values, especially of those decisions that involve choosing which values to enforce through the use of the police powers of the state. For example, a relativist may be reluctant to enact a particular religious tenet into law without first evaluating the tenet in the light of the broader goals of the particular society. Since the relativist does not accept religious tenets as absolute moral propositions, he would have to dig deeper, not rely merely on faith, as justification for the enactment of the tenet into law.

There are at least several serious problems with this reasoning, however well-intended as it may be. First, it confuses a debate about the existence of universal absolutes (truth, right and wrong, etc.) with a debate about how repressive political regimes are. It turns a discussion about the former into a discussion about the latter, which is something else. "Absolutism" is lifted out of its philosophical context and placed in a politically charged context where it means something utterly different, having historical associations with the Divine Right of Kings, Absolute Monarchy, "Islamic fundamentalism," Nazis and other repressive dictatorships, etc. By the same token, "relativism" is transposed into a political context where it is associated with multicultural tolerance, progressivism, liberalism, etc.

Second, when Chukwumerije suggests, in effect, that the relativist would be politically less repressive, more tolerant, and more just than the absolutist, he is making two indefensible assumptions. First, by assuming that less repression, more tolerance, and more justice are objective, real goods, he is assuming something that relativism has no right to assume: the existence of universal absolutes--like justice. This shows, in effect, that if one wants a basis for condemning injustice, repression, and for supporting compassionate outreach to AIDS victiums, the poor and the starving, only moral absolutism can provide that basis. Relativism cannot. Second, he is also assuming the indefensible premise that political repression always presupposes moral and religious absolutism, and that political liberality presupposes moral relativism. While it takes no genious to find historical examples of absolutists who have been repressive, the question is whether such repression is a function of their absolutist principles or a hypocritical lapse that can be credited to human greed and sin. There is no question that religious and moral absolutes also provide the basis for condemning such hyocritical repression, greed and sin. On the other hand, can Chukwumerije or anyone provide even one example of a saintly individual or a just society whose saintliness and justice is founded on moral relativism? Clearly not. Some absolutists have been sinners; but no saints have ever been relativists. Yet if one can find examples of sinful absolutists, one can much more easily find examples of notorious sinners who excuse their sin on the basis of moral relativism, or repressive political regimes that have do so. Witness Benito Mussolini [see photo, left, in which Mussolini is pictured to the left of Adolf Hitler]. Significantly, Mussolini wrote:

Everything I have said and none in these last years is relativism by intuition.... If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, immortal truth ... then there is nothing more relativistic than fascistic attitudes and activity.... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. (Diuturna, pp. 374-377; quoted by Peter Kreeft in A Refutation of Moral Relativism)

Third, Chukwumerije assumes that the most important thing in life is material welfare. In assuming this, he joins ranks with the bourgeois capitalist consumers in the United States and the First World who care about nothing more than their own personal peace, affluence, and wellbeing. Ironically, Capitalism and Marxism share this assumption. The Capitalist wants to grow his own piece of the material pie bigger. The Marxist wants to grow the whole pie of the state bigger. But in both cases, the name of the game is getting more of the material pie. But the Catholic Church, while solicitous of the material welfare of the poor and repressed, also warns of the dangers of material wealth. Wealth can turn people away from God and from one another, so that their hearts turn in upon themselves (in curvatus in se) and they begin to look more like Gollum in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings than like healthy human beings. It is instructive that the third of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, according to the prayers of St. Louis de Montfort, petition the Lord for a "detachment from the things of the world, a love of poverty, and a love for the poor." This is not because poverty is something good in itself, but because wealth can corrupt the heart. The love of money, said Jesus, is the root of all evil.

Chukwumerije notes that very few people are moral relativists in the strict sense of denying the existence of any absolutes. This is certanly true. It's simply impossible to live as a strict relativist. Hence, even the most vociferous opponent of moral absolutism ends up only practicing a kind of selective relativism. The moment self-styled "relativists" feel victimized by some injustice or another, they will be appealing to the (objective, absolute, universal) value of things like justice, fairness, toleration, etc. (See in this connection J. Budziszewski's lucid, common sensical defense of natural law, i.e., what people can't help knowning about right and wrong just by virtue of being human beings, in his What We Can't Not Know

Chukwumerijie also notes that moral pluralism, the view that different moral theories capture parts of the truth about moral life, has more adherents than does moral relativism. This is also likely true. But moral pluralism effectively reduces to a species of moral relativism and to its native skepticism, which proclaims that nobody can really know what's right or wrong. The irony here, of course, is that the single greatest obstacle to the kind of relief for AIDS victims, the poor, and oppressed that Chukwumerije desires is very likely the relativistic and skeptical outlook which saps conviction and undermines charity and feeds self-indulgent hedonism. Ratzinger was right about relativism. (Gratia tibi, Stephen Starr)