I've seen this article, mocking those who have coined the term 'neo-Catholic' on several sites. The obvious reference of the Seattle G.K.Chesterton is Mark Shea. The point is to dismiss, and deride, those who have lashed out at the so-called neo-Catholics.
And who are these neo-Catholics? Depends. Like conservative, liberal, fundamentalist, radical - it's probably in the eye of the beholder. But the gist is that it points to those completely loyal to the Church, now. Wherever it goes and whatever it does. It's now 6:39 AM, 06/03/2014, and all is Awesome in the Church. How do we know it's awesome? Easy, everything proves it. And that which doesn't isn't important.
Fact is kiddies, the Church, like all of Christianity, is changing. Post-Christian secular progressive thought has kicked serious butt in recent generations. Many of the ideas by 19th century revolutionary thinkers has made its way into the bloodstream of the dying West. And that includes the bloodstream of Christianity.
And the Catholic Church is no different. In the eight years since I began my journey into the Church it has changed. Things that were off the table eight years ago are being kicked around. Things that were said as absolute a decade ago have moderated. Certainly there is what the Church is on paper, and what it is in the real world. And if the Paper Church is still as solid in the traditional Faith as it was 50 years ago, the Church in the Real World looks increasingly like it is being influenced by, and not influencing, these non-Christian ideas and forces.
So the loyal Catholic? What can he do? One of the foundational beliefs of Catholicism is that the Church cannot be wrong. Liberal Catholics don't appear to hold to this, at least in terms of the Church's moral teachings. If not its theological teachings. But Conservatives who cling to the belief that it is impossible for the Church to change the cores of its teachings, or ever be wrong, are faced with a dilemma in light of the obvious shifts going on.
And I think those trying to pound that square peg into the round hole of what is happening are who the term 'neo-Catholic' is applying to. How can they say what the Church taught about something like the Death Penalty 50 years ago was right (and not just stupid and barbaric), while accepting its reasons for changing now? How can it toy with the idea that maybe there is no Hell after all, and have any connection with the previous 2000 years? What does it mean when the Church says homosexuality is a disordered appetite but appears to have no real concern about its ramifications outside of the marriage covenant? Liberal Catholics can just say, like liberals in general, that the Church was wrong. All those silly old timers who just aren't as awesome as we are. But non-liberals who can't just dismiss so easily the Church's past as fraught with error? I think it's those who are trying to do so who the term applies to.
I could be wrong, but that's my guess. Again, it's a vague term probably saying more about the ones using it (people who fear the Church is changing and altering things that shouldn't be altered). But I'll bet I'm not too far off the mark.
Funny, I just found THIS article from 2011 by a recently familiar name...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2011-115-white-hilary-neo-cats.htm
Should answer some questions. ;)
He hits some nails on the head, but I think he tries too hard to group anyone not in his strain of traditionalism into one group. After all, the LAST thing you could accuse Mark of is ignoring the Vatican's condemnation of the post-9/11 wars.
ReplyDeleteIt's also worth noting that a problem is the problem with the internet in general. That is, anyone can say anything. No real standards or expectations of consistency or anything else. So Mark just posted a praise of a fellow named Strat. No problem, but apparently a contributor at the Imaginative Conservative. I'd wondered why he gushed on the IC. Given his obvious disdain and suspicion regarding almost anything conservative, I had wondered where the IC suddenly came from. That reminds me of when the post-Sandy Hook arguments, and Mark unloading on people, only to back off when his friend Dale Price (I think it was Dale) said what Mark had blasted others for saying. Technically, that's not how ministry is supposed to work. But it's how the internet works, and I think some of the problems, not unique to the Catholic world, are a result of this.
ReplyDeleteI'm rather surprised that Fr. Longnecker got to defending Mark before Mark got to blasting Fr. Longnecker. I expected the latter would happen first, since Fr. Longnecker has recently on several occasions issued the sorts of misgivings and criticisms of Pope Francis that Mark has been vociferously condemning others for. But, now that you mention it, as with Mark backing off when Dale Price (and John C Wright) said the same things he'd been blasting others for after Sandy Hook, Mark tends to avoid directly attacking people who were his friends prior to his left-wing turn, even when he tears into others for giving the exact same opinions.
ReplyDeleteHow can they say what the Church taught about something like the Death Penalty 50 years ago was right (and not just stupid and barbaric), while accepting its reasons for changing now?
ReplyDeleteBtw, this really gets me. The Church used to teach that the death penalty was justified partly on the grounds that it would urge the condemned to repentance. Now it teaches that it's unjustified on the grounds that it removes the possibility of repentance. That is a direct contradiction. Those two reasons cannot both be correct.
(FWIW, I think the older reasoning is clearly the correct one on this score, as a matter of basic logic. It's not like the condemned man is killed suddenly, without warning. He knows when his death is coming, and he has time to reflect on the gravity of his crimes and the justness of his punishment, and to repent)
True, Dave, but then I don't know if anyone fits EVERY feature of a group. Though most of them... Shea's ticked off.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the author was Hilary White. The one Shea & Fisher recently took to task. It makes you wonder if this whole ordeal was some kind of revenge... lol (though I keep wondering why Shea gets so bent out of shape when someone calls them "neo-catholics".
Btw, this really gets me. The Church used to teach that the death penalty was justified partly on the grounds that it would urge the condemned to repentance. Now it teaches that it's unjustified on the grounds that it removes the possibility of repentance. That is a direct contradiction. Those two reasons cannot both be correct.
I admit, I laughed when Professor Hale said, "Those 5 men [terrorists recently released to get back an American POW] should have been executed years ago. This is why every civilized country needs a death penalty. As long as someone lives, they can be traded, released by a liberal judge, escape, or harm others in the prison system. Only death rids you of them permanently."
Plus it can be cruel to the prison population too.
Yeah, that's the other part of the modern Catholic case against the death penalty, that modern governments supposedly have the ability to completely and permanently neutralize the threat to society that any murderer poses without killing him in a way that they didn't before.
ReplyDeleteBut where's the evidence for that? Prison isn't some new invention of the past 50 years, and as Prof Hale says, "they can be traded, released by a liberal judge, escape, or harm others in the prison system."
And what about the threat to society that keeping the murderer alive poses, in that it emboldens others to murder who might otherwise have thought twice about it? It isn't even addressed.
Near as I can tell, what the Catholic Church teaches on this is just flat-out opposite of what it taught within living memory, and it's offered up nothing but unconvincing fig-leaves to paper over the contradiction. Now, there hasn't been any official revocation at the level of formal doctrine, aka the Paper Church as Dave puts it, but it's simply impossible to honestly deny that at the level of the Real World Church, the current teaching on the death penalty contradicts the traditional one, both in its conclusions and in its reasoning.
I've asked before what's really the difference between Life without parole (LWP) and execution. The end result is the same (person dies behind prison walls), the only difference is the tool used (time vs bullet/rope/drugs/etc). Some say it makes a difference that we aren't ACTIVELY killing the guy (almost always a guy). Ok...
ReplyDelete1) If it's not about actively killing them, why feed or provide medical care then? Esp with a LWP sentence, why should society spend effort keeping them alive?
1) On the other hand why not just bury the guilty people alive? Put them in a coffin with a food/water tube and waste extraction built in and leave them in there until they are no more. It would be the same, right?
2) Some exposing these also believe the economic thought that everything's a finite pie (yes and no...). So then every bit of food and medicine given to the crooks is food & medicine not being provided to the poor, law-abiding person outside. Shouldn't there be consideration that a person executed is resources freed up to help the poor? (and yes, I can see the similarity to taxation ;-) lol)
It's weird. I get wanting to be a "culture of life", don't get me wrong, but one starts to get the feeling that some are almost making an idol out of Life(tm), which isn't easy to argue against or point out.
"Mark tends to avoid directly attacking people who were his friends prior to his left-wing turn, even when he tears into others for giving the exact same opinions."
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most dangerous trait a minister can have: forgetting it's not about us. We have opinions, sure. Likes and dislikes. But those can never influence the way we convey the Truth. It's not easy. But there's a fraternal community among bloggers, especially Catholic convert bloggers from that 80s and 90s generation of converts, that also tends to look past content and quality, and I wonder if that's also behind this tendency.
Nate,
ReplyDeleteRight now the Church is very invested against committing an act versus allowing it to happen. At least as it filters through the popular apologetics(often amateurs). There is almost a strange twist whereby life is so important, and actually committing an act so forbidden, that it's better to do nothing and let the masses of innocents die than to do something that might be seen as wrong to save them. I often wonder how much of this is traced through 2000 years of Catholic history, and how much of it is that modern tendency to avoid doing in general, as opposed to just think and talk and talk and think. Just an observation.
Dave, you are, of course, spot on.
ReplyDeleteIn fact... (rant warning, I have to finally get this off my chest)
Nothing makes me angrier than seeing Shea say, in relation to the nazi at the door scenario, something like: "I'd never lie to the Nazi, just do a really good job hiding the Jews."
OBVIOUS AND BASIC LOGIC TIME!
There is a truth (Jews are in your house).
Whether you say something, or hide them, either way you are accomplishing the exact same thing: Convincing the Nazi of a not-truth. Saying "there's no Jews here" and making it look like "there's no Jews here", HAVE NO DIFFERENCE! Deception is deception is deception.
It's like... some wise guy (oh what was his name... ;-)) said something about how hating someone in your heart is like murder. Or lusting after someone is like adultery. But according to master Shea, acting out a lie and "lying in your heart" is somehow completely different from out and out saying a lie?
Whatever belief that is, it's hard to argue that it's Christian when it goes against the words of the Boss Himself.
The blogosphere doesn't always represent Catholicism well. One of the things that was beyond disturbing was that notion that you can be as dishonest as possible, as long as you don't technically tell a lie. To me, that falls into the negative stereotypes of Catholicism being all about legalism.
ReplyDeleteHow can it toy with the idea that maybe there is no Hell after all, and have any connection with the previous 2000 years?
ReplyDeleteNo, no, see, they're just toying with the idea that hell is an actual hypothetical state that a person *could* be in, but nobody actually is or ever will be. Totally consistent with the past 2000 years. If you find this deeply insulting to your intelligence and can't quite manage the feat of doublethink it takes to make it stick, then all I have to say is WHY DO WANT PEOPLE TO BURN ETERNALLY IN HELL SO MUCH, YOU MONSTER?!!!!!
To be honest Deuce, sometimes it almost sounds like nervous defensiveness. If you are loyal to an unchanging Church, how far can you go when core teachings begin to sound as if they're being, well, changed?
ReplyDelete