One of the more common reasons given by converts to the Catholic Church for their conversion is that they can have a living authority. They are no longer burdened with being an expert on every theological nuance for fear of hell. In particular, those arising from the fundamentalist, pentecostal, and new church strains enjoy this comfort having come from places where traditional teachings traced themselves less than 200 years and more often less than 70 years from leaders widely dispersed and having weak communion. And while one can certainly trace this back to the Enlightenment, our present self-esteem culture could just as easily be blamed. What many folks of course find is that once the Tiber is crossed they are amongst people that have drank heavily of that same culture. One of the biggest issues today within the Church and within the broader society is the feeling that one’s personal opinion is important.
There are two prongs to this. One prong is competence. Not only must we have an opinion on every sundry topic today, but we are required to have public opinions. Give me the man-on-the-street interviews about the Swine Flu Epidemic. The Pope claims condoms for everyone isn’t working in Africa, then let’s interview embittered men and women on the street telling us how much they value birth control. The second prong is authority. The less you have an ability to change something, the less you should really have an opinion. I used to be a stickler for liturgical abuse. Getting upset over it didn’t do anything except distract my attention from mass. Overall, many never manage to bridge the difference good ideas and good policies. Much wasted energy in youth could be conserved if we in our youth would have recognized the best solution is the one that gets implemented. Professionally I have very strong opinions, but I have to remind myself daily that there are no points for being right. Even if I disagree with the decision, my job is to see to it that the decision is successful.
In this spirit, we again look at Notre Dame. I have made known over the past few weeks that I think objections to Obama offering the commencement are directionless and silly. I keep being told that the message we send by objecting is that supporting abortion rights in this country is unacceptable. Several bishops, including some prominent ones, agree that this message is important and should be sent. At this point I think it would be in Notre Dame’s best interests to rescind the invitation and state plainly that the hierarchy doesn’t believe universities should directly engage American civic life or be engaged by it. The bishops wish to reserve that privilege to themselves. While I think Catholic universities are worse off for making themselves ghettos, I think the life of the Church suffers great harm for this confrontation between the episcopate and the universities. Lest I be mistaken, I think the desire of the episcopate to reduce relations between the Church in the guise of her universities and the American civil leadership is oddly timed – why not 10 or 20 years ago? – but in the end I think if we are to be led off a cliff it is best that the bishops be at the lead. Catholics aren’t going to be too hurt – let’s not kid ourselves, there will be consequences – by a reduced affection for the political establishment, but the Catholic life is hurt when her bishops are rejected.
Finally let’s look once again at the torture debate. One of the most common objections to condemning the United States’s acts of torture during the Global War On Terror is “I don’t believe the acts under discussion are torture.” To quote Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character, “Well, isn’t that special!” Such an opinion isn’t coming from your years of experience in international law, or your experience as a human rights investigator in China, or your experience in the State Department, or your experience at the United Nations. At least the kid in class who raised his hand claiming to be confused after the teacher had gone over the same concept 3 times was actually trying to figure things out. You on the other hand are smrt, as Homer Simpson would say, and can watch the video of a person being strapped down and having water poured on to a cloth covering his face and say that’s not torture. God bless you for wanting to use independent judgement and personal intuition. However when all the experts not only tell you that you are wrong, but the question is not an issue of debate, it is time to show some humility in your personal judgement. I’m not going to condemn any man for claiming the world is flat; I am however going to be incredulous if he insists it be entertained in a debate on modern physics. I personally happen to love eccentrics, but one is being delusional when he doesn’t accept that he is offering an eccentric belief. Likewise with torture, believing that waterboarding is not torture when applied to captives is wildly eccentric.
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