Following on yesterday’s Quote, and in response to both the USCCB, which is making “religious liberty” the centerpiece of its opposition to the HHS mandate, and those who believe “liberty” means merely “the freedom to do what you want” – in other words, license – here’s a great piece by David L. Schindler that appeared in the spring edition of Communio, the journal that he has edited since 1982: The Repressive Logic of Liberal Rights: Religious Freedom, Contraception, and the... Read more
Apropos of the “Fortnight for Freedom,” from “Freedom is Not the Good,” a post by Jerry Salyer at Front Porch Republic. “… for generations the American Catholic leadership has mostly assumed that an Enlightenment Deist’s conception of liberty is perfectly commensurate with its own. Some would even say the leadership has adopted the Enlightenment Deist’s conception of liberty. Either way, for more than two centuries the Catholic has obediently danced to the American system’s tune, without ever seriously questioning that... Read more
It has been a month since For Greater Glory opened in theaters in the United States. The film is a dramatic telling of some of the events of the Cristero war, a short but bloody civil war in Mexico sparked by anti-Catholic oppression by the government of Plutarcho Calles. Given its overtly religious storyline and the connections being drawn between the events in Mexico in the 1920’s and today, I figured that it was a worthy topic for a blog... Read more
In Three Blind Mice Attempt Ecclesiology, I drew from various sources within Catholic teaching and presented the view that persons who disagree with certain teachings of the Church need not feel that leaving the Church is a necessary consequence of their disagreeing. Shortly thereafter, Bonald from The Orthosphere responded (I Disagree: Faithful Dissent). I seek, here, to invite Bonald to benefit from how Catholic teaching approaches realities about which Bonald has mistakenly felt qualified to speak. In my opinion, the content... Read more
The following, from Aidan Nichols’ Chalice of God, is a beautifully concise summation of the some of the main fruits of 20th century Trinitarian thought: As “expositionally taught,” the revelation of the Trinity turns crucially on the doctrine of Jesus himself–for which I accept as witness the historical value of the Fourth Gospel…as the work of an eyewitness of the Word “in whom are hid all the riches of wisdom and knowledge” ( Col 2:3). But the teaching is marvelously... Read more
Yesterday was a happy day. It was the day that the Affordable Care Act was found to be constitutional. It means that 33 million people who are currently left out in the cold will receive insurance. It means countless more millions will not suffer and face financial ruin simply because they have the misfortune of falling sick in one of the world’s richest countries. It was a victory for common decency, for the basic caritas that underpins the Catholic faith. And yet... Read more
SCOTUS has ruled, and Chief Justice (and conservative Catholic) John Roberts single-handedly saved the Affordable Care Act. The Court’s right wing, joined in the minority by Justice Anthony Kennedy, would have overturned the entire Act. But Roberts joined with the liberal wing to rule that the individual mandate was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, but constitutional as an exercise of the Congress’s taxing power, thereby preserving the ACA pretty much intact. What are your reactions?? UPDATE: The bishops have weighed... Read more
Here is an ecclesiological proposition with far-reaching pastoral implications: we need an ecclesiology that accounts for fallibility. Let me explain. When the Church has recognized the need to confess its own sins, the language of its confessions has been constrained by a sense of doctrinal timelessness, which is tied to a well-established view of the Church’s credibility as dependent on its authoritative status as guarantor of truth – or even, as some would interpret, on its never being wrong. This view is... Read more
Imagine you read a statement like this in the New York Times: Jon O’Brien, a Catholic and president of “Catholics for Choice” says that the prohibition of artificial contraception in Catholic teaching is historically contingent. It matters, Mr. O’Brien said, that Pope Paul VI’s “Humanae Vitae” was written in 1968, not today. “In the sexual revolution, the church was concerned about sex, and not just libertinism but savage libertinism,” Mr. O’Brien said. “People were being brutalized. That’s just not the case in America today.”... Read more
Let me begin by noting that I fully support the bishops’ position on the recent HHS contraception mandate and their efforts to oppose it. But I find some of arguments made by the USCCB a little perplexing, with the potential to mislead people and even backfire on the Church. There are three specific issues that I would like to raise. (more…) Read more
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