Punditry

Living in Florida I could have sworn I voted for a state constitutional amendment – Florida Definition of Marriage back in 2008. I was sure that it had passed by 62%. I also thought that we lived in a republic with a representational government. Silly me.

Should have remembered we live in a judgocracy. Usually at voting time I remember this as I always vote no on retaining judges. So after five judges interfered regarding this amendment it was overturned and expired on Jan 5, 2015 allowing same-sex “marriage” on the Feast of the Epiphany. Five “wise” judges replace the wise men.

On 5 January, 2015 the Catholic Bishops of Florida issued a statement addressing the redefinition of marriage. A fairly typical statement regarding the “redefinition of marriage.” Although I don’t find that a very accurate term. Mostly their has been an undefinition of marriage since they totally lack an ability to rationally define it.

The Archbishop of Miami wrote this letter for diocesan employees.

Dear Employees of the Archdiocese of Miami:

Given recent decisions by courts in Florida that has imposed the redefinition of marriage. I am attaching the statement issued today by the Florida Catholic Conference to provide you useful information regarding the teaching of the Church as well as assist you in answering any questions posed to you by family or friends on the subject.

Whatever the role in which you serve withing the Archdiocese, you publicly represent the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese in everything you do and say. Therefore, it is important thay you understand the Church’s position and are well informed. Our Archdiocesan website also contains prior columns I have written on marriage that might be useful.

Our Archdiocese of Miami Employee Handbook reminds us of the standard of conduct expected:

At all times and places, employees are expected to conduct themselves in a moral and ethical manner consistent with Catholic principles.

Employees will witness by their public behavior, actions and words a life consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. All employees should note that, because of the Church’s particular function in society, certain conduct, inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church, could lead to disciplinary action, including termination, even if it occurs outside the normal working day and outside the strict confines of work performed by the employee for the Archdiocese. Employees should exercise discretion when posting on social media sites, and note that online activity indicative of prohibitive behaviors may subject an employee to disciplinary action or termination.

Be assured of my gratitude for all you do for the Archdiocese of Miami each day.

Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski
Archbishop of Miami

Archdiocese of Miami Employee Handbook

Nice to see the Archbishops proactive statement. Yet if somebody is fired our lovely court system will no doubt award them money such as the Catholic school teacher fired for using IVF who was recently awarded $1.95M.

I can almost always rely on maximum spin and distortion for a story from the Religion News Service. This article by Kimberly Winston delivered via RNS and Crux is very laughable in a sad way.

Were some Catholic saints transgender? Berkeley show raises eyebrows

BERKELEY, Calif. — Step into the one-room art gallery inside the Pacific School of Religion and look closely at the saints in the paintings: Some have beards; some have buzz cuts; some have their breasts obscured; some appear in unisex clothes like tanks tops and jeans.

Are they women or men?

That’s the point of artist Alma Lopez’s new show, “Queer Santas: Holy Violence,” on display at this theological school known for its embrace of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons. In playing with the gender characteristics of religious icons usually depicted as feminine, Lopez asks us to reconsider our ideas of religion, beauty, and gender.

Justin Tanis, who teaches at the school, said it’s as if these saints, with their direct eye contact and open arms, are saying, “‘I am natural, I am one of God’s people.’ And yet this is an image that many people would consider heretical because gender play is involved.”

Gender play is at work in each of the icons in the show — St. Lucia, St. Wilgefortis, and St. Liberata.

Lopez, a visiting artist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she was attracted to these saints because their stories have a common theme — each one tried to step out of the expected role for a woman of her time and, as a result, was the victim of terrible violence.

Take St. Wilgefortis’ story. A 14th-century noblewoman promised in marriage without her consent, she prayed to God to be made ugly so she could keep a vow of chastity she made to Jesus. God granted her a man’s beard. The marriage was off, but Wilgefortis — whose name means “strong face” — was crucified by her father.

The stories of St. Liberata and St. Lucia are similar: Liberata sprouted a beard, and Lucia had her eyes torn out when she disappointed her family.

“All of these saints are women who took their own agency and stepped outside gender norms,” Tanis said as he stood before Lopez’s rendition of St. Liberata, arms splayed in a way that suggests both crucifixion and winged flight. “In that sense, they were queer and violence was done to them for it.”

As they say “Read the whole thing” if you want to get hit repeatedly with the stupid hammer.

“So far it’s been quiet,” he said. “But we are prepared to offer hospitality to any protesters.”

In other words “Where are the protesters? We did something shocking to draw the loving media gaze and nobody is giving us free publicity by protesting us.”

Well now that the synod is over until they meet again next year it is time for a little wrap up.

Thankfully Tom McDonald saved me from writing an inferior post so I will just point to The “Thank You God the Synod Is Over” Post. I totally agree with his synopsis concerning the synod and that while there were certainly areas to be concerned it was not the gates of hell some anticipated.

There was a soap opera aspect “As the Synod Turns” and once again highlighted how bad the Church can be a communication. The initial publishing of the relatio post disceptationem, the translation problems, the pushback by Cardinals regarding it, and the final release of the document as voted on by the synod. This was a total mess. Jimmy Akin described the document It’s written in turgid ecclesiastical bafflegab.

Now if this was a soap opera I would certainly vote for the character of Cardinal Kasper to be the one to develop amnesia.

• Gives an interview with Edward Pentin where he effectively says they are not listening to the African bishops.
• Denies he gave the interview and that he would never make such a comment.
• The audio of the interview gets released.
• He then issues the infamous non-apology apology used by politicians. “If one of my remarks about Africans was perceived as demeaning or insulting, then I am honestly sorry.” Since really it is our fault for perceiving this a demeaning or insulting.

Still all this reminds me is that we are not the Church of the document. Documents can be useful and to clarify matters. Yet they hardly ever settle anything. Remember how the issuing of Humanae Vitae settled the issue of contraception or how Ordinatio Sacerdotalis stopped people supporting women’s ordination? Me neither. The majority of Catholic are likely never to read documents issued by the Vatican or even bishop conferences. Mostly what they hear is mediated through the news media which means most of what they hear is just plain wrong. Fr. Longenecker recently describe how twice in one week people came to him who were in irregular marriages thinking they could now receive Communion.

The continuing problem, which will likely always be so, is how to provide ongoing formation when the main vehicle is a ten minute homily on Sundays. Sure there is such a wealth of resources now for committed Catholic to seek this out. This is just not much of a priority seemingly for most Catholics. Too often it is the Culture not the Catechism that is providing formation. So regardless what shape the final Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation takes, this problem will of course remain.

It was not the synod of bishops, the curia, or bishop’s conferences that Jesus gave the great commission to. It was to each and everyone of us. It is an easy habit to want to outsource this responsibility to them and then complain about how they are handling our individual responsibility.

Today the Synod released Relatio post disceptationem which as Jimmy Akin describes

(i.e., a report after discussion), which summarized the discussions held in the first week of the synod.

As with most things regarding the Synod or the Church in general there are narrative reactions with people always looking for major changes in the Church and those who panic that such changes are going to happen. The truth isn’t always in the middle, although with Vatican documents the truth is usually in the muddle.

The invaluable Thomas L. McDonald posts a initial reaction on a first pass through the document Fisking the Synod “Relatio”. Well worth reading in full.

It’s a summary of the discussion as it stands. Most of it is very good. Out of 58 paragraphs, about four are awful.

Which means that all the attention (media and otherwise) will be on those four paragraphs. Unfortunately the awful paragraphs are truly awful and remove clarity in an area that is such a modern hot issue. Fr Longenecker posts regarding this I fear this is ill thought out, sentimentalist, wishy washy, secularist nonsense.

Since the “law of gradualness” has been much discussed recently along with showing up in this document it is very helpful to read The Law of Gradualness: 12 things to know and share. A couple of points he makes specifically regarding this subject and the document released.

10) Is this same understanding of the law of gradualness present in Familiaris Consortio and the Vademecum for Confessors?

It does not appear so. At least from what has been said thus far, it appears more to reflect the “gradualness of law” that was warned against in those documents, according to which a decisive break with sin is not required before receiving absolution and holy Communion, and in which a different standard of what constitutes sin would be applied to some than is applied to others.

11) Does the Relatio change Church teaching regarding the law of gradualness?

No. The Relatio is a summary what various bishops proposed in discussions. It is not a document of the Magisterium.

The document accurately reports that one group of bishops proposed this—and that others opposed it—but it does nothing to change Church teaching.

John Thavis, a reporter covering the Vatican, called it a “Pastoral earthquake” and that terminology has spread out into plenty of article. Although as we know from scripture, God is not in the Earthquake. Plus after reading John Thavis’ book “The Vatican Diaries”, I am not impressed by his analysis in general.

“Acts of the Apostasy” has some humorous analysis BREAKING! JERUSALEM COUNCIL ISSUES REPORT; CHRISTIANS BRISTLE

The decision by Cardinal Timothy Dolan regarding the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade seems to be another Rorschach inkblot test in St. Blogs and elsewhere. Opinions range from the Cardinal being wicked to modeling Christ with a range of positions in-between.

To summarize the situation as I understand it. The private group New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade Inc. organizes the annual parade has allowed this year a LGBT group to march with a banner. Pressure has been mounting over the last decades or so, but up to now no message banners were allowed. They ran into sponsorship problems last year where companies like Guinness pulled out to due to this general restriction as applied to a specific group the LGBT community. So apparently this year they caved into pressure because of the PC sponsorship problem. There was never a restriction regarding people as described under the initialism of LGBT. To add fuel to the fire, this year Cardinal Dolan is the Grand Marshall.

Added in to this was another smaller controversy. Msgr. Charles Pope had written a post regarding the question “Time to End the St. Patrick’s Parade and the Al Smith Dinners?” At the time I had originally read his very balanced post, there was much I agreed with in general. Subsequently the was post removed.

Many of you have expressed concern about a blog post I wrote on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which was removed. I am grateful for your concern about this and all the issues we discuss here. I removed the post upon further reflection due to the strong nature of the language I had used in parts of it. I apologize if the language I used caused offense. Source

It seems likely that he was first asked to remove the post from his Archdiocese. I certainly could find no strong language in his post (which can be read here). At the time I quipped on Facebook that the removal of this post would lead to a minor Striesand effect and that the post would be linked all over the place. Sure enough afterwards I saw this post on more blogs than usual even for the usual quality of the Monsignor’s writings. It even got covered on Brietbart, with a very misleading headlines (or the usual standard for headlines) “DC Priest Punished for Calling For End to Gay St. Patrick’s Parade in New York City”. Can’t say I was impressed with the content of the Austin Rose article which brought in ancillary complaints about the diocese and equated punishment with having a post withdrawn. It also reprinted the Monsignor’s column.

My own opinion concerning this has varied in reaction from wanting to go on full rant to ultimately decide on a waiting period to digest before pushing “post”. I think part of my original strong reaction to what is really a parade that has lost any serious connection to St. Patrick himself as a saint was that the increased pressure on Catholics and others to give up any objection to same-sex acts. Over and over we are getting pressured out of the public square. For example the President’s recent executive order regarding LGBT workplace discrimination with again no religious exemption. Constantly in the headlines are stories regarding fired teachers or organists who had attempted to get married or gotten pregnant using IVF. The mechanisms of society are bent on displaying Catholics as ignorant bigots with no possible defense regarding same-sex acts. Plus combined with the Cardinal’s less than helpful remarks regarding Michael Sam it just seemed like a long retreat from defending Catholic teaching.

Still what it comes down to is my prudential answer to the situation, did not match the Cardinal’s prudential answer to the situation. God is his great wisdom and mercy did not make me a priest or worse a bishop. So while I would rather he step down as Grand Marshall at the minimum, I am not going to freak out over it. I wish he could use it as an opportunity for a “magisterial moment” a play on “teaching moment.” Condensing Catholic teaching or really the natural law down to a sound bite has a high-decibel signal loss where the only information that gets trough is that your a bigot.

After forcing you to read though my reaction, I would like to point you to some pieces that I thought especially good (which means I agreed with them). Interestingly this two pieces are both a reaction to what Elizabeth Scalia at Patheos had to say regarding this situation.

The first being a post from the Darwin’s The Prodigal Son Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means.

The other is Steven Greydanus Gays, Jesus and St. Patrick’s Day. He explores both the analogies and disanalogies of the story of the woman caught in adultery. He also goes on to quote Phil Lawler of CatholicCulture.org:

If this really is a Catholic event, it cannot include a group defined by its opposition to Church teaching. If it is a Catholic event, forget Guinness, forget NBC, forget the hoopla, and quietly honor St. Patrick.

But if it is not a Catholic event — if it is just another civic celebration, to which all are welcome, regardless of their attitude toward the Church — then it’s time to end an anachronism. There should be no reviewing stand outside St. Patrick’s cathedral, no sign of Church sponsorship. Cardinal Dolan should step aside as grand marshal.

Recently the Boston Globe announced a new Catholic new site “Crux: Covering all things Catholic”.

After their aquistion last year of John L. Allen Jr. as an Associate Editor this move was no surprise and Allen has continued to turn out columns always interesting to read.

Still I wondered how long until Crux was just another National Catholic Reporter. When he worked for them he was pretty much their only redeeming value. News content is being provided by multiple sources such as the Catholic News Service and the Religion News Service. Not a great fan of either, especially RNS and David Gibson.

Today they ran a column by Margery Eagan which was pretty much full National Catholic Reporter mode. Never go full National Catholic Reporter.

• Reference to inquisition “nunquisition” – check
• Reference to crusades – check
• Reference to crackdown – check
• Dissident nuns are awesome (helping the poor don’t you know) – check
• Brings up sex abuse crisis – check
• Makes you dumber reading it – check

You can write articles such as these from a boilerplate template.

What is so idiotic about these articles is they talk about “alleged” complaints by the Vatican when it is so obvious these charges are exactly right. You could side with their dissent, but you can’t call it orthodoxy. It is such a dishonest complaint. Her complaint that the Vatican criticized them for being too Obama-care friendly isn’t even factually correct.

While the #TacoBeerChallenge started as an ironic Twitter joke, the straightforward message resonated and pictures of carne asada wrapped in a corn tortilla are proliferating on the web–though members of the pro-life movement have tried to hijack the hashtag to harness the attention for their cause.

“What do ice buckets have to do with ALS? I don’t know. What do tacos and beer have to do with abortion? I don’t know that either,” Grimes writes for RH Reality Check. “What I do know is that eating tacos and drinking beer is more pleasurable than getting doused with ice water, and that lawmakers around the country are passing increasingly restrictive anti-abortion access laws.” Via Time Magazine

It is quite true there is no relationship in this abortion funding challenge and the acts purposed. Tacos and beer matches the abortion support rhetoric where language is obtuse hiding behind phrases with no mention of the reality. Really if they wanted a challenge in line with abortion values with a more signifying act. Perhaps the Pigs Blood Bucket Challenge makes a more accurate correlation visually.

Really for abortion supporters the bucket challenge is for unborn children to kick the bucket.