Punditry

One of the the things about the whole Pope condom coverage is that almost always it tells you more about the person/group reporting the story than what the Pope actually said. People read into the Pope’s comment what they want to see, they read into their own thoughts.

One of the reasons I so respect apologist Jimmy Akin is that he is extremely careful to not give his own opinion on a subject, but what the Church has taught or a very close reading of the extent of what the Church has taught and how fare the application is. When he gives you his opinion he tells you it is his opinion. This was especially true with his coverage of what the Pope actually wrote and the extent of what the Church has taught.

Unfortunately such a treatment is very rare. The careless headlines which so dominated the coverage implied something else entirely and took no care at all in the reporting. The World Health Organization saying they “agreed totally” with the Pope’s comment did not mean that they are giving up passing out condoms as a way to help. They issued a statement when they had no idea what they were talking about. Gives you a lot of confidence in WHO. Other organizations did similar things.

But the press and secular organizations getting things wrong is nothing new and a stereotype that rings constantly true. My annoyance is with Catholics who did the same.

“It’s a step forward, because it is at the highest level the recognition that a pastoral approach in certain some particular cases is necessary where as before the use of a condom was always seen as intrinsically wrong,” he said.

“We should praise him for this. It shows that the Pope is a nuanced thinker. It also shows his awesome intellect.”…

“It’s the first admission from a pope that a condom can be used for a good intention,” said Father James Martin from New York. “Just a few years ago, the Vatican would have rejected these ideas outright, even though they had great currency among theologians. Clearly, something has changed.”

Ack! Yes because the normal ways the Papacy and the magisterium handles theological shifts is via interview books. Exactly what part of “But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.” and “She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution” does Fr. Martin not understand! If it is not a moral solution it can not be advocated.

Plus as I saw from my comment boxes and other places Catholics applauding this phony shift and happy about promotion of condoms to fight HIV.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

There seems to be an almost Gnostic disconnect in this view. To encourage so-called safer sex when people are committing objectively grave sins. No mention of any effort to discourage such behavior. While your health is of supreme importance, the health of your soul is even more so. If you do commit a grave sin and fulfill the three-fold conditions of mortal sin the Devil is not going to give you time off for good behavior for using a condom. Plus adding the intrinsic evil of contraception is not going to help you either. The gospel of “They are going to do it anyway” is the preaching of Hell. We are all called to holiness and with God’s grace and our conformance to his grace we can answer that call. This false gospel so often preached ignores the fact that Jesus will always give his aid to not be tempted beyond our limits. When Christians are the enablers of “They are going to do it anyway”-ism they deny both the Gospel and grace.

The Pope repeatedly talked of “first steps” towards moralization. First steps are not the arrival towards living that morality. Making the first step is not the end of the journey. On a level of conversion we can see grace move in what might seem to be small steps, but the ends of conversion is growing in holiness – not just limiting the evil you are doing.

Shocked by attempted Christmas Tree lighting ceremony bombing. Growing up in Portland shocked they still call it a Christmas Tree

That is what I quipped yesterday on announcement of the foiled plot to use a car bomb to kill people at a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square in Portland, Or. Having grown up in Portland I was rather surprised that they were referring it as a Christmas Tree. Well actually it was a Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony though interestingly the press it not referring to it that way. I guess attempted Holiday Tree Lighting Bombing has an odd ring to it and kind of shows the shallowness of the PC attitude.

No doubt, Portland will learn nothing from this episode and if anything to try to be more inclusive will either cancel the event in the future or call it “A Random Lighting of a Tree for no particular reason and not associated with any religious event Ceremony.” Or maybe to be inclusive to a certain breed of Muslims they can have the Annual Car Bombing along kind of like an extreme bonfire with the Holiday Tree Lighting. In fact maybe the 19 year old Muslim thought to get into the spirit of the event by not only lighting up the tree but all the people at the event.

Though it really shows how silly the idea of a Holiday Tree being inclusive is. Everybody knows the Holy Day being celebrated even if it is in a secular fashion. Calling it a Holiday Tree fools nobody, not even militant Muslims. It is only a bit of secular cowardice by trying not to be offensive offends. They made up Kwanzaa as a phony holiday so I guess they need to create another phony holiday for Muslims that just happens to occur at this time of year. But then again there would be the complaining atheists that in the survival of the fittest are offended by others signs of religion. I guess being offended so easy is now a survival method.

It is a good thing that the FBI was on to this guy and of course great that the bombing would not occur. If it had happened though you can be sure that Janet Napolitano would have issued a All Points Bulletin looking for a group of rigorist interpreters of Advent upset that a Christmas Tree was being put up at the start of Advent.

Jimmy Akin promised to follow up his analysis yesterday on what the Pope actually said on the subject of condoms and he has done so in an excellent follow up post “Understanding the Pope’s Dilemma on Condoms“.

I expect the media to get what the Pope has said wrong and they never disappoint. Though while it seems that almost all Catholic bloggers understood the nuance of the Pope’s comment this can not be said for all commenters who seemed to be annoyed that the Pope has made some concession. This idea starts from an idea about a “ban on condoms” as if condoms in and of themselves are gravely evil. If I were to take a condom and make a balloon animal out of it I would incur no sin other than perhaps bad taste. In fact as I have joked before I could pretty much wear a condom anytime I want except for during sex with my wife. So if you want to wear a condom – go ahead, except during the marital act. What makes the use of a condom gravely sinful is when it is used as a device to prevent conception and frustrates the marital act. The example the Pope gave of a homosexual prostitute was in a situation where conception was not possible and the condom could not be contraceptive.

One thing I have come to love about the Church is that it is never just arbitrary, that her moral theology is not only understandable – but that it’s principles can be applied consistently. The Church condemns IVF because it removes the unitive aspect of sex from procreation in the marital act. The Church condemns contraception because it removes the procreative aspect from the marital act. Since the Church understands marriage it is able to see the two-fold nature of the marital act and to apply that understanding in her moral theology. It is only the Church that is consistent and everybody else inconsistent. There are no “Gotchas” to find in her moral theology. In comparison everywhere else you look in the world you see inconsistency galore.

One aspect about this story that is getting no coverage is that we are getting a book like this in the first place. A sitting Pope sitting down with a journalist and not limiting any questions asked. Sure he is comfortable in his long relationship with Peter Seewald, but Seewald is willing to ask the questions other people would be interested in having asked. The Pope being the brilliant theologian that he is does not give pat answers. The Pope is not concerned with public relations and acting as a spin doctors on his answers to reduce any possible misinterpretations. The Pope thinks deeply on subjects and then gives us his answer where he would trust us with the truth. The Pope could have easily answered the questions on condoms by outlining the Church’s teaching on contraception, but instead spoke honestly in addressing possible situations. Some might call this a PR disaster and certainly it is annoying when the press distorts what the Pope says, but they would find something to distort regardless.

It is also rather odd that those who disagree with the Church’s teaching on contraception are willing to jump to an interview with the Pope to defend themselves. This just totally shows how disingenuous they that they will ignore every magisterial document on the subject. The last I knew interviews were not mentioned in the levels of Church teaching in Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium.

Catholic World Report  has an excerpt from the new Peter Seewald interview of Pope Benedict XVI Light of the World.  This excerpt address the part making headlines.

From Chapter 11, “The Journeys of a Shepherd,” pages 117-119:

On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican’s policy on AIDs once again became the target of media criticism.Twenty-five percent of all AIDs victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you that the Church’s traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church’s own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on AIDs. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim. Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many AIDs victims, especially children with AIDs.

I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering. In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work. This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being.

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

The media of course does not do nuance since headlines and sound bites don’t have room for them and articles don’t want to make room for it and the majority of what the Pope said on this will not get covered at all. Interesting that the pope makes a possible case (he says “may be a basis”) in regards to male prostitutes. Same-sex sexual activity is of course always contraceptive in the first place. This act is always intrinsically evil and the use of a condom in this circumstance is different than a circumstance where the use makes the act contraceptive. Again though the Pope is speculating about the moral consequences in this circumstance and is still saying that this is not the way to deal with the evil in regards to sexually transmitted deceases. His answer seems to address more the individual’s sin and the weight of that sin without calling the use of condoms in this case a good to be promoted. He is describing a movement towards a good without calling the act good in itself.

Most people do no realize that the statements by the Church on contraception are pretty much always within the framework of marriage.

The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity, it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life [Vademecum for Confessors 2:4, emphasis added].

CCC 2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil.

Sexual acts outside of marriage are themselves intrinsically evil with or without the use of contraception. Adultery, Fornication, Homosexual Acts can never be a valid context for truly human sexuality. As Jimmy Akin previously posted:

It’s kind of eye-opening when you realize that, as Humanae Vitae 14 is worded, it is condemning the use of contraception within marriage and not really going into its use outside of marriage, but the entire framework to which Paul VI is addressing himself is to “the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage,” and he does not address the question of whether the principles he is articulating also apply to sexual relations outside of marriage.

The same tends to be true of other Church documents. The framework in which contraception is addressed tends to be marital: If you look in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, for example, the discussion of contraception occurs under the major subhead “The Love of Husband and Wife” and under the minor subhead “The fecundity of marriage.”

Contraception is not mentioned at all in the sections on adultery and fornication and other forms of extra-marital sexuality.

This is the pattern in Church documents: They tend to condemn contraception in connection with marital sex, but they don’t mention it when it comes to extra-marital sex.

The reason for this, I assume, is that the folks at the Vatican are waiting for doctrinal development to occur on this point, and so they’re staying closed-mouth about how contraception relates to extra-marital sex. Either that or they (some of them) don’t want to appear to be saying, “If you’re going to fornicate, at least take precautions,” which would have the effect of encouraging fornication.

Now, as I said THE ABOVE DOES NOT REPRESENT MY PERSONAL OPINION. I would be happy if B16 or a future pope issued an encyclical that said “All of the principles contained in Humanae Vitae 14 apply to extra-marital sex as well as marital sex.”

But this does shed light on some statements that otherwise mystify orthodox Catholics who want to fully accept the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.

So currently there is room for limited speculation in this area until the magisterium more fully articulates this.

* The Ginger Factor, named for a well-known “Far Side” cartoon, is a measure of the ratio of words said to words understood. A dog named Ginger, for example, only understands the word “Ginger” in the sentence, “Okay, Ginger, if you get into the garbage one more time, you’ll be spending the night outside.” (source)

Update: Jimmy Akin provides the best analysis so far on the subject.

I am very happy to see that Archbishop Timothy Dolan was elected head of the USCCB for the next three years. This was a very rare break from the normal tradition of electing the Vice President of USCCB as President. There were certainly enough questions about Bishop Gerald Kicanas time as Seminary Rectory to make this a prudent reaction. Bishop Kicanas response to the article in the National Catholic Register certainly did not put away such questions and what he did admit to knowing showed bad judgment in my opinion.

It also seems to me that National Catholic Register Reporter TIm Drake did us all a great service by publicizing the questions surrounding the Bishop in the first place. While I had seen the story reported previously, they were in sources unlikely to have been seen by the bishops. Tim Drake covered the story by mentioning the other articles and then later posted the response by Bishop Kicanas. This story and the multiple blogs that reported it seemed to have raised this as an issue that the American bishop’s could not easily ignore. Though there were multiple votes with the first vote being split between Kicanas/Dolan/Chaput with Kicanis getting the majority. The third ballot gave Archbishop Dolan 128-111 over Bishop Kicanas.

That the press will now not be able to go on and on about the priestly abuse crisis concerning Bishop Kicanas over the next three years is a good thing Even better news is that Archbishop Timothy Dolan makes a great public face for the USCCB. Archbishop Dolan has certainly shown an excellent capability in the Diocese of New York to respond to media attacks and to take up the pen in defense of the Church. He has done this with great grace and good humor as shown by his responses to the New York Times.

I wish Bishop Kicanas well and if he has been unfairly attacked and had acted prudently in the ordination of future abuser McCormack that he realizes that this election was the prudent choice.

On a related note Pope Benedict XVI had this to say to the Brazilian bishops yesterday.

The national bishops’ conference exists to promote collaboration among bishops, not to replace their authority, Pope Benedict XVI said to a visiting group of bishops from Brazil on November 15.

The episcopal conference “must avoid becoming a parallel reality or substituting for the ministry of each individual bishop,” the Pope said. He added that “the counselors and structures of the episcopal conference exist to serve the bishops, not to replace them.” Stressing the duty and authority of each individual bishop within his own diocese, the Pope said that the conference should help each bishop to carry out his work more effectively.

Amen to that.

“Today is like 1970 for marriage. If you knew in 1970 that Roe v. Wade was coming, how would you have acted?” – Bishop Kurtz at today’s presentation on defense of marriage at the USCCB Fall Assembly. [Source]

Really though 1970 was the Roe v. Wade for marriage. Jan 1, 1970 saw California’s Family Law Act which gave us no-fault divorce. Ronald Reagan later said it was one of the worst decisions he made in office. Certainly that and decriminalization of abortion in California. No-fault divorce has been so destructive of marriage it is hard to even calculate the damage done by it and in many ways set up the view of marriage today that has led to the redefinition of marriage and same-sex marriage. The assault on the family is nothing new, but the culture took a steamroller to it in the seventies and has been trying to destroy it ever since.

Wednesday President Obama raised eyebrows in the human rights world when he bestowed lavish praise on Indonesia’s human rights record, particularly with regards to free speech and religious freedom. Specifically the President gave kudos to the most populous Muslim country in the world for the “spirit of tolerance that is written into your constitution, symbolized in your mosques and churches and temples, and embodied in your people.”

Yet just seven months ago, Indonesia’s highest court issued a landmark ruling widely considered to be a major setback to speech and religious rights. The Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of Indonesia’s Blasphemy Act, which criminalizes speech or acts considered offensive to government approved religions as well as “deviations from teachings of religion considered fundamental by scholars of the relevant religion.” [article]

Well I guess Indonesia compared to some other predominantly Muslim countries is a bit more tolerant. They officially recognize only “Islam, Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism” and everybody must carry an identity card listing their religion. The article which is worth reading goes on to list multiple acts where Indonesia was far from being a role model in regard to religious freedom. One man spent six months in jail for being reported as whistling while praying. In another example three Christian women were sentenced to three years imprisonment for conducting a Christian youth program even though they had permission from the parents of any Muslim children and none of the children converted.

This is just another example where President Obama is willing to put a smiley face on Muslim countries and their attack on human rights. Obama could learn quite a bit from Pope Benedict XVI and his recently letter in reply to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ridiculous letter. You can be diplomatic while not white-washing things.

To His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Mr President,

I am writing to acknowledge the courteous words of greeting and the reflections that Your Excellency kindly sent me by the good offices of His Excellency Mr Hojjat ol Eslam Haj Sayyed Mohammad Reza Mir Tajjadini, Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is my profound conviction that respect for the transcendent dimension of the human person is an indispensable condition for the construction of a just social order and a stable peace. Indeed, one’s relationship with God is the ultimate foundation for the inalienable dignity and sacred character of every human life.

When the promotion of the dignity of the human person is the primary inspiration of political and social activity that is committed to search for the common good, solid and enduring foundations are created for building peace and harmony between peoples.

Peace is, above all, a gift from God, which is sought in prayer, but it is also the result of the efforts of people of good will. In this perspective, believers of every religion have a special responsibility and can play a decisive role, cooperating in common initiatives. Interreligious and intercultural dialogue is a fundamental path to peace.

Strongly convinced of this, the recent Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, which took place in the Vatican from 10 to 24 October 2010, was a significant moment of reflection and sharing on the situation in the Middle East and on the great challenges placed before the Catholic communities present there. In some countries these communities face difficult circumstances, discrimination and even violence and they lack the freedom to live and publicly profess their faith. I am certain that the work of the Synod will bear good fruit for the Church and for the whole of society.

The Catholics present in Iran and those around the world make efforts to collaborate with their fellow citizens to contribute loyally and honestly to the common good of the respective societies in which they live, becoming builders of peace and reconciliation.

In this spirit, I express the hope that the cordial relations already happily existing between the Holy See and Iran will continue to progress, as well as those of the local Church with the civil authorities. I am also convinced that the launch of a bilateral Commission would be especially helpful in addressing questions of common concern, including that of the juridical status of the Catholic Church in the country.

With these sentiments, I avail myself of the occasion to renew to you, Mr President, the assurance of my highest consideration.
From the Vatican, 3 November 2010

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Bishop Kicanas responds to the news story about his time as Rector at a seminary. He strongly denies having any knowledge or being warned ahead of time of problems with future sexual abuser and at that time seminarian McCormack. I can easily believe that the press had previously distorted what he had said about this since they do this so often. Though considering the statement’s made in Cardinal George’s deposition concerning that Kicanas did have such knowledge, I think that there are still some serious questions here. That Bishop Kicanas said that he did not even read this deposition is hard to believe, but of course possible.

Article

Last week I tweeted a link to a story concerning Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas and his possible election as head of the USCCB, he is currently the Vice President.

Today Tim Drake is commenting on this story. For those unaware of the story, when Bishop Kicanas while rectory of a seminary ordained a sexual abuser even though he was already aware at the time of allegations regarding this. The priest involved, Daniel McCormack, went on to abuse as many as 23 boys and went to prison in 2007.

Asked about it, Bishop Kicanas essentially said that he would do it again.

“It would have been grossly unfair not to have ordained him,” Bishop Kicanas said shortly after being elected as vice president of the USCCB, in a quote that appears in the deposition of Cardinal Francis George. “There was a sense that his activity was part of the developmental process and that he had learned from the experience,” continued Bishop Kicanas. “I was more concerned about his drinking. We sent him to counseling for that.”

I guess hindsight is not always 20/20 after all. Grossly unfair to not ordain a priest who abused so many boys? Not exactly contrition for the role he played.

There’s been speculation that there’s an unspoken practice that the election of the body’s president follows an alternating pattern, as if the body were somehow trying to balance two wings of parliament.

The Church, however, is not parliament.

If there is some unspoken rule, it’s one that should be dismissed. The words “liberal” or “conservative”, “progressive” or “orthodox” cannot truly describe the Church or those in it. If such a practice is taking place with the election of the USCCB’s president, it must be rejected, embracing instead presiding USCCB president Cardinal Francis George’s “simply Catholicism.”

When the bishops gather next week, they have an opportunity to show that elections do matter. It would be best if they met behind closed doors and outside the purview of the media, held an honest conversation not about the voting practice of the previous era, but about who is the best person to lead the brotherhood of bishops at this time and place, and then voted accordingly.

If the Bishop is elected then the USCCB will be shown to be more of an ole boys club than shepherds concerned about their flock. Collegiality in practice seems to mean turning a blind eye.

In September the USCCB released a document on the “Review and Renewal” of The Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

This Review and Renewal is putting in place stronger policies and clearer mechanisms to screen and monitor grants and groups to ensure that these past violations, though very limited, are not repeated. CCHD will do all it can to ensure that groups abide by these strengthened requirements and will act immediately and decisively if it is discovered that any group is violating these essential conditions for CCHD support.

Sounds good, but what about actual practice? Well in the same document they also praise one group.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is an organization of Latino, and Haitian migrant farm workers in Florida. Working with the local diocese, the Florida Catholic Conference and many other groups, CIW has won groundbreaking agreements with major fast food chains to increase wages and improve better working conditions for their members who pick tomatoes.

This group participated in the US Social Forum 2010 (USSF) which sets as part of its national agenda abortion for low-income women, Marxism for the 21st Century (Young Communist League), and LGBT issues including “Radical Queer Festivals.” That they had participated in this was previously reported by Reform CCHD.

CCHD really needs a more radical reform and a look at how it sees its mission. CCHD does not directly fund any charities, but gives grants to groups involved in anti-poverty efforts. As long as this is true CCHD is going to cause scandal simply because it is exactly these types of groups that get themselves involved in an agenda that includes much more than anti-poverty efforts. The people who populate these groups seem to me to have a mindset identical to so many liberal groups. While a group might not personally be involved in activities contrary to Church teaching they are almost always sympathetic to them and will align themselves with such groups. There is very little variety in the types of groups that CCHD has funded which almost always have a more socialist view of economics and why poverty exists in the first place. Just reading over previous grant lists pretty much demonstrate this. CIW saw no inconsistency attending the Social Forum because they are fellow travelers.

So while I am certainly generalizing, it seems to me that as long as CCHD targets such groups for grants in the first place they will continue to cause scandal. It is a prudential question how much good these types of groups have actually achieved in the first place. I am certainly skeptical about this, but no expert on the subject.

From my own point of view I would much rather see such annual collections be directed by the local ordinary who would decide where such money could best serve the poor and other aspects of Catholic social teaching. This is what my bishop is doing since he replaced it with a “Diocesan Schools and Social Action Appeal.” I think this approach is much more effective and in keeping with subsidarity.

Bishop’s Document on CCHD Reform.
Reform CCHD Now Report.