Wash. Post latest to omit Sebelius' Catholic support
SUMMARY: A Washington Post article quoted the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute saying of secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius: "That she is a dissident Catholic is a further slap in the face to Catholics and the Catholic Church." But the article did not note that President Obama's selection of Sebelius has received support from Catholics United and numerous other Catholics.
In a March 3 Washington Post article, staff writer Michael A. Fletcher quoted Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute president Austin Ruse saying of secretary of Health and Human Services nominee, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius: "That she is a dissident Catholic is a further slap in the face to Catholics and the Catholic Church." But Fletcher did not point out that President Obama's selection of Sebelius has received support from Catholics United and numerous other Catholics, including Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS).
As Media Matters for America noted, several of Sebelius' supporters are Catholic. In a February 28 blog post, the nonprofit advocacy group Catholics United "announced a new initiative intended to educate Catholic leaders and laity on Governor Kathleen Sebelius' record and to stand behind her nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services." On March 1, Catholics United released a statement of support for Sebelius from "26 Catholic leaders, scholars and theologians."
Media Matters has previously noted CBS quoting Catholic League president Bill Donohue saying Sebelius "is an insult to Catholics" without mentioning her Catholic support.
From Fletcher's March 3 Washington Post article:
But Sebelius, a Roman Catholic who strongly supports abortion rights, was denounced by some abortion critics.
"President Obama insists he wants to reduce abortions, yet he insists upon appointing pro-abortion extremists to vitally important governmental posts that will directly impact the abortion rate," said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. "Governor Sebelius never met an abortion she didn't support, including partial-birth abortions. That she is a dissident Catholic is a further slap in the face to Catholics and the Catholic Church."
I'd say that finding someone who isn't a "dissident Catholic" would be as hard as finding a hens tooth or a moderate Republican.
Certain people probably would benefit by getting the occasional genuine, literal slap- in -the -face, just to remind them what a slap-in-the-face is. But then, my stint with Il Papa didn't last much longer than my relationship with Santa, so maybe I'm a face-slapper too..
Well, if they didn't try to get us to believe such utter superstitious nonsense, maybe more of us would believe what they told us. LOL.
I like it. You and the Col, and all 10 members of Catholics United keep mocking people of faith. The count down to 2012 and the next Rep President has begun.
I have no problem with people of faith. I have problem with people who want to take their faith and make it law, such that it will effect the lives of EVERYONE, not just those who CHOOSE to belong to these VOLUNTARY institutions.
If you want me to respect your beliefs, you must repsect mine. If you want teacher-led prayer in school, then you lose. If you want creationism taught in science class then you lose. If you want to ban ESCR, then you lose. If you want to deny NON-CATHOLICS access to contraception then YOU LOSE. In every case you are pushing your beliefs onto someone else. You are taking away their liberty simply because of some article of your PERSONAL faith.
Your faith, and your adherance to any given religion should only govern YOUR OWN behavior and lifetyle. You have NO RIGHTvto infect it on the rest of us. The church only has authority to impose additional restrictions (beyond those imposed by law) on the actions of ITS MEMBERS. It has NO RIGHT to extedn it's influence beyond that group of voluntary members.
And you're dreaming about 2012. But go right ahead. It'll be a more pleasant way to pass the next four years, even if you are in for yet another urde awakening.
Sure, Eddie, you'd have a point if there was some grey area between complete devotion and mockery.
Well said. I fully expect some of this nonsense to come up again over the next couple of years; they need some emotional issues to stir up the Neanderthals.
Look for a lot of local efforts to plaster the Ten Commandments on Public Buildings and teach fairy tales in Science class.
plaster the Ten Commandments on Public Buildings
Oh yeah! I forgot that one! Spot on!
NiceguyEddie wrote:
It seems that atheists and agnostics should disagree with this position, for it would in many cases undercut their ability to take political action for what they perceive as the common good. For example, check out 'http://www.godlessprolifers.org'.
No, if someone else's behavior and lifestyle are oppressive and destructive of human rights, regardless of whether the issue is abortion or, say, human trafficking, then one is obligated to limit the other person's behavior and lifestyle for the sake of the rights of the infringed and for the common good. Religious motivation is strictly irrelevant, although it is often present.
He didn't say that only religion should govern behavior. Don't worry. It's a common logical fallacy you committed.
Touche, OnceYouGoBarack. Sorry for the non sequitur.
Still, one should take political action to govern the behavior and lifestyle of others, whenever such political action protects human rights and thereby serves the common good. And one should take such action *even if* one does so specifically in order to adhere to one's religion.
Perhaps that is a better way to express my objection to NiceguyEddie's sentiment.
I'm an atheist. However, I think it's perfectly alright for politicians to use their religion when making personal decisions regarding votes on policy. They will be judged rightfully so by the electorate the next election; postiviely or negatively. The problem manifests when policy is set to conform to one specific religion. Common law should be based on common sense, not the mores of one particular religion or another.
I agree that there is a problem when policy is set to conform to one specific religion. For example, if the civil law were to mandate that everyone has to attend a Sunday service at a Mormon church. The context of the present discussion, however, does not invoke such an extreme case.
A proposed law, such as to make direct abortion always illegal and to make indirect abortion legal only to save the life of the mother, can be considered as an issue of human rights. Some atheists see it as such. Some Jews see it as such. All Catholics are supposed to see it as such. It would be a grave mischaracterization for one to suppose that the policies championed by social conservatives are only to be identified with Christianity. There are non-Christian cultures in which these same values are held in high regard. Moreover, even the Catholic Church does not argue for certain social policies merely on the basis of doctrine, but also on the basis of reasons that can be appreciated by anyone who believes that the objective good exists.
Getting back to the point of the article which generated the overall discussion: I should have more respect for Sebelius et al. if they showed some integrity and stopped calling themselves "Catholic". Even if you are an atheist, you can probably appreciate the irony of the situation. Jesus in the gospels reserves his harshest expressions of contempt for the hypocrites. He gives examples of those who outwardly pretend to adhere to religion but who behave contrary to the religious teaching.
I personally would not be in a church that believed things that were contrary to my basic values. So if I was pro-choice, thought contraception was peachy, and wanted female clergy I would not be a Catholic. So from that perspective I don't understand someone belonging to the Catholic church with those views. However, that's her business and for people to suggest that Obama can only nominate people that are devout members of their respective church in order to please the true believers of that sect is ludicrous.
I agree that, from Obama's point of view, there are some practical reasons to select someone like Sebelius.
On the other hand, supporters of Obama should be criticizing him because if he surrounds himself with persons lacking integrity, then it reflects badly on him. Worse, it is one thing for him respectfully to disagree with the Catholic Church. It is quite another thing for him foolishly to find himself in a situation in which he is widely perceived as trying to spread, by way of his various picks, confusion about the nature of the Catholic Church.
When he starts to exhibit a pattern of association with Catholic hypocrites, he might attract more unforeseen opposition from the Church than otherwise.
She'd only be a hypocrite if she was against everyone having an abortion except herself. Disagreeing with you church's doctrine does not constitute hypocritical behavior.
There's nothing that impunes her integrity regarding her religion. Once agian you are implying that Obama must nominate people who are steadfast in their adherance to the dogma of their church, otherwise you think they are lacking in integrity. This is certainly a minority viewpoint as in the real world there are many people who question their church and wouldn't like being considered as not having integrity for doing so.
It doesn't matter whether the view is that of a minority or of a majority. The issue is one of respect for proper authority. Sebelius and the other dissidents do not have the authority to use "Catholic" as they will. Either she is unaware of the Church's policy on public dissent on matters outside the realm of prudential judgment or she is aware of that policy. The first possibility is erased because of the correspondence from her bishop.
So the word Catholic is now trademarked? Like "That's hot" by Paris Hilton, "Threepeat" by Pat Riley, or most relevantly "Xenu" by the Church of Scientology. How dare you tell someone what they can call themselves? What's next, telling the Mormons they aren't real Christians? Heck, true-blue Catholics don't think protestants are true Christians. This is why the Catholic church is the most onerous of all the Christian demoninations.
"So the word Catholic is now trademarked? Like "That's hot" by Paris Hilton, "Threepeat" by Pat Riley, or most relevantly "Xenu" by the Church of Scientology."
No. It is matter of honor and, in this case, of dishonesty for political gain.
"How dare you tell someone what they can call themselves?"
By appealing to the truth of the matter.
"What's next, telling the Mormons they aren't real Christians?"
That's not next. That's old. The Mormons aren't real Christians. Unlike Christians, they reject the Theism of the Jews for polytheism.
"Heck, true-blue Catholics don't think protestants are true Christians. This is why the Catholic church is the most onerous of all the Christian demoninations."
This is not a true statement. The official Catholic position is that the Protestants are Christians, at least the vast majority who believe in the mystery of the Trinity.
You can have laws wihout religion. You can act morally with religion. You can love without religion... but to truly HATE, you almost have to be religious. To have a war that doen't ever really end, you need religion. The defense of human rights not only CAN be done from a secular posture, it MUST be done that way.
Most of the GOOD that religion claims credit for would happen anyway. It may be less organized, but people of good will would remain that way with or without the church. OTH most of the HARM done by the churh woudl NOT happen. Evil men would remain evil, but without Religion, the GOOD man would almost never become the EVIL man that religion turns him into. To make a GOOD person EVIL, you first have to make them religious.
NiceguyEddie wrote:
On the one hand, it is natural for one to hate another who has wronged one. Especially if the other has wronged one repeatedly and made clear his status as an enemy. The response of hatred is equally natural for the irreligious and for the religious.
On the other hand, the role of true religion is to point out that the natural response of hatred is the result of a broken nature and that one should supernaturally love one's enemies.
NiceguyEddie wrote, "Most of the GOOD that religion claims credit for would happen anyway."
Well, that's a matter of definition. One could argue that, by definition, all moral good proceeds from adherence to true religion. That leads to an interesting discussion of what has been called "natural religion", which is a form of true religion but is not uniquely attached to any religious organization.
This is presumptuous. For instance, I'm not sure the Koran says to love your enemies. That is certainly a Christian concept. The role of religion in our lives is to attenuate the anxiety caused by mortality. People want to believe that their life has purpose and meaning beyond their temporal existense. I'm sure if chimps could contemplate their own mortality they would invent religion too.
One could argue, but one would lose the argument. A person doesn't have to be religious to know that murder is wrong. The simple golden rule (which is not relegated to Judeo-Christians) will suffice. Plus, a society that legalizes murder or theft would not be stable at all. There are pragmatic reasons for a lot of the laws that some assume are morality based.
I did not presume to argue for the qualities of Islam or of religion in general. I was rather speaking of true religion, though I have not here described in detail what I think true religion is.
You seem likely to feel that there could be no such thing as true religion, but I think that it is possible even for an atheist, perhaps holding his nose, to agree tentatively on a definition for true religion, though it would encompass only a small subset of, say, the Christian view, and though he hardly sees the point of the exercise. Or perhaps the atheist would rather call what I refer to as "the natural part of true religion" by another name, so that we disagree on the name.
Obviously, not everyone will agree about who wins an argument.
Perhaps you are suggesting that there is an innate sense according to which one can know that murder is wrong. We might call that "conscience". Not every aspect of morality can be reduced to pragmatism, and not every non-pragmatic aspect of morality can be wholly divorced from the law.
Following one's conscience is a natural part of the practice of true religion.
There is no such thing as "true religion". There is only faith and perception.
You've got the wrong atheist. I don't think there is any natural anything when it comes to things of a spiritual nature. Religious people think there are intrinsic values and so do environmentalists. I think nature is beautiful but it is no more an intrinsic natural value than the nonsense that religious folks pass off as values. That's why the environmental movement has failed to really engage the public. It's because they pretend that the values they hold dear (namely the belief in the intrinsic beauty and santicty of nature) are universally held. They would be much better off approaching the subject from a pragmatic approach.
I'm not sure. It's quite possible that people raised completely without a society would not think twice about murder. However, this experiment is hard to conduct since almost everyone on the planet lives under societies of all kinds that eventually come to see murder at least within their own community as wrong.
I soundly reject the notion of natural values. In fact, I don't believe in sin. I have values but I cannot separate what is innate from what I have learned. In other words, empathy may be an acquired skill that requires certain ingredients to flourish. One of these may be a sense of community.
"I have values but I cannot separate what is innate from what I have learned."
That is precisely why the adherence to conscience must be a part of natural religion, which itself is a part of true religion. And that's why the Church teaches that a mortal sin can be committed only if it involves the violation of conscience, regardless of whether what has been learned in the formation of the conscience is objectively right or wrong.
if someone else's behavior and lifestyle are oppressive and destructive of human rights, [...] then one is obligated to limit the other person's behavior and lifestyle for the sake of the rights of the infringed and for the common good.
I'm glad to know you're such a strong supporter of gay marriage.
As should be clear from my remark that you quoted, I would be a strong supporter of gay marriage if I thought it were a human right.
Of course, I think that the state has no interest in encouraging homosexual relationships, though the state does have an interest in encouraging stable, natural families.
The state does have an interest in promoting gay marriage. Marriage increases monogomy, which in turn decreases STD rates. You are very presumptuous, once again in your attempts to seem more logical than you actually are.
Good catch; I wrote too hastily.
I think that even if the state has some interest in reducing promiscuity, I am unconvinced that the promotion of homosexual unions will do any more to reduce homosexual promiscuity than does its promotion of heterosexual unions to reduce heterosexual promiscuity.
The state's interest in marriage, in my opinion, lies primarily in advancing the welfare of the children that are naturally produced from a heterosexual union. Encouraging marriage and discouraging divorce seems on the whole better for the children who would be born even without the state's policy.
By the way, what, precisely, am I presuming in my "attempts to seem more logical than [I] actually [am]"? I have every intention of being logical, and I don't see the point of pretending to be logical.
Logic is neither a beginning nor an end but a middle. Logic allows one to know that a conclusion is true if a deductively valid argument has true premises. The problem is that every chain of logic can be traced back ultimately to premises that cannot be proved true by logic. Our disagreements almost certainly lie in our axiomatic basis and not in any crucial fallacy of reasoning. That said, we should of course point out each other's fallacies, and I am ready to admit that you might be a better logician than I am.
Good for you. You are free to have that belief. However, you made no statements to support this belief.
Ah. You fell right into it. So do you think that the state should discourage couples who are barren from getting married?
How Kantian of you. People who present opinion as fact and attempt to dress it up in logic should be called out. For example, you said that religion is about loving one's neighbor. That's your opinion, not a fact. At least in this last post you had the integrity to preface your paragraph with "I think...". You are making progress.
No, the state has no interest in discouraging barren couples from getting married. The state has no special authority to decree that they have no chance of conceiving. Also, they may adopt children, and then the state has an interest in having them married.
In my opinion, the ordinary rules of discourse do not require the explicit assertion of opinion for every assertion of opinion. In my opinion, you don't live up to that standard yourself.
"In my opinion" gets old really fast. Why don't you just try reading my posts with a bit of charity? If you would, then I think it would be obvious, at least in most cases, when I'm opining. Isn't that what one ordinarily does?
Religion is not necessary for either laws or morality.
Prayer in school....yes...i can agree with you. But when we are talking about abortion....the killing of an innocent human, we weill never ever stop until we win. Be it through the supreme court, state law, congress, or simply pressuring doctors until they stop commiting murder, we will never stop until you lose.
>>the killing of an innocent human
Good news, POV. You can stop now, because no innocent humans are being killed. Now you can devote all your time to a real threat, like global warming, which will kill real people.
Hey, abortion? I likely share your opinion - that's it's immoral, a mortla sin. The difference between you and me is that I don't suffer under the delusion that my opinion, formed in absense of any relavent evidence, is (1) fact and (2) something that should be forced upon others, resulting in health, financial and social burdens. Personally? I'd rather see these childeren given up for adotion. But we do little to support that institution beyond paying it lip service in anti-aborttion rants. It's just not a realistic position - and I say that as someone who was adopted themselves. At what point an embryo becomes a human is, and will likely always be, a matter of personal faith. It's ain't at concpetion, I can tell you taht with 100% - it's would have to be AFTER implantation in the unterine wall - but beyond that who can say in any factual way? No one. That being the case, why do you feel such a need to legally compel people to live by your own personal opinon? You don't lile abortions... Don't have one / support your partner having one. What me and mine do is none of your business. It doesn't affect you in the least. Your position howver would affect us, quite significanltly. (Although as I've said, I am personally against and would have or support my partner ahving an abortion anyway.)
And I mentioned a LOT more than just "prayer in school". First off, I said teacher lead prayer in school. That distinction is important becuase students have a constituitinallt protected right to pray in shcool, on there own, as they wish. No one has any problem with THAT.
What about Evolution? Embryonic Stem Cell research? Contrapcetion education for teens as part of conprehensive sex ed? Do you agree with me on those issue or are you worng on them too?
Nice post.
I don't think a few posters on a web board laughing at people of faith is going to swing the election.
If I remember correctly, they made the same dire prediction last summer.
Well, the "end has been near" for like... the last 500 years, so I'm holding my breath or cashing out my retirement fund. (Or what's let of it!)
In case you missed it, the election is likely to be postponed due to really heavy rain, flooding, fire, and earthquakes...
according to Nostradamous....
If Obama loses in 2012, it will most likely be the result of his inability to fix Bush's mess. I seriously doubt that our laughing at the Troglodytes will affect the outcome.
You can tell better jokes than that pointedwrongview.
More Catholics voted for Obaman than McCain. 'Nuff said.
Once again, I love your uneducated simple approach. And this coming from the party that cried and cried about being left out the last 8 years. You may claim "nuff said" and give praise to your new found savior, but the whole key to Reagan and the success of 80's stemed from the rise of the Moral Majority. You seem to forget that Obama did not win in a land slide. We are still very much a divided country, and a 3 to 4 point swing is all it takes. Your are only fooling yourself if you buy into this notion that republicans are finished on the national stage. We will fight it out among ourselves, regroup, and be back ready to go in 2012.
Once again, Obama won Catholics and he is pro-choice. Of course, he shouldn't care if one of his cabinet is also pro-choice. He has a mandate from the people, including Catholics.
The "moral majority" is just as fragmented now as the Republican's are. You may regroup, but it will take longer than four years, and you WON'T resurface until you kick the funny-mentalists to the curb, and go back the basic LIBERTARIAN principles that once defined your party. As long as you want to keep trampling on people's liberty in the name of the most extreme religious dogma you can find, you will NEVER return to prominence.
"Fool me once, you can't get fooled again." -GWB'43
You are exactly right. The funny thing is, I doubt they will ever take our freely-offered sound advice. It's almost reverse pscyhology. We tell them the way to fix their party knowing that they will ignore it. I honestly do wish that there was a healthy, rational Republican party. However, I don't see them going back to their roots. Instead, I see people like Limbaugh getting an even tighter grip on the failed dogma at the root of the current Republican party.
Why would it be hard to find a Catholic who is not a dissident?
Sebelius and her supporters, many of whom claim the name "Catholic", are indeed arguably dissident, but I know many Catholics who are not dissident. Mere private disagreement with a teaching or discipline of the Church is not dissidence.
Dissidence is for a person who claims to be Catholic to express public opposition to a teaching or a discipline of the Church. A Catholic who disagrees with a teaching or a discipline is obligated to struggle with the issue privately. One acceptable resolution is for him to leave the Church. However, for him publicly to contradict the teaching or the discipline of the Church is not acceptable, according to the Church's own rules. That's why many of the bishops have been making public statements lately.
One thing that many non-Catholics and superficial Catholics fail to recognize is that they neither define nor influence the Church's teaching or discipline. The Church is not a democracy. The Magisterium didn't bend to the will of those who wanted to practice abortion in the Roman Empire, and it will not bend now. No matter how hard a dissident group of Catholics struggles to proclaim that a pro-choice position is acceptable for Catholics, it will never be. The only real fruit of their struggle is confusion about what it means to be Catholic. The confusion is limited to those who fail to take the time to investigate the nature of the Church, but those are many, and it does real damage by lowering the level of the dialogue.
Obama needs competent people to help him govern. He doesn't need to fill out a roster based on quotas, especially religious ones. Who cares if she's "dissident" or non-practicing or whatever. According to hard-core Catholics she's probably closer to being in concordance with church doctrine than Obama himself is. The argument against her based on religion makes no sense on the face of it.
I was not arguing that Obama, according to his own principles, shouldn't pick someone like Sebelius. I was rather just responding to worrierking's assertion that it would be as hard to find a non-dissident Catholic as it would be to find a hen's tooth.
Your first sentence implies that he should have looked for a "non-dissident" Catholic, and further that religion should be one of his criteria.
Only if it is read outside the context of the message to which I was replying. This is easy enough to do when several pages of text separate my reply from the message that prompted it.
Still, it is my fault for not quoting the relevant text from the original message.
It's ironic that you tried to deny that your statement referred to Obama, yet you in later posts revealed your true feelings by saying that Seblius had an integrity issue due to her beliefs. I was right that you were trying to play a semantics game.
It seems to me that even you can find evidence for any nonsense if you are determined to look hard enough.
Is there no allowance for any development of thought over time? It's true that when I wrote some comments above, that's what I was thinking. However, when I thought more carefully later, I came to the conclusion that one could argue against Obama's picking Sebelius on the basis of a pattern of picking Catholic dissidents.
I still admit that, ignoring the pattern issue, Obama's pick of Sebelius seems fairly straight-forward from his point of view.
As an atheist, I should object to any believers being picked. But you know what? I don't care. I do care about competance. Catholics that have a problem with Sebelius' personal observance of her own beliefs can take a hike.
This is what I wrote yesterday in another thread with a few corrections.
I come from a large Irish Catholic family. Forty seven first cousins, six other siblings and many more in our extended family. And most of my friends are Catholics. My wife and I have each been married twice (each widowed the first time) so there are six large Irish Catholic families in our family. Our family is spread out among the three largest cities on the East Coast and in New England.
I'm not saying we represent the norm, but there are very few who are staunch opponents of abortion, even fewer against birth control and about evenly divided on the death penalty and the War in Iraq. The Church has taken very strong positions on all of these.
I don't think the Church speaks for the average Catholic anymore. If the Church wants to start having a test before they allow anyone to receive communion or attend mass, there will be few people left.
I'd say that most of the Catholics I know would be excommunicated for one thing or another if the Church ever examined them and their beliefs. With most it's sort of a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
I know this is only anecdotal, but the group I'm talking about includes hundreds of people.
I don't doubt that the majority of those who claim to be Catholic in the United States are both (1) largely unaware of the Church's teaching and reasoning on matters central to the faith and (2) frequently in disagreement with one or another of the Church's teachings or disciplines. In my experience, the second quality is due in some good measure to the first.
Also, pockets of ignorance and dissedence tend to run in families because, in the United States and at least in the second half of the 20th century, the proper catechesis of children has been essentially nonexistent. On the other hand, RCIA programs have been quite strong in many places. Therefore, one tends to find that adult converts to Catholicism are much more likely than are cradle Catholics to know what the Church teaches and why.
Even given that there are many large families like yours, it is still not right to say that a non-dissident Catholic is as rare as a hen's tooth. The non-dissident Catholics tend to congregate at the nearest parish where the priest is brave enough to draw from the readings a serious catechetical lesson.
I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that the vast majority of people that self-identify as Catholic don't know about the church's view on abortion and birth control, even if they aren't completely versed in some of the more obscure edicts of the religion.
I would not, however, be hard-pressed to argue that the vast majority of nominal Catholics completely fail to grasp the Church's teaching that some things are more important than others and why. The typical nominal Catholic views abortion as morally equivalent to capital punishment, but this is not the teaching of the Church.
Who cares? It's all nonsense. Just go watch "Dogma" and call it a day.
Anyone who recognizes that some things are more important than others should care.
Are you pretentiously asserting as fact that it's all nonsense? :^)
The movie "Dogma" is, I agree, nonsense.
>>One thing that many non-Catholics and superficial Catholics fail to recognize is that they neither define nor influence the Church's teaching or discipline. The Church is not a democracy.
But many Catholics who claim they are true Catholic are pro death penalty and pro war. By your definition, they are also not true Catholics.
When you talk about the "nature of the Church," you do realize that this is the same church that imprisioned Galileo for believeing that the earth went around the sun. So the chruch's dogma is not static and shoud be challenged.
funnymanpants wrote:
The Catholic position has always been and will always be that, in certain times and places, the death penalty is legitimate for the state to enforce. Similarly, for the state to wage war can be legitimate in some circumstances.
Cardinal Ratzinger, writing on this subject before he was elected Pope:
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
funnymanpants wrote:
In the first place, you seem to be possessed by a common misconception about the nature of the Church's doctrine. The doctrine of the Church has never included and will never include assertions about which physical models are the best ones for predicting the results of physical experiments. The Church made no doctrinal assertions about physical theory at the time of Galileo. Moreover, doctrine changes over time only by the Church's making explicit, when it becomes appropriate (that is, when a new question arises), what was up to that point implicitly held. A consequence of this is that a new doctrinal formulation never contradicts the ones that were formally codified earlier. It is useful to look at Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the research for which he started in order to show where the Catholics had gone wrong. However, Newman ultimately felt that he had to convert to Catholicism.
In the second place, Galileo made a crucial philosophical error, one that did not escape the notice of his political enemies. In the philosophy of modern science, a crucial idea is that a theory can never be proved true, though it can be proved false. At least for most of his life, Galileo appears not to have recognized this. When he first came before the Inquisition, Galileo was instructed that there was essentially only one thing that he had to do in order for his work to be acceptable. He was to make clear that the Copernican model is not a certain truth but a theory. Especially given the dearth of observational evidence at the time, this was an eminently reasonable restriction. (No data at that time could rule out Tycho's model.) Galileo's failure to abide by this restriction, coupled with what was perceived as a personal attack against the Pope, left Galileo legally vulnerable to those who disliked him for reasons in some cases quite unrelated to celestial mechanics. Cardinal Bellarmine, the head of the Inquisition on Galileo's first appearance before it, wrote:
"Third. I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated. But I do not believe that there is any such demonstration; none has been shown to me. It is not the same thing to show that the appearances are saved by assuming that the sun really is in the center and the earth in the heavens. I believe that the first demonstration might exist, but I have grave doubts about the second, and in a case of doubt, one may not depart from the Scriptures as explained by the holy Fathers."
Because of his position, Bellarmine thought that one may entertain the possibility of a non-geocentric model (a demonstration of which might be available some day), but that one should hold a traditional view in the absence of a demonstration.
This is why religion is dumb. Most of the rules are abritrary and utter nonsense. People need to take responsibility for themselves and their morality and not cede moral policy to a bunch of senile old men with control issues.
I just took the time to read your nonsense about Galileo. I never thought I'd see someone defend the Inquisition, but you tried. The church shouldn't have had any say in science or who gets exiled or not. This is deep black stain on the Catholic church and a reflection of the ridiculousness of its existence and hegemony.
Um, I didn't just make this stuff up. See, for example, Galileo's Mistake by Rowland. Or read Bellarmine yourself.
I agree that it was wrong for the Church to become so enmeshed in politics that an office of the Church would have the power to revoke the permission to print or even to imprison someone.
But the existence in the past of an improper relationship between the Church and the state doesn't imply that the Church's theology is now or ever was wrong. Nor does it even imply that the Church's philosophical position against Galileo was wrong. Nor does it imply that the Church would ever choose to return to her former relationship with the state. It does, however, imply a complex history leading up to that arrangement.
Galileo was the one who promoted the non-scientific view that one could prove an hypothesis true. Kepler even wrote to Galileo saying that heliocentric orbits could not be circular, but Galileo seems to have ignored Kepler. Galileo insisted that the Copernican theory (circular orbits and all) must be the Truth.
You made up your own justification. You are saying that because the church only wanted Galileo to admit that his science was a theory, that they were justified.
I could care less if a bunch of stupid folks want to believe in the invisible man. If it makes them feel better, go to it. However, when those folks try to take their beliefs and enforce them via government, then they deserve to be put in their place.
The church can believe whatever it wants. It had no business persecuting Galileo period.
I bet that the church really loved Kepler's theory regarding orbits.
Circles or ellipses, the church didn't like anything that contridicted the bible.
Heliocentrism was certainly not popular among the officials of the Church, but there were those who thought it interesting. The Church herself, in her doctrine, has always been and always will be agnostic with respect to scientific theory. The chief inquisitor himself pointed out that a demonstration of heliocentrism might some day come. This theological agnosticism was implicit before Galileo and it is explicit now. At the time of Galileo, everyone, including Galileo, Bellarmine, Catholics, Protestants, and atheists alike, was trying to figure out what science is and how explicitly to frame its relationship to other branches of philosophy and to theology.
I don't claim that the persons who imprisoned Galileo after Bellarmine's death were justified in their political action. I do claim that the Church's doctrine has always been silent on matters that we now call "science".
It hasn't always been silent. This is completely false. The early church made a concerted effort to adopt Aristotle's speres precisely because it conformed to observance in scripture.
Now, I'm not a theologian as you can possibly surmise. I just happen to live with one. However, I do know logic and the art of argument. So you can go on and on all day spouting your vast knowledge of Catholic doctrine, and I don't have the time to research whether you are correctly asserting incontrovertible facts, or just someone's interpretation. At the end of the day it doesn't matter. If you care about logic, you've hitched your wagon to the wrong horse. A logical theologian is an oxymoron in my opinion.
You can check if you want that the explicit doctrine of the Church is contained in the documents of the councils and in certain properly formulated (ex cathedra) pieces of papal writings. It is not too hard to verify that nowhere in the doctrine of the Church is there the adoption of Aristotle's spheres or anything else that would transgress science. I should be very interested if you or your theologian acquaintance could show otherwise.
From what tradition is the theologian with whom you live? If that person has a copy of The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott, then it might not be too hard to get a partial verification of my assertion.
MM needs to issue a clarification/correction.
MM refers to "Catholics United." The real "Catholics United" was founded in 1968. Its website is cuf.org. It is a reputable and faithful Catholic organization. It certainly does NOT support Sibelius.
The "Catholics United" that MM refers to is some dopey "online advocacy" organization that didn't even come into existence until 2004. It's run by two dissident Catholics who have somehow mislead the media (including MM) to think they're the long-standing "Catholics United." They're not.
MM is misleading their readership.
Ah, such a treat when you show up, Shoes.
So, the "real" catholics United is actually called Catholics United for the Faith (as shown on their site, and made clearthe abbreviation cuf.
And the "fake" Catholics United is actually called Catholics United.
And they're an advocacy group, as MMFA says in the item, right next to the link to their website.
I've never heard of either of them, but you apparently see one as "real" and one as "dopey". Any reasons for that?
And you think MM needs to issue a clarification anytime you're confused? That could require a lot more employees at the site.
This conversation is devolving into "The Life of Brian"
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: W_nkers.
What about the Sout Park episode where Cartman goes into the future and finds three atheist groups at war only to find out their only beef is what to call themselves.
You're right, King. Only a not-so-funny version.
Does Inertial Mass remind you of anybody?
Yup, he sure do seem familiar.
But since nothing is plagiarized it probably rules out the foot guy and the deputy.
And on a side note, did you know that you can get the phrase "jerk off" past the word cop but not the British equivalent, w_nker?
The naughty filter is pretty interesting at times. I couldn't get a word for a weapons stash or a British football club past, but ass was ok.
And thanks for linking to the entire script. The most important message, IMO, is right here;
WISE MEN: We worship you, O Brian..
I registered at this site only yesterday. Any similarity between my comments and those of someone else that you know is certainly unintended. Moreover, I intend only to be respectful, fair, and courteous. I hope that I have been perceived in no other way.
Courteous, yes. Pretentious, most definitely.
What am I pretending?
I am simply offering my opinions, as are you.
pre⋅ten⋅tious
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ʃəs/ 
Show Spelled Pronunciation [pri-ten-shuh
s] 
Show IPA –adjective
1. full of pretense or pretension. 2. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance. 3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.What am I exaggerating?
I am offering my opinions, just as you are. It seems to me that I am no more pretentious than you, who would judge me.
Deep breath. I apologize if I have broken some rule of civility. I'll endeavor to be less pretentious.
Your language is pretentious. It's like you are trying to channel the departed William F. Buckley Jr. Though I recognize Buckley's intellect, his unctious overly-ornate language made his supercillious countenance hard to endure.....Crap...Now you've got me doing it.
Cut the self-important language and you will a warmer reception.
Believe me, I am not trying to use overly ornate language. This is just how I think, however unfortunate for me that may be.
People called Romans they go the house.
What is new. MM can only exist by misleading the misguided.
Interesting, Pointy, that only two posters here seem to be confused, and are using that confusion to protest this sites dishonesty, and the misguidedness of the rest of the posters, who seem to be having no trouble understanding what's going on.
Maybe you & Shoes would be more comfortable here. Not so much of that confusing stuff.
Again, you left out some words...
MM can only exist by [the conservtaive media] misleading the misguided.
See how much more sence that makes? Stopping judgeing eveything by ideology that's already be shown to be little more than bad comedy. Your lot is the misguided one, mainly because you refuse to actually THINK for yourselves, and recognize actual FACTS. You judge the veracity of FACTS by whether they fit your ideology or not, as opposed to looking at anything objectively. Pull your head out of your ideology and join us back in the real world. We'll have a beer or something.