But they just know the Church will change!

If there is one sentiment that baffles me more than any other, it's this:

The Catholic Church will be changing her teachings, and I only need watch and wait. I am foolish for not seeing the "big picture" of how it's all going to go down. It's inevitable. The Church will come around, the Church will conform. It's just a matter of time.

In response, I question how many millennia have to pass without the Church changing before they'll concede the point?

Take a look at what a dissenting* Catholic named James said to me just the other day, about the foolishness of faithful Catholics (emphases mine):

It’s just as frustrating to me to see an intelligent person walking a rigid black and white line that will waver and shift in the coming centuries. When I taught each of my girls to drive they all exhibited the same myopic habit of looking 6 feet over the hood. My first correction to them was to look waaaay down the road to get the big picture, to see what was coming so as to be aware, while using peripheral vision to sort out any immediate hazards. Their driving improved immediately.

James believes that he has vision far into the future; he sees what's coming ahead. If only the Catholic Church could see what he sees or could know what he knows.

Well, I agree that somebody is missing the big picture here, but it's not the Church. The Church isn't looking "six feet over the hood", not at all. In fact, she started her engine over two thousand long years ago, and she began her journey looking out toward all of eternity. She was full of confidence in her mission and destiny then (as now), and she knew exactly where she was going. Two millennia later, she sees in her rearview mirror the ruins of every empire she passed along the way, even as she steadily cruises along, undeterred. She has not "wavered and shifted" off of the road and into any ditches, nor is there any credible sign that she ever will.

There is just no sign of it.

Dissenters and heretics and naysayers and ex-Catholics have been predicting "inevitable changes" since the first century of the Church's existence. Yet, they are the ones who took their eyes off the road. While looking sideways to gawk at shiny distractions, or while looking inward to contemplate the lint in their own navels, they lost the "big picture" and ran themselves into a ditch. Ouch.

But that's not how the Church rolls.

Let's walk through it:

The First Century -- Enemies of the Church are smugly predicting her fall, brutally persecuting her, violently trying to force the change themselves.
The Second Century -- Ditto
The Third Century -- Ditto
The Fourth Century -- Violence against the Church eases, but how 'bout them heretics! The Church is wrong, they say, and she must and will change. The heretics gain lots of followers but lose Christ. The Church keeps driving straight ahead.
The Fifth Century -- The Church still hasn't changed her teachings, still going strong. Dissenters, heretics, and apostates see only six feet over the hood, and they lose the big picture entirely.
The Sixth Century -- The Church still had not changed her teachings. Eyes on the road, driving smoothly forth.
The Seventh Century -- The Church continues to outlast her critics, i.e., the ones who confidently predict her inevitable assimilation to the ways of the world or to their own particular heresy. Same story in...
The Eighth Century
The Ninth Century
The Tenth Century
The Eleventh Century
The Twelfth Century
The Thirteenth Century
(Are you still with me?)
The Fourteenth Century
The Fifteenth Century
The Sixteenth Century -- Special note here: A bunch of Catholics disillusioned with sinners in the Church decide to jettison the Church entirely and preach brand new (heretical) doctrines; Church teaching still does not change, even as internal corruption is cleaned up. The Church continues to drive on her divinely appointed path while the Protestant Reformers and their followers splinter endlessly off-course in all directions.
The Seventeenth Century
The Eighteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century
The Twentieth Century
The Twenty-first Century

Still no change. Yawn. Just checking my watch here. Nope, we're good. Still taking the long view and not getting sidetracked.

The spirit and sins of the age in every culture have come and gone a thousand times over, and the Church has not bowed to any of them.

There is not a scintilla of evidence that the Church is about to reverse course.

But still I get, "Oh, it's just a matter of time now. You'll see. The house of cards will fall." And yet, no one ever sees, and the "house of cards" never falls.

My question: How much time must elapse until the critics are convinced?

It's a serious question, but it's largely rhetorical, of course. The critics will never be convinced in our own time, even as they weren't convinced in the First Century, or the Second, or the Fourth, or the Sixteenth, or the Twentieth.

There have been a million Jameses talking of the Church's inevitable change for centuries on end with not a hint of vindication. Their blinders won't allow them to see the Church that Christ established, the Church protected and charged with teaching the Truth both in season and out.

My advice to James and the others is to take James' advice and apply it to themselves: Stop with the myopic habit of looking only six feet over the hood at the fads and fancies of the day. Look waaaay down the road to get the big picture, use the experience of two millennia to understand what is coming so as to be aware, and use your peripheral vision to sort out any immediate hazards and shiny trinkets that would take you off the steady, narrow road and into a ditch. Your driving will improve immediately.

Your path will be stable, reliable, and clear to eternity.

+++++++

PS: Before anyone challenges me by presenting supposed "changes" in Church teaching, be sure to know the difference between a discipline and a doctrine.



*Updated to reflect that James may not be an ex-Catholic as I had originally believed, but rather a lapsed or dissenting Catholic. I can't really know, since he put a quick comment below and will not be returning to correct me from what I can tell.

Correcting a Kennedy is a spiritual work of mercy

"Dear Lord, please give us more Catholic Kennedys and fewer Kennedy Catholics. Amen."

This is a long one, folks, but it's necessary. So, grab a cup of tea.

Several weeks ago, I came across a piece on the Catholic Church by the woefully misguided Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. I forced myself to read skim it, and as expected, the piece was so bad, so distorted, so misrepresentative of the Catholic Faith, that I pulled out the big guns: I asked JoAnna, who blogs brilliantly at A Star of Hope, to give it a thorough critique.

Catholics, I warn you, theology and Church history as presented by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is painful to read. "Instructing the Ignorant" is one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy, and all I can say is that JoAnna has surely burned off time in Purgatory for her point-by-point rebuttal of such a mess of an anti-Catholic piece.

Take it away, JoAnna...

+++++++

[Note: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's words are represented in red italics.]

The following piece by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend appeared in The Atlantic on March 28, 2012:

The Case for Gay Acceptance in the Catholic Church

Now, right off the bat the title rubs me the wrong way. Gays are already "accepted" in the Catholic Church, as are adulterers, gluttons, fornicators, and deniers of Christ (St. Peter, anyone?), among others. In fact, every single member of the Catholic Church here on earth is a sinner! What Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (hereafter KKT) means is, "The Case for the Approval of Same-Sex Fornication by the Catholic Church."


Let's see if her argument is worth the digital paper it's published on, shall we?

The death penalty no longer applies to people who divorce or sleep with women during their periods, as described in the Bible. So why can't attitudes on homosexuality change as well?

So much wrong with this one sentence. Well, let's see. First off, divorce was never a capital offense in Old Testament times. In fact, Jesus specifically mentions that it was permitted by Moses. Even today, divorce isn't a sin -- it's remarriage after divorce that is an issue, because the civil government doesn't have the authority to dissolve a valid marriage in the eyes of God (nor does the Church, actually, although She does have the authority to examine a marriage at the time it was contracted and determine if it did, in fact, occur).

As for "sleeping with women during their periods," Jewish laws pertaining to ritual uncleanliness don't apply to Christians, as the New Testament makes abundantly clear.

Moving right along...

On St. Patrick's Day I had the pleasure of speaking to about 350 Catholics who gathered together to attend a conference put on by New Ways Ministry, which is an effort to support the LGBT community in the Catholic Church.

"New Ways Ministry" is a giant red flag right away. This would be the same New Ways Ministry run by a dissident priest and nun who were disciplined by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (headed by then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) in 2002:

...the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is obliged to declare for the good of the Catholic faithful that the positions advanced by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area. 

Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have often stated that they seek, in keeping with the Church's teaching, to treat homosexual persons “with respect, compassion and sensitivity”. However, the promotion of errors and ambiguities is not consistent with a Christian attitude of true respect and compassion: persons who are struggling with homosexuality no less than any others have the right to receive the authentic teaching of the Church from those who minister to them. The ambiguities and errors of the approach of Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have caused confusion among the Catholic people and have harmed the community of the Church. 

For these reasons, Sister Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Father Robert Nugent, SDS, are permanently prohibited from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons and are ineligible, for an undetermined period, for any office in their respective religious institutes.


Back to KKT:

The women and men I spoke to included nuns and priests, children who had come out and parents who wanted to be supportive. Two female priests gave me special blessing and I left the meeting inspired by the devotion of those who attended.

Hey, that reminds me of a joke.

Q: A female priest, a unicorn, and Jesus are walking down the street when they see a $20 dollar bill on the ground. Who picks it up?

A: Jesus. The other two don't exist.

New Ways Ministry has a critical mission [spreading heresy is a critical mission?], since changing the Church will help those who suffer from ill treatment not only here in the United States but around the world, where the Church has so much clout. The Church has millions of members in Africa and South America, where being gay or lesbian can lead to a death sentence.

What an inventive bit of fiction. As a matter of fact, the Vatican has spoken out against anti-gay laws in Uganda. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story!

Worse, the Church's own teaching encourages bigotry and harm. Just last year, my father's memorial, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, gave its human rights award to Frank Mugisha, a gay activist in Uganda whose good friend had just been brutally killed in his own home.

Putting aside the fact that the police attributed the crime to robbery, this New York Times article states that Mugisha et al blame American evangelical Christians - not the Catholic Church - for his friend's death.

American missionaries have encouraged the discrimination Mugisha suffers.

Once again, not Catholic missionaries.

Refuting their religious arguments is critical [why not seek the truth instead?], and so is making a moral and religious case for gays. What we need is a transformation of hearts and minds, not merely a change of laws.

Why do I get the feeling you don't say the same thing about abortion? But I digress...

The Catholic Church's attitude towards homosexuality is at odds with its tradition of tolerance and understanding.

Really? Let's take a look at that "attitude."

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

Terrible! How dare that evil mean Catholic Church suggest that homosexuals be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity! Why, that sounds almost... loving.

The actual practice of the Church is true to this tradition. What other institution separates men and women and encourages them to live together in monasteries and convents where they can develop deep relationships with those who share their kind of love?

I have to admit, I sat at my computer for a full minute with my jaw hanging open when I read that paragraph. Did she really just say that all monks and nuns are gay, and live together in monasteries and convents to celebrate their gayness? Really? Someone get Mother Angelica on the phone, stat!

The fight for the dignity of the LGBT community is a fight for the soul of today's Church. Some conservatives see the hierarchy's current, traditional teaching on sex as the Church's defining position.

Newsflash: faithful Catholics consider the Church's teaching to be true! In our next story, water is found to be wet!

They don't really like to talk about, or even be reminded of, the Church's teachings on immigration, or protection of the environment, or the greed that produces financial meltdowns, all of which they would find distastefully liberal.

Yep, faithful Catholics completely ignore Church teaching on social justice. And by "completely ignore," I mean "faithfully follow and promulgate." KKT neglects to mention that many social justice issues are ones of prudential judgement, in that Catholics can legitimately hold differing opinions on the best way to deal with issues such as illegal immigration or services for the poor. Homosexual acts, however, are always intrinsically disordered -- there's no wiggle room there.

For them there is only one issue -- sex, or pelvic politics as some call it.

Because the Left isn't obsessed with sex at all, KKT. Not a single bit.

The Pope himself pointed this out on in visit to Mexico, where he said that "not a few Catholics have a certain schizophrenia with regard to individual and public morality.... In public life they follow paths that don't respond to the great values necessary for the foundation of a just society."

I wish liberals would make up their minds. Either the Pope is a senile dotard who shouldn't even express his opinion on his favorite breakfast cereal, or he is, indeed, the Vicar of Christ. Too often liberals invoke his words (usually take out of context) to support their viewpoints and then turn around and loudly proclaim that no Catholic in their right mind would listen to him. Anyway, as fun as it is to pull quotes out of context to fit one's preconceived notions of reality, let's look at the Pope's words in context. It seems he was speaking in response to a question about dramatic inequalities of wealth in Latin America, not sexual issues.

In fact, in the exact same speech, he said, "The Church is not a political power, it is not a party...it is a moral reality, a moral power." (emphasis mine)

I think, KKT, that the Kennedys could learn something from the outlook that the Catholic Church is not a political party, nor a means to a political end...

If we wish to change the Church, we must first convey our views in language, images, and theology that reach people where they are.

First of all, you're not going to "change the Church." The Church serves God, not the whims of man. Second of all, you should be seeking truth above all else, not striving to force people to conform to your unique and novel theology and ignorant preconceived biases.

And secondly, we should make it clear that disagreement with the hierarchy is a critical part of our history.

Sure it is... if you're Protestant.

Is KKT aware of St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church and admonisher of Popes? She said,

“When He returned to Me, rising to Heaven from the conversation of men at the Ascension, He left you this sweet key of obedience; for as you know He left His vicar, the Christ, on earth, whom you are all obliged to obey until death, and whoever is outside His obedience is in a state of damnation, as I have already told you in another place.”

So here we have a woman who told the Pope himself that he was out of line on certain non-doctrinal issues. That's what I call "disagreement with the hierarchy"! And yet she has no qualms with obeying that same hierarchy as instituted by Christ. Funny how that works, huh?

Here's what you're missing, KKT. Disagreement can't be divorced from obedience. All the saints who disagreed with the Church, or with the hierarchy, or with a Pope (and there were many!) were also obedient unto death.

The fact that so many Americans see themselves as religious, as God-loving church goers, means we have a better chance of reaching them if we use a language, a book, and symbols they understand.

What condescending nonsense. "We should make pretty books with colorful pictures for the ignorant masses, because they're too stupid to understand us otherwise!"

Polls find that 85 percent say that they believe in God and 50 percent claim that they go to church every Sunday. The fact that only 25 percent do just goes to show that you can't trust everybody's self-reporting.

And 47.4% of statistics are made up on the spot as well. I might also mention that you seem to trust everybody's self-reporting just fine when it comes to the statistic that 98% of Catholic women use birth control (more on that below).

In The Good Book: The Bible's Place in Our Lives, the recently deceased Peter Gomes describes interviews with 400 people who had been jailed for hate crimes against gays. None felt remorse. They thought gays were the devil, so fighting them was cause for pride, not shame or regret. Laws are important, but the moral case can be even more compelling.

You know what we should do, KKT? We should get the Catholic Church to issue a document that says something like, "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Hmm, seems like the Church already did that in 1986, under the direction some guy named Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a Pope more like him? Oh wait… we do.

KKT continues:

When my father visited South Africa in 1966, he spoke with students in Cape Town about apartheid. They defended the abhorrent practice by pointing to Biblical passages that suggested that discrimination was fine. In an effort to reach them, my father asked, "Suppose you die, and you go up to heaven, and you enter the pearly gates, and suppose, just suppose when you get there, you find that God is black." Today we can ask, "Suppose God is gay."

An excellent case against sola scriptura and private interpretation of scripture in one paragraph! Sad that Mr. Kennedy didn't know enough about his faith to dismantle the argument from that angle rather than using platitudes.

Moreover, race is not a disordered inclination, it's a state of being. Same-sex attraction is a disordered inclination (and it's not the inclination that's sinful, but acting upon it). Apples and oranges.

Not to mention, how exactly is an non-corporeal being who doesn't have skin or sex organs supposed to have a specific hue or a sexual orientation? But I digress...

My father grasped, as did John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, that in America the leader who wishes to enlarge freedom's sphere must appeal to an audience's religious beliefs as well as to their understanding of American liberty. This is what I wrote about in my book, Failing America's Faithful. While researching it, I gained many insights into the Church and its history of both prejudice and tolerance.

You know what's coming next, don't you?

The Great Awakening of the 1740s gave people the idea that they could find God within themselves and need not trust preachers. As one perceptive British writer pointed out, if they don't need rectors, soon they won't need British rulers. Sure enough, once Americans got used to trusting themselves, they did rebel. Then the Second Great Awakening, in the 1850, instilled in Americans the idea that not only did the divine reside within them, it also resided in women and slaves. The Abolitionist movement grew from that religious revival, as did the suffragettes.

 Revisionist history? Check.

A few years ago, I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations [sic], and to me the biggest revelation was how misogynistic it was. That made me realize that the Catholic Church was on to something when it allowed only educated priests to read the Bible. My mother's generation was prohibited from reading the Bible, and when I told my grandmother that my father used to read the Bible to us, she was shocked, "Catholics don't read the Bible," she said.

Blatant misinterpretation of Scripture and outright lies about Catholic teaching, not to mention the obligatory "but Vatican II changed all that" allusion? Check.

The Church figured that people could take passages out of context and come to unwarranted conclusions.

OH SWEET IRONY.

This changed after Vatican II and now Catholic parishes offer Bible study classes.

Because they never did before! In fact, Vatican II invented the Bible! Oh wait, but if Vatican II invented the Bible, why is the Bible so misogynistic? Liberal logic... breaking down... does... not... compute...

But those outrageous [outrageous!] passages did not deter either the abolitionists or the suffragettes. They boldly rejected them as cultural detritus. Instead, they asserted that the primary message was that all people were made in God's image. Thus we are born to be free.

Born to be Free would be a great name for a band. Just sayin.' (Oh and speaking of abolitionists and suffragettes, I'd lay money on the odds that KKT would find some way to dismiss the obvious parallels of the abortion debate to slavery, not to mention the fact that Susan B. Anthony and other premier suffragettes vehemently opposed abortion.)

Unfortunately, a century later, in the 1970s, feminists and gay rights activists did not adopt the same strategy and tactics. I think this happened because their movement grew out of the non-religious part of the civil rights movement. Recall that the civil rights movement was split between the followers of Reverend Martin Luther King on the one hand and Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers on the other. The latter group felt that religion was weak. Why turn the other cheek? Why not fight back? This secular strain also attracted many intellectuals who were, to put it bluntly, uncomfortable with religion.

Hm, perhaps because religion meant, you know, a radical conversion of heart and actually practicing virtue and all that. Not to mention all those inconvenient doctrines about chastity and the dignity of the unborn.

Happily, [or not, depending on your perspective...] that has now changed. Women have entered schools of theology [so there were no women theologians before? St. Catherine of Siena, among others, would be amazed to hear that...] and can now show that Jesus was one of the first great feminists. Mary Magdalene is no longer thought of as a prostitute but as the "apostle to the apostles." [After all, it's not like St. Mary Magdalene has been a saint in the Catholic Church for centuries or anything...] Gays, though, are still excluded. [excluded from what?]

Progressive Christian and Jewish believers have accepted gay rights. Theologians now argue that verses in Leviticus that call for the killing of men who sleep with men apply only to a particular historical moment. The death penalty no longer applies to people who divorce, curse their parents, or sleep with women during their period -- rules that are also in Leviticus.

I was wondering when she'd invoke the God Hates Shrimp Fallacy. (By the way, KKT, Christian teaching on homosexuality has never rested on proof-texting Leviticus 18:22.)

And it's not altogether suprising that "progressive Christians" and "Jewish believers" (I think some Orthodox Jews would be very surprised to hear your opinion on that), who lack a central moral authority, believe that objective truth is determined by subjective popular opinion. (Does that mean that slavery was morally right when the majority of Americans considered it so?)

Obviously, some people continue to read scripture simply to sustain their preexisting prejudice against homosexuality and homosexuals. But theologians now point out that the word "homosexual" didn't even exist until the 19th century, and it wasn't included in the Bible until 1946.

Oh, well, theologians. Don't bother to cite your sources or anything, KKT, I'll just take your word for it. And in all my years as a Christian, both as Protestant and Catholic, I've never once met anyone who read Scripture "simply to sustain their preexisting prejudice against homosexuality and homosexuals." Go figure.

Choose your passage. King David talks about sleeping with his friend Nathan as "better than sleeping with a woman."

We can now officially discount everything KKT says about the Bible, because she just confused Jonathan, the son of Saul, with the prophet Nathan. Apparently, no one else at The Atlantic caught the mistake, either. (The verse she's talking about, incidentally, is 2 Samuel 1:26.)

The Ten Commandments don't mention homosexuality. [Actually, sexual sins are covered under the sixth commandment.] Nor does Jesus. In fact, our Lord teaches us that love of God and love of our fellow human being are the two most important commandments. He doesn't exclude the love that one man can have for another, or one woman for another.

That's because love doesn't equate to sex. Love also does not equate to condoning and celebrating mortal sin. Jesus said to the adulteress, "Go and sin no more," not "Go on and keep sinning as long as you love the guy!" Jesus never mentioned chattel slavery or pedophilia, either, KKT. Can we start condoning and celebrating those, too?

The 2000-year-old passages favored by Church authorities don't hold up as being anti-gay. Not only is the hierarchy -- the Church's cardinals and bishops -- imposing its own interpretations, its views are harmful to many men and women.

Wait a sec, it's bad to impose interpretations on people? Why are you doing it, then?

I would hope that the lens through which one reads scripture would be one of love and openness to others, not fear and anger and meanness.

Shouldn't the lens through which one reads Scripture be the lens of truth and humility, even if the translations and interpretations conflict with your already-held beliefs?

Contrary to conservative propaganda, though, the Vatican is not immovable. It has a long history of changing position to follow new understandings of society and morality. Usury is no longer a sin. Women are no longer considered "the devil's gateway." Railroads are no longer cursed as the work of the devil, and teaching that there is such a doctrine as "freedom of conscience" does not merit censure, as it did for John Courtney Murray in the 1950s: In fact, Vatican II now recognizes "freedom of conscience." Pope John Paul II apologized for the Church's treatment of women and its persecution of Galileo. Sex between husband and a wife is no longer just for procreation but has value in itself.

Every single "change" she lists in this paragraph is wrong. Every. Single. One. It's amazing, really, how little she knows about the faith she claims to profess, and it's glaringly obvious that she has no idea of the difference between doctrines and disciplines, or development of doctrine.

That history can continue with its position on gays -- and the laity has a critical role to play in pushing for these changes. As Cardinal John Henry Newman, the foremost 19th-century Catholic theologian asserted, bishops have at times "failed in their confession of the faith." There can be instances of "misguidance, delusion, hallucination." He said that the body of the faithful has the "instinct for truth."

A Catholic dissenter quoting Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman? That takes guts! Newman, newly beatified and sure to be canonized, was an esteemed Anglican churchman who converted to the Catholic Church at enormous personal cost and loss of public status. He wrote the classic masterpiece, Apologia pro Vita Sua, a work of Catholic apologetics "which ends with a brilliant defence of Catholicism". (In other words, he was the opposite of a dissenter, a sort of anti-KKT.)

Guess what else Newman said?

If, again, it be said that a man may be obedient and yet proud of being so, that is, obedient, without having faith, I would maintain, on the other hand, that in matter of fact a man is proud, or (what is sometimes called) self-righteous, not when obedient, but in proportion to his disobedience. To be proud is to rest on one's self, which they are most chargeable with who do least; but a really obedient mind is necessarily dissatisfied with itself, and looks out of itself for help, from understanding the greatness of its task; in other words, in proportion as a man obeys, is he driven to faith, in order to learn the remedy of the imperfections of his obedience.

Already, I have witnessed that instinct for truth in the argument over contraception. Despite the hierarchy's position, 98 percent of Catholic women in the United States use contraception.

You must have missed the memo, KKT. That statistic is false. What was that you said again about "you can't trust everybody's self-reporting"? (Nor can you trust statistics about birth control from an organization that was founded to sell it...)

I believe that Human [sic] Vitae [how did she and the editors miss that error?] was the Holy Ghost's way to teach us that we must use our conscience, and not lazily rely on the hierarchy when it is in error.

Let's examine this logic. God allowed the Catholic Church to teach error as doctrine (thereby voiding Christ's promise that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church as well as the entire doctrine of infallibility) in order to teach us to use our conscience and not rely on the authority that He Himself established to bind and loose. Oh yeah. That makes sense.

At this time, when the hierarchy does not want to recognize that we are all made in the image and likeness of God,

Has she even read the Catechism?

and that the one of the two most critical commandments is to love one another, it is critical to assert that God loves the LGBT community equally.

I wasn't aware of any claim from the teaching authority of the Catholic Church to the contrary. Is there a paragraph in the Catechism or a document issued from the Vatican that states that God does NOT love people in the LGBT community? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Sometimes the Church moves slowly, sometimes quickly. The point is to make sure the voices of dissent are not quiet and the Holy Spirit can be heard.

Yes, because the LOUDER the voices of dissent are, the EASIER it is to hear the Holy Spirit. Because it's EASY to hear God when people are being LOUD and OBNOXIOUS. Wait, what? Or maybe she is saying that the voices of dissent are the Holy Spirit?? Lord, have mercy.

Well, there you have it, folks. Exhibit A of the terrible consequences of atrocious catechesis from the 1960s and 1970s. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's "case for gay acceptance in the Catholic Church" turns out to be no case at all.

+++++++

PS: If you think JoAnna is a fringe Catholic, read this.




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Are we really "fringe" Catholics?

Important Disclaimer! This post is not about who is a "better" person than another. As I have said countless times on this blog, only God can read and judge hearts and souls. This post seeks to address only what objectively constitutes the "fringe" of Catholicism vs. what constitutes the normative or mainstream. 

A non-Catholic reader, Johanne, left an interesting comment during a recent discussion on this post.

[A]s a non-Catholic, I only know if someone SAYS they're a Catholic--I can't evaluate whether or not they are living out their faith. For all I know YOU are not a "real" Catholic. I don't mean in any way to imply that you're not, and it's not anyone's obligation to offer their credentials to me, or anyone else. I'm just sharing my bemusement when I hear religious folks claim that other members of their faith are not "real" members of their faith. At times I have described conversations I've been a part of on "The Bubble" to other Catholics and have been told you sound like members of a "fringe." I'm not saying they're accurate, I'm just saying it's confusing. I guess that's why there are so many religions and so many sects within those religions. People feel a need to find their niche. 

The sentiments are nothing new; faithful Catholics hear this sort of thing a lot. Let's look at it: "Fringe" implies that we are on the margins of the Faith, and outside of the mainstream of Catholicism. Interestingly, many Catholics who identify me or the Catholics from this blog as "fringe" have the same thoughts about Pope Benedict XVI. They see him as being extremist, or out-of-touch, or stuck in the past. They have their own ideas about what Catholicism is or should be or must one day become.

And therein lies the problem. Most American Catholics are not operating within the Catholic paradigm!

The Catholic paradigm is hierarchical. We have a Magisterium*. In the Catholic religion, we have an earthly standard-bearer, a touchstone for orthodoxy, and a final authority: The pope. The pope is normative for our Catholic Faith, and he can never be on the fringe, but only in the center. The pope guards and protects the unbroken teachings from Christ, and hands them down, intact. Unlike Protestant denominations, doctrinal truth is not up for a vote, and the faithful cannot pick and choose what is or is not a part of the Faith.
       
But many American Catholics, unaware of this paradigm (or simply disliking it), live as practical Protestants. They refuse to submit to the authority of the pope, reject some or most of the Deposit of Faith, and then label as "extreme" those Catholics who accept the entire Faith. But that's the wrong perspective, of course. In fact, the further away one gets from embracing all the teachings of the Church, the closer he gets to the "fringe".

Here's a good illustration. At the great Easter Vigil -- the universal Church's most important liturgy of the year -- those being received into the fullness of the Catholic Church recite these words at the sacred altar of God:

“I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church teaches, believes and proclaims to be revealed by God.” 

This remarkable statement is normative, mainstream Catholicism. It is the very basis of what makes us Catholic. A Catholic who speaks these words and means them is not on the "fringe" of Catholicism, but resides in her very center.

The question may arise, then, just what are the teachings of the Church? Thankfully, that's easy to know. Again, look to the pope. Look to the unchanging teachings of the Church, which have been handed on for 20 centuries. Look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which Blessed John Paul the Great called a "sure norm for teaching the faith" and "a sure and authentic reference text." No one has to wonder what the Church teaches, as it's all there for everyone, including non-Christians, to see.

Church teaching is no mystery, and I'm guessing that even dissenting Catholics know the basics. Johanne, ask your Catholic friends what the Church teaches, officially, about homosexual "marriage". Ask them what the Church teaches about abortion, or about contraception. Ask them what the Church teaches about Christ's resurrection, or Mary's perpetual virginity. Chances are good that they already know what the Catholic Church teaches, even if they disagree.

And Johanne, please invite your Catholic friends to read this post. I'd be most interested to hear their reasons for classifying me and others here as "fringe". I truly am curious as to their evidence or thoughts on that. They will be treated respectfully, as you know!

Ultimately, I'd like them to know that faithful Catholics, like those you might find here in the Bubble, are not "fringe" or on the freakish edge of Catholicism; we're simply folks who strive, first and foremost, to be faithful and obedient (oh, that word!) to the Magisterium, living in the the heart of Christ's Church, where there is plenty of room for everyone.






*Magisterium: The teaching authority of the Catholic Church, comprised of the body of bishops in union with the pope.




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My regrettable exchange with a Catholic university professor.

Recently, I had an interesting and disheartening email exchange with a professor at a prominent Catholic university. It was my intention to reprint the entire exchange here but the professor has threatened to take legal action against me if I do. Specifically, he will move to have Blogger shut down the Bubble if I show you his words. 


I've struggled a bit with whether or not to write this post at all, but after praying on it for a couple of days, I've decided to go ahead. It's just one more confirmation of what others (including the Vatican) have known for decades: that something has gone horribly awry in Catholic higher education.


Because of the professor's threats of legal action, I will reprint only my emails here, and then summarize what the professor said in response. He will remain unnamed.


My words are in blue, the summary of the professor's words are in red, and my commentary is in black italics.


It all began when I followed a link that was put in the comment section of a post. The linked article was presented as being from a Catholic source, when in fact it was from an anti-Catholic source that has been publicly denounced by the US Bishops. My point in contacting the website's owner was to clarify for him that his source was misleading. I sent the following email:


Greetings Professor!

If this is from your website:

[Here I inserted the web address of the article in question.]

You might want to check out this:

[Here I linked to a post of mine which used official Church teaching to debunk one of the article's main (erroneous) points.]

I am sure you don't want to purposely misrepresent Catholic teaching. Your page (written by "Catholics" For a Free Choice) also says: "Contrary to popular belief, no pope has proclaimed the prohibition of abortion an 'infallible' teaching."


It is also true that the Catholic Church has never declared, ex cathedra, that God exists. That doesn't mean it's not infallibly taught. Again, for more accurate information about Catholicism, you might want to check out this post:

[Doctrinal Quiz Show Answer: Papal Infallibility]

In it, I make clear that "an ex cathedra pronouncement (extraordinary Magisterium) is not the only kind of infallibility on the block, and definitely not the most common. Many dissident, unfaithful 'Catholics' will use the bogus argument that 'the pope only declared two things infallibly!' to justify their rejection of a hundred other Catholic truths."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is another great source for authentic Catholic teaching.


Blessings and Merry Christmas!
Leila 


I did not spend a lot of time looking at the professor's website. I wrote the note quickly, assuming he was a professor in some small school somewhere, probably a Protestant or someone who was very confused about authentic Catholic sources.


The professor wrote back and explained that his website was reading for graduate students and he wished I had explored his website more carefully. In his course, he includes readings from many different religious perspectives, including "liberal Catholics." He teaches a graduate course for university students, and while it is not a catechism class, he does have them read official Catholic teaching. Students in his class (half of whom are Catholic, half not) are expected to use "critical tools" to dissect and evaluate the essays. He is not teaching a Catholic theology course, but a law course. He would not have used that particular article if he were teaching the official Catholic position. He kindly wished me a Merry Christmas and New Year.


I responded:


Dear [Name], 

Thank you for the response! Unfortunately, with eight children I didn't have time to read through your blog carefully. Someone had used the source from your site as a factual reading of Catholic thought and teaching. I imagine that is not uncommon, thus the problem.

I guess I would just hope that, as a professor, you would make sure that a page such as that, from a very anti-Catholic source, would have a very large caveat written across the top, that this source is in fact, not Catholic. That would be the intellectually honest thing to do. Please understand, I'm not accusing you of being intellectually dishonest.... we all have oversights that need to be pointed out.

(And this is just for me, but I'm guessing that the 50% of your class who are Catholic don't have a clue how to discern what is authentic Catholic teaching. I was once one of those Catholics, and it's the norm. So, for the sake of educating Catholics who were once just like me, I hope you will keep your sources very clear.)

Blessings!
Leila


And because I had "one last thought," I sent off one more quick email:


One last thought, [Name]. 

"Catholics for a Free Choice" is not a "liberal Catholic perspective" it is a non-Catholic perspective. Even the US bishops (many liberals among them) have denounced the group publicly for being not Catholic. So, to claim this group as a "liberal Catholic" group is factually incorrect.

Thanks!

Leila

So, at this point I am still naive and hopeful, thinking that I would get a response of understanding, a concession that the article could be misleading. I assumed that an academic would understand that clarity and facts are necessary when guiding students to think their way to truth. I was honestly not expecting the response I got....


The professor informed me that his website was the farthest thing from a blog... it was an academic resource for his university graduate students, and his professorial duty is to stimulate big ideas and have lively discussions [clearly he has not yet read the discussions we have on this blog, but he's welcome to join us!]. If he tells his students what to think in advance, that is not true education. He quotes a priest, Fr. Hesburgh, whom he calls the "greatest Catholic educator of the 20th century." Fr. Hesburgh has said: "The university is where the Church does its thinking." The professor ends by saying that he has rarely seen a blog where much thinking takes place. [Ouch! That seemed unnecessary.]


He also responded to my follow-up email by saying that the group "Catholics for a Free Choice" calls itself that, not he.


I admit that the insulting tone of his note drove me to dash off my next email. I could have been more diplomatic, but it could have been worse, right?


[Name], forgive me, but that attitude is why university education is seen as such a joke by so many these days.


Sadly, the university is where the Church used to do its thinking. Today, most Catholic colleges (not all) are wastelands.


(And I say all that as a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College.)

God bless!

Leila

The professor responded with four Latin words:


Summa veritas summa ignorantia. 


I assumed it was a dig, discussed it with my daughter who studies Latin, and had it later confirmed by two Latin teachers that it certainly could be a dig, depending on the context. The dig about my blog and then about me was so absurd as to be amusing, and I did laugh in disbelief of it all. I'm not proud of it, but I replied with the following:


Thanks for the chuckle, [Name]!  My daughter, a classics major with an emphasis in Latin, enjoyed this exchange of emails. Perhaps you might like the interview I did with her on my blog (we peasants like blogs). Then again, you might not like the interview after all. But it says a lot about academia today:


[Unpacking Liberalism: Interview with my daughter]


God bless!

I quickly sent another email asking him if I had permission to use his emails on my blog. 

The professor responded by saying that since I had written two insulting emails to him, he would not give me permission to use his emails. He told me they are copyrighted. He said he was not sure if I knew how insulting my emails were, and then went on to defend Catholic higher education as being far from a wasteland. He provided me with his teaching and publishing credentials (which are certainly impressive). He took issue with the fact that I denigrated the institutions that he loves. And he felt that my use of the words "that attitude" was a personal attack. He said that the people who read my blog might enjoy the attack on a Catholic university education, but he didn't. After stating that his attempt to have a conversation with me failed, he told me of a prestigious award that he will be receiving soon. [I have absolutely no doubt that he is a learned, effective and beloved teacher.] He said if all his students reacted as I did, he would give up. He also added some nice words about my daughter studying Classics, and wanted to know how she translated the Latin maxim.


I responded:


[Name], 

My understanding is that emails are public domain and I can print them. I will double check. 

The comments you made to me were insulting, actually, which is the only reason I was insulting back. Very elitist, really. I was shocked.

As soon as I looked up Fr. Hesburgh (whom I had never heard of in 17 years of hanging out in faithful Catholic circles) and discovered that he spearheaded Land O Lakes, the biggest rebellion against the Church in forever, I knew all I needed to know. He helped to ruin Catholic universities. Not cool. [Catholic readers! If you are not familiar with the Land O'Lakes Declaration, you must click this link and read what happened there. It is your duty as a Catholic to understand.]

Anyway, I will tell my daughter. Thanks!

Blessings,

Leila

PS:  Are you Catholic? [Turns out he is Catholic.]


The response I got was fairly long and full of insults, and I will not repeat them here, for two reasons: One, I hope that the professor will decide to engage in dialogue with me sometime in the future, when he stops being upset with me. Two, he admitted at the end that it was a nasty email (although he said I "deserved it"), which he regretted writing. I will not embarrass him by summarizing it here. 


This is my response to that nasty email, which I had to pare down before I sent it, as I was pretty heated:


Dear [Name],

This is all so interesting to me, and terribly sad.

I will not use your emails, but I will use mine and summarize yours. I will not use your name, either. Tell me if that's legal. If you say no, I will consult with my lawyer friends just to be sure. 

Anyway, you needn't worry about anyone of importance reading my blog, since people like me and my ilk are non-intellectual peasants, apparently. 

I don't know Fr. Hesburgh, but I do know Land O Lakes and the disaster left in its wake. Fr. Hesburgh is not a name I recognized as an orthodox Catholic, because he is obviously not an orthodox Catholic. I don't spend a lot of time reading dissident Catholics or their publications.

BC didn't teach me elitism, it taught me almost nothing. I realize that truth is no longer the goal of education in most Catholic universities, and that is a shame. Every single one of my friends who was a practicing Catholic going into BC had left the practice of the Faith upon graduating [or soon after]. I include myself in that tally. I am the only one [that I know of] who is currently a practicing Catholic (having come back to the Church in my late twenties). This may please you, as a sign of "progressive thought", but I believe it's a tragedy.

Thankfully, the younger generation of lay faithful (and priests/seminarians/sisters) are increasingly orthodox.

I wrote my "reversion" story years ago, and I called it, "I Was Robbed." 

[My reversion story: I Was Robbed]

Hundreds of people in my generation have written me to tell me that my story is their story, too [okay, "hundreds" was an exaggeration, but the number is well over one hundred]. They feel robbed as well. It is people like Fr. Hesburgh who robbed our generation of the right to know and learn authentic Catholicism. This is a heavy burden he faces.... and you as well, if you are complicit in perpetuating the lie that Magisterial teaching is simply another "opinion" to be evaluated equally with the the voices of dissent.

I sent my daughter to UofA because that's what we could afford. In many ways it is a wasteland, but the Classics department is sound.

You know nothing of my stance on immigration. My position is that of the Arizona bishops. You can read it online.

I would love to know what I misunderstand about papal authority. Which parts of my "blog" are in error? Please advise. My audience is regular Catholics (peasant class, not academics), and I am not writing an undergraduate treatise for them. I am making things clear and understandable, meeting people where they are. Christianity is a religion of the people, and the basics are accessible to all people. [Okay, you all know that I am not actually calling you peasants!!! I was reacting to his elitism with some self-deprecation... the professor was clear that he finds me ignorant and foolish.]

[Oh, this next part is going to sound like bragging, and that makes me cringe a bit, but I hope you can understand why I said it.] I am not a liar. Lying is a sin, and as a Catholic, I avoid sin. Yes, I am a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College, [college and year]. I found the classes there quite simple, and I aced them. In addition, I scored in the 99% percentile in the nation on the logic section of the GMATs. Not that those things impress me, as academic credentials and awards are nothing in the eyes of Heaven. What impresses me are the virtues of humility, obedience and holiness. [And the Good Lord knows that's the truth!]

I also regret this exchange, just as I regret what has happened in the American Church over the past 40+ years, where Truth and Knowledge and Wisdom (and real education) have been traded for 30 pieces of silver.

Final thought.... what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?

Blessings to you, my brother in Christ,

Leila

I did not hear from the professor again.  (*I have since discovered that he's been out of town.)


Thinking over the exchange in the past few days, and praying about it, I have gone from the pettiness of wanting to expose the professor out of spite (not pretty, I know), to feeling just plain sad about the whole thing. He felt injured and so do I.


Our interchange is a microcosm of the rift between orthodox Catholics and Catholics who dissent from the teachings of the Magisterium. The Body of Christ is broken, which is heartbreaking and scandalous. Faithful Catholics have long lamented the state of Catholic universities, as has the Church herself: Pope John Paul II tried valiantly to bring nominal Catholic universities back into the fold by issuing Ex Corde Ecclesiae ("From the Heart of the Church") back in 1990.


I would welcome further dialogue with the professor, or with any other academic who holds his views. But for now, I continue to regret what has transpired, both in recent days and recent decades.




"Not in mortification, not in prayer, not in labor, not in rest, but in obedience is the essence and merit of holiness." -- St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, martyr of Auschwitz


For the conclusion and moral of the story, go here.


**UPDATE: This morning I received a thoughtful and lengthy email from the professor, in response to my last email. He was not, at that time, aware of this blog entry. I wrote back and told him that I had already written a post on our exchange. I hope to write a follow-up post in the near future....


**Second UPDATE: Once the professor learned that I had already posted about him, he informed me that he was disappointed, and that our conversation is now over.