I can’t call a piece by CBS News anti-Catholic. Sure, it’s clearly against the Church that currently exists and pretty much everything it stands for. But the piece is very pro-future Church -that nebulous creation that exists in the minds of some left-leaning Catholic.
The piece is so skewed in its assumptions that if I didn’t think millions saw it, I’d just laugh it off but unfortunately many people still watch network news.
In a piece that uses an abortion at a Catholic hospital as its centerpiece, here’s how it starts:
It’s a battle between Catholic and Catholic, a battle between the past and the present. A battle centuries old that rages yet today.
In Phoenix, it’s a battle between Bishop Thomas Olmstead and the city’s oldest hospital, St. Joseph’s, whose staff includes a respected nun.
A battle between the past and the present? Is the moniker of progress to be so sullied as to primarily mean the moral rightness of ripping babies limb from limb?
Sadly, in the eyes of many progressive Catholics, they may be right but there’s no excuse for CBS News to imply that the position that life is sacred is a relic of the past and that to be in “the present” is to be cool with killing human beings.
And then, inconceivably, CBS partners abortion along with the ordination of women with the spirit of Vatican II. Seriously.
Some see these events – taken together – as symptomatic of a larger effort to reverse reforms set down by the 1960s advisory council that came to be known as Vatican II – reforms which, back then, were seen as an effort to bring the church closer to modern times.
“There was a sense that we should try to bring Catholicism up to the 20th and then the 21st century,” said Gary Macy, a professor of theology at California’s Jesuit Santa Clara University. “In all kinds of ways – in scholarship, how do we relate to psychology? How do we relate to political science? How do we relate to modern ethics? All of those questions were opened up. There was much more involvement of the laity in the liturgy, so people felt much more involved. There were less spectators and more participants.”
With the increasing number of pro-lifers in this country, maybe it’s good that the so called progressive Catholics shine light on their outright approval of apathy towards abortion. It shows them for what they are.
I’ve always been a little confused about the thinking of “progress” in terms of culture. There’s a sense that whatever’s next is right that I find disturbing. There’s a sense that we’re evolving towards a more loving society because that’s just what happens. It seems to me that in many ways countries grow increasingly barbaric and as often as I can point to good and just outcomes of so called progressive causes like civil rights I could easily point to others like eugenics which were and are moral calamities. So I think the entire past and progressive distinction is actually useless. People like countries don’t get better by accident. You have to choose goodness.
Let’s face it, both sides in a debate such as this one likely believe they’re going to prevail and that their vision for the future is progress.
But in this case that’s the point, it’s clear that CBS News was colored by their own assumptions here about who’s going to win and who should win. CBS News has chosen sides with the pro-aborts. And for me, that ain’t progress.
December 5, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Are you sure there isn't a link between "The Spirit of Vatican II" and abortion. It's only after V II that our society, including the Catholics within it were willing to accept abortion, and that priests were unwilling to preach against it. So, they hit on a truth. Of course, the big lie is that it's progress. It's not progress unless your end point is a very bad place. Not to say that VII was intrinsically bad. But it opened the flood gates for Catholics and others who look to the Church as a moral compass to rush in the wrong direction.
December 5, 2011 at 4:15 pm
This was the piece from CBS's Sunday morning show, on December 4th. I happened to see it, and it literally made my stomach churn. They (CBS, "the media") continue to persist in the misinformed view that the Church is supposed to be a democracy and employ relativism; that those who actually try to follow her tenets and the Magisterium are out of touch, holding people back, holding women back from their 'right' to be priests, etc.
It is disheartening to know that so many folks, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, will see this kind of subjective 'report' and think it is true. It certainly did not represent the Church accurately or try to get any positive perspective, only that big bad male dominated Church did another authoritarian act. Yet it took a clear position that St. Joseph's Hospital was a victim. The last line of the piece ironically was something like, St. Joseph's still cannot call itself Catholic. This was in fact the one line that rang true. Indeed, it cannot and should not call itself Catholic. The hospital's action led to the Church's decision, not the Church that called them on it. This is like a criminal blaming the police for catching him doing a crime. No, the one to blame is of course the one who did the crime. We have to stand up for our principles, and that is what the Church did in this instance.
December 5, 2011 at 6:12 pm
"The 1960's advisory council that came to be known as Vatican II."
Seriously? How long would it have taken this writer to go on Wikipedia and look up the Second Vatican Council. Just when I think religion reporting couldn't get any dumber, they go and get dumber.
If they hired somebody this uninformed to write the sports column they wouldn't last a week. But the religion column, hey, whatever. It's all fairy tales anyway to them, so what's the difference.
December 5, 2011 at 7:37 pm
From the transcript on CBSnews.com: "When asked why she stays with the Church, Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale said, 'Because it's my church. I have a responsibility to speak the truth that's been given to me.'"
Therein lies the reason for the dissent. The correct answer is "because the Catholic Church contains the fullness of truth revealed for us by Jesus Christ".
December 5, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Yes, sister, it's all about me, me, me!
December 6, 2011 at 2:16 pm
"There's a sense that whatever's next is right that I find disturbing."
Yes – it's a heresy called Modernism. It's infected the Catholic Church at EVERY level.
December 6, 2011 at 3:34 pm
"Progress" somehow always ends up meaning "Non serviam." More radical autonomy, more sterility, more barrenness, more death.
December 7, 2011 at 10:31 am
For Prof. Macy, how the Church should "…relate to modern ethics?" is by calling them evil and doing every possible thing to return people to consistent ethical systems based on God's law.
What claptrap these people speak.