Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I got an e-mail the other day, forwarding a link to an article from an on-line North Carolinian newspaper. It was a commentary on the CDF’s recent ecclesiological clarification that we posted on back in early/mid July. I found the article interesting for the simple fact that it contains, in one convenient place, almost every logical fallacy and erroneous form of thought that I have seen hurled at the Church for this document–and all of this in just over 800 words.

The author, Lauren R. Stanley, is a former Catholic who is now ordained in the Episcopalian ecclesial communion. As a literary device, she repeatedly uses a southern phrase of disagreement/disbelief:

Well, spit. I guess I’m not a real Christian after all. I thought I was. Truly. I’ve devoted my life - my body and my soul - to being a Christian, to trying to live as one. But apparently, I’m not. At least, not as far as Pope Benedict XVI is concerned. The Vatican, under his leadership, recently announced that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church, and that those of us who worship in other “churches” aren’t worshipping in real churches after all.

The “real Christian” assertion is a non-sequitur. The Catholic Church explicitly teaches that everyone who is validly baptized is a Christian (see CCC 1271). The claim of not being a real Christian then is Stanley’s interpolation and not that of the Church. Now if Stanley wants to argue that the Church is wrong about this and assert that everyone must be in a “real church” to be a “real Christian” then she must make the case for her assertion. Otherwise, to claim that Pope Benedict or the Catholic Church is asserting something that he/She is not is, at the very least negligent but more probably, disingenuous.

But of course, in distorting the meaning of the document, which is euphemistically called “spin” but more honestly called a lie, she is in good company with a majority of the reporting on this. This type of behavior seems to be reminiscent of that which one sees from rebellious teenagers who are not yet able to argue logically and so they emote by accusation. But of course, this is not all she had to say. Stanley goes on:

The Vatican even had the audacity to proclaim that while Orthodox churches could be considered “churches” in some ways, they aren’t really because they suffer from a “wound” that comes from not recognizing the primacy of the papacy.

Stanley accuses the Catholic Church of “audacity” for daring to have an understanding of Christianity and of the Catholic Church at variance with her own. In accusing the Church of arrogance what she does is to conflate a subjective attitude with a truth claim and in so doing, she falls into the trap of relativism by assuming that either there is no absolute truth or assuming at least that no one can have access to it.

The fact is though, that a truth claim is either true or false. If it is false then one simply need to demonstrate its falsity. However, what she does here is to assume its falsity, a priori, and then goes on to make an assessment of the subjective state of all of those involved with making this proclamation. In other words, she has looked into all of their souls and summarily found them all guilty of having an arrogant attitude. Quite a feat, huh?

The interesting thing about falling into relativism is that you automatically become self-contradictory–and that is what happens here. In assuming that the Catholic Church is wrong about the nature of the Church, and that she is right, without even making an argument for her position, she is becoming dogmatic in the pejorative sense of the term. Dogmatism is never tolerant and so it is not surprising to find that neither is Rev. Stanley.

She assumes that her ecclesiology is the correct one and seems to have no tolerance for those who would disagree with her. If tolerance is openness to hearing and discussing others’ views without personal condemnation, then Rev. Stanley must be characterized as being intolerant.

She is also self-contradictory in assuming that her position is right and the Catholic teaching is wrong. Later she will imply that anything that a Christian wants to call a church is one by definition in giving the advice to her readers to continue to go to the church of their choice. One might ask by what authority does she claim to know infallibly (or at least with sufficient confidence so as to authoritatively teach others) what God has taught and what He has not. Here she is making the logical fallacy of special pleading. She asserts that the Catholic Church does not have authority to teach on Christ’s behalf (she says later of B16: “You don’t get to decide these things!”– presumably this is because He didn’t give anyone this authority?) but then she immediately assumes this authority for herself in order to condemn the Church for assuming this authority for itself–an authority that apparently does not exist except momentarily when she needs to make use of it. Did you follow that? But the good Rev. is not done with Catholics yet. She will return to the old canards of caricature and ad hominem:

I must admit, there is a part of me that says, “Oh, ignore him. Benedict is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, but he’s not my spiritual leader.” This is the part of me that recognizes that Benedict is the former cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who always has been a strict interpreter of the Roman Church’s stances. That this is the man who in 2000 wrote the document Dominus Iesus, in which these current views were promulgated. That this is the man who was feared by some in the Roman Church for his unwavering conviction that he was right, the rest of the world was wrong, and that was that.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. As an Episcopal clergyman who has chosen to speak out about the Catholic Church she has some obligation to understand the Catholic Church and what it teaches if she is going to criticize it. Her reference to “the current views” of the Church assumes that the Church sometime had taught something else, but this is exactly the purpose of the document–to affirm the continuity of the teaching about the Catholic Church as the fullness of the one Church that Christ founded.

Further, she ought to know that Magisterial teaching is not a matter of the individual opinions of those comprising the Magisterium weighed against others. But I forgot, the Catholic Church has no right to Her own ecclesiology. The Church must submit to Stanley’s ecclesiology or be dismissed as arrogant. If I were the type to posit the attitude of another, I might say that she is arrogant. After ranting a bit, she gets in one more of the favorite canards of vague thinkers, before returning to her apparently favorite approach–caricatured distortions:

And then there is the part of me, the one that after my initial reactions is gaining ascendancy, which is bemused and asks, “Is this really the way to proclaim the Gospel? Is this how we work to proclaim the love of Christ? Are we really called, as beloved children of God, to be this exclusionary? Did Jesus really tell me to say, ‘My faith is better than your faith!’?”

Here she throws in the old stand by of modern religiosity: namely, that any faith that makes demands on its adherents is by definition, exclusionary. There is much that could be said about this: for example, this is not a document meant for initial proclamation of the gospel but a clarification of a truth for Catholics who may have been confused by theological discussions of this issue. Regardless, her implication is that any truths of faith that could in any way be taken in a negative way by those who are not part of that faith must be expunged. This fits very well with a relativist mindset but as I said, relativism is inherently self-contradictory.

One might ask her, isn’t proclaiming the love of Christ exclusionary in itself? Why proclaim it at all? Is it necessary or just a heart warming thing to do? If necessary, then doesn’t this mean that those who have not accepted Him are excluded from the Church until accepting His truth? If proclaiming the gospel is just something nice to let people know about it, then why proclaim it at all and risk offending some who do not want to hear it? There is no justification for proclaiming the gospel if Christianity is not by definition exclusionary–it excludes those who have not heard or do not want to accede to the truth it proclaims. Well, perhaps she had a sense that this was an implication of her thinking because she immediately goes back to caricatures in her last sentence and in the next paragraph:

And in part, I realize that every time someone comes along - be it the pope or one of my neighbors - proclaiming that he or she alone knows the mind of Christ, and the rest of us are damned, I cringe. Because that sort of exclusionary theology ensures that many, many people - people who are starved for spiritual nourishment - are going to turn their backs on churches and church politics and say, “No way. I refuse to be involved in any church that tells me I’m not good enough.” Which basically is what Benedict is saying: Those of us who are not, or who no longer are, Roman Catholics, quite simply are not good enough.

I suppose that I need not point out that the Pope does not proclaim that he alone knows the mind of Christ. He does not say that everyone who is not Catholic, or even Christian, is damned. He did not say that non-Catholics are not good enough. I suppose it is appropriate for the good Rev. Stanley to end her longer rant with her favorite tactic of impersonating an emoting teenager. After all, if one is not prepared to dialog with authentic tolerance, without caricaturing or condemning the other because one disagrees then I suppose all that is left to do is–well, spit!