Catholic Civil War. That is what the New York Times thinks is going on among Catholics.
Discord is nothing new for Roman Catholicism. But the controversy surrounding the appearance of President Obama at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement on May 17 suggests that run-of-the mill discord among American Catholics is escalating into something closer to civil war.
…
Now listen to Bishop Robert W. Finn, bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese in Missouri. “We are at war!” he told an anti-abortion convention on April 18. “We are engaged in a constant warfare with Satan.”Although this war must never involve violence, he said, and Christians must love the human enemies who come under Satan’s power, “even without their fully realizing it,” he went on to say that the most dangerous enemies were not those openly attacking the church but “more subtle enemies.” These included Catholics who “attack the most fundamental tenets of the church’s teachings.”
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Mark Noll is a leading historian of American Christianity, an evangelical and a strong opponent of abortion who joined Notre Dame’s faculty last year. In an interview this week, he said “temperate objections” to Mr. Obama’s appearance could stimulate useful thinking about the role of the church in politics and the nature of a Catholic university. Still, he said, “I am surprised at the visceral level of the opposition.” [Isn’t it so nice when you can be so level headed, so moderate, so – what is the word – lukewarm?]An editorial in America, the weekly magazine published by the Jesuit order of Catholic priests, characterized much of the opposition in even stronger terms: “They thrive on slash-and-burn tactics,” the editors wrote, adding that “their tactics, and their attitudes, threaten the unity of the Catholic Church in the United States, the effectiveness of its mission and the credibility of its pro-life activities.”
Of course, the editors are now being accused of “slash-and-burn tactics” themselves, if not of falling under the power of Satan.
Sorry for the long exceprt, but I wanted you to get a feel for how the New York Times establishes the concept of ‘Civil War.’ Twist some remarks in order make them seem extreme and then quote some moderate Catholics who just cannot understand what all the fuss is about. And of course, since this is the NYT, get a quote from America magazine. Blah Blah.
For the record, I am firmly in the camp of civil protest. I think the actions or potential actions of Randall Terry and Alan Keyes are not particularly helpful in this instance, I understand them. They really care. Tactically, I disagree, but I understand them.
One last thing on this Civil War analogy. Believing Catholics are definitely the North in this scenario and are on the side of God and history. Even if the NYT tries to portray the more strident among us as modern day Shermans slash and burning their way to victory, the North still wins.
May 9, 2009 at 2:26 pm
“Threaten the unity” is the new code phrase used by the left to discredit the quest for orthodoxy. When Catholics in the Church depart from Church teaching, THEY are the ones who ave damaged the unity of the Church.
May 9, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Re: “their tactics, and their attitudes, threaten the unity of the Catholic Church in the United States, the effectiveness of its mission and the credibility of its pro-life activities.”
The source of Catholic unity is the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome. Those aligned with his tactic and attitude are keeping the unity. Arch. Burke provided those during the Prayer Breakfast yesterday.
May 9, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Yes, and in keeping with the tactics that the Holy Father sets up, and clerics like Abp. Burke proclaim we inevitably become the new ‘terrorists’.
The Church has been persecuted at all times, not always extreme, sometimes only locally, but persecuted nonetheless, totally in keeping with Our Lord’s predictions.
We need to develop a spirit of martyrdom; maybe the actions of Randall Terry and Alan Keyes should be seen in this light. They are clearly not for everyone, but they certainly rattle the apple cart.
I would like to refer to a great article in First Things: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1404
Have a blessed weekend, Mum26
May 9, 2009 at 2:54 pm
It’s all so much verbal flotsam, really, and meaningless. At the end of the day, The NYT will have no more control over the outcome than nearly half a million petitioners who have objected to ND’s pandering to the president.
As for Alan Keyes, while given an unfair shake in the political arena in the past, he has no future in national politics, and actually does more harm than good in drawing attention to himself. That someone else can simply move to a state to fulfill residency requirements, and successfully win an election, is no reason for him to do it. Carpetbagging is carpetbagging, whether the intelligentsia lets you off the hook or not. Regardless of how smart or righteous he is, he runs an inept campaign, and lacks any political savvy.
Randall Terry is in a different category. He has no pretense to fame or political office, and won’t play the victim for spending a night in jail.
Notre Dame will pay for this eventually, just not right now.
May 9, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Well if we’re gonna be cast as Shermanesque destroyers let’s not forget this little ditty.
Ring the good ol’ bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song,
Sing it with the spirit that will start the world along,
Sing it as we used to sing it 50,000 strong
While we were marching through Georgia.
CHORUS:Hurrah, hurrah, we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah, hurrah, the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea
While we were marching through Georgia!
How the slaves shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found!
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground
While we were marching through Georgia!–CHORUS
Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears
When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years.
Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers
While we were marching through Georgia!–CHORUS
“Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!”
So the saucy rebels said, and ’twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot, alas, to reckon with the host
While we were marching through Georgia!–CHORUS
So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude, 300 to the main.
Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain
While we were marching through Georgia!–CHORUS
May 9, 2009 at 4:29 pm
You can smell the fear. When progessives are winning, their rhetoric is the equivalent of, “ride the wave or be crushed by it”. When they are losing, it’s “O why do we use these labels? Shouldn’t we try to dialog?”
May 9, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Well I never! Nothing but a bunch of damn Yankee white-washed tombs around here!
May 9, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I love Dixie too, so let’s frame the Catholic Civil War as between the left and the right. The right are those with the Pope. You can never go wrong with the Pope and that’s why they’re right. The left have gone away from the Church’s teaching, that’s why they’ve left.
May 9, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Just a factual point about the article. The article doesn’t seem to mention it, but Mark Noll is not a Catholic. He’s a Presbyterian, if I’m not mistaken. A fine historian by all accounts, though.
May 9, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Time to quit using the sabre for cutting brush and get Old Dobbin out of his stall…need to get ready to meet the enemy…now how does that song go…?
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored….”
May 10, 2009 at 3:46 am
yes, Southerner, it is true that the Church may have been on the South’s side regarding the right to secede from the Union, the Church never supported race-based slavery. The South’s refusal to right such an intrinsic wrong los them the war and God’s support.
The Liberal Left’s support of abortion has lost them God’s support, and they will subsequently lose the war they are fighting for, as well, even if they be correct in some minor political issue.
May 11, 2009 at 4:35 am
However, kc, the evil of slavery does nothing to support Sherman’s barbarity in carrying out total war on the civillian population of Georgia. Nor, in fact, can we say that the North went to war to free slaves. Lincoln was quite willing to allow boarder-states to hold onto slavery if they stayed in the Union, and he only undertook military action when the CSA attacked Union military positions.
May 11, 2009 at 1:40 pm
The politicization of orthodoxy into American history, I think does a disservice to not only the Church, but also to history.
May 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm
it is true that the Church may have been on the South’s side regarding the right to secede from the Union, the Church never supported race-based slavery. The South’s refusal to right such an intrinsic wrong los them the war and God’s support.Not to drag this any further off topic, but this is nonsense. The War between the States was about the consolidation of federal power and the maintenance of the revenue stream (based on tariffs on Southern imports) to finance the industrialization of the North. Slavery became an issue after the fact, and was an example (to quote a later thinker in an administration that emulate’s Lincoln’s) of “never letting a good crisis go to waste.”
Robert E. Lee’s views on slavery might surprise some. He believed that God was allowing it for some purpose, but also that it was wrong. Lee stated:
“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race.”
It is also true that Lincoln was not committed to the eradication of slavery until it became expedient for his war against his own countrymen. In his first inaugural, Lincoln said:
“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
Lincoln was telling America he would support an amendment to make the right of states to allow slave-ownership irrevocable. He also admitted that if keeping slavery would have maintained the Union, he would have kept it. He supported the deportation of freed slaves to other nations, like Liberia. He did not believe in equality.
Lincoln began the long march to a powerful, centralized government and to the suppression of state sovereignty which has us, today, under the thumb of an imperial judiciary that has imposed a national abortion law not remotely based on the Constitution. States which rise up and seek to challenge that law are pushed back into line, and their challenges are stricken down, in a manner not entirely unlike what Lincoln did to the south’s objections over Northern economic policies – the real cause of the rebellions behind the “civil” war.
The southern adherence to the institution of slavery was wrong, but the South was on the right side of history. The defeat of the principles of state sovereignty was the beginning of the end of American liberty, and unless the growing states’ rights movement gains traction today, we may never be rid of any more abortion in this country than the U.S. Supreme Court will allow.
May 11, 2009 at 5:52 pm
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May 11, 2009 at 6:06 pm
This is found in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article 4, Section 3, subsection 3;
3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
To repeat the pertinent part; “…In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government;…”
Sure sounds like the whole thing was about slavery to me!
May 11, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Subvet:
That slavery of a particular race (which is historically not the purpose of indentured servitude) may have ejoyed the protection of law, but that wouldn’t make it a deal-breaker. Other factors came into play for secession. The cultural and economic differences alone, not the mention the sovereignty of individual States, were lingering bones of contention, dating back to George Washington’s presidency. Slavery as a means of bolstering the workforce, and as a means of securing a debt, was already becoming obsolete with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, that revolution was late in coming to the agrarian South, so another revolution took its place.
May 12, 2009 at 3:05 am
David L. Alexander:
I’d be interested to read some of the sources for your opinion. Could you cite a few for me?
Never too old to learn.
May 12, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Subvet –
A good book on the overall issue is “Lincoln: Unmasked” by Thomas di Lorenzo.
For a quick look at the issue, see Walter Williams’ essay, “The Civil War Wasn’t About Slavery”:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams120298.asp