Mea Culpa

and a partial retraction.

Last week, I let Fr. Brian Harrison have it with both barrels after stewing over a NY Times piece in which Marc Thiessen cited him as a Catholic theologian who agreed with his egregious apologetics for waterboarding and Bush/Cheney torture policies.

While I still disagree with Fr. Harrison on the matter of the intrinsic immorality of torture and about the merits of Thiessen’s grotesque claim that waterboarding is not torture, after corresponding with Fr. Harrison, I believe I was out of line to take him for somebody who opposes Vatican II and its developments. He has pointed out to me that he has defended the developments of Vatican II both in the pages of the Remnant (“Dignitatis Humanae: A Reply to Christopher Ferrara”, The Remnant, April 30, 2009, pp. 13-14.) and in This Rock (“Is Ecumenism a Heresy?”, This Rock, January 2009, pp. 26-29). I assumed way too much on this score and was way out of line in attacking his fidelity to the Council and the Magisterium’s teaching and I apologize for it and ask his forgiveness.

I have also decided to delete those posts. We are having a fruitful discussion by email and you will likely be seeing some of the fruits of that here on the blog. Not all our disagreements are ironed out yet, but there is some real progress too. Your prayers would be appreciated.