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Matt Abbott of
Renew America |
Yesterday,
the New York Times published an article on how conservative American Catholics
are feeling increasingly alienated from Pope Francis because of his change of
agenda for the Church. One priest friend
of mine—of the more liberal persuasion—opined: “now they know how we felt these
last thirty-five years.” Well the papal
slipper is on the other foot (though actually this guy just wears ordinary
shoes) and it is fun to see the discomfort of those right-wingers who were
beating their more peace-and-justice oriented fellows over the head about not
focusing more or less exclusively on abortion and same-sex marriage. Of course, Francis hasn’t changed the
Church’s teaching on marriage or on the sanctity of life for the unborn—it is
just where the emphasis is being put.
But then, Benedict or John Paul II had never challenged the social
teaching found in Mater et Magistra,
or Progressio Popolorum or Gaudium et Spes—it was just that during
their papacies certain teachings were allowed to languish in the realm of the
forgotten magisterium while certain other teachings were allowed to be tools in
the hands of social conservatives to achieve their own political agendas. I hope that down the line I get to take a
look at the papacy of John Paul II in particular and how he permitted the
magisterium to be manipulated by social conservatives to aid his political
agenda of breaking the back of Marxism in his native Poland and throughout
Eastern Europe. Perhaps we can look at
this when I finish this series on the La
Civilta Cattolica/America interview.
But the neo-trads are beside themselves, as this article points out,
because the social agenda of the Church clearly is no longer the straight-Tea
Party line and that threatens the alliance among Evangelicals-Neo-trad
Catholics-and Rabid Republicans. No
longer can the wing-nuts on the right hide in the Republican Party pretending
that it is the Catholic Church. It is
increasingly clear that the American Catholic is politically homeless, finding
themselves a stranger in either tent.
And after all, since “our citizenship is in heaven…” it is good that we
don’t have a place to politically sit down and make ourselves comfortable. (Pardon the split infinitive.)
The
New York Times article quoted Matt Abbot, “a Catholic columnist in Chicago with
Renew America, a politically conservative website…”
“For
orthodox and conservative Catholics,” he said, “the last few months have been a
roller-coaster ride.” He added in an email, “I’m not a big fan of roller coasters.”
Mr.
Abbot is not “a Catholic columnist” anymore than I am a Catholic blogger or a Catholic historian. He is a columnist who happens to be a Catholic. He doesn’t speak for the Church. But what really gets me about his statement
is “for orthodox and conservative Catholics…”
Conservative I will grant him—but who determines who is “orthodox?” A qualified theologian can give an opinion on whether the views of a
particular person are orthodox. The Holy
See can issue a definitive statement.
But Mr. Abbot is not one who can make the claim. This is the problem of
the right—the arrogance to determine who belongs in the Church and who
doesn’t. And it is just fascinating that
so many of them are now questioning “Is the Pope Catholic?”
