Punditry

Fairness of it all

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

One of the most common rebuttals to the situation of the children being raised by Lesbian couple  not being able to attend a Catholic schools is the seeming issue of fairness.  That a equal standard is not being applied to other irregular situations involving heterosexual couples and the children being raised by them.  I agree with Jimmy Akin take on this and as he usually does he puts it succinctly.

You see, an awful lot of parents of kids in Catholic school aren’t morally perfect, and if children were to be excluded on the mere grounds that their parents are sinners then enrollment would be quite low indeed.

And this is true. If a Catholic school applied that kind of test in determining enrollment then it would thwart its principal mission, which is providing a Catholic education to students to help them be more holy and closer to God.

So, “Your child can’t enroll because you’re a sinner” is a nonstarter as a principle of enrollment.

But does it follow from this that a parents’ actions should have no bearing on the enrollment of their children? Couldn’t certain actions of the parents cause such a problem that it would fundamentally interfere with the school’s mission?

Suppose that the parents insisted that their child attend the school naked (and suppose that civil law allowed this, for purposes of the thought experiment).

This fundamental rejection of the school’s dress code would cause such severe problems that the school would be entirely warranted in saying, “I’m sorry, but your child cannot come to school if you’re going to insist on nakedness.”

That’s an extreme, but it’s not hard to see how having a child in class whose “parents” are of the same gender could interfere with the mission of the school:

1) It will impede the ability of teachers to be frank about the nature of marriage due to the problems that will ensue with a child in this situation in the classroom.

2) The child will also become a proselytizer for homosexual “marriage” and/or be tormented relentlessly by other children.

3) The other children will be scandalized (in both the proper and the colloquial senses) by knowledge of the child’s situation.

4) All of the above will be exacerbated to the extent that the “parents” have any presence at or try to play any role in the life of the school.

So . . . bad idea.

It’s not the fact that the “parents” are sinners that makes it rational for the school to deny their children entrance. It is the fact that the nature of their public relationship is such that either the school would have to refrain from teaching the fullness of Christian doctrine regarding the nature of matrimony or tremendous problems would arise with a child in this situation in the student body.

At least that’s how I see it.

How do you? [National Catholic Register Blog]

Catholic schools can’t become Parent Cops seeking out the situations of the children’s parents.  But the situation of a same-sex couple is apparent from the get go and is quite public.  The situation for the child is of course quite hard.  Dawn Stefanowicz a child who grew up with same-sex parents has worked with many other children from similar situations and it is a very difficult circumstance for those children.

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Punditry

Defending the Faith

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The story about the Catholic school in the Diocese of Denver not allowing the children of a Lesbian couple to attend has certainly taken off in the media and of course raise a lot of protest from the homosexual community.

I certainly agree with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput who calls it a “painful situation.”  Even when an action is taken correctly for the right reasons it does not prevent the suffering of those involved.  As Archbishop Chaput also said:

“If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible.”

There is a comparable situation when it comes to the baptism of children.  For example in Canon law:

Canon 868. For the licit baptism of an infant it is necessary that:  … (2) there be a founded hope that the infant will be brought up in the Catholic religion; if such a hope is altogether lacking, the baptism is to be put off according to the prescriptions of particular law and the parents are to be informed of the reason.

While education is different from baptism there is some commonality and it is rather difficult in this sad situation that the children will receive the proper reinforcement of what the Church teaches generally and their living situation specifically denies part of what the Church teaches.  There is also of course the scandal caused by such a situation that attempts to normalize a same-sex relationship as being equal to heterosexual marriage.  It is very sad that the children are caught in the middle of this, but the same-sex couple raising them put them in this situation in the first place. Whether or not they understood what the policy was or the fact the the school would be actually faithful to Archdiocese policy is something we  don’t know.

Fr. Breslin who made the decision comments are well worth reading in full.

This past week we implemented a policy that has been the most difficult decision of my life.  The choice could have been made to do nothing and allow a lesbian couple to enroll their child in our Kindergarten.  But that choice would have been against Archdiocesan policy; and when a priest is ordained he promises obedience to his bishop; and I cannot violate that vow; and I will not.

The choice before me was either to protect the beliefs of our faith or pretend nothing was happening.  But our school, after all, is a Catholic school. And our reason for existence, both as a parish and as a Catholic school, is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Being disciples of Jesus Christ is very demanding. Yes, being disciples entails adherence to the many examples of Jesus’ love: love one another as I have loved you; be not the first to throw a stone; judge not lest you be judged.  Think of the Good Samaritan story and the Prodigal Son.

…

Society and way too many Catholic institutions have decided that “nothing was happening” and thus have ignored or even aided such situation.  He goes on to talk about  repentance and the sanctity of marriage.  Though I would quibble with the following.

Would that I could wave a magic wand and make all of the present struggle disappear.  I hate the fact that I had to make a choice between being loving and protecting the teachings of the church.

I would certainly argue that there is not a choice in this case between protecting the faith and loving those involved.  Love is willing the good for the other and when you act for their good by not affirming something that is objectively grave sin you are in fact committing an act of love.  Reminding someone that they are in fact sinning when it is down prudentially is an act of mercy.  If he had ignored the situation he would not have not been loving them in any way. The culture, as it often does, gets things totally backwards.  They call promoting same-sex relationships as good and any objection as hatred and homophobia. When you ignore sin calling it good it does not eliminate the effects of sin and does harm even with the most sincere motives.  So often what is called sincere is really SINcere in that it affirms instead of rebuking sin.

One thing that has annoyed me in these stories is that in almost all of them they are called Lesbian “parents.” Well perhaps one of them is the biological parent, but the other is the person they are living with. Same-sex relationships by their very nature are not fruitful. It is easy to understand all of the confusion considering the state of heterosexual relationships concerning fornication, divorce, and adultery. Too often heterosexual couples try to make their relationships just as unfruitful as same-sex ones via contraception and abortion.

We should certainly pray for the children involved, the same-sex couple, those scandalized by the truth of what the Church teaches; along with Archbishop Chaput and Father Breslin who defended the truth.

Fr. Z’s comments on the story.

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HumorLiturgy

Another reason I am glad to be Catholic

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller
While the dust over beaming preachers on a video screen on multi-site campuses has somewhat settled, the new 3D tool is raising more questions and concerns among some believers.
“Since so many of us in the west are convinced that entertaining pew fodder is critical to advancing ‘the gospel’ and that only a very few have the necessary gifts to preachertain – this will become the ‘perfect’ solution,” Bill Kinnon, author of A Networked Conspiracy, Social Networks, The Church & the Power of Collective Intelligence, wrote in a recent blog post.
What has Kinnon and many other Christians talking is the holographic technology that music artist Madonna famously used at the Grammy Awards in 2006 and that one company wants to promote in churches…
According to Morgan, pricing on the holographic technology is “coming down quickly to the point that I won’t be surprised if we see this technology implemented in churches within the next 12 months.”

While the dust over beaming preachers on a video screen on multi-site campuses has somewhat settled, the new 3D tool is raising more questions and concerns among some believers.
“Since so many of us in the west are convinced that entertaining pew fodder is critical to advancing ‘the gospel’ and that only a very few have the necessary gifts to preachertain – this will become the ‘perfect’ solution,” Bill Kinnon, author of A Networked Conspiracy, Social Networks, The Church & the Power of Collective Intelligence, wrote in a recent blog post.
What has Kinnon and many other Christians talking is the holographic technology that music artist Madonna famously used at the Grammy Awards in 2006 and that one company wants to promote in churches…
According to Morgan, pricing on the holographic technology is “coming down quickly to the point that I won’t be surprised if we see this technology implemented in churches within the next 12 months.” Via Sancte Pater

Well in Protestant theology, which is largely non-Sacramental, nothing prevents this. When the service is primarily a sermon and secondarily fellowship nothing requires a pastor to be present. There is a large range of talents when it comes to preaching — so why not have the best of the best via hologram instead of maybe the lesser talent of your local church?

Sacraments are personal and require a physical presence, though a blessing is a different thing. Thankfully we will never see this:

Besides that R2D2 Hologram technology is spotty at best – probably supplied by AT&T.

Though as Jimmy Akin points out today in an unrelated post what most people think of holograms are really volumetric displays.

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Theology

The Fifth Mark of the Church

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Some of those outside of the Church and even some within might think that one of the marks of the Church is “Stubbornness.”  They look upon the Church and wonder why she does not change to reflect the times.  Why she holds on to currently unpopular ideas and does not give in to pressure. Why in the world throughout the centuries she has remained so stubborn to the winds of change sweeping all the other Churches.

No doubt they have many theories for the Fifth Mark of Stubbornness.  Old men in a patriarchal structure seeming to being the leading theory for the lack of responsiveness to change.  Clinging to tradition with some corporate nostalgia is another. Perhaps just pure mean-spiritedness in resistance to change.

The fact that the Catholic Church is the oldest continuous institution is a rather amazing fact.  Though a fact not known or thought about by many ignorant of history as I was.  They might admit that the Church is the oldest human institution with a emphasis on”human.”  Yet that does not explain her stubbornness.  Many other churches had male structures and a passed on tradition and yet would cave to the first gust of a wind of change currently being blown around by those ever shifting winds of culture and politically correct ideas.

The Anglican Church started with a male hierarchy headed by a king and at first accepted all sacred tradition except that fact that the Church is not headed by a king, but the King of King with the Pope as his servant and the servant to all.. Yet over time this all slipped into factions of low/high church and things hard to equate as a church at all.  The Lambeth Councils stripped Anglicanism from sacred tradition and sacred tradition bit by bit until the three branch theory became so ridiculous as to not being able to be used anymore without drawing a laugh.

Protestantism of course has resulted in split upon split adapting both to the culture and to the individualism of each person being basically an infallible interpreter of scripture.  They too started with men holding to their new traditions which were passed down with these traditions being the interpretations of their founders.  Of course when you pass down an interpretation from a single person it is no surprise that those interpretations gets reinterpreted by others and then of course reinterpreted again.

Yet the Catholic Church once she has held out something to be definitively believed by all the faithful holds on to those teachings even when they become contrary to the culture.  Often those truths taught become better understood  \as the theology deepens, but they don’t take u-turns or head off in quite a different direction.  Cardinal John Henry Newman in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine certainly showed this development.  A development is quite different than a mere change.  A development grows out of a known truth into a better understood truth, while a mere change ignores or misunderstands a truth to go in a different direction.

Often forgotten is that some of the actual positive change based on truth that society finally adopted was often first taught by the Church. Slavery was condemned by the Church and slavers excommunicated long before the abolition movement became a movement. Canon law defined rights and responsibilities long before civil law came into being. The university and the hospital now such a common landmark was birthed by the Church. The full list of this is quite substantial as show in the excellent How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.   People ask why the Church doesn’t change to reflect the culture. When really the culture should change to reflects Christ’s Church.

The real question so few reflect on is why is the Catholic Church so unique as a human institution?  How does it hold on to it’s teaching and beliefs in the face of a changing culture?  Whether you speak of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu’s, etc you can not find a similar institution whose beliefs have not significantly changed or experienced constant splitting.  Only among the various Orthodox Churches do we find anything resembling the Catholic Church and the Orthodox have retained a valid  episcopacy which is certainly part of the reason why.  Though among the various Orthodox Churches you do not see a perfect agreement on theology and practice.  It seems to me that the Orthodox have become somewhat stagnant in that while their theology with their valid emphases has deepened, since the split they don’t think they can call a council and have the ability to define a truth like the various councils they accepted from the past as the Church has done.

The only real satisfying answer is that the Catholic Church is not a human institution, but a Divine institution in that it was God who instituted her and continues to guide her as Jesus promised.  Jesus both sent the Holy Spirit to guide her and promised that the Gates of Hell would never prevail against her.  The fact that she is a Divine institution explains all of her distinctives while the fact that the Church is made up of humans explains the individual faults.  Though are own faults as individual Catholics only show our defects in not following the Church and thus the will of God. Nobody ever really complains that someone is acting too much like Christ.

There is a story during the time of the bad Popes who which basically goes like this. A man is taking instruction from a priest to possibly become Catholic. The man is very interested in Rome and desires to go there.  The priest knowing the corruption of the Church of the time tried to persuade him so that he would not become scandalized and not accept the Church.  The man went anyway and after he came back told the priest he was now fully ready to enter the Church.  The priest queried the man on his sudden decision and the man replied “If the Church can withstand such corruption surely she is Divine.”

Looking at the very rich history of the Church we see times of laxity and times of returning more fully to the faith.  We see wars, political battles, and pressures of every kind. The Great Schism is not an oddity in history, the oddity is that the schism was healed and their was no branch of Catholics currently existing following an anti-Pope.  Emperors and Kings seeking power attacked and imprisoned Popes, yet for the most part these empires and kingdoms no longer exist – while the Pope still sits as head of the Church. Joseph Stalin laughing at the Church asked “How Many Divisions Does the Pope Have?” Really he should have asked “How many divisions in our thoughts and ideas do we have?” Crushing political power has been placed against the Church and the Pope, yet they have never found a fulcrum big enough to move the Church from what she teaches.

St Jerome said that “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”, to which I add “Ignorance of history is ignorance of Christ’s Church” – a broadening of Cardinal Newman’s “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

So the perceived Fifth Mark of the Church of Stubbornness is really a reflection of the Four Marks of the Church of her being One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

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Book Review

Tale of Manaeth

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I recently received and read a book by fellow Catholic Phillip Campbell. Tale of Manaeth is an old school fantasy epic written in the narrative style like the Illiad or Tolkien’s Silmarillion. The scope is not as ambitious as Tolkien’s work in this style, but does cover a period of history around two centuries in a pre-Christian world full of both Pagan virtues and vices.

I must admit that the narrative style took me a little time to adapt until I was able to get into the plot and the characters.  But this did not take very long and I was soon enjoying myself in this world where an arrogant king seeks to take the pick of the women from the surrounding nations and the resulting outrage when the daughter of another king is chosen.  A tragedy results that ends up pitting on nation against the much stronger nation of the arrogant king.

The mythic elements are quite interesting though this is not the standard fantasy world staffed with various races.  The best parts are the battle scenes with intricate strategies and memorable  warrior characters.  The title character is almost a kind of Xena, but without the silliness and a much more serious warrior working against the odds.  The style of the book in some ways reminded me of Tolkien Children of Hurin, there is a sadness that envelops the characters — though not as overwhelming tragic as the Children of Hurin. The author is currently working on a sequel to this book.

The author provides a useful FAQ and the book can be obtained on his site.

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Software

iBrievary

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Fr. Paolo Padrini twittered me some iBrievary news.  I have been using  the multi-language Liturgy of the  Hours application iBrievary daily for over a year and it has replaced my 4 volume set of the Liturgy of the Hours.  Besides being available for the iPhone/iPod Touch it is now also free and available on the Android and Symbian platforms.

Even cooler for us Apple geeks he has also decided to further develop iBrievary specifically for the iPad which will be the ideal form factor for the Liturgy of the Hours. I had planned to get an iPad anyway as a reading device since it can be used to not only read non-DRM ePub format eBooks, but can read formats from the Kindle also.  Since Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and many others are offering content on the iPhone/iPod Touch software this means is can just use the iPad and not need a Kindle, Nook, etc.  Having an iPad version of iBrievary makes the decision even easier for me.

www.ibreviary.com

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Pro-life

Not wanting Fed Funded Abortion means you’re not really pro-life

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Back in December Sister Carol Keehan was upset by a report in the New York times that the Catholic Health Association is split with the USCCB in regards to the health care bill.  Yet the USCCB has not supported the Senate Bill and the CHA has never released any statements condemning it.

Which brings us up to date with Sister Carol Keehan supporting the current bill.  She pulled off almost all of the Democratic talking points.  Horror story of someone not covered – check.  Bill does not fund abortion – check.  We need something now, no starting over – check.  People opposing bill are not really pro-life – check.

Now what has changed with the Senate bill that funded abortion since then.  The answer is of course nothing.  The whole thing about the reconciliation trick Obama and Pelosi have cooked up is basically to have the Congress vote on the Senate bill since they know they don’t have the votes for a new Senate bill.  This is the same evil bill. Rep. Bart Stupak has pointed to places in the bill that do indeed provide funding for abortion.  Democrats constantly say there is no such funding, but will support no amendment to the bill explicitly saying so.  Their tactic has just been to deny it hoping a lie repeated often enough will be believed.

Sister Keehan in her good will towards wanting to provide healthcare for all has become blind to the obvious ramifications of this bill and the fact that federal funding of abortion will increase abortion regardless of her opinion about the bill.  Her argument of not letting the perfect be an enemy of the good does not apply to a bill that is not good, but supports evil.  She seems to have zero concern for this possibility.   There is certainly nothing to prevent a faithful Catholic from supporting the idea of Federal Health Care.  That is a prudential matter in deciding what is best way to provide for our neighbor. Though I think it is difficult to advance this argument without even considering subsidiarity.  Supporting this bill though goes beyond a prudential decision into cooperation with evil.

She asks “For us as Catholics it’s very hard to be pro-life when we don’t give many many mothers who are pregnant care. Or we don’t give pediatric care, well baby care or sick baby care to children. We have nine million uninsured children in this country. That’s not pro-life.”

Sister Keehan urges Congress not to table the bill. What ticks me off is that she’s using the same ridiculous argument that Congressman Patrick Kennedy used by questioning whether opponents of Obamacare are truly pro-life. And he got into trouble with his bishop because of it. Wonder if the same will be true for Sister Keehan [Creative Minority Report].

Not exactly good to hear a nun make the same argument as pro-abortion supporters. I also though of Patrick Kennedy when I first saw this story on Twitter.

Catholic hospitals have always been in the forefront of helping the poor and as Catholics we should be supporting truly faithful Catholic Hospitals and helping them to grow to help their communities and to provide for the poor. That is really the answer and not behemoth government which has never made anything more affordable take on the job. Sure if you lived in the small country of Malta with such a large Catholic population you can pull off government health care that is responsive to the needs of the people. Other circumstances we should mainly be working at the community, city, and state levels to spread Christ love for all and helping to provide healthcare to our neighbor.  The Catholic Church invented the hospital in the first place.

Oh by the way the Obama Administration is about to strip conscience protections enacted under President Bush. CHA in a release sees no problem with this, giving the party line that there were already Federal conscience protections before. They don’t seem to ask why if these are repetitive why they even go through the motion and the effort to repeal them if they add absolutely nothing. Pro-aborts were against these added conscience clauses and that should tell us something.

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Punditry

Point-Counterpoint

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The Notre Dame Observer has refused to publish Dr. Charles E. Rice’s biweekly “Right or Wrong” column on the topic of Catholic teaching on homosexuality.  I have read through the column and could find nothing objectionable in either tone or content.  In fact it quotes heavily from Church documents and accurately portrays Church teaching.  It is certainly not polemical in any way.  Hat tip to Matt C. Abbott for the information.

The editor of the The Observer replied by email to Dr. Rice:

Dear Mr. Rice,

I wanted to first introduce myself as Matt Gamber, the new Editor-in-Chief of The Observer. Thank you for your continued hard work and contributions to The Observer’s Viewpoint section.

Second, I wanted to let you know why we chose not to run your most recent submission in Tuesday’s Observer. First, it far exceeded our word limit guidelines, which I understand our Viewpoint Editor, Michelle Maitz, has shared with you in the past. Our daily space limitations require that we enforce this word limit, and we would appreciate your attention to this limit in the future.

Also, I personally had some concerns with the content of the column, particularly considering The Mobile Party comic incident earlier in the semester at The Observer. While your piece was well-researched and I trust the information was factually correct, I did not feel it lent itself to creating a productive discussion, all things considered. I was a bit concerned with certain language as well.

In the future, if you would like to examine this topic, we thought it might be beneficial to do so in a point-counterpoint format, perhaps with an author of an opposing or differing viewpoint. That way, each “side,” to speak, would have the opportunity to present relevant facts, evidence and analysis to define its position.

As I began, I again thank you for your contributions to The Observer. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this decision, and I look forward to working with you in the future.

Matt Gamber

A point-counterpoint format? Let me see there is Magisterial Church teaching as opposed to what?  America Magazine tried that both sides format until their editor supposedly got sacked for it.  You can just not set Church teaching against a counterpoint view except perhaps in a format like the Summa Theologicae where those counterpoints are answered.  This is just not an area where Catholics can have differing viewpoints and still be faithful to the Church.  Sure there are plenty of prudential responses on how best we minister to those with the cross of same-sex attraction, but homosexual acts being objectively grave is not an area open to debate.  It is a matter of love to tell the truth and pretending that homosexual acts are not gravely evil is no act of charity – quite the opposite.  Exactly what are his concerns? It seems an editor should spell this out if there is an actual problem.

Dear Mr. Gamber:

Thank you for your email informing me that my column presenting the teachings of the Church on homosexuality will not be published.  Since 1992, I have been privileged to publish every two weeks a column, entitled “Right or Wrong,” in the Observer.  I emphasize my appreciation for the unfailing professionalism and courtesy of the Observer editors with whom I have had contact over those years.

You mention the column “far exceeded our word limit guidelines.”  It is in fact significantly shorter than each of the three previous columns published this semester in the Observer.  I was not asked to shorten any of them.  The rejected column accurately presented relevant teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality.  I understand why you are concerned over the content of the column.  You further propose that if I examine the topic of homosexuality in the future, “we thought it might be beneficial to do so in a point-counterpoint format, perhaps with an author of an opposing or differing viewpoint.  That way, each ‘side,’ so to speak, would have the opportunity to present relevant facts, evidence and analysis to define its position.”

In a university that claims to be Catholic, I am not willing to restrict my presentation of Catholic teaching to a format that treats the authoritative teaching of the Church as merely one viewpoint or “side” among many.  If you require that future columns of mine on homosexuality comply with a format such as you propose, it will be inappropriate for me to continue writing the column for the Observer.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Rice

Professor Emeritus

Notre Dame Law School

The recent reply by Matt Gamber to this in part said “because the paper is still recovering from the incident with The Mobile Party comic, we would prefer to examine this issue at a later time.”

In part I can understand this since the Mobile Party comic strip which was a real piece of homosexual bashing and quite disgusting, displayed a mockery of those with same-sex attraction quite at odds with Church teaching.  The editor of the paper was fired over this which is why there is a new editor.  That said I think it is an oversensitive reaching.  Church teaching is never inconvenient and should be taught in season or out of season.  There is a massive difference between the Church’s teaching on homosexual acts and a cartoon that reflects an opinion totally at odds with the treatment of persons with same-sex attraction.  This column needs to be run as reflected by the fact that there is a Notre Dame Gay/ Lesbian/ Bisexual/ Transgender (GLBT) community in the first place.  It is this group that should be suppressed, not the column.

Text of Dr. Rice’s Column

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