Apoplexy anyone? Watch this at your own risk!
Here on this blog and at other blogs, I fear that we in the blogging community and those of us who make comments believe in a "false egalitarianism." By that we want to hear all voices on a subject and then make no judgment about the truth of the comments. So often even I your unworthy blogger let things pass when I should challenge. On another blog I read, some comments are so far afield of what the Church teaches that one would presume that those who sponsor it would challenge those comments, most of which are heterodox. Yet the only comments that really get any challenge are those who point out the truth. I've found this typical of those in the academic community who cry crocodile tears about the mean old hierarchy of the Church and its demand for obedience yet, are more rigid with those who they perceive as rigid. It was that way in the 1970's, my favorite decade for which I am most nostalgic, and nothing really has changed.
So commenters, obedience to the Holy Father in the areas of faith and morals and canon law is my mantra. It's the way to go if we are serious about purifying the Church of post-Christian sentiments which run rampant in many places in the Church, even on blogs!
Another interesting question John Allen asked Cardinal Levada is:
John Allen: On some points in the assessment, such as women's ordination and same-sex marriage, it's hardly just LCWR that's not in complete lockstep with official teaching. In some sectors of Catholic opinion, dissenting views on those points are widespread. Why pick on the women religious?
Cardinal Levada: We're not picking on people. We're saying that people who have a representative role as spokespersons in and for the church also have a higher responsibility. It's the same standard with theologians, even if they're laity. We intervene, we give notifications and so forth. Sure, their books go off the charts, but we're here to say that this doesn't correspond with the truth of our Catholic tradition, with the revelation of Christ to the apostles.
I know some people say, "Isn't my opinion as good as anybody else's?" But this isn't a question of my opinion. I don't wake up and say, "Here's dogma B, C and D." These are the teachings of the church. Read the fathers of the church, read the medieval theologians and so on.
6 comments:
"Apoplexy anyone? Watch this at your own risk!"
Pope Benedict is the pope of Christian unity, the most ecumenical pope the Church has had in modern times. Why on earth would this bother anyone? When one of Our Lord's most fervent prayers was that we might be one.
ROFL:
www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=QwcoKT_z6YI
Father,
In response to your reminder to commenters, and speaking for myself, I find this blogging business a bit unnerving. Not only is it still very new to me, but as an academic I have a healthy respect for the written word and the responsibility that comes with committing words to print.
If at any time I say anything that exceeds the limits of what you consider healthy and productive conversation, or make erroneous or otherwise inappropriate comments of any kind on any matter, I trust that you will either not post the material or will provide necessary correction, as you see fit.
Thank you again for providing a venue for broad collective conversation. Personally, I am finding it most helpful, as a vehicle to ask questions, to seek clarifications, to explore pertinent issues, and to learn from you and others.
My biggest concern is that those who make comments not do the following:
1. Denigrate Vatican II and the Holy Father, meaning Paul VI and his successors--that is not appropriate for Orthodox Catholics, but certainly we can question this, that or the other unintended consequences of Vatican II and directives of the Holy Father. For example, the manner in which Humanae Vitae was written and promulgated that then created a firestorm of rebellion and dissent from a very clear and high papal teaching (which technically does not allow for dissent) could Pope Paul VI have presented his teaching in a way that would not have created such a backlash from which the Church has yet to recover? I'm not saying that the Pope should have given into the secular voices in the Church calling for the elimination of natural law when it comes to sex and the marital act, but could it have been framed differently?
2. And denigrating others who post here by name calling and epitaphs. This is where I will delete comments, but have failed in the past.
But good old academic debates and calling one another to accountability in light of the Magisterium of the Church and the "Deposit of Faith" that's fine, but do so in a charitable way. Anonymous 2, you haven't offended any of these sensibilities.
Thank you for those clarifications and reassurance, Father.
Having devoted some study to the documents of Vatican II, I will not in any way denigrate them. I will say, however, that bishops in this country played fast and loose with provisions in those documents which were clearly meant to apply in non-European cultures.
Having also read a good deal of the writings of the late Michael Davies, I am mindful of his criticisms, but once again, I find more to challenge in the interpretation than in the composition.
Finally, with respect to combativeness and condescension, I will absent myself from threads of that nature, as some of those commenting seem perpetually to operate in that mode. As neither of us is likely to convert the other, words, regardless of their tone, seem pointless.
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