On my last post Steve made a comment that jumped ahead and saw part of where I am going with this whole discussion, he said, “Maybe these Catholics are really Protestants after all?”
To which I replied:
Steve, you win the “seeing-ahead” prize. Whether it makes it into this series or not, one of the thoughts in my mind as I analyzed the positions of both progressive and conservative Catholics was that they had absorbed the Protestant idea that each believer, by himself/herself, is somehow the ultimate judge of what is righteous. Each side openly rejects some of the teachings of the Church, even teachings touching upon life and death matters, whether it be abortion or war, euthanasia or the death penalty. Each side condones one type of death, but condemns the other type of death. And the approval or disapproval is based on the secular political theory rather than upon the teaching of the Church.
One further follow on comment. Read the quote from the document A Catholic Framework for Economic Life. Now look back at the series I jokingly titled The Old Testament God was a socialist; the New Testament God is a capitalist. You will see that what I said on economics actually conforms to the Catholic pastoral document. I really am both anti-abortion and pro-life.
At the end of yesterday’s post I said that I was going to explain why I said that both sides were in danger of their eternal souls. But, first a couple of quotes from the Catholic bishops. From a formal letter sent by the Catholic bishops of the USA to President George W. Bush on 13 September 2002:
A year ago, my predecessor Bishop Joseph Fiorenza wrote you about the U.S. response to the horrific attacks we commemorated last week. He told you then that, in our judgment, the use of force against Afghanistan could be justified, if it were carried out in accord with just war norms and as one part of a much broader, mostly non-military effort to deal with terrorism. We believe Iraq is a different case. Given the precedents and risks involved, we find it difficult to justify extending the war on terrorism to Iraq, absent clear and adequate evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks of September 11th or of an imminent attack of a grave nature.
As we now know, there was no such evidence, and, to this day, the Catholic bishops have not changed their mind on Iraq. On 26 February 2003, the bishops unitedly declared, “With the Holy See and many religious leaders throughout the world, we believe that resort to war would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for the use of military force.” On 5 March 2003, Cardinal Pio Laghi, acting as personal envoy from the Pope hand delivered a letter from the Pope to the President that expressed grave concerns about an armed incursion into Iraq. On 12 January 2007, the bishops again spoke, saying:
The Holy See and our bishops’ Conference expressed grave moral concerns about military intervention in Iraq and the unpredictable and uncontrollable negative consequences of invasion and occupation. In light of current realities, the Holy See and our Conference support broader regional and international engagement to increase security, stability and reconstruction in Iraq.
In other words the position of the Pope and the Catholic bishops has remained unchanged during these past few years. The War in Iraq is not considered to fit under just war theory. It does not meet, “the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for the use of military force.”
There is a reason why I have “picked” more on the conservative Orthodox (and Catholic) camp than on the progressive Orthodox (and Catholic) camp. It is the conservative camp that has most frequently used God’s name in justification for their politics. There are some in that same conservative camp who have insisted that to vote Democratic is to sin so gravely that maybe people who vote Democratic ought to be denied communion for their support of someone who is pro-choice. It is that same camp that has insisted that politicians who are Orthodox (or Catholic) and support abortion rights ought to be denied communion and perhaps expelled from the Church. These are serious punishments that may very well forecast where you will spend your eternal future.
But, it is that same conservative Orthodox (and Catholic) camp that has refused to listen to our hierarchs moral teachings on the death penalty, on war, and on the effects on people’s lives of economic systems, all issues which our bishops consider as also being pro-life issues. Elective abortion is murder. But, according to our bishops, killings in either the death penalty or in unjust war are also not justified. So, if we apply the same reasoning as the Orthodox (and Catholic) anti-abortion people, then should we not also deny communion and perhaps expel from the Church those who openly support the death penalty and who openly supported a war that the bishops called unjustified and who have supported economic policies that our bishops have labeled as not being pro-life? Is that not also sanctioning deaths that God does not sanction? To quote an old saying, is not what is good for the goose also good for the gander?
You see, a political decision for either Senator McCain or President Obama involved choosing some moral evil in order to support some moral good. Both the Democratic and Republican party have statements in their platform that go against the pastoral letters and declarations of our hierarchs. Both the Democratic and Republican party have statements in their platform that support the pastoral letters and declarations of our hierarchs. Neither party is the party of God. It is a choice of the lesser of two evils, and our hierarchs left that choice to us without indicating one or the other as the better choice.
But, to get back to the subject of these posts, both conservative and progressive “Orthodox” (and “Catholic”) political groups are not truly listening to their hierarchs, and, I would argue, are not truly listening to God. Rather, for each group the label “Orthodox” (or “Catholic”) has simply become a label used to justify their political camp. God is no longer God, he is now a label to be used in support of party politics. Screwtape has won (see the earlier posts in this series). God has been pushed out of those political aggregations and only His name has been kept. And, unfortunately, His name is being taken in vain by both groups in support of policies that, according to our hierarchs, God does not support.
In fact, each group claims more immediate knowledge of God than our bishops. They are better able to discern what God wants us to do than our bishops. The even try to divide our bishops up into their political parties, arguing about which bishop is a “known” liberal or which bishop is a “known” conservative. They conveniently refuse to notice that when our hierarchs speak, they speak unitedly. It is true that they often have, “no little debate,” just like in Acts 15. It is true that they have sometimes deeply sinned, as when the Pope had to rebuke the USA Catholic bishops for their failures on the recent scandals, or when the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America had to issue a letter of repentance. But, that does not mean that God is going to ignore our hierarchs or pass them by. And, it certainly does not mean that the conservative or progressive “Orthodox” (or “Catholic”) groups now have God’s anointing to speak for Him.
To those of you who are Protestant, most of this series does not apply to you. You have a different ecclessiology. You do claim that each man/woman with his/her Bible is completely competent to make decisions as to what God wants. Nevertheless, I would commend the different pastoral statements from our hierarchs for you to consider. There is some significant accumulated wisdom in them and they are neither Democratic nor Republican statements. You might wish to see how they exegete the Bible and the Fathers, and compare that to your conclusions. St. Paul says to us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” So, I urge all of us to examine ourselves to see whether we are still in the faith or whether we fail the test and have drifted into using God’s name in vain to support our version and our ideas.
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