"Lived experience"
Father Z does an excellent fisk of a editorial from the National Catholic Reporter staff marking the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. As you would expect they didn't break out a birthday cake to celebrate this anniversary, but snipe at it instead. Like most gutless progressives they never actually deny the teaching they just try to give it the death of a thousand cuts by trying to undermine how the encyclical happened and then the reaction to it.
So the great theological reasoning they give us is polling. As I have said before the only poll in the New Testament only Peter got it right and he had help. Once again we get the whole "lived experience" thing as if this is any kind of criteria that has ever been used in the history of Christendom. Should we appeal to the lived experience of the Church when many of it's members had fallen into Arianism? Hey many Catholics are not much into sacrificial giving and the preferential love of the poor so I guess we should dump these ideas because of the lived experience. When it comes to the teaching Jesus gave us on adultery there is as NCR would put it "a gulf between official church teachings and Catholic practice." How about loving our enemies? Once again the "lived experience" of Catholics does not match the doctrine.
So I guess we need to stop giving to the needy, that we don't need to love the poor and we can wish ill for our enemies. Plus since we don't love one another as Christ has loved us we also don't have to love one another to a a more perfected degree. Most people do not pick up their crosses daily, but try to run from them so we can throw that doctrine on the fire along with the others. Hey Christianity gets easier and easier to practice everyday. Just dump the doctrines that are difficult and it is suprisingly easy.
"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - G.K. Chesterton
But for the National Catholic Reporter it is the negative reaction and living apart from Church teaching that is the criteria as to whether a doctrine is true or not. Not scripture, apostolic tradition, nor the magisterium - but polling. Gallop eccelesiology is rather a strange view of how the Church arrives at her doctrines.
The dishonesty of their article is staggering. They set up a strawman argument that was a parady of what Pope Paul Vi said and then say that it was the main thrust of the encyclical. They describe everything in terms of power as most dissidents see the Church. They never address the predictions that the encyclical made and have all come true. No mention of the state of family life since the wide-spread use of contraceptives. No mention of the further degradation of women. I guess the breakdown of the family and increased divorce is beneath the notice of the NCR. Though rampant divorce and destruction of the family is not the "lived experience" so now I guess should become doctrine.
Known as 
Jeff - you wrote in paragraph 5 "But for the National Catholic Register it is the negative..." You mean N C Reporter.
I have agreat idea! We'll lobby the Vatican t change Scripture to say, "Hate your enemies!" Then we'll all be holy and sinless, because everybody hates their enemies.
I am gonna send this e-mail out to NCR, Voice of the Faithful and Catholics for Choice right away. Maybe they can help me establish a new "Catholics for Wrath" group!
Dear Jeff,
In case you haven't looked recently :
"I guess the breakdown of the family and increased divorce is beneath the notice of the NCR. Though rampant divorce and destruction of the family is not the "lived experience" so now I guess should become doctrine."
This is the bread and butter of the Catholic Church and its pastoral practices via its nullity mills.
I am a former Catholic because I know what I have lived and what I have seen and what I have seen ignored by clergy and canonists who are too busy justifying their "jobs", which earn their pay on the backs of broken relationships.
The dishonesty of their article is staggering. They set up a strawman argument that was a parady of what Pope Paul Vi said and then say that it was the main thrust of the encyclical.
There is a history of dishonesty on this subject. When the press reported that Pope Paul had upheld the constant teaching of the Church on contraception, Fr. Curran and company took to the streets the very next day. In those pre-Internet days, it is inconceivable that they had read so much as a paragraph of the encyclical.
I think polling is a wonderful idea---as long as we act according to the opposite of the popular vote. It could be a great tool for finding the narrow way when life throws a new (or newly dressed) issue our way. :) Of course, in this case, we already know what to do, so the poll is superfluous. Lived experience proved the wisdom in Humanae Vitae at least three decades ago.
There is a history of dishonesty on this subject. When the press reported that Pope Paul had upheld the constant teaching of the Church on contraception, Fr. Curran and company took to the streets the very next day. In those pre-Internet days, it is inconceivable that they had read so much as a paragraph of the encyclical.
Cardinal Stafford wrote " In his memoirs, Cardinal Shehan describes the immediate reaction of some priests in Washington to the encyclical. “[A]fter receiving the first news of the publication of the encyclical, the Rev. Charles E. Curran, instructor of moral theology of The Catholic University of America, flew back to Washington from the West where he had been staying. Late [on the afternoon of July 29], he and nine other professors of theology of the Catholic University met, by evident prearrangement, in Caldwell Hall to receive, again by prearrangement with the Washington Post, the encyclical, part by part, as it came from the press. The story further indicated that by nine o’clock that night, they had received the whole encyclical, had read it, had analysed it, criticized it, and had composed their six-hundred word ‘Statement of Dissent.’ Then they began that long series of telephone calls to ‘theologians’ throughout the East, which went on, according to the Post, until 3:30 A.M., seeking authorization, to attach their names as endorsers (signers was the term used) of the statement, although those to whom they had telephoned could not have had an opportunity to see either the encyclical or their statement."
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource.php?n=675
"Lived experience" and "Gallup Ecclesiology" - now that's such an attractive proposition. I think NCR is saying that Obama should head the church.
Once again we get the whole "lived experience" thing as if this is any kind of criteria that has ever been used in the history of Christendom.
So I guess we need to stop giving to the needy, that we don't need to love the poor and we can wish ill for our enemies.
This makes me so angry. How about the "lived" experiences of all the people in China who are forced to have birth plans, or only have one child or are forced to pay hefty fines they cannot afford. What about their experiences?
No they don't count I guess.
Thank God for Humanae Vitae. Whether they recognize it or not, it is truly a document with a social justice basis.
Whew. I didn't think you'd used the term "frisk" to describe this particular piece of criticism, but someone claimed you had, and it obviously wasn't a type-o, either.
Does make a girl giggle, tho'...hehehehe!!
Jeff,
This is a tangent, but it struck me while I was reading your entry.
I recall Fr. Groeschel talking about polls. I'm paraphrasing:
"I don't trust polls. Especially since the first one, they picked Barabbas!"
It seems this NCR poll is about as trustworthy as Pilate's.
It is very sad that there is no sense that the contributors to this piece have had any "lived experience" with the actual teaching of the Church. If only they had spoken to people who know what it is like to live marital chastity, both the struggles and the joys.
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