Will We See Change?

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Part 1 in a series of posts exploring the “non-negotiability”
of Roman Catholicism’s teaching on homosexuality

The July 5 Wild Reed post “The Catholic Challenge” generated much discussion, and ensured the posting of quite a number of interesting and insightful comments. It was a discussion that centered on important questions to do with levels of church teaching, the non-negotiability of certain church teachings, and the idea of “creeping infallibility,” i.e., the tendency among some to elevate all church teaching to the status of unchangeable dogma.

It’s a discussion that reminded me of Newsday.com’s June 20 report concerning Bishop William Murphy, the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre, NY, and his public confrontation with Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi for the Democratic politician’s declaration of support for gay marriage.

Sean Dolan, a spokesman for Murphy, said the bishop’s job is to instruct the faithful in Catholic teachings. Suozzi countered by saying that he considers himself a Catholic and attends Mass regularly.


Non-negotiable?

In response, Murphy has written that the Roman Catholic bishops’ teachings against abortion and gay marriage are “unambiguous, faithful to the Lord and binding on all Catholics.”

He goes on to say that:

No Catholic is free to ignore or disregard this teaching. It is normative in the formation of the conscience of every Catholic who seeks to be faithful to the Lord and qualify as a ‘practicing Catholic.’ In saying this, I am not singling out Mr. Suozzi. I am speaking to all Catholics in our diocese and beyond, reminding them that what we bishops teach is not ‘another opinion’ among many that Catholics may choose or not choose. Instead, such truths are ‘non-negotiable,’ binding on all of us who claim to be ‘practicing Catholics.’

Yet the question has to be asked: is the bishop’s understanding of the “non-negotiable” status of the church’s teaching on homosexuality and same-gender relationships correct?


Hierarchy of Truths

To adequately explore and respond to this question, it will be helpful to first revisit what the Church teaches about the “hierarchy of truths.”

Richard R. Gaillardetz’s book, By What Authority: A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful, is an excellent resource for just such an exploration. Gaillardetz notes that the Second Vatican Council recognized a certain ordering of church dogma in its teaching on the “hierarchy of truths.” This hierarchy exists because the truth of Catholic doctrines “vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith.” (Unitatis redintegratio #11). At this point it might be useful to note that all dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas.*

Gaillardetz also observes that there is a “tendency among some today to artificially elevate all church teaching to the status of dogma,” i.e., those teachings found in the basic creedal statements of the church and concerned with such central aspects of the faith as the divinity of Christ and the bodily resurrection. “These teaching,” writes Gaillardetz, “are held to be irreversible in character.”

Issues such as contraception and same-sex relations, however, are not in this category of irreversible dogma. Neither are they in the next lower category of definitive doctrine – a category that includes teachings that are not divinely revealed but nevertheless irreversible as they are necessary for safeguarding and expounding divine revelation. Gaillardetz notes that one example of a teaching often placed in this category is the Council of Trent’s determination of the books included in the canon of the Bible.

A third category of church teaching is authoritative doctrine. It is within this category that moral teachings such as the immorality of directly targeting civilians in an act of war or the prohibition of certain reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization can be found.

From my study of Gaillardetz and others, it seems clear that the Church’s prohibition on same-sex relationships would also fall into this category , one in which teachings are proposed authoritatively yet to which the Church’s teaching office is “not ready to commit itself irrevocably.” According to Gaillardetz, this means that, “practically speaking . . . there is a possibility of error with respect to these teachings.” In other words, the Church is teaching with authority, but that authority does not exclude the possibility of error. Gaillardetz likens this to going to a doctor when experiencing chest pains: “I recognize that there is a remote possibility that the doctor will misdiagnose my condition,” he writes. “[However] I still grant the doctor authority even though I know her authority is not infallible. . . . My recognition of the remote possibility of error is not an impediment to acknowledging her authority.”

Finally, a fourth level or category of teaching exists, one that includes “any of a variety of teachings that, technically, would fall short of formal, authoritative doctrine.” An example that Gaillardetz gives of this category of teaching is the American bishops’ condemnation of first use of nuclear weapons. With regard to this issue, the bishops distinguished between “binding moral principles and concrete moral applications about which Catholics could disagree in good faith.”


A Disputed Question

Gaillardetz maintains that it is critical to remember that the status of church moral teaching is an “important disputed question” among theologians within the Church. He notes, for instance, that:

It is commonly accepted that some moral teachings of the Church do have dogmatic status, such as the law of love and the affirmation of the inalienable dignity of the human person. But what about more specific moral teachings like the Church’s prohibition of artificial birth control or its just-war teaching? Few theologians believe that teachings of this sort have been taught infallibly, but the more difficult question concerns whether they could be taught infallibly. In other words, does the scope of infallibility extend to more specific moral questions? Those who answer in the affirmative highlight the integrity of divine revelation and the way in which more specific moral teachings, even if they are not technically divinely revealed, are so closely related to divine revelation that they could also be taught infallibly. Other theologians argue that specific moral teachings like the prohibition of artificial birth control [and I’d argue same-sex relationships] depend too much on empirical data subject to change (e.g., embryological studies of what transpires in the earliest stages of contraception) to be able to be taught infallibly. Of course, they would insist, these teachings would still possess a normative status as authoritative doctrine.

Not Truths Complete in Themselves

It is also important to note that in his discussion of dogma, the highest level of church teaching, Gaillardetz reminds us that as Catholics we believe that “dogmas are but specific historical meditations of the one revelation of God” (expressed in an “unsurpassable manner in Jesus of Nazareth”). When we forget this, says Gaillardetz, when we “treat dogmas as if they were revelation itself, instead of meditations of God’s revelation, we flirt with a kind of fundamentalism.”

“This Catholic fundamentalism,” he says, “is every bit as dangerous as biblical fundamentalism; in both instances a written text or statement is viewed as revelation itself rather than an inspired or Spirit-assisted testimony, manifestation, or mediation of God’s saving reality. . . . In Catholicism, church teaching remains important, not as an end in itself, but because of the way in which it can direct our gaze toward God, illuminating for us the ever incomprehensible mystery of God.”

These important insights call to mind Jesuit Philip Endean’s observation that “dogmas of tradition exist not as truths complete in themselves, but rather as resources for helping us discover the ever greater glory . . . of the God whose gift of self pervades all possible experience.”


* Writes Gaillardetz: “A dogma is any propositional formulation which is (1) divinely revealed and (2) proposed as such by the magisterium, either through solemn definition of a pope or council, or by the teaching of the college of bishops in their ordinary and universal magisterium.” It should be noted that this third way of teaching infallibly - the ordinary, universal magisterium - entered the mainstream of Catholic thought at the First Vatican Council of 1870. In his book, Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic, Philip S. Kaufman writes that “under [this third way], without coming together in council, the Pope and the bishops around the world could agree that a teaching had been divinely revealed and ‘must be believed with divine and Catholic faith.’” However, according to Kaufman, Vatican I “didn’t define this third way of teaching infallibly.” (Issues of infallibility will be discussed in future installments of this series.)

A doctrine, writes Gaillardetz, is “any authoritative or normative formulation of a belief of the Church, whether revealed or not. A church doctrine is intended to articulate a formal belief of the Church that it draws in some fashion from its reflection on divine revelation even if it may not itself be divinely revealed.”


NEXT: In responding to this series title question, the concept of infallibility will be explored.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Catholic Challenge
The Treasure and the Dross
Thoughts on Authority and Fidelity
Examining Conflicting Models of Church and Revelation
A Church That Can and Cannot Change
The Vatican Considers the “Lesser of Two Evils”
How Times Have Changed
Getting It Right
A Surprising Finding Re. Catholics and Gay Marriage
Officially Homophobic, Intensely Homoerotic
The Pope’s “Scandalous” Stance on Homosexuality
A Catholic Presence at Gay Pride
The Challenge to Become Ourselves
Francis of Assisi: God’s Gift to the Church
The Gifts of Homosexuality

The Spirit and the Faithful

Tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday, and to mark the occasion I share today an excerpt from Richard R. Gaillardetz’s book By What Authority: A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful.

This particular excerpt examines the teachings of Vatican II on the “sense of the faithful,” and is very pertinent given the recent statements by Archbishop Nienstedt on what he believes to be the impossibility of dialogue with the Catholic faithful who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and who faithfully dissent from church teaching on sexuality.

As Gaillardetz notes: “The Spirit builds up the life of the Church in different ways.” Church history shows that one such way is that of faithful dissent – a “way” that indicates that a certain issue is yet to be settled, that the Spirit is at work within the Church, and that respectful recognition of alternative perspectives is being called for – along with, at the very least, an attempt at dialogue.

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One of the most important new developments in the council’s theological presentation of the Church was the renewed attention it gave to pneumatology, the theology of the Holy Spirit. For much of the history of Western ecclesiology, the role of the Holy Spirit had been eclipsed by a tendency to think of the Church almost exclusively in its relation to Christ. The Holy Spirit received very little attention. At Vatican II, however, we find a renewed appreciation that if, in some sense, Christ laid the foundations for the Church, it was the Spirit who continues to animate the Church, guiding it along its pilgrim journey.

. . . By appealing to the Holy Spirit as the source of all gifts the council was able to reconcile what had often been opposed. For almost four centuries Catholicism had rallied around authority of church office (e.g., pope and bishops) while classical Protestantism stressed the indispensability of charisms given to all the faithful. In [the document Lumen gentium] the council contends . . . that both office and charism find their source in the work of the Holy Spirit. The authority of church office and the Spirited insight of the faithful cannot be put in opposition to one another because they share the same source. The Spirit builds up the life of the Church in different ways. Even the teaching ministry of the Church, while exercised in a uniquely authoritative way by the ecclesiastical magisterium, also requires the Spirit-assisted insight of all the faithful.


For more of Richard Gaillardetz at The Wild Reed, see:
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 1)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 2)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 3)
The “Perfect Papal Visit” Will Require a “Listening Pope”
Catholic Theologian: “The President of Notre Dame is Following the Example Set By the Vatican”

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Truth About the “Spirit of Vatican II” Finally Revealed!
Celebrating Our Sanctifying Truth
Comprehending the “Fullness of Truth”
Celebrating and Embodying Divine Hospitality
Thoughts on Authority and Fidelity
Reflections on the Primacy of Conscience
The Question of an “Informed” Catholic Conscience
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent (Part 1)
A Catholic Understanding of Faithful Dissent (Part 2)
My Rainbow Sash Experience
“Take, All of You, And Eat” – Communion and the Rainbow Sash (Part 1)
“Take, All of You, And Eat” – Communion and the Rainbow Sash (Part 2)
“Take, All of You, and Eat” – Communion and the Rainbow Sash (Part 3)
“Receive What You Are, the Body of Christ”
No Place for Dialogue in Archdiocesan Newspaper

Recommended Off-site Links:
Archbishop Nienstedt Responds to Rainbow Sash Alliance - Progressive Catholic Voice (May 28, 2009).
Gays in Showdown with Archbishop About Pentecost Communion - Andy Birkey (Minnesota Independent, May 29, 2009).

Catholic Theologian: "The President of Notre Dame is Following the Example Set by the Vatican"

Richard R. Gaillardetz (pictured at left) is a Catholic theologian for whom I have a lot of respect. The author of numerous books, including The Church in the Making and By What Authority: A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful, Gaillardetz currently holds the Margaret and Thomas Murray and James J. Bacik Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo.

I had the honor of meeting Gaillardetz in April 2008 when he spoke at Call to Action Minnesota’s Spring Conference. His two presentations at that event focused on “Renewing the Baptismal Priesthood” and “Rethinking Hierarchy: Building a Community of Holy Conversation.”

As I noted in a previous post, Gaillardetz recently had published in the Toledo Blade an insightful op-ed on the ongoing brouhaha at the University of Notre Dame. It’s reprinted below in its entirety.

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Another View on Obama, Notre Dame
By Richard R. Gaillardetz
Toledo Blade
April 25, 2009

The latest controversy du jour in the American Catholic Church concerns Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to give the May 17 commencement address. As is customary, he will also receive an honorary degree. This has created an uproar among leading voices on the Catholic Right. Randall Terry, recent convert to Catholicism and outspoken anti-abortion advocate, warns that an Obama commencement address would constitute the “cultural rape of true Catholicity.” The Bishop of South Bend, John D’Arcy, has declared that he will not attend the commencement. The current president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Archbishop Francis George, has suggested that in inviting President Obama the university seems not to understand what it means to be Catholic.

What is most interesting about this entire affair, however, is the peculiar silence of the Vatican. There is much to learn here. A little over 100 years ago, Pope Leo XIII condemned the evils of “Americanism,” the purportedly heretical American Catholic embrace of, among other things, religious liberty and the legitimate separation of church and state. At that time, leading American bishops sought, to no avail, to convince the Vatican that the American separation of church and state should not be confused with the anti-church version championed during the French Revolution. In the United States, the separation of church and state actually freed the church for a healthy and vigorous cultural engagement.

A half century or so later at the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic church embraced much of what Pope Leo had condemned.

In his recent trip to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI made a point of praising the American separation of church and state as a cultural framework that made possible the flourishing of religion. The Vatican now seems to have embraced the values that some of our current American bishops have forgotten. The Vatican practices a pragmatic realism when it engages public leaders. Our last two popes have met with political leaders from across the ideological spectrum, forthrightly criticizing policies they found problematic while working to find areas of common ground. This pragmatism extends to the practice of offering honorary titles. In 2007, French President Sarkozy, an admittedly lapsed Catholic who has been divorced twice and supports legal abortion was, following a long standing custom, made an honorary canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.

Pope Benedict is, I suspect, particularly sensitive to the need for prominent universities to encourage engagement with differing viewpoints. In 2008, the Pope was invited to speak at La Sapienza University, a secular Italian university. The event was canceled after faculty and students publicly protested the papal invitation because of the Pope’s purportedly “obscurantist” views on science.

The president of Notre Dame is following the example set by the Vatican. He has made it clear that Notre Dame’s invitation to speak should not be construed as a comprehensive embrace of all of the President's viewpoints and policy initiatives. The conferral of an honorary degree is a customary gesture of respect for the standing of prominent speakers. Commencement invitations are an opportunity for universities (including Catholic universities) to allow their graduates to engage the ideals and public vision of significant public officials.

Perhaps the bishops who have been so eager to condemn Notre Dame would better spend their dwindling moral capital by following the Vatican’s lead. That would mean encouraging the President to use this invitation to respond to legitimate Catholic policy concerns. President Obama has in the past demonstrated his ability to turn controversy into an opportunity to reframe debate. With proper encouragement, this speech could be Mr. Obama’s newest “Jeremiah Wright” moment.

Richard R. Gaillardetz, PhD, is the Murray/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo.


For more of Richard Gaillardetz at The Wild Reed, see:
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 1)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 2)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 3)
The “Perfect Papal Visit” Will Require a “Listening Pope”

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
American Catholics and Obama
It’s Still Out There
Responding to Bishop John “We Are at War” Finn
What the Notre Dame Controversy is Really About and What’s Really at Stake
A Mountain Out of a Molehill
The Bishops and Obama (Part 1)
The Bishops and Obama (Part 2)

American Catholics and Obama

A number of insightful comments by Catholics have been left on the website of the New York Times in response to a commentary written by Elizabeth Lev, daughter of former US ambassador and “pro-life” Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon.

As I’m sure you are aware, Glendon announced last week that she was declining the University of Notre Dame’s prestigious Laetare Medal over the school’s decision to honor President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights, at its commencement ceremony next month.

But before taking a look at some of these comments, I have to admit that when it comes to the whole Obama/Notre Dame situation I find the level of outrage by members of the Catholic Right (i.e., those Catholics hostile to reform and unquestionably aligned with the Church’s teaching on what are offered termed “family values,” and thus, more often than not, the policies of the Republican party) to be embarrassing, disturbing, and hypocritical. The following excerpt from a commentary at Vox Nova, along with a number of comments left in response to Elizabeth Lev’s New York Times commentary (see further below) will perhaps help explain where I’m coming from.

Let’s start by taking a quick look at what Vox Nova has to say about some American Catholics’ almost rabid reaction to Barack Obama.

When Obama was elected, the ferocity of the opposition among the Catholic right took me a little by surprise. This is a man whose views on abortion, while indefensible, are nonetheless fully in line with Bill Clinton and the vast majority of Democrats as well as a good chunk of Republicans. Since the election, he has restored the abortion status quo to the Clinton years. He has permitted public funds to be used for embryonic stem cell research, but he applied the exact same safeguards approved by the Clinton administration in 2000, but never implemented — basically, a prohibition on creating life to destroy it.

And yet he is dubbed, so commonly in right-wing Catholic circles and across the me-too Catholic blogosphere as the “most pro-abortion president ever.” Huh? I fail to see how he is more “pro-abortion” than Clinton. And if you really want to get into it, how about Ronald Reagan? After all, this is a man whose liberalization of abortion laws in California paved the way for abortion on demand and the Roe decision, a man whose public opposition to abortion was backed up neither by his supreme court nominees nor his social policies — and remember, the Declaration on Procured Abortion deems policies to mitigate abortion as important as penal sanctions (it is no accident that the steepest drop in abortion rates took place during Clinton’s two terms).

Okay, moving on to some of the comments by Catholics in response to Elizabeth Kev’s defense of her mother’s decision to decline Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with the following writer’s conclusion, I believe he raises some legitimate points about Glendon’s dubious association with the Bush regime.

[Mary Ann] Glendon was [President George W. Bush’s] representative to a government [i.e., the Vatican] that opposed the war in Iraq and considered one of its key methods, torturing prisoners, to be an unquestionably intrinsic evil of grave matter.

Is it possible that this issue never came up in the regular discussions between the two governments? Of course not. And Glendon was presented with two choices when it did: (1) defend the policies of her boss, the president; (2) if she disagreed with these policies, resign. Thus, she must have been willing to defend intrinsic evil of grave matter.

Thus, her snub of the Notre Dame award is nothing more than a transparent exercise in self-righteousness.

And then there is the following comment from “John of Philadelphia” that I found interesting, especially with regards to St. Thomas Aquinas’ view on abortion:

[A previous writer] is correct in citing St. Thomas Aquinas’ support of capital punishment. However, the same saint and theologian also believed abortion to be immoral only after “quickening,” during the second trimester.

John Paul II clearly condemned capital punishment, especially as practiced in the United States, not only as a sin against the sanctity of human life, but as a sin against justice, since the vast majority of those on death row are impoverished. John Paul II even tried to get the governor of Florida to stay the execution of Ted Bundy.

The charge of “cafeteria Catholics” goes both ways: some Catholics choose to ignore the church’s teachings on artificial means of birth control and a woman’s right to choose to abort; other Catholics (including, shamefully, some Bishops) choose to ignore the church’s teaching condemning capital punishment and the conduct of illegal and immoral wars, not to mention the use of torture.

I’m sorry, Ms Lev, but your mother’s tacit approval of the Bush administration’s support for capital punishment and the conduct of an immoral war does not give her the moral high ground in her condemnation of the current President. In fact, I believe it could be argued that this President is more closely aligned with Catholic social teaching than any President before him.

When challenged by “SusanL,” John responded with the following:

SusanL, I appreciate your fervor, but I must insist that if you supported President Bush you give clear evidence of “cafeteria Catholicism.” You cannot really support either party if you are Catholic – the Democrats for their stance on abortion, the Republicans for their social justice stance and their support of a culture of death (war, torture, and government-sponsored killing). If you support one party over the other, you have made your selection from the lady in the hair net behind the counter.

I made my choice and am proud to identify myself as a “cafeteria Catholic” – I believe in Thomas Aquinas’ definition of when life begins (ensoulment occurs at quickening), no pope has ever spoken ex cathedra on the matter (which one would dare debate the Dominican saint?), and, as a male who will never get pregnant, I believe I have no right to EVER tell a woman what she may or may not do with her body. I also believe in the use of artificial contraceptives, especially barrier methods in order to prevent the spread of disease, a belief shared by a draft committee of US Bishops in response to the AIDS epidemic but vetoed by . . . John Cardinal O’Connor.

I believe in Jesus’ message of love and tolerance. I believe in Jesus’ condemnation of those who preach adherence to rules and laws as a means of salvation. I believe in the Eucharist and the other six sacraments. I believe in the power of forgiveness, even when it isn’t requested. And, like Jesus, I reserve my anger only toward those who are intolerant, self-righteous, bigoted, and who maintain a holier-than-thou attitude, standing in judgment of their brothers and sisters, especially those in pain. And, by the way, that includes the current pontiff who, as Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith, caused no end of increased pain to those who were dying of AIDS. Their cries asking why the Church hates them still haunt me.

I agree with President Obama. I, too, would like to see an end to abortion in this country and throughout the world. Together we can begin the hard work of creating a society where abortion would not need to be considered as necessary. We can create a culture that the sainted former Cardinal from Chicago, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, termed a “seamless garment of ethics” in its valuation of human life – one that makes no distinction on the value of one’s life based on wealth, power, prestige, color, gender, sexual orientation, faith or lack of faith, but that values all human life as a reflection of the Creator.

The answer is NOT making abortion illegal and unsafe. That has never worked. The answer is doing the hard work of building a society that provides meaningful alternatives throughout the journey of life we all share. Instead of spending money on weapons of mass destruction and instruments of death, we need to spend money on programs of prenatal care, childcare, improved access to healthcare across the spectrum of our lives.

We finally have a president who believes this and supports this goal. For me, this is a cause for rejoicing. For me, this is more closely aligned with my Catholic faith than a president who espoused first-strike aggression, torture of prisoners, and who embraced a culture of death and disregard for the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless.

It’s all very interesting but I have found myself wondering just how many Catholics are actually aware and/or concerned (one way or the other) about the ongoing Notre Dame brouhaha. Thankfully, the Pew Forum provides some answers.

In an April 30 article entitled “Obama, Catholics and the Notre Dame Commencement,” the Pew Forum notes the following.

In both their awareness and views of the Notre Dame controversy, Catholics look very much like the public overall. Only about half of Catholics have heard about the controversy and fewer than one-in-five (19%) have heard a lot about it. Among the general population, 48% have heard of the controversy and 16% have heard a lot about it. Overall, about half of Catholics support the decision to invite Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree in spite of his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research. Far fewer (28%) say Notre Dame was wrong to have invited Obama and more than one-in-five Catholics (22%) express no opinion on the matter. Among the population overall, 48% say Notre Dame made the right decision to invite Obama, 25% say it was the wrong decision and 27% express no opinion.

. . . The absence of a general backlash on the part of Catholics to Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama may not come as a surprise, given that most Catholics voted for Obama in the 2008 election and give him positive marks for his performance in office thus far. Obama won 54% of the overall Catholic vote in the November presidential election. Weekly attending Catholics, who in recent elections have tended to support Republican candidates, were evenly divided between Obama (49%) and McCain (50%).

Similarly, the most recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that fully two-thirds of Catholics, including a majority of white, non-Hispanic Catholics (55%), say they approve of Obama’s job performance as president. Overall, Catholics’ views of Obama closely match the views of the population as a whole. Catholics are much more supportive of the president than are white evangelical Protestants (33%) and slightly more supportive than are white mainline Protestants (60%), but they are less enthusiastic about Obama’s performance than are black Protestants (96%) and the religiously unaffiliated (81%).

. . . Catholics’ overall approval of Obama is consistent with the fact that many Catholics themselves do not share the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion and embryonic stem cell research. But though the balance of Catholic opinion in the poll leans in support of both legal abortion and stem cell research, the Catholic community continues to be deeply divided on these issues depending on frequency of Mass attendance.

. . . Polling data show . . . that abortion is only one of the factors that influences people’s opinions and political decision-making, and it ranks relatively low compared with other issues. In the 2008 election, for instance, Pew Research Center polls show that concerns about the economy were most important in voters' decision-making, by a wide margin. Concerns about jobs, energy, health care and education also mattered greatly to the overwhelming majority of voters, including Catholics. By comparison, concerns about abortion were much less important, with only 39% of Catholics saying abortion would be a very important issue in their decision about how to vote. Only gay marriage was cited by a smaller number (21%).

Finally, I think it’s important to note that the Catholic Right’s reaction to President Obama (and other secular leaders whose policies do not align with Church teachings) is uniquely American - a reaction that is not shared by Catholics in other parts of the world, including the Vatican.

As Catholic theologian Richard R. Gaillardetz points out in a recent Toledo Blade commentary:

The Vatican practices a pragmatic realism when it engages public leaders. Our last two popes have met with political leaders from across the ideological spectrum, forthrightly criticizing policies they found problematic while working to find areas of common ground. This pragmatism extends to the practice of offering honorary titles. In 2007, French President Sarkozy, an admittedly lapsed Catholic who has been divorced twice and supports legal abortion was, following a long standing custom, made an honorary canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.

Gaillardetz suggests that “perhaps the [U.S. Catholic] bishops who have been so eager to condemn Notre Dame would better spend their dwindling moral capital by following the Vatican’s lead.”

Yes . . . as would other members of the American Catholic Right.


Recommended Off-site Links:
Another View on Obama, Notre Dame - Richard R. Gaillardetz (Toledo Blade, April 25, 2009).
Obama Reveals Task Force to Reduce Abortions - Thomas C. Fox (National Catholic Reporter, April 30, 2009).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
It’s Still Out There
Responding to Bishop John “We Are at War” Finn
What the Notre Dame Controversy is Really About and What’s Really at Stake
A Mountain Out of a Molehill
The Bishops and Obama (Part 1)
The Bishops and Obama (Part 2)

Why We Cannot Cheer the Pope

The May 2008 issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice is now available to view online. As editor of this online journal I’m happy to announce that this latest issue contains some timely and interesting articles. For instance, in the May issue:

• The editorial team shares with Archbishop Nienstedt a “dream of solidarity, mutual respect, reciprocal care, and shared mission among all Catholics in this archdiocese.”

• William Coughlin Hunt reviews Charles Pilon’s novel Waiting for Mozart, a novel that powerfully and entertainingly explores current conflicts within the church.

• Mary Lynn Murphy seeks to understand the increasing climate of fear among liberal Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis.

• A media release from Call to Action-Minnesota highlights an international campaign for the Vatican to restore women leaders to the history of the Church, and to invite female scholars to next October’s International Synod on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.

And then there’s Paula Ruddy’s insightful article, “Why We Cannot Cheer the Pope,” in which she identifies the “oppressive sour note” that makes it difficult for many in the church to take a balanced view of the recent papal visit to the U.S. Paula’s article is reprinted in its entirety below.

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Why We Cannot Cheer the Pope

By Paula Ruddy

The Progressive Catholic Voice
May 2008

Vatican II. The Council’s name has become a code word for division. Whose church is it? Lay people who have gone about making it their own find themselves in a tug of war with clergy and hierarchy. They feel angry, fearful, and sad when power descends arbitrarily.

What can be done about it? Ecclesiologist Richard Gaillardetz, speaking at the Call To Action-Minnesota meeting on April 19, cautioned us against “demonizing” people who do not agree with us. He tries first to look at the commonalities with people who disagree with him and to see the good that they do before bringing on the criticism. It’s a respectful and balanced attitude toward people. Good advice, in general.

But a power clamp-down on people’s autonomy is not just garden variety disagreement. It’s oppression. The problem is that oppressed people cannot take a balanced attitude toward their oppressor. A battered wife, for example, can’t take a dispassionate view about how wonderfully her husband treats his colleagues at work. Those of us who feel oppressed could not hear a good word Pope Benedict XVI said on his visit to the US. Praise for him leaves us cold. Why is that? Are we “demonizing” him? We are fully aware that he is a human being, fallible and limited like the rest of us. He can have some good ideas and do some good things. But we wouldn’t go to see him and we do not want to listen to him. As theologian Anne E. Patrick puts it in the introduction to her Liberating Conscience:

A single cipher is enough to ruin an entire musical experience, no matter how splendid the composition or accomplished the organist. A droning note ought not to be endured. Someone must say: “Stop the music." No one can follow the melody on racial and economic justice, no one can hear the harmonies of peace and respect for life until this cipher on women and sexuality is repaired.

The oppressive sour note is about authority and control and is, therefore, primarily about sexuality. The oppressed are women, suffering from unequal status and the moral teachings around reproduction and marriage; they are gays and lesbians excluded from communion; they are victims of sexual abuse by predator priests and nuns and the bishops that protect them. Anyone who dissents in a Roman Catholic parish or educational institution on the moral teachings around sexuality feels the oppression. For example, no Catholic parish or organization in Minneapolis or St. Paul can let the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities, Dignity, or Call To Action meet on church property for fear of the descent of power to punish them.

The more absolute the power, the more profound is the disrespect for the man who wields it abusively. It is said of the pope, “He could solve these injustices with the stroke of a pen.” He could remove bishops who connived to protect sexual predatory priests. He could use current science to update the moral teaching condemning homosexual partnering. He could move to ordain women and make celibacy in the priesthood optional. He could set the bishops of the US free and instruct them to listen to their people. Rage boils up when he visits the US in his red shoes, oblivious of the suffering he is responsible for. Are we demonizing the pope? No. We are saying “we cannot hear you until you recognize us as equals in baptism.”

And we have no expectation that this pope, any more than the last one or his appointee bishops, will be able to recognize us as equals. They are not demons; they live in a different universe. They act out of a patriarchal construction of church – Gaillardetz’s pyramid with the power at the top – and we see church as existing fully in each community – Gaillardetz’s interrelated circles. With regard to moral theology, they define “good Catholic” from the point of view of patriarchs, and we define it from the point of view of our egalitarian culture and its interpretation of Vatican II. Anne Patrick characterizes the two very different paradigms of virtue in the current conflict:

The [patriarchal] paradigm is based on a metaphor of domination, which emphasizes control of the lower by the higher, the unruly body must be dominated and tamed by ‘dispassionate’ reason. . . . The rigid emphasis on control from above extends beyond sexual matters to include social ones as well, hence the high value placed on obedience in this model. (pp.77-78)

In this model, she says, “chastity becomes the pinnacle of perfection.” All “matter” is grave where sexual sin is concerned, but violations of charity and justice are more or less grave. Along with physical chastity, obedience to authority makes one a good Catholic. Since Patrick wrote her book, some social “sins” have now been added to the list, but the patriarchal model remains intact. Both men and women have been formed in this model, and it feels normal to perhaps a majority of Catholics.

In what Patrick calls the egalitarian/feminist model (to distinguish her model from other conceptions of feminism) a “good Catholic” acts entirely differently. Both women and men are increasingly being enculturated in this model.

Rather than understanding power as control over others, this paradigm operates with a sense of power as the energy of proper relatedness. . . . It recognizes that the focal sign of religious devotion should not be the directing of one’s energy to controlling bodily impulses and other people, but rather must involve a stance of ongoing commitment to the well-being of oneself and others, which has material as well as spiritual components and entails building social relations of respect, equality, and mutuality. (p. 79)

People who are comfortable in the patriarchal/pyramidal model will not understand how oppressive the Roman Catholic Church is for a person formed in the egalitarian/feminist culture. The thousands of people who cheered the pope, rather than feeling oppressed, probably appreciate the stability of the age-old model. It takes some compassion to put oneself in the shoes of sexual abuse victims, discounted women, gays and lesbians, divorced and remarried Catholics, silenced scholars, and all the persons whose lives have been restricted by hierarchical power. Until the people conscious of oppression outnumber the comfortable ones, the paradigm will probably not shift.

One option for those feeling oppressed is to seek a less patriarchal church community. Many Catholics are doing that. Another option is to put the egalitarian/feminist model to work in our own parishes in whatever way we can. Read our local author Charles Pilon’s new novel Waiting for Mozart for a dramatic rendering of how that can be done.


Paula Ruddy is a co-founder of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform.

Out and About - April 2008

Above: A snowy first day of April in the Twin Cities.



Above and below: The weekly Wednesday morning vigil outside of the corporate headquarters of Alliant TechSystems - April 2, 2008.

Alliant TechSystems, now headquartered in Eden Prairie, is the largest Minnesota-based weapons manufacturer and the primary supplier of landmines, cluster bombs, nuclear missile rocket motors, and depleted uranium munitions to the U.S. Department of Defense.




Above: Theologian Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Ph.D., at the Carondelet Center, St. Paul - Wednesday, April 9, 2008.

Johnson is a distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University in New York City and the author of numerous books, including the groundbreaking She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse and Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God.

To read excerpts from a January 2008 U.S. Catholic interview with Elizabeth Johnson, click here and here.



Above: Some of the folks who braved snow and sleet to attend the April 10 “Extreme Makeover - Church Edition” Resource Fair at Gloria Dei Church in St.Paul. From left: Christine, Senator D. Scott Dibble (DFL), David Lohmen, and Barbara Satin.

The event was sponsored by aMaze, the Faith, Family, Fairness Alliance (of which the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities is a member), and the Institute for Welcoming Resources, a program of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and home of the inspiring Shower of Stoles Project.

At this resource fair I staffed an informational booth for both the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities and The Progressive Catholic Voice online journal - two local “welcoming resources” for LGBT Catholics.



Above and below: Visiting my friend Eduard in Chicago, April 11-15, 2008.



Above: Eduard standing next to Cloud Gate, artist Anish Kapoor’s intriguing 110-ton, highly polished steel monolith popularly referred to as “The Bean.”

For more images of my time in Chicago, click here.



Above: OutFront Minnesota’s annual Lobby Day at the Minnesota State Capitol - Thursday, April 17, 2008.

For more images of Lobby Day, click here.



Above and below: On Saturday, April 19, theologian Richard R. Gaillardetz, who currently holds the Margaret and Thomas Murray and James J. Bacik Endowed Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo, spoke at Call to Action Minnesota’s Spring Conference.

Gaillardetz’s two presentations focused on “Renewing the Baptismal Priesthood” and “Rethinking Hierarchy: Building a Community of Holy Conversation.” Both were very interesting and insightful, and I plan on writing more about them in the near future.

In the meantime, some of Richard Gaillardetz’s theological writings can be found at the following Wild Reed posts:
The “Perfect Papal Visit” Will Require a “Listening Pope”
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 1)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 2)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 3)



Above: Richard R. Gaillardetz with members of Call to Action Minnesota leadership. From left: Brian Willette, Connie Aligada, Richard R. Gaillardetz, and Judy McGuire.



Above and below: Celebrating my friend Daniel’s birthday - Saturday April 19, 2008.







Above: At long last! Signs of the return of spring - April 29, 2008.


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Back in the USA
It Sure Was Cold!
An Energizing and Spirited Weekend
Out and About - April 2007
Out and About - May 2007
Out and About - June 2007
Out and About - July 2007
Out and About - August 2007
Out and About - September 2007
Out and About - October 2007
Out and About - November 2007
Out and About - December 2007
Out and About - January 2008
Out and About - February 2008
Out and About - March 2008

The "Perfect Papal Visit" Will Require a "Listening Pope"

A lot has been and is being written about Pope Benedict XVI’s current visit to the United States. One of the most insightful commentaries I’ve come across in recent weeks is by Catholic theologian Richard R. Gaillardetz.

In the March 7 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, Gaillardetz (who will be speaking in Minneapolis this Saturday) imagined “the perfect papal visit,” and noted that “if he pays attention, Benedict will find great diversity in the American church.”

Following are excerpts from Gaillardetz’s March 7 commentary, accompanied by photographs of the pope’s current visit to the U.S.

______________________________________

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope almost three years ago, many cardinals credited his remarkable listening skills as a factor in his election. Since that conclave we have seen tentative signs of a “listening pope,” one who encouraged freedom of debate at the episcopal synod on the Eucharist and who dared to entertain his former colleague, Hans Küng, for dinner. I would like to imagine what would happen if Pope Benedict were to come to our shores as a “listening pope.” What if he were to see this visit as a kind of papal fact-finding mission?

Such a fact-finding mission might bring him to a more concrete consciousness of an important reality: The American religious scene is not the same as that in Western Europe. Our American church is not without its faults and pastoral challenges, but these faults and challenges are quite distinct from those of the European church. America does not suffer from the forces of secularization. For all of our failings, ours is still a remarkably religious culture. One of the great gifts of the American experiment is its distinctive legal framework for the separation of church and state. This framework has allowed religion to thrive in our country to an extent unmatched in Western Europe. At the same time, one of the peculiar religious consequences of the American experiment lies in the impact of free market forces on American religion. This free market context has led to the individualism of the American spiritual seeker and helped foster a consumerist approach toward religious experiences, beliefs and practices. An awareness of the distinctive shape of our religious scene would only enhance the pope’s pastoral outreach to the American church.



I can imagine a papal fact-finding mission in which the pope would meet not only with VIPs and bishops but with pastors, liturgical and catechetical leaders and other lay ecclesial ministers in order to get a better grasp of the pastoral realities of the American church. To be sure, not everything he would hear would be positive. Catechists and youth ministers would likely express their concern regarding young Catholics’ more tenuous commitment to the institutional church and their inadequate grasp of the basics of the Catholic faith.

Yet he would also learn of an American church filled with parishes that are thriving because a generation of pastors took seriously the implementation of the vision of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). He would discover an educated laity that wants to be heard, because they have felt empowered by the Spirit and believe that their experience and insight has something to offer church leadership. He might well be impressed by accounts of hundreds of parishes that have implemented Vatican II’s sacramental and liturgical renewal, particularly in the area of Christian initiation. Liturgical ministers might find the courage to tell him that the most serious threats to our liturgical life are not found in pottery chalices and priests shaking too many hands at the sign of peace. They would suggest instead our church’s need for a deeper liturgical spirituality. They would almost certainly warn him of the danger of a weakened eucharistic spirituality as more and more Catholics are deprived of the regular celebration of the Eucharist by a shortage of priests.

The pope is, in fact, supposed to meet with presidents of Catholic universities. When he does, I hope he will set aside any expectations created by the complaints he has likely received about Catholic universities in America. If he really listens to these presidents, he will find that many share his concerns about preserving and even enhancing Catholic identity on their campuses; it is just that they do not all agree that the issue can be solved by imposing the catechism as the primary theology text or by banning on-campus performances of “The Vagina Monologues.” After they discuss issues of Catholic identity, I hope those presidents will also tell him about the remarkable number of students who do service work while completing their studies and then, upon graduating, go on to participate in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.


As for the American Catholic theological scene, a topic of intense Vatican concern, I would like to imagine a papal meeting with a representative group of American Catholic theologians. At such a meeting he might receive a report from leaders of the Catholic Theological Society of America, an organization that some critics have characterized as a hotbed of dissent. In that report he would learn that their last national convention was dedicated to the theme “The Bishop in the Church.” He would hear that every bishop in the United States and Canada was invited to attend and that a number of bishops from throughout the world spoke at the conference. If he were to ask those present about the controversial views of certain “questionable” American theologians, he might learn that the American theological community is more ideologically diverse than he imagines and that it has often anticipated Vatican objections with its own critical inquiry. He would hear of vigorous debates in which provocative new works were critically assessed by theological peers.

These theologians might respectfully remind him, however, that the theologian must also be willing to explore fresh readings of the tradition and respond to new questions raised by the world today. This task is inherently experimental and provisional. Consequently, they might point out, many American theologians would prefer that accusations of heresy and dissent be made only with the greatest of care.

I also like to think that the pope would be fascinated by the theme for the upcoming 2008 convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America – “Generations.” This theme was chosen because the most compelling division in American Catholic theology today is not orthodoxy versus dissent. The most compelling tension is largely generational in character and centers on differences between older Catholic theologians whose work has been explicitly shaped by the agenda of Vatican II and a younger generation of theologians who, without repudiating Vatican II, are more concerned with the need for the church to fashion a more constructive response to the demise of a coherent Catholic subculture.

Finally, if the pope were to spend time with some American Catholic theologians it might become more evident to him that even so-called “progressive” theologians remain profoundly Catholic and teach and write out of a tremendous love and appreciation for the breadth and depth of our tradition.

I have but scratched the surface of the many helpful things the pope might learn about our church. As that minister charged with preserving the unity of faith and communion of the universal church, the pope certainly has obligations that go beyond listening. He might properly remind us, over the course of his visit, that there is more to the universal church’s mission than our own ecclesial agendas. He could help us appreciate that we are but part of a much more global ecclesial reality, one manifested not only in New York and San Antonio, Munich and Rome but also in Mexico City and Manila in the Philippines, Bogotá, Colombia, and Kinshasa, Zaire. Even so, we, the American church, are part of that larger ecclesial reality, and the testimony to our distinctive ecclesial richness deserves to be heard.

Richard R. Gaillardetz is Murray/Bacik Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo, Ohio.

To read Gaillardetz’s “Imagining the Perfect Papal Visit” in its entirety, click here.




Image 1: Pope Benedict XVI bows to greet a spiritual leader during an Interreligious Gathering at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, April 17, 2008. (Reuters/Molly Riley)

Image 2: Pope Benedict XVI visits the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to hold a Vespers prayer service with the Catholic Bishops of the United States in Washington April 16, 2008. (Max Rossi/Reuters)

Image 3: Pope Benedict XVI waves from a balcony at the White House after being welcomed to the United States by President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush at a ceremony in Washington, April 16, 2008. (Larry Downing/Reuters)

Image 4: Pope Benedict XVI waves from the Popemobile as he leaves the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center on the campus of The Catholic University of America Thursday, April 17, 2008, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Image 5: Pope Benedict XVI greets followers at the conclusion of a Mass at Nationals Park in Washington April 17, 2008. (Reuters/Jim Bourg)


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Ghostwriting for the Pope
Assessing the U.S. Catholic Church
A Church That Can and Cannot Change
Agreeing with the Vatican
Uta Ranke-Heinemann on the Future of the Catholic Church
Authentic Catholicism: The Antidote to Clericalism
Listen Up, Papa!
What it Means to be Catholic
The Two-Sided Catholic Crisis
Crisis? What Crisis?
The “Underground Church”
A Catholic’s Prayer for His Fellow Pilgrim, Benedict XVI

For more of Richard R. Gaillardetz on The Wild Reed, see:
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 1)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 2)
Reading the Documents of Vatican II (Part 3)