More on the Fr. Doyle Thread: Of St. Blog’s, Orthodoxy, and Charity
Since Shelray’s post on Richard Sipe and my post on Fr. Doyle’s, Mr. Sipe’s compadre, e-mail in regard to the post, the issue of orthodoxy and charity seem to have become a point of discussion. Now I do not want to appear to be defensive. I will admit that I am sometimes guilty of reacting combatively or emotionally; perhaps more often than I even realize. Shelray’s more recent post was a good reminder to me to be more attentive to my motivations. Nevertheless, there seems to be a confusion about the meaning of charity and an unstated presupposition that those who defend the Magisterium somehow, almost universally, trade charity for truth.
Let us make our distinctions today. What is charity? Charity at root is agape. It is God’s love which means that it is total Self-gift for the sake of the good of the Other. In close connection with this, it is a theological virtue. The term theological denotes the fact that it is a gift of grace. The term virtue means that it is something that is acquired by habit. Thus, it is something that develops and grows by a gift of grace with which the recipient cooperates. This cooperation begins with the human emulation of Trinitarian agape. Man practices charity by an act of the will in which he wills the good of the other for his own sake. He does this concretely through a total gift of himself to God and in various ways, to others for the sake of God and His love. But one cannot give what he does not possess. Thus, authentic charity requires self-mastery which comes about by a virtuous life. That is, a life lived in accord with the cardinal virtues and of course, aided by grace.
O.k. What does this mean for the way we act. Can charity be determined from outward actions? Not infallibly. Jesus’ overturning, in anger, of the money changers’ tables was by definition, an act of charity but it was not from their perspective, a very nice act. Jesus had in mind their own good and the good of others though. That is not to say that we all have license to run around overturning the tables of those needing fraternal correction. After all, we are not Jesus and we do not have the same insight into people’s souls. Nevertheless, a prudent and temperate (two of the cardinal virtues) person can discern that at times that direct confrontation is necessary. However, pragmatically we must admit that it is more often the case that changing hearts begins with relationships of trust than with acts of direct confrontation. That is why I say a prudent and temperate person.
What this does mean is that while one can often intuit care and concern of another from his actions, charity is not equivalent to appearing to be nice. In fact, many times the opposite is the case. One can be nice to someone to whom he ought to be offering charitable correction because he fears conflict, fears rejection, wants to be affirming, or any number of reasons that take priority over a real concern for the person and the welfare of his entire personhood.
So is it the case that most orthodox people care more for the truth than for charity? Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out that one cannot be separated from the other. One cannot have authentic truth without charity. Nor can one have real charity without the truth. The lack of one, diminishes and often destroys the other. Truth is not simply cognitive content but it is an encounter, in some degree, with Truth Himself. Charity is not simply an emotion or a sweet disposition. It is communion with the Trinitarian Communio, in Jesus Christ. If orthodox people present cognitively true propositions out of hateful motivations they cannot communicate the Person of Christ and when doing so will not be successful in transferring the cognitive proposition to the other. When others reject the truth because they do want to be charitable they destroy charity and rather propagate sin and dysfunction.
Truth and Charity have their fullest expression in the Catholic Church. The Church is the People of God, which means a hierarchical structure with authority given to the Pope, bishops and priests, along with the lay faithful. To pose hierarchical authority against communion and love or to undermine the hierarchical authority and trust puts one in opposition to this ecclesiological truth. To try to claim governing authority for the laity is to reject the revealed truth of the Church. To cast aspersions and caricature every faithful bishop and the hierarchy itself as power hungry, secretive, and self interested and to claim celibacy (which is much more than “just a discipline”) is at the root cause of the sex abuse crisis is not simply a distortion of the facts, it is a cause of scandal. Scandal means to cause any little one to sin, to fall away from the Catholic Church and Her spiritual leadership and especially Her Sacraments. This is tantamount to denying them the healing grace they need, and ultimately putting at grave risk, their eternal salvation.
This is what the acts of those such as A. W. Richard Sipe and Fr. Thomas P. Doyle have the effects of doing. Any one who reads Fr. Doyle’s articles (here are a few more for example: here and here) , his merciless attack of the “institutional Church,” and his support for the anti-Catholic organization Voice of the Faithful or Richard Sipe’s Freudian distortions of the meaning of the human person will have little trouble in agreeing that I have described their actions accurately, even if they do not agree with the conclusions. I hopefully have been successful in avoiding intuiting their motivations/intentions. I certainly have not judged, God forbid, the states of their souls. In good conscience, I believe that this post is done with charity.
I have no illusions that this post is going to remedy any problems by its argument. Perhaps it can provide some food for thought and some clarification of the issues. Regardless of how these gentlemen got to the point at which they now stand, they clearly believe that they are in the right. It will take the Holy Spirit to convince them otherwise. I will pray for them and I hope that you will too.
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Three of the Spiritual Works of MERCY:
Admonish sinners
Instruct the ignorant
Counsel the doubtful
“The works of mercy are CHARITABLE actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities.” [From 2447 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church]
Comment by Fr. Stephanos, O.S.B. — April 19, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
There is no one for whom I will not pray that all is well with them and that they will find God’s mercy. No one.
That said, the first refuge of scoundrels is to cry that any correction or disagreement with them is mean, uncharitable and judgmental, when all they are implying is that they don’t like nor want correction or debate unless on their terms. Yet these very same people are very often snide, deceptive, backstabbing, nasty-minded individuals who hide behind a nice “smile” which often is a cover for malice.
Beware, said Our Lord, of wolves in sheep’s clothing. And in this case, pay no heed to them.
Comment by John Hetman — April 19, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
Links and commentary here:
http://catholicsensibility.wordpress.com/2007/04/19/getting-to-the-truth/
.
Comment by Todd — April 19, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
I went over to Todd’s site to read his commentary and was struck by this, near the end of his essay critiquing David’s post above. He characterizes David’s last paragraph in the following way:
It’s almost a kind of gnosticism to see people suggest that a certain “secret virtue†is in place among faithful Catholics–the notion that “true believers†of some sort exist who have managed to avoid the pitfalls of their own ego and blindness and can render judgment on what constitutes truth, dissent, and orthodoxy.
It is true that we are all limited by egocentrism and spiritual blindness to a degree. However, the Church herself renders judgment on “what constitutes truth, dissent, and orthodoxy”. Though we don’t understand everything completely, Christ through His revelation promises us that He will give us all the knowledge and understanding of His truth that our minds and hearts can hold - and He gives this to us in the forms of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Scriptures, and the traditions handed down to us by and through the Magisterium of the Church.
These truths are contained in propositional statements that human reason can be exercised to understand, accept, and/or reject. Todd’s statement above strongly implies not just that David should not render judgment on what constitutes truth or dissent, but also that no one alive in the Church today can render such a judgment - that truth, dissent, and orthodoxy are unknowable - that they are, always have been, and always will be matters of opinion.
I wonder if Todd would think it arrogant of me if I read a random passage from the Catechism (e.g. regarding the hierarchical structure of the Church) and said it was the truth.
I invite him to return and clarify this for me and any other interested readers.
Comment by Kathleen Lundquist — April 20, 2007 @ 2:49 am
Kathleen, I thought it was David who too easily dismissed my criticisms by saying I was guilty of the same offense of which I was accusing him. If that’s merely an observation to be followed by a sincere self-examination, then I have no problem.
The tone would suggest that neither Coyle nor I have anything constructive to say to CLS because we might be guilty of “dissent.” This would be gnosticism in the broad sense of that term: a special knowledge or revelation granted to a subset of believers.
While it is true that the Church renders judgment on “truth,” David stretches to breaking this sense by interspersing his own interpretations. So far as I know, the Magisterium has not ruled that VOTF is anti-Catholic. Neither have they found Fr. Doyle to be “merciless.”
Comment by Todd — April 20, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Am I saying David and others should refrain from judgment? Not at all. But I am saying this:
1. It is inappropriate to clothe one’s own interpretations as part of the Magisterium of the Church when one does not, in fact, participate in the official teaching office.
2. Other people, even sinners, even non-believers, possess important aspects of the truth that may well reveal flaws in the thinking and praxis of “orthodox” Catholics. Ignore at your own risk.
Kathleen, if you have a statement you’d like to send me by e-mail, I’d be happy to post your comments and mine on my own weblog. If anyone prefers to move the rest of the discussion there, you can find me there some of today.
Comment by Todd — April 20, 2007 @ 9:47 am
Both virtue and sin occur first as spiritual operations: decisions, acts of the will.
Orthodoxy is an operation of the spirit (the intellect and the will); orthopraxy is bodily action in accord with orthodoxy.
To disconnect the two is Gnosticism.
The body has ultimate, objective meanings, and Christian orthodoxy is eternally incarnate: “We believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.”
All believers suffer the “pitfalls of ego and their own blindness”.
Dissenters, however, perpetrate the further egotism and blindness of rejecting the guidance of not only Biblical revelation, but also the long centuries of serious and exhaustive Judeo-Christian (and “Ecclesio-magisterial”) experience and consideration of what works and doesn’t work for human beings. The last several decades of dissent against classical Judeo-Christian morality is both a vertical arrogance and a broad horizontal one: “Our generation of thought is smarter than all your millennia.”
Comment by Fr. Stephanos, O.S.B. — April 20, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Todd -
In all honesty, I do not follow the logic in your thinking. I found your charge of gnosticism to be ironic as Fr. Stephanos charitably alludes. Kathleen and Fr. Stephanos rightly point out that the phenomenon here is one of judging from authoritative statements (the Catechism for example) to concrete situations (Doyle’s and Sipe’s public statements). At most what one has in an error in judgment, not some supposed appeal to privileged truth. Your assumption seems to be that every concrete instance must be adjudicated by the Magisterium, that reasoning is not possible. You do not seem to have understood this point.
It is not clear to me what you mean by the phrase “cloth one’s own interpretations.” If you are saying that no one can really know what the Church really teaches then Kathleen’s observation holds. You are succumbing to a Kantian agnosticism which is explicitly rejected by the Church. If you are saying no one can make a judgment about whether a particular case is or is not in accord with Church teaching with sufficient confidence to correct fraternally, then you are setting up the structure for the worst kind of legalism.
You are eliminating the possibility of fraternal correction and then would seem to require that every case of possible transgression be moved into the ecclesial courtroom. The Church does not and cannot work that way. The Church is a family and it depends upon its members, in charity, to know the faith and to be willing to help others in and out of the family to learn and embrace the faith.
If what you intend is that everyone must be able to believe, act and teach as they see fit while being exempt from any correction until a Magisterial proclamation is given for every concrete case (perhaps to the extent of a finding of heresy by an ecclesial court ?) then I would say that this fits well with the ecclesiology of individualism which seems to underly your discussions of the Church. It is not however, a Catholic ecclesiology.
In fact, the Church does say that lay persons can “participate” in the Magisterium, in a sense. This is true any way, at least in the case of theologians with a mandatum, when through a juridical bond their collaboration becomes in a sense a participation in the work of the Magisterium when they teach the faith in its full integrity and accuracy (see Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, 21).
I’m sorry if you did not recognize it, but I do believe that I addressed all of your arguments and I tried to take them seriously. I agreed with the valid ones but pointed out why I found the rest to be mistaken. Perhaps a closer, dispassionate reading will make this apparent.
Kathleen and Fr. Stephanos, thank you both so much for your very insightful analyses.
Comment by David — April 20, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
David,
What I’m saying is this:
- You can certainly correct others, or attempt to do so, but others can attempt to correct you, regardless of your assessment of their orthodoxy. Please don’t misread that I’m saying you are unqualified to give correction. I’m saying you are not alone in being able to give correction–that role and ability is one independent of one’s proclaimed or actual orthodoxy.
- Labelling someone as a dissenter or their public position as dissent is far from an ironclad statement of the truth. In other words, I think you have to prove it, not just state it.
- I think Fr Stephanos falls into your trap on interpreting dissent. While I cannot disagree with his assessment of the problems true dissenters present to the Magisterium and the faithful at large, neither Fr Doyle nor I fall into the category of being “vertically” or “horizontally arrogant” as part of our approach to our status as faithful Catholics. It seems convenient for you to dismiss so easily our suggestions that your tone appears to lack charity in our recent discourses.
Meanwhile, discussion is still welcome at Catholic Sensibility.
Comment by Todd — April 20, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
Todd,
>>I’m saying you are not alone in being able to give correction–that role and ability is one independent of one’s proclaimed or actual orthodoxy.
I am not sure the relevance of this statement to our discussion. You will have to point out to me where I suggested that I was immune from correction.
>>Labelling someone as a dissenter or their public position as dissent is far from an ironclad statement of the truth.
You seem to have a particular obsession with the fact that I chose to categorize a post under the label of dissent. Dissent is not a juridical category. Rather, it is a general observation gained from one’s writings and associations. While I did not label Fr. Doyle a dissenter, I think that this categorization is quite justified given his close association and support for VOTF, an organization that has been labeled as dissenting by a large number of US Bishops, together with his continual undermining of trust in Church authority by a calumnious painting of the entire hierarchy as complicit in the sins of a few. This badgering for the laity to rise up and reject Church authority and to claim it for themselves is clearly though, dissent.
>> I think Fr Stephanos falls into your trap on interpreting dissent.
Fr. Stephanos, as a pastor of souls, has a divine mandate to minister to the faithful and to help them discern their actions and motivations. I think the correct, and yes charitable, interpretation of his statements is as an offer to consider and reflect on whether this might apply to oneself in some way. However, it is well within his vocational mandate to make such an observation as well.
>> It seems convenient for you to dismiss so easily our suggestions that your tone appears to lack charity in our recent discourses.
I am at a complete loss here Todd. After you discerned the issue of charity to be the core issue that I should have been addressing, I yielded to your desires and spent quite a bit of time (and a post) directly addressing your “suggestions” and showing why I found them to be problematic. All I can figure is that you mean that because I did not agree with your “suggestions” that my “tone” is by definition lacking in charity?
This is ironic, I think, because it appears to me that you continue to beg special pleading as you assume the right to continue to accuse others of a lack of charity for intuiting ill intent from their statements but you simultaneously seem to assume immunity from the charge when you do it yourself.
Comment by David — April 20, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
[Forgive me if this is a duplicate. As far as I can tell, my first attempt to post this did not work.]
David,
In the principles of debate, to call your adversary “uncharitable” (or “mean,” or “judgmental,” etc.) is an ad hominem (”at the man”) attack that sidesteps the actual points of argument in the debate. One who goes ad hominem is no longer debating, but escaping.
I would encourage you, David, not to follow Todd’s defensive evasion of your original critiques of the writings and associations of Fr. Doyle.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, the Spiritual Works of Mercy — including admonishing, counseling, instructing — are charitable actions. When one judges (valid “judgmentalism”) that another has committed error, particularly in regards to Church teaching, charity itself makes it imperative to admonish, counsel, and instruct — because charity wants the salvation of the other.
We must judge whether actions or words are in error; we must do so out of charity towards the salvation of others — and the Lord in his Gospel makes that a mandate. What we are unable to judge is the interior condition of another’s soul — unless the other person reveals that condition (as in confession of sins).
Todd’s verbalized attempt at judging you to be uncharitable may be either a valid (though inaccurate) attempt to judge your words, or an invalid verbal attempt to judge the interior condition of your soul.
So, back to the issue. You have stated it already, pointing it out in at least three of your paragraphs above. Here they are.
- - - -
Truth and Charity have their fullest expression in the Catholic Church. The Church is the People of God, which means a hierarchical structure with authority given to the Pope, bishops and priests, along with the lay faithful. To pose hierarchical authority against communion and love or to undermine the hierarchical authority and trust puts one in opposition to this ecclesiological truth. To try to claim governing authority for the laity is to reject the revealed truth of the Church. To cast aspersions and caricature every faithful bishop and the hierarchy itself as power hungry, secretive, and self interested and to claim celibacy (which is much more than “just a disciplineâ€) is at the root cause of the sex abuse crisis is not simply a distortion of the facts, it is a cause of scandal. Scandal means to cause any little one to sin, to fall away from the Catholic Church and Her spiritual leadership and especially Her Sacraments. This is tantamount to denying them the healing grace they need, and ultimately putting at grave risk, their eternal salvation.
This is what the acts of those such as A. W. Richard Sipe and Fr. Thomas P. Doyle have the effects of doing. Any one who reads Fr. Doyle’s articles (here are a few more for example: here and here) , his merciless attack of the “institutional Church,†and his support for the anti-Catholic organization Voice of the Faithful or Richard Sipe’s Freudian distortions of the meaning of the human person will have little trouble in agreeing that I have described their actions accurately….
[....]
While I did not label Fr. Doyle a dissenter, I think that this categorization is quite justified given his close association and support for VOTF, an organization that has been labeled as dissenting by a large number of US Bishops, together with his continual undermining of trust in Church authority by a calumnious painting of the entire hierarchy as complicit in the sins of a few. This badgering for the laity to rise up and reject Church authority and to claim it for themselves is clearly though, dissent.
Comment by Fr. Stephanos, O.S.B. — April 21, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Fr. Stephanos,
You are right of course. I was hoping that Todd would recognize the “charity” extended in allowing him to avoid having to admit he did not have a defensible argument, but he seems to have missed it. Fail that, I was still hoping to show him that his appeal to charity itself did not hold water. He apparently still did not see that either.
Unfortunately, I fear that Todd does not realize that he falls into the fallacy of vague thinking; a fallacy that Msgr. Robert Sokolowski so ably describes in his Introduction of Phenomenology. This is the problem of not thinking logically but stringing together facts’/assertions that one has acquired without determining whether there is a logical/causal connection between them.
As with philosophical materialism/ virulent atheism, the spirit of dissent is a prior commitment that one then attempts to shore up with vague thinking. At root, it is a rebellion against authority and a radical self reliance. I know, I lived it for many years and have come to realize that it is only healed when one lets down his defenses and surrenders himself to God’s will regardless of what sacrifices this demands. I found that in making these sacrifices, one finds an ineffable peace and joy that can only come when one no longer carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and lets God do the heavy lifting. I do pray that Todd and Fr. Doyle are able to find this peace one day as well.
Comment by David — April 21, 2007 @ 11:54 am
Well …
My first argument, as I recall, was in part directed against yours and shelray’s avoidance of the issues Fr Doyle brought to your attention, including errors of content. You did ask for some clarification, and I provided it. My understanding is that shelray stated his practice of not editing errors, and we moved on from there.
You’ve avoided my suggestion that your arguments linking Doyle to dissent are, in fact, an exaggeration. I don’t believe I brought up the spectre of lack of charity, just that your arguments lacked “truth.”
I never came right out and said you were uncharitable, and neither did Doyle. In fact, I was clear to point out and endorse the track of his objection: the tone of fraternal correction in the Catholic blogosphere often (but not always) speaks of lifting up being right above that of showing care, concern, and Christian love. Please don’t put words in my mouth, especially when we can all read what we’ve written.
I think that many Catholic bloggers string together aspects of truth as well as suspicion and their own strong emotional reactions to create lines of reasoning that don’t quite hold together logically. In such cases, they would have lost a clear sense of the truth in permitting their passions to override an otherwise strong and inspired thought.
This is what I think happened here, and your use of inflamatory language to bolster your argument has weakened your whole line of thinking. It might well be uncharitable, but frankly, I’m not at ease going to that diagnosis. I’m sticking with the “prove it” suggestion.
The repeated assertion that the most extreme (and I might say intemperate) proposals of VOTF are reflective of reform groups or individuals by mere association is by no means a slam-dunk winner on your part. It is true that guilt-by-association can affect the credibility of a person or persons. That can be a more or less universal assessment. Or it can be particular, ie a person abused by a priest might distrust all clergy. There would need to be a personal assessment if a guilt-by-association stance is a logical or truthful one, or one polluted by emotions or other biases.
If you interpret my objections to the tone or poor logic in the blogosphere as a rebellion against authority, I think the discussion is stretched to near-breaking.
If you have a case against Doyle’s associations, by all means make it. But make it a clear and focused effort. It would be more convincing if you can avoid suggestions of “dissent” and “rebellion” against persons who have made an attempt to question or correct your own errors in truth.
Comment by Todd — April 21, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
I have seen nothing in any of these posts regarding Fr. Doyle that fits this description, from Todd’s own mouth (without anyone putting words into it), “…that the tone of fraternal correction in the Catholic blogosphere often (but not always) speaks of lifting up being right above that of showing care, concern, and Christian love.”
The problem with Fr. Doyle comes when he uses the sex-abuse scandal as support for his a priori, romantic conviction that we need to propose a new way of being Church. This aligns with his obvious distrust of papal authority and of mandatory celibacy. Yet, Christ willed the essential structure of Petrine authority as it has come down to us(a fact about which there are going to be several blog-posts coming) and that celibacy does not cause pederasty.
Comment by hierothee — April 21, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
“The problem with Fr. Doyle comes when he uses the sex-abuse scandal as support for his a priori, romantic conviction that we need to propose a new way of being Church.”
I think that Doyle proposes new ways for the hierarchy to function more openly, and more faithfully to God and to the flock(s) in their care. Is openness and accountability a “new way,” or is it just a more faithful rendering of Luke 22:24-27?
“This aligns with his obvious distrust of papal authority and of mandatory celibacy.”
I think we have to be careful here. There’s a huge difference between a distrust of a particular way in which papal authority has been exercised and a blanket distrust of everything papal. The former can be a reasonably held opinion, if someone, for example, thought that John Paul should have come in and cleaned house, so to speak, with Law and other bishops who sheltered sex offenders.
What might be “obvious” to some Catholics very often is not part of an actual truth. Claiming it as such, short0cuts the whole exercise in charitable correction, and itself needs to be confronted.
Mandatory celibacy merits a lot of discussion, but a faithful opposition to it and willingness to discern with the Magisterium is hardly a sign of dissent. Naturally, one can go to extremes and say that all priests should go out and get laid. But no sensible Catholic could conscientiously hold that opinion.
” … that celibacy does not cause pederasty.”
Agreed. But other things do: immaturity, a tendency to compulsive or addictive behavior, the experience of sexual abuse. And some institutional things work in favor of addicts hiding and being sheltered: lack of openness and due process, clergy assignments unexplained, advice from lawyers to stonewall against complaints, a willingness of some bishops to be hoodwinked by some of their brother priests.
Doyle is right to suggest that some peripheral aspects of the Catholic hierarchy are overdue for reform. Reform does not equal rejection, unless, that is, one is so coopted by the notion of power and prestige that the peripherals of authority are imprinted on unhealthy clergy as an essential part of the system.
Comment by Todd — April 21, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
Todd,
Father Doyle, at every point, finds a glimmer of hope in the sex-abuse scandal because he thinks it is hastening, as puts it, “the age-old evolution of the Church from an institutional monarchy to the People of God.” This is to use the scandal for political purposes. He is clearly seeking something more here than a mere call for papal accountability. His statement exists in the long line of fantasy-ecclesiology that goes all the way back to the heretical segments of Corinth who expressed their scorn for Saint Paul because of the authority that he represented. The anti-Pauline mentality noted in Scripture has always lived on, since the death of Paul and Peter in Rome, in the anti-Petrine mentality. Indeed, all of the apostles, including Paul, recognized Peter as the Rock whose authority unifies the Church in a tangible way after Christ’s ascension into Glory. Hatred toward the authority that he carries has become acute in the modern age, and from reading the articles that David has linked, I fail to see how Fr. Doyle does not evince this hatred at every turn.
The Church has never been, nor is today, an institutional monarchy. Therefore, it is not now, nor never has been, “evolving” from such a forelorn condition. It has always been, first and foremost (as Paul understood), the Mystical Body of Christ. It is precisely the “People of God” because all who enter into communion with the Church through baptism are grafted into Christ Himself. They become one with Him who is the Head and with one another. The Petrine principle does not signify an “institutional monarchy” that has to be “evolved beyond” (frankly, Fr. Doyle is using the concept of evolution in a particularly stupid, though typical, way). Rather, it is the tangible sign of and instrument for Christ’s unified authority until the Eschaton. Through this authority Christ guides and protects His flock. Popes can and do fail on a personal level, but the ministry cannot be evolved beyond.
Thus, the sex-abuse scandal cannot be blamed on ecclesial “institutional monarchy,” as Doyle does. Again, there are certainly shepherds who fail their flock grievously. And malign forces in the Church may cover the backs of one another, as can and does happen in any social organization that has a human component. But that in no way signals the need for the “People of God” to rise up against the authority of the Head — which lives on, concretely, in a unified manner, in Peter’s successors. Doyle is calling for this movement. Or, at the very least, he sees its inevitable occurence. He calls for democratization. He has politicized the issue. He is dissenting from foundational ecclesiological doctrine that cannot be changed because Christ has willed it so.
As for mandatory celibacy, I am glad that you agree that it does not cause pederasty. I should hope you would agree, as well, that it does not cause sexual abuse in general. However, why you should think, then, that the sex-abuse scandal implicates the discipline is a mystery to me. Also, the emotional malfunctions that you list in the penultimate paragraph to your last reply do not stem from celibacy as such. Of course, covertly you are disagreeing with the assessment that celibacy causes pederasty, because you then implicitly link celibacy to the emotional disorders that do, in your opinion, lead to the problem. However, I am unsure if you are dissembling or simply emoting.
Comment by hierothee — April 22, 2007 @ 1:34 am
hierothee, I don’t think you’ve made the connection. By your own quote, you’ve picked up that Doyle is opposed to the principle of hierarchy-as-bad-monarchy, not hierarchy, period. If hatred is to be discerned in Doyle’s statements, it’s a hatred for power abused. Anything more is reading something into those statements that’s just not there.
Do you have a specific quote from Doyle promoting the replacement of hierarchy for an outright democracy? The Church has long had democratic elements in the selection process of shepherds, notably in monastic and religious life and traditionally, for bishops.
“However, why you should think, then, that the sex-abuse scandal implicates the discipline is a mystery to me.”
Again, can you find a quote? I think I was fairly explicit in stating otherwise:
“‘celibacy does not cause pederasty.’
Agreed.”
I leave it to the readers of CLS to assess if you’ve not fallen into the tack of obfuscation and misdirection by your misreading of what is in print on this thread.
Comment by Todd — April 22, 2007 @ 1:51 am
[...] I liked the days better when they taught Catholics and their clergy true charity. No wonder it’s such a theme of avoidance in St Blog’s these [...]
Pingback by Tattling is Telling ... and it's Telling « Catholic Sensibility — April 24, 2007 @ 11:04 am
However let all those who minister such most holy ministries, consider within themselves— most of all those who minister indiscreetly— how vile are the chalices, corporals, and altar linens, where the Body and Blood of the Lord is sacrificed.
And by many in vile places He is abandoned, borne about in a wretched manner and received unworthily and ministered to others indiscreetly.
– St. Francis of Assisi
http://www.franciscan-archive.org/patriarcha/opera/letters.html
Comment by Fr. Stephanos, O.S.B. — April 25, 2007 @ 1:33 am