Catholic Culture : “gender ideology”
“In his annual address to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict mentioned that the Church cannot accept “gender ideology” because it is contrary to God’s design for the human person. …”
How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma - WSJ.com
[Emphasis added]
By ANNE HENDERSHOTT
“For faithful Roman Catholics, the thought of yet another pro-choice Kennedy positioned to campaign for the unlimited right to abortion is discouraging. Yet if Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of Catholics John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is appointed to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, abortion-rights advocates will have just such a champion.
“Ms. Kennedy was so concerned to assure pro-abortion leaders in New York, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Dec. 18, that on the same day Ms. Kennedy telephoned New York Gov. David Patterson to declare interest in the Senate seat, “one of her first calls was to an abortion rights group, indicating she will be strongly pro-choice.”
“Within the first week of her candidacy, Ms. Kennedy promised to work for several causes, including same-sex marriage and abortion rights. In responding to a series of 15 questions posed by the New York Times on Dec. 21, Ms. Kennedy said that, while she believes “young women facing unwanted pregnancies should have the advice of caring adults,” she would oppose legislation that would require minors to notify a parent before obtaining an abortion. On the crucial question of whether she supports any state or federal restrictions on late-term abortions, Ms. Kennedy chose to say only that she “supports Roe v. Wade, which prohibits third trimester abortions except when the life or health of the mother is at risk.” Presumably Ms. Kennedy knows that this effectively means an unlimited right to abortion — including late-stage abortion — because the “health of the mother” can be so broadly defined that it includes the psychological distress that can accompany an unintended pregnancy.
“Ms. Kennedy’s commitment to abortion rights is shared by other prominent family members, including Kerry Kennedy Cuomo and Maryland’s former Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Some may recall the 2000 Democratic Convention when Caroline and her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, addressed the convention to reassure all those gathered that the Democratic Party would continue to provide women with the right to choose abortion — even into the ninth month. At that convention, the party’s nominee, Al Gore, formerly a pro-life advocate, pledged his opposition to parental notification and embraced partial-birth abortion. Several of those in attendance, including former President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, had been pro-life at one time. But by 2000 nearly every delegate in the convention hall was on the pro-choice side — and those who weren’t simply kept quiet about it.
“Caroline Kennedy knows that any Kennedy [any Democrat?] desiring higher office in the Democratic Party must now carry the torch of abortion rights throughout any race. But this was not always the case. Despite Ms. Kennedy’s description of Barack Obama, in a New York Times op-ed, as a “man like my father,” there is no evidence that JFK was pro-choice like Mr. Obama. Abortion-rights issues were in the fledgling stage at the state level in New York and California in the early 1960s. They were not a national concern.
“Even Ted Kennedy, who gets a 100% pro-choice rating from the abortion-rights group Naral, was at one time pro-life. In fact, in 1971, a full year after New York had legalized abortion, the Massachusetts senator was still championing the rights of the unborn. In a letter to a constituent dated Aug. 3, 1971, he wrote: “When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
“But that all changed in the early ’70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters). Politicians also began to realize that, despite the Catholic Church’s teachings to the contrary, its bishops and priests had ended their public role of responding negatively to those who promoted a pro-choice agenda.
“In some cases, church leaders actually started providing “cover” for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a “clear conscience.”
“The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book “The Birth of Bioethics” (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.
“Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that “distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue.” It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians “might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order.”
“Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: “The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion.”
‘But can they now? There are signs today that some of the bishops are beginning to confront the Catholic politicians who consistently vote in favor of legislation to support abortion. Charles J. Chaput, the archbishop of Denver, has been on the front lines in encouraging Catholics to live their faith without compromise in the public square. Most recently in his book “Render Unto Caesar,” Archbishop Chaput has reminded Catholic politicians of their obligation to protect life.
“The archbishop is not alone. The agenda at November’s assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops included a public discussion of abortion and politics. The bishops’ final statement focused on concern about the possible passage of the “Freedom of Choice Act,” and referred to it as “an evil law that would further divide our country.” The bishops referenced their 2007 document, “Faithful Citizenship,” which maintains that the right to life is the foundation of every other human right. In it, they promised to “persist in the duty to counsel, in the hope that the scandal of their [Catholic congregants'] cooperating in evil can be resolved by the proper formation of their consciences.”
“Whether the bishops truly will persist remains to be seen. New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan, for instance, has not publicly challenged Ms. Kennedy’s pro-choice promises. This is unfortunate. Until the clerics begin to counter the pro-choice claims made by high-profile Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and, now, Caroline Kennedy, faithful Catholics will continue to be bewildered by their pastoral silence.”
Ms. Hendershott is a professor of urban studies at The King’s College in New York. She is the author of “The Politics of Abortion” (Encounter Books, 2007).
Catholic Culture : The Kennedy Connection (to abortion)
The following is from Catholic Culture: [emphasis added]
Writing for the Wall Street Journal in anticipation of Caroline Kennedy’s appointment to the Senate, Anne Hendershott, the author of The Politics of Abortion, helpfully explains “How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma.” She has the story right: liberal Democrats recognized the abortion lobby as a solid source of campaign support; the Kennedy clan leapt into the lead with ersatz theological justification; most Catholic prelates remained silent, thus allowing the success of the gambit. Hendershott concludes:
Until the clerics begin to counter the pro-choice claims made by high-profile Catholics such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and, now, Caroline Kennedy, faithful Catholics will continue to be bewildered by their pastoral silence.
All right on the money, if not particularly new. What makes the article noteworthy, however, is that Hendershott offers Wall Street Journal readers a fascinating tidbit that they would not have previously seen, unless they had read Phil Lawler’s book, The Faithful Departed. Her column describes the secret meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, held in 1964– nearly a decade before Roe v. Wade– at which dissident theologians developed the tactics that liberal Democrats would use to justify the votes cast by “pro-choice” Catholics.
It was a critically important event, illustrating how the Kennedy family has consistently exploited its Cath olicism– to the betterment of Kennedy political prospects, and the detriment of the faith. The more people know what happened at Hyannisport, the better.
FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life
In this article Cardinal Dulles lays out a comprehensive portrayal of the Judeo/Christian history of Capital Punishment. I have quoted two snippets from the article below. Additionally, the cardinal analyzes the theological import of the topic.
“Among the major nations of the Western world, the United States is singular in still having the death penalty. After a five-year moratorium, from 1972 to 1977, capital punishment was reinstated in the United States courts. Objections to the practice have come from many quarters, including…”
“In the Old Testament the Mosaic Law specifies no less than thirty-six capital offenses calling for execution by stoning, burning, decapitation, or strangulation. Included in the list are idolatry, magic, blasphemy, violation of the sabbath, murder, adultery, bestiality, pederasty, and incest. The death penalty was considered especially fitting as a punishment for murder since in his covenant with Noah God had laid down the principle, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image” (Genesis 9:6). In many cases God is portrayed as deservedly punishing culprits with death, as happened to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (Numbers 16). In other cases individuals such as Daniel and Mordecai are God’s agents in bringing a just death upon guilty persons.”
Contraception and Conversion - Catholic Online
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Inside Catholic) - Sometimes a “progressive” Catholic asks me why my family and I became Catholics. As often rapidly becomes clear, the Episcopal Church we left is his ideal for the Catholic Church. We had married priests, women priests, homosexual priests, no doctrinal restrictions, evolving moral standards, and an official reason to be rude to the pope. What more could one want? How could we leave Paradise for the church of that oppressive Pole and then that oppressive German?
The regularly attending, basic-believing Catholic is usually pleased as punch to meet a convert. He rarely asks why — and, when he does, wants only the most general of answers. Becoming a Catholic for him is just an obvious thing to do, and he is glad to have you around.
The sporadically attending, selectively believing Catholic is slightly bemused, because (if I understand him right) he seems to think of the Church as a heritage and a home and doesn’t see why anyone else would be interested in it. He seems to feel as he would if you showed up to the Wisniewski family reunion or dropped into the Aquilina’s for Sunday dinner or starting putting ornaments on the Rothfus’s Christmas tree. Yet he is usually rather pleased that we did join, being a patriot.
The “progressive” is not so patriotic, if he isn’t actually a traitor. So I will often say, in as cheery, boosterish, and cheerleading a voice as I can manage, “My wife and I discovered the truth of the Church’s teaching on contraception, and after a while we just had to join the one body in the world that was telling the truth about it.”
That usually shuts down the conversation. I am now familiar with the sequence of facial expressions that begins with incredulity and then, after a period ranging from half a second to four or five, moves to either annoyance, disgust, or fear. People have, when they realized exactly what I’d just said, edged away while keeping their eyes on me as if I might hit them from behind.(I am not making that up.)
FIRST THINGS: On the Square - Blog Archive - Avery Dulles and the Recovery of Teleology
Avery Cardinal Dulles:
The behavior of living organisms cannot be explained without taking into account their striving for life and growth. Plants, by reaching out for sunlight and nourishment, betray an intrinsic aspiration to live and grow. This internal finality makes them capable of success and failure in ways that stones and minerals are not. Because of the ontological gap that separates the living from the nonliving, the emergence of life cannot be accounted for on the basis of purely mechanical principles. In tune with this school of thought, the English mathematical physicist John Polkinghorne holds that Darwinism is incapable of explaining why multicellular plants and animals arise when single-cellular organisms seem to cope with the environment quite successfully. There must be in the universe a thrust toward higher and more-complex forms.
. . . Materialistic Darwinism is incapable of explaining why the universe gives rise to subjectivity, feeling, and striving.
Nicholas Frankovich writing on the above:
Let’s return to Cardinal Dulles’ lecture on evolution. During the question-and-answer period afterward, a high-school science teacher stood up and asked His Eminence if he thought that, in the classroom, intelligent design and theories of evolution that had explicit theological content ought to be taught alongside Darwinism. Dulles’ answer was, in a word, yes. He thought that the prevailing form of the science curriculum fails to maintain neutrality between theism and atheism. It subtly favors the latter, and to redress the imbalance a measure of theology needs to be integrated into discussions not only of biology but of all the natural sciences.
FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » Truth and Freedom
“Human liberty depends on an accurate grasp of the human condition, not as we might like it to be, but as it is: “The truth shall set you free.”
“Let us suppose, for instance, a situation in which truth is rendered servile by some contemporary enthusiasm. If truth is held captive by a powerful force of attraction, can the human beings who live under that force ever find a way to liberty? Only by luck, great courage, and long perseverance.
“During the past hundred years, ideologies have often trumped the unimpeded search for truth. Here is where the sentence from Orwell becomes pivotal. “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
…
“This is what Thomas Jefferson was suggesting in his classic argument for the Statute of Religious Liberty in Virginia:
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds, that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his Supreme will that free it shall remain, by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint: That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.
“The creator so made us that only one thing would oblige us to bend our knee: the evidence grasped by our own minds. This is what Jefferson and other founders meant by truth: what the evidence of our own minds enables us to embrace.
“John Adams, our second president, added a second point in a letter to a friend:
I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
“Why is this? Because if there is no truth, no argument is possible in the light of evidence. Under a regime that spouts lies, there is no way to protest in the name of truth. Where truth doesn’t count, conversation is empty. Where truth doesn’t count, persuasion can be no more than seduction or intimidation. Power rules.”
An unpublished interview with Avery Dulles | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe
Note: I have highlighted areas of particular significnace to me in bold. pkp
John L. Allen, Jr.
Tributes to Cardinal Avery Dulles, who died last week at the age of 90, have already been penned by people who knew him far better than I did, and who are in a much stronger position to assess his theological legacy. At that level, all I can add to what’s already been written is “amen.”
What I can contribute to the mix of remembrances, however, are the contents of a previously unpublished interview I had with Dulles two years ago, in October 2006, as part of the research for my forthcoming book on “Megatrends in Catholicism.”
I had met Dulles in person only once before, in a spot not exactly conducive to forming deep bonds of intimacy. It was high atop the Jesuit curia building in Rome, overlooking St. Peter’s Square, at the time of his installation as a member of the College of Cardinals in 2001. He had agreed to sandwich in a brief interview with me between scrums of TV crews. (To be honest, I think he did so only because his master of ceremonies for that string of events was his fellow New York Jesuit Fr. Keith Pecklers, a professor of liturgy in Rome and a mutual friend.) Nonetheless, when I asked Dulles for an extended interview some five years later, he instantly recalled our meeting on that occasion - a touch of the legendary Dulles graciousness. He invited me to come out to his office on Fordham’s Bronx campus to spend a leisurely fall morning talking about the future of Catholicism.
As things turned out, God called Dulles home before the book appeared, so this seems an appropriate moment to share what may have been among his last lengthy, forward-looking reflections.
* * *
I began by explaining the gist of my project, which is to identify the most important forces shaping the future of the Catholic church over the next 100 years. Dulles did not hesitate to offer his candidate: “The internal solidification of Catholicism,” he said, a project that Dulles said began under Pope John Paul II and continues under Pope Benedict XVI.
I pressed Dulles to explain what he meant.
“Restoring clarity where there had been confusion in the period following the Second Vatican Council,” Dulles said. “Rebuilding a strong sense of Catholic identity, including a clear repudiation of the notion that church history can be divided into a ‘before’ and ‘after’ Vatican II. You can see this working itself out today in theology, in liturgy, in religious life … both popes have emphasized the organic connection between the ‘now’ of the church and what came before.”
Interestingly, Dulles hazarded the guess that this “internal solidification,” as it plays out over the next half-century or so, might carry the church back to different positions on some matters than those taken by the popes who unleashed it.
Specifically, Dulles said, his hunch was that the church may ultimately return to a “more traditional posture” on both the death penalty and the idea of a “just war.” Recent popes, Dulles conceded, beginning with John XXIIII, seem to have taken quasi-abolitionist positions on both matters. Yet used sparingly and with safeguards to protect the interests of justice, Dulles argued, both the death penalty and war have, over the centuries, been recognized by the church as legitimate, sometimes even obligatory, exercises of state power. The momentum of “internal solidification,” he said, may lead to some reconsideration of these social teachings.
As a thought exercise, I challenged Dulles.
Let’s assume, I said, that this internal solidification succeeds, and that 50 years from now ferment around questions such as women’s ordination or the authority of the pope is considered largely passé. Nonetheless, given how big and complex the Catholic church is, it will always have a liberal wing. Might the steady closing of internal debates, I asked, have the unintended effect of shifting liberal Catholic energies from the ad intra to the ad extra realm - thereby reinforcing broadly progressive positions on social issues such as the death penalty and war? That seems an especially tempting hypothesis, I suggested, since those stances appear to enjoy strong support among Catholics from regions such as Africa and Asia, which will be increasingly influential in the 21st century.
Dulles paused for a moment, and then said, “Well, I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you could be right.” At that stage, one could sense his mental wheels begin to turn, as Dulles tapped his capacity to find something commendable even in currents with which he disagreed.
If a new wave of ad extra energy should carry the church towards greater activism around progressive social causes, Dulles said, it could also have the effect of better embodying Catholic teaching on the true nature of the role of the laity, which he described as being in the world rather than inside the church.
“The lay vocation is primarily ad extra,” Dulles said. “It’s about being a Christian leaven in the world, evangelizing your own neighborhood, your own family, your profession, and your social contexts. There’s not really a great deal of that being done.”
In that regard, Dulles said he aligned with critics of the concept of “lay empowerment” that emerged after the Second Vatican Council, which often treats the lay role in terms of ad intra functions: a lector, Eucharistic minister, director of religious education, pastoral association, diocesan chancellor, and so on. In the end, Dulles observed, only a tiny minority of lay Catholics will ever play one of those roles, however valuable they may be. For the vast majority of laity, the arena of their ministry will either be the secular world or nothing at all.
In that light, Dulles said, “it would be a very good thing if the church comes to see the model of an empowered lay person as someone doing something for the Gospel out in the world, rather than moving in the sacristy” - even if, he added with a smile, he might find some of that energy misdirected.
I then pressed Dulles about another possible unintended consequence of “internal solidification.” In today’s ecclesiastical politics, I suggested, proposals for internal reform are sometimes viewed with caution, not necessarily on their own merits, but out of fear that they may be a Trojan horse for a broader agenda of dissent. Thus when a group such as “Voice of the Faithful” advocates more collaborative models of decision-making, some critics take that as a wedge in the door for a broader attack on the hierarchical structure of the church.
Might it be, I asked, that if internal solidification succeeds, a new climate will emerge in which some of these non-doctrinal reforms could get a more receptive hearing? In other words, is there a possible paradox: The more “conservative” the church becomes, the more open it might become to certain kinds of change?
“It very will might,” Dulles said. “Of course, each proposal would have to be examined on its own merits, but you’re right that sometimes these discussions are clouded by concern over where they might lead.”
If bishops felt more secure that a strong sense of Catholic identity were not at risk, Dulles said, they might feel more inclined to “tinker” with some of the internal “machinery” of the church. Dulles added that in his experience, priests are usually among the first to support lay collaboration, “because it allows them to spend more time doing the things for which they were ordained - hearing confessions, celebrating the other sacraments, doing basic pastoral work.”
We also discussed ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, areas in which Dulles had long been a key Catholic participant. (Among other things, we spoke about the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” initiative, put together by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and Charles Colson. Noting that some young evangelicals he met through that work had since converted to Catholicism, Dulles joked, “If things keep going like that, we won’t have anyone left to talk to!”)
At the time we sat down, Dulles had recently brought out a revised edition of his 1971 book, A History of Apologetics. In it, Dulles makes the point Christianity’s original experts on Islam were neither impartial scholars nor specialists in inter-faith dialogue, but medieval apologists - writers from the 7th through the 14th centuries who articulated a strong defense of Christianity in light of Islamic critique.
I laid out my own take on what’s happening. Since Vatican II, I suggested, Catholics have understood relations with the religious “other” almost exclusively in terms of dialogue. (As proof, the terms “inter-religious relations” and “inter-religious dialogue” are used almost interchangeably, rather than seeing “dialogue” as part of a broader approach that would also include apologetics and mission.) In part, that’s because our paradigm for inter-faith relations has been Judaism, and in the ecumenical field it’s been the Orthodox - cases in which Catholics are often cast as the historical aggressor, and our instinct has been to atone.
Today, however, we’re facing a new world. The paradigmatic inter-faith relationship is now with Islam, and the most dynamic force on the Christian scene is Pentecostalism. In both cases, Catholics, especially outside the West, are more likely to see themselves as victims rather than victimizers - of Islamic radicalism in some parts of the word, of Pentecostal proselytism in others. For that reason, a growing number of Catholics, especially in the global South, are inclined to see relations with the religious “other” not exclusively in terms of atonement, but also self-defense.
Might that, I asked Dulles, stimulate a comeback for the lost art of apologetics?
“I think so, and in the West it’s also influenced by secular critiques of religious belief, by the trivialization of faith itself,” Dulles said. “For a while, we basically stopped teaching apologetics in the seminaries and in our universities, and that’s left us somewhat vulnerable.”
Dulles said requests to update his book on apologetics shows that interest in “the somewhat forgotten tradition of offering a reasoned defense of the faith, in light of contemporary objections,” is growing. He added that he’s not sure writers such as Cardinal Juan Torquemada or Savonarola, both of whom figure in his book, necessarily offer the best models for contemporary apologetics, pointing instead to masters such as Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal and John Henry Newman.He urged today’s would-be apologists to learn from the past - both the distinctions worked out by previous generations, as well as the mistakes they made.
“If it’s going to work, apologetics has to be deeply respectful of the positions of others, and it has to be clearly grounded in reason,” Dulles said.
“We have to show that it is reasonable to believe, that faith isn’t a purely subjective or emotional stance,” Dulles said. “Then we can show that it’s reasonable to believe what the Catholic church teaches - without, of course, eliminating the element of mystery, as if every element of Christian faith can be proven like a geometric theorem.”
As we wrapped up, Dulles gave me his direct phone number and urged me to call “anytime.” He also made me promise to send him a copy of the book when it appeared, something I regret that I now will not have the opportunity to do.
“Of course,” he said as I was leaving, “I hope you’re talking to plenty of people other than me. Don’t take anything I say as Gospel!”
Then his final thought: “By all means, write the book,” he said. “It’s a good exercise to think about the future of the church. But it’s even more important to pray about it, because neither you nor I really know what’s going to happen.”
