PG-13 Beware of Strong Language

Archbishop John Myers of Newark:

miter impeding circulation to the

brain

Ok—to pick up where we left off: Archbishop Myers of Newark says that those who disagree with Church teaching on (same-sex) Marriage should not present themselves for Holy Communion.  Well, first for the ad hominem response.  His Grace, as he likes to be known, falls into the buffoon category of prelate along with Cardinal Burke, Archbishop Cordileone, Bishops Gracida, Lennon, Jenky, D’Arcy, Dewane and others who have demonstrated their inability to translate the basic principles of Christianity into evangelically sound leadership strategies.  I would distinguish these prelates from those of a much smaller group like Cardinal Law, Archbishop Lori, and several others whose professional integrity and primary commitment to the Gospel seems questionable.  By no means do I think that that the either of these groups prevail in the American Hierarchy. In addition to the buffoons and the bullies, there are also the bland and the brilliant.  While I wish there were more of the brilliant than the bland, I am grateful that the bullies are few and the buffoons are not more.  

Anyone who has spent any time in the company of John Myers knows that he is not a bad man.  He has a good heart.  His episcopal career, however, has often shown bad judgment—such as the summer of 1991 when as Bishop of Peoria and one of the pioneer turn-back-the-clock members of the American hierarchy, he ended up on the cover of either Time or Newsweek, I forget which, and declared in an accompanying interview “Rome has higher things in mind for me than Peoria.”  Cardinal Bernardin always told the story of how Myers’ secretary (just to prove that stupidity is contagious within chanceries), when Myers was Bishop of Peoria, confided to Bernardin’s secretary that Myers was “going to be sent up to Chicago after Bernardin to clean up the mess that Bernardin left.”  Chicago novelist-priest Andrew Greely invented the character of dumb-as-shit Bishop Gus Quill in The Bishop and the Missing L Train (Forge, 2000) as a parody of Myers.  When Myers was (somewhat surprisingly) saved from the obscurity of Peoria (I guess Newark is “higher” if for no other reason than as an archdiocese it carries a pallium) and sent to Newark, there was some apprehension.  But a combination of his bad health and Newark’s good presbyterate led to a relatively uneventful reign.  Thus just when he had a chance to graduate from the buffoons into the bland, this “pastoral letter” more or less sealed his fate among the mitered monkeys.   O well, when all is said and done, he is a good person and on the Day of Judgment that is what matters. 
But as for telling people that they should not go to Communion—well, let’s attribute that to his inability to grasp theological ideas at any level above the religion he learned at his mother’s knee. 
In the first place, the only thing that should separate a Catholic from the Eucharist is the communicant’s consciousness of being in mortal sin.  To disagree with Church teaching in the internal forum—i.e. within one’s own mind and not within any public protest—is not in any way sinful.  There are three requirements, at least according to the old catechism, for mortal sin.  The action itself must be gravely wrong.  Ok, perhaps—and I say perhaps—the action of rejecting (actively rejecting, not simply not accepting) the teaching of the Church on serious matters is gravely wrong.  People do it all the time, but that doesn’t necessarily make it right.  There are those who disagree with Church teaching on capital punishment.  And don’t give me that b.s. that certain doctrines are required and certain ones are optional.  That is what conservatives call “cafeteria Catholicism” and those who disagree with what the ordinary magisterium (in this case the Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae) declares on capital punishment—or just war, or just economic principles, or rights of workers, or other liberal issues—are every bit as much “cafeteria Catholics” as those who argue for women’s ordination or “abortion rights” or marriage equality.  But let’s all concede the point that active dissent from the ordinary magisterium is gravely wrong; there are still two more considerations for a sin to be mortal.  One is that the person must have the freedom of the will for sin.  Normally we have freedom to make up our minds.  There are occasions, however, in which a person can be emotionally or psychologically blinded to an issue.  A woman who has survived a rape might be psychologically unable to freely choose to support the Church’s teaching that abortion is not an acceptable option in the case of a pregnancy resulting from a rape.  A person whose loved one was murdered might not be able emotionally to support the Church’s teaching on the death penalty.  Such examples, of course are the rare exceptions.
Then the third requirement and the one most pertinent here is that the person must know that it is wrong. This is the tricky one.  We don’t know something simply because someone told us.  When I was a child my father would keep me from swimming alone in the lake by telling me that he had to be there to keep an eye out for sharks.  I was still keeping an eye out for sharks in Lake Michigan when I was in my late thirties.  (If I were a bishop, I guess I would be in the buffoon category.)  We know something because it has been told us and we have come to see the truth of what we have been told.  If there is anything wrong in our society—and Church—today it is that people are not critical thinkers.  FOX News works on the principle that you can tell people the most incredible thing and they will swallow the lie: hook, line, and sinker.  Karl Rove made a career out of feeding the masses lies and the masses believed him.  Mitt Romney is totally right—47% of the American People are going to drink Obama’s Kool Aid.  And 47% are going to drink the Republican Kool Aid.  When are we going to learn to think for ourselves—to weigh the evidence we are being fed and seeing if it rings true or not???  And in this blog—you don’t have to agree with me—I just want you to think for yourselves.  God did not create us stupid, he made us in his own image and likeness.  Our intelligence doesn’t match his, but for heaven’s sake—and I mean that literally—use your intelligence whether it is the President speaking or the Pope; whether it is the Newark Star Ledger or Archbishop Myers,  whether it is this blog or that shi*-house rat crazy lady from Woodstock VA with her Hilly Holbrook Les Femmes. 
Anyway—to refocus—if you disagree with a Church teaching it is obviously because you do not know it.  If, for example, you disagree with the Church’s teaching on abortion it is because while you may know that the Church teaches “x” on abortion you do not understand the issue in the way that the Church teaches it.  You see complexities in the issue that the Church teaching has not—at least as far as you know—sufficiently addressed for you to be able to accept the teaching as the Church states it.  There is something that is preventing you from accepting the teaching—it may be you.  It may be your personal experience that has put an emotional or psychological block in the way.  It may be the Church’s failure to articulate the teaching in a way that you can understand or to examine the question from a perspective to which you have access.  An embryologist, for example, may have some detailed knowledge about embryonic development that leaves Church teaching on abortion or stem-cell research open to further questions.  In fact, a sophomore biology student may have questions that people in the Church have not yet sufficiently answered for the Church teaching to make sense to that student.  It is not reasonable to expect people to accept a doctrine that contradicts the knowledge that they already have until that doctrine can be explained in a way that answers their questions or demonstrates that the knowledge that they had brought to the question was itself faulty. 
Now, when we disagree with Church teaching normally we should do so discreetly. I agree that there is an element of scandal when we publically dissent from the teaching of the Church.  There are exceptions to this—and a future entry will perhaps explore that.  Scandal itself is sinful.  But simply to look at a Church teaching and say “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that” is no reason to refrain from communion and no shepherd concerned for the good of his faithful (I am not going to use the word “flock” or “sheep”—that is the problem these guys have in thinking that we are stupid) would suggest that they should refrain from the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation simply because they don’t agree on every point of doctrine.   A brighter intellect than John Myers would know that; in fact, a deeper man than His Grace would never have suggested it.    

The Oath and the Offense of Lèse Majesté against God

The Bishop administering Confirmation in

the Arlington Diocese

Boy, this issue of the Arlington oath has exploded my blog with three-to-four times the number of hits this past day.  Well, more on it today. 

Some years ago I was in Rome for a meeting of a committee of which I was a member and a colleague of mine, an Italian priest who teaches Moral Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University (though he isn’t a Jesuit) asked me why I had chosen to do my doctoral studies in history and not theology.   I told him that while theology interested me, I would be reluctant to take the oath required of theology professors. History lies outside the jurisdiction of the magisterium and it is better that I stick there.  While as a faithful Catholic, I would not knowingly teach anything contrary to the teaching of the Church, I found it demeaning that it would be presumed that I or any Catholic professor would violate our sacred trust and present ideas contrary to the faith of the Church as if they were in fact part of the deposit of faith.  It is demeaning to one’s human and professional dignity to presume that he or she would betray the trust given them.  If one betrays this trust—ok, then act but the oath given to theology professors on Catholic faculties unprovokedly calls into question their commitment to the faith.    

This moral theology professor poo-pooed my reservation and said: of those oaths—“they’re given in bad faith, take them in bad faith.”  

I have often told that story and always gotten a laugh.  And I can see how others could be so cavalier about an oath “given in bad faith,” but for me an oath is an oath and it calls upon God to be my witness.     

The Diocese of Arlington is asking Catholics to stand up and swear with God as their witness, that they hold everything that is taught not only by the universal magisterium (the Pope alone and the College of Bishops acting in concert with the Pope  but by the bishops collectively (The USCCB) and by the local bishop.  This is a tall order.  OK—they want the catechists to hold—not just publically but in their conscience—that abortion is morally evil, that contraception is morally evil, that same-sex relationships are morally evil.  OK—we got that.  But they also want Virginia Catholics to swear that they abide by the Church’s teaching on capital punishment.  They want Virginia Catholics to swear that they abide by the Church’s teaching on just war.  They want Virginia Catholics to swear that they abide by the Church’s teachings on the rights of people to migrate.  They want Virginia Catholics to swear that they abide by the Church teachings on economic justice.  Now I realize these teachings are nuanced—as is the teaching on contraception and, in fact, are all doctrines—but do you really think that the person-in-the-Arlington-pews supports the teaching on the Death Penalty and the very limited circumstances in which it can be used?  No one who is going to vote for Ken Cuccinelli this autumn would qualify.   Do you really think the person-in-the-Arlington-pews think that the Presidents Bush, I and II brought us into an unjust war in Iraq?  And if they do, did they think it at the time and would they still think it if the circumstances were repeated today?  Do you think the person-in-the-Arlington-pews agrees in intellect and will with the Bishops’ 1983 pastoral on nuclear weapons or 1986 letter on Economic justice?  These documents have never been repealed and still constitute part of the teaching required by the proposed oath.

No this oath is going to bring people of good faith who have legitimate reservations about Church teaching to either forsake the ministry of teaching or to call on God to witness a lie.  People of integrity will walk away from the oath.  People who do not take God seriously will step up and perjure themselves before God.

There is no need for such a moral quandary.  The oath is being arbitrarily imposed. Canon Law does not require—nor support—such an oath.  There are alternatives.  Catechists can, at the annual mass installing them in their ministry, be called on to stand in Church, recite a profession of faith, and promise the pastor and the congregation that they will teach the faith of the Church as the Church teaches it.  The same end is attained without the lèse majesté of an unnecessary oath. 

Catholics and the Death Penalty--then and now

Well, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia Wednesday evening.  It was a very complex case with seven of nine witnesses recanting the testimony that convicted Mr. Davis of killing a white policeman and several of those witnesses publically stating that they had been bullied by police and prosecutors into testifying falsely.  Did we execute an innocent man?  God—and Mr. Davis—alone know.   Thirty-five people have been put to death so far this year in the United States.  Derrick O’Neal Mason is to be executed in Alabama Thursday evening at 6 pm; the judge who sentenced him sixteen years ago wrote earlier this month that if he, the judge, had tried the case as a more experienced jurist, he would have sentenced him to life without parole, not death.  Unfortunately that was then and this is now.  A third man, a white supremacist from Texas named Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed the same evening as Troy Davis. Brewer had been convicted of killing James Byrd Jr, a disabled African American in 1998. John William King is also sentenced to die for that murder.  King, Mason, and another man are convicted of dragging Mr. Byrd behind a pickup truck for three miles before dumping his body.  There were no demonstrations or appeals from world leaders for Mr. Mason.
      Among those appealing for Mr. Davis’ life was Pope Benedict XVI and this brings up the issue of the Catholic Church and the Death Penalty.  For centuries the Catholic Church had no problem with the Death Penalty.   Indeed, traditional Catholic theology justified it as long as it was used as a deterrent and not exercised as an act of vengeance.   Moreover the Church, while claiming to keep its hands clean from blood, turned countless people over to the “Civil Power” for execution for crimes ranging from parricide to heresy to witchcraft.  Sometimes, as in the case of the Papal States, there was a fine line, perhaps an imaginary line, between the “Church” and the “Civil Power.”  When I lived in Rome, a priest friend of mine, a historian, showed me the home of the last executioner for the Papal States before the Kingdom of Italy replaced the Pope as King of Rome in 1870. The man piously arranged for a mass to be said for each of his victims after he had carried out his official duties.
       One of the most horrendous instances of the Church’s use of the death penalty was in the execution of Beatrice Cenci, her step-mother, and her brother (see entry of May 2^nd  2011).  Beatrice was the daughter of Francesco Cenci, a Roman aristocrat with a vile temper.  Cenci repeatedly abused his wife and his two sons and raped Beatrice.  Beatrice brought her father’s crimes to the attention of the papal police but noblemen were not normally prosecuted for such crimes as domestic abuse and rape.  Beatrice, her step-mother, and her siblings murdered Francesco at their country home.  When the murder was discovered—despite the best attempts of family and friends who knew the situation to protect Beatrice and her family—Beatrice, her step-mother, and sibilings were sentenced to death.   The Romans, common folk and wealthy alike, went crazy—protesting in the streets against the injustice but Clement VIII would not tolerate an act of violence against a nobleman no matter how serious his crimes.  The younger brother, still a child, had his sentence commuted to serving for life as a galley slave.  (He was released after one year.) The older brother was savagely beaten to death with large hammers and his body dismembered within site of the papal window.  Francesco’s wife, Lucrezia, was then beheaded at the same site.  Finally Beatrice was beheaded, also at the Ponte Sant’Angelo.  There is a legend that each year she returns on the night of her execution (September 11^th) and walks the bridge with her head tucked beneath her arm. 
     In the late twentieth century the Catholic position on Capital Punishment began to change.  As nation after nation eliminated capital punishment and as a greater consciousness about human rights emerged in Western society, theologians began calling into question the morality of the state executing criminals.  Slowly papal pronouncements began to question the morality of capital punishment.  It was  only with the papacy of John Paul II, however, that the issue moved from a question to a definitive teaching.  John Paul made a number of statements over the years indicating that there were serious moral issues involved in capital punishment, but it was  only with his 1995 Encyclical Evangelium Vitae that the subject came under the ordinary magisterium and even there the door was not closed completely to capital punishment.  Not closed completely—but pretty much shut.  The Pope wrote:
This is the context in which to place the problem of the death penalty. On this matter there is a growing tendency, both in the church and in civil society, to demand that it be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely. The problem must be viewed in the context of a system of penal justice ever more in line with human dignity and thus, in the end, with God's plan for man and society. The primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is "to redress the disorder caused by the offense." Public authority must redress the violation of personal and social rights by imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime, as a condition for the offender to regain the exercise of his or her freedom. In this way authority also fulfills the purpose of defending public order and ensuring people's safety, while at the same time offering the offender an incentive and help to change his or her behavior and be rehabilitated. xxxIt is clear that for these purposes to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: In other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare if not practically nonexistent.” xxxIn any event, the principle set forth in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church remains valid: "If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person."
     If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.  Public authority must limit itself to such means….  Hmm   there are circumstances in theory, but in practice?   The pope wrote “Today however, as a result of steady improvement in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare if not practically nonexistent.”  Moreover, in a variety of addresses Pope John Paul made it clear that the penal systems of Western Europe and North America were sufficiently developed as to render the death penalty unnecessary and therefore not morally justifiable. 
       That was not the final word on this matter.  Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a letter to the American Bishops in 2004 clarifying certain issues in light of the political significance of Evangelium Vitae in an American presidential election.  Ratzinger distinguished—quite legitimately—between issues which involve an intrinsic evil (abortion, euthanasia) and a contextual evil—a decision or action whose moral character is dependent on the situation or context.  The death penalty is not an intrinsic evil.  Current Cathlolic teaching declares that there are circumstances under which it is permissible to be used.   The same applies to war.  Catholic moral teaching recognizes limited circumstances under which war is moral.  Of course Pope John Paul had clarified that he did not see circumstances under which the death penalty was morally acceptable in the penal systems of developed nations (and he explicitly referred to the United States), systems that could guarantee that a convict would not again be a threat to life.  The pope had also clarified that the Iraq War in which the United States was at the time engaged did not meet the criteria for “just war.”  Nevertheless, since both war and the death penalty are not intrinsic evils, under certain circumstances recourse may be given to them.   Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his letter: 
“Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. 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.”
Yes, there is a legitimate diversity of opinion as to the morality of a particular war or whether a given situation meets the pope’s criteria for a legitimate use of the death penalty.  One cannot give a blanket approval to war or to the death penalty and say that an individual Catholic is free to agree or disagree with the Church on these matters.  Evangelium Vitae, as an encyclical letter, is part of the ordinary magisterium and Catholics are required to give intellectual and moral assent to the teachings of the ordinary magisterium. 
       What I find most disturbing about the executions this week—even more disturbing that the possible miscarriage of justice in regards to the execution of Mr.Davis—is that there was no outcry against the execution of Mr. Brewer.  “Well,” some people would say, “Mr, Davis was quite possibly, almost certainly, innocent.  Mr Brewer is a racist who murdered a man simply because he was black.”  But for a true pro-lifer the guilt or the innocence of person sentenced to death is not the issue.  Nor does the moral bankruptcy of racism mitigate the moral character of the execution.  The issue is that God alone is Lord of Life and no one, even all of us together in the corporate body we call “The State,”  has the right to usurp that prerogative of God to take (or give) life.  It is not that the person has a “right to life” or that by their guilt they have forfeited a “right to life.”  It is about God’s right.  God alone has the right to give and take life.  Capital Punishment is no more than judicial murder.