{"id":188,"date":"2012-06-13T08:53:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T14:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?p=188"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:07:22","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:07:22","slug":"is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html","title":{"rendered":"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ouch. What a morning.<\/p>\n

So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this afternoon, when it was this morning at 9:30\u2014in Cincinnati. Been told that my post on St Patrick\u2019s Purgatory represents the worst of the \u201cworld-rejecting\u201d worst of Irish Jansenism. (Yup. That\u2019s me. If it\u2019s a choice between the world and a place of pilgrimage, prayer, and penitence, I\u2019m kicking the world to the curb.\u00a0Especially this morning.) Offended people in a Facebook discussion by appearing to side with the CDF (\u201ceverything I loathe about the Church,\u201d as one commenter describes it) against the good, courageous, discreet, prophetic, passionate women of the LCWR.<\/p>\n

How did I get here?<\/p>\n

I used to have a brain, but it\u2019s gone missing. There\u2019s an Amber Alert out to St Anthony, but I\u2019m not hopeful. I used to rail against Irish Jansenism\u2014in the Church, in my blood\u2014with all the fervor of a heart sorry for nothing and eager to embrace the world. I was formed by the good, courageous, discreet, prophetic, passionate women of the LCWR, to be a good, courageous, discreet, prophetic, passionate woman myself.<\/p>\n

How is it I am suddenly everything I used to loathe about the Church?<\/p>\n

And now, with the publication of Cardinal Levada\u2019s \u201cdialogue of the deaf\u201d remarks<\/a><\/strong> to NCR\u2019s John Allen after yesterday\u2019s meeting with representatives of the LCWR, I\u2019m starting to worry that I\u2019m actually ghostwriting for everything I used to loathe. This comment of Cardinal Levada\u2019s, in particular, is drawing the wrath of those who already see the hierarchy as too male, corporate, and clueless\u2014too 1%\u2014to be permitted to keep stealing oxygen from the rest of us:<\/p>\n

\u201cToo many people crossing the LCWR screen, who are supposedly representing the Catholic church, aren\u2019t representing the church with any reasonable sense of product identity,\u201d Levada said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Product identity?<\/em> the comboxers are shouting. WTFrack?<\/em><\/p>\n

But it makes absolute sense to me. In fact, I used much the same language in a post<\/a><\/strong> a while ago, trying to respond to media claims that the CDF\u2019s attempts to bring the LCWR\u2019s public stance into conformity with Church teaching constituted a hostile takeover. Canonically speaking\u2014and that\u2019s the only way to speak about this, because it is an issue of Church polity\u2014that\u2019s an inaccurate analogy. Hostile takeovers occur between autonomous corporations. The LCWR is not, under canon law and in the flow charts I\u2019m sure Cardinal Levada has posted on a wall somewhere, an autonomous anything. It is a branch office of the hierarchy itself, and the product identity being misrepresented is the body of teaching with which the home office, the magisterium, is entrusted. Not hostile takeover, then, but corporate retreat during which middle management is briefed on getting back to the brand.<\/p>\n

Now, I love the scene in Miracle on 34th Street<\/em> where Kris Kringle tells Macy\u2019s customers to shop at Gimbels if it\u2019ll make their kids happier. And it turned out, in the movie, to be great marketing strategy for Macy\u2019s. But that\u2019s a movie, and I can\u2014even when I loathe myself for doing it\u2014understand why Cardinal Levada might think that the LCWR is just wacked when it seems to be saying, \u201cCatholicism not making you happy, kids? Go shop post-Christianity!\u201d Even if that turns out to be, as the sisters believe, a terrific marketing strategy for the Church-as-they-see-it in the long run, Cardinal Levada just doesn\u2019t have a business plan flexible enough to incorporate it. This is not Silicon Valley, this is the Eternal City. If banks are too big too fail, the Vatican is a box too big to think outside of.<\/p>\n

So, in addition to taking the fall from the right for 35 years of Bad Catechesis, I\u2019m prepared this morning to take the heat from the left for supplying Cardinal Levada with a Bad Soundbite. Maybe he even asked me if he could use it, but my brain was absent at the time, and I forgot.<\/p>\n

But the serious part, the painful part is that this is not a movie or a joke. I do believe, this morning, that I am seeing a deep fissure in the Church I fell back in love with. The split is coming, if it is not already here and just awaiting confirmation. The issue, as it was in what I suspect someday will be called the First Protestant Reformation, is authority. The LCWR (and a large part of the Church in the United States, and around the world) no longer acknowledges that the Vatican, the home office, has any kind of authority or merits any kind of respect. The converse is also true. This is a dialogue of the deaf, I\u2019m afraid, on both sides. And God knows the CDF\u2019s decision on the possibility of the SSPX returning to communion\u2014another Levada announcement expected today\u2014has the potential to deepen the deafness all around.\u00a0Obedience\u2014listening with humility\u2014has gone missing, and I want to send out an Amber Alert.<\/p>\n

The Good News, and there is always Good News, is that Jesus makes the deaf to hear and the blind to see. He does it, quite often, by spitting, for which I don\u2019t in the least blame Him. Have mercy, Lord, on the Church I loathe and love.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this afternoon, when it was this morning at 9:30\u2014in Cincinnati. Been told that my post on St Patrick\u2019s Purgatory represents the worst of the \u201cworld-rejecting\u201d worst of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,8,9,7],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-authority","tag-cardinal-levada","tag-cdf","tag-lcwr"],"yoast_head":"\nIs There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Egregious Twaddle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-13T14:53:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-02T17:07:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joanne McPortland\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joanne McPortland\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html\",\"name\":\"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-13T14:53:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-05-02T17:07:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071\"},\"description\":\"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/\",\"name\":\"Egregious Twaddle\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071\",\"name\":\"Joanne McPortland\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Joanne McPortland\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/author\/joannemcportland\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?","description":"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?","og_description":"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html","og_site_name":"Egregious Twaddle","article_published_time":"2012-06-13T14:53:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-05-02T17:07:22+00:00","author":"Joanne McPortland","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Joanne McPortland","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html","name":"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-06-13T14:53:45+00:00","dateModified":"2016-05-02T17:07:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071"},"description":"  Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/is-there-healing-for-the-dialogue-of-the-deaf.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is There Healing for the Dialogue of the Deaf?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/","name":"Egregious Twaddle","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/988428e355d44143e36a5215d7f0a071","name":"Joanne McPortland","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/32f1d9bc6c1a69b90e3b6e9f40141056?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Joanne McPortland"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/author\/joannemcportland"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}