{"id":21368,"date":"2017-08-04T04:08:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T04:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/civilta-cattolica-inspired-counterproductive-debate-american-critics-say-94923\/"},"modified":"2017-08-04T04:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T04:08:00","slug":"civilta-cattolica-inspired-counterproductive-debate-american-critics-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2017\/08\/civilta-cattolica-inspired-counterproductive-debate-american-critics-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Civilta Cattolica inspired counterproductive debate, American critics say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Washington D.C., Aug 3, 2017 \/ 10:08 pm (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- A prominent Jesuit publication\u2019s essay on American religion and politics continues to provoke responses from critics concerned its two authors fundamentally misunderstand the situation of Catholics in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir essay is bad but important,\u201d said New York Times<\/em> columnist Ross Douthat Aug. 2, saying its apparent intention is to warn about Catholic support for \u201cthe darker tendencies in Trumpism\u201d like xenophobia, stigmatization of enemies, the \u201cprosperity-gospel inflected worship of success,\u201d and a \u201ccrude view of Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Douthat, however, the authors\u2019 understanding of American religion \u201cseems to start and end with Google searches and anti-evangelical tracts.\u201d In his view, secularization and political polarization have made the place of Catholics in the U.S. \u201cmore difficult and perplexing.\u201d Both Catholic support for Trump and more radical Catholic critiques \u201care not the culmination of the Catholic-evangelical alliance but rather a reaction to its political and cultural failures \u2014 and the failures of liberal religious politics as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 13 the Jesuit-run journal La Civilta Cattolica<\/em> published an analysis piece co-authored by its editor, Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., and Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor who is editor-in-chief of the Argentine edition of L\u2019Osservatore Romano<\/em>, the daily newspaper of Vatican City.<\/p>\n

The piece, titled \u201cEvangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism\u201d made a number of claims, alleging that many conservative Christians have united to promote an \u201cecumenism of hate\u201d in policies that contradict Pope Francis\u2019 message of mercy. They claimed that that \u201cEvangelical fundamentalists\u201d and \u201cCatholic Integralists\u201d are being brought together in a \u201csurprising ecumenism\u201d by a shared desire for religious influence in politics.<\/p>\n

Douthat said the essay\u2019s authors seemed to be motivated by \u201cfear and ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their attack on Trump-friendly positions expands and conflates \u201cvery different political and religious tendencies, indulging in paranoia about obscure theocratic Protestants and fringe Catholic websites, and ultimately critiquing every kind of American religious conservatism.\u201d Their critique includes \u201cthe largely anti-political Benedict Option and the pro-life activism fulsomely supported by Francis\u2019 papal predecessors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of this makes any sense,\u201d Douthat said. \u201cThe post-1970s evangelical-Catholic alliance has been flawed in various ways, but it is neither theocratic nor illiberal.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said both American Catholics and Protestants feel \u201ctheir leaders and thinkers have spent decades rallying to the republic, trying to bring about its moral and political renewal \u2026 only to see republican virtues decaying, liberalism turning hostile to religious faith, and democratic capitalism delivering disappointment and dislocation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Douthat saw an increase in \u201cdisillusionment and homelessness\u201d among Catholic thinkers. Older Catholic approaches to politics seem to be out of energy and influence. Western liberalism seems \u201cat once hostile to traditional religion and beset by internal contradictions,\u201d which seems to make the moment \u201cripe for serious Catholic rethinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

In both the rhetoric of Pope Francis and among unsettled American Catholics are hints that American politics is in a transition point. Douthat argued that Fr. Spadaro and Rev. Figueroa missed this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn their evident paranoia about what the Americans are up to, you see a different spirit: a fear of novelty and disruption, and a desire for a church that\u2019s primarily a steward of social peace, a mild and ecumenical presence, a moderate pillar of the establishment in a stable and permanently liberal age,\u201d Douthat claimed, saying that those who desire such a Church need to do better to understand \u201cwhy so many of their flock, in Europe and the United States, find this vision insufficient to the times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholic commentator George Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, questioned the decision to publish the essay.<\/p>\n

Writing at First Things<\/em> Aug. 2<\/a>, Weigel noted that La Civilta Cattolica<\/em> is often read because it is vetted by the Secretariat of State. Its articles are assumed to have \u201cquasi-official\u201d status and are commonly believed \u201cto reflect the cast of mind of the current pontificate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat kind of vetting did this misbegotten article get? Were any knowledgeable experts on U.S. Catholicism or American evangelical Protestantism consulted on what the overseers must have known would be an incendiary piece?\u201d<\/p>\n

If the article really represents the views of the Secretariat of State, Weigel asked, he questioned how to interpret the speech of apostolic nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Cristoph Pierre, whose address to the U.S. bishops \u201cbears no resemblance to the wasteland of madcap pseudo-theology and hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weigel approvingly summarized other critics of the article for an \u201cill-informed misrepresentation of American religious history\u201d; for \u201csurreal descriptions\u201d of 21st century Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism; its \u201cobsessions with marginal figures in contemporary American religious life\u201d; and its \u201cmisreading\u201d of how religion informs public debate in the U.S.<\/p>\n

He suggested that the journal and the credibility of the Secretariat of State could be better served by severing the connection, warning that the interpretations of the article \u201craise deeply disturbing questions about the competence of both parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> depicted the Civilta Cattolica<\/em> essay as \u201cA Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics.\u201d The essay has drawn defenders in publications such as Commonweal Magazine<\/em> and the National Catholic Reporter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, the editors of Commonweal Magazine<\/em>, themselves unsympathetic to U.S. Catholic conservatism, are also among the critics.<\/p>\n

In a July 25 editorial, they described the essay as \u201ca mishmash of wild and erroneous claims, made in a disjointed, almost impenetrable style,\u201d whose authors \u201cseem woefully ignorant of American religious history.\u201d They said the essay was a \u201clost opportunity\u201d to criticize the partisan use of religion in a way that might engage \u201cthose who do not yet have ears to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

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