Cafeteria Catholics
Joe Carter asks how Catholics determine whether and to what extent they’re obligated to concur with papal encyclicals. If I may be permitted a moment of deepest cynicism, the obvious answer is that it depends on how nicely the relevant teachings comport with their partisan political affiliations and other preexisting biases, which is how we end up with the oh-so-unsurprising spectacles of predominantly Republican frequent churchgoers being among the most prominent supporters of torture, left-liberal Catholics preaching about the “seamless garment” as a way to justify prioritizing health insurance mandates over laws protecting the unborn, and alleged conservatives who were openly dismissive of Vatican condemnations of the Iraq war going on about Ex Corde and Evangelium Vitae while approaching papal articulations of Catholic social teaching – which seems as good a candidate as any for the second conjunct of the “faith and morals” criterion – with a hermeneutic of suspicion and a deconstructionist’s bicolored pen. (“[S]pinning so fast … I would be surprised if they haven’t fallen over a few times already” was Caleb Stegall’s apt description of the recent antics from the FT crowd; I would just add that simply watching the twirling is going to leave me motion-sick.) It’s a sad, sorry excuse for humility and prophetic witness, and while I’d love to see the Vatican attempt to combat it by issuing some strongly-worded official statements on the spiritual dangers of excessive partisan identification, the problem of course is that no one would bother to listen.
P.S. None of this is to say that there can’t be good faith disputes, carried out primarily on empirical grounds, about (say) whether the morning-after pill is an abortifacient, whether the conventional welfare state is the best way to ensure a just distribution of social goods, and so on. The point, though, is that such discussions need to be carried out within the general guidelines of Church teaching, rather than as a transparent attempt to rewrite them.
Filed under: politics, religion
Yes. Staying within general guidelines of Church teaching is a necessity.
http://johnschwenkler.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/a-reluctant-christian-conservative-argument-for-same-sex-marriage/
And please see also any of my subsequent posts on the subject, which constitute a significant walkback from that old argument, though I’d still be willing to argue that certain sorts of dissents on the marriage issue can be articulated from within the bounds of orthodoxy.
In encyclicals there are often teachings on Faith and Morals that bind Catholics, but there are also other teachings that may not bind Catholics. This is based on a complex set of factors such as how many times a teaching has been repeated, the kind of language the Pontiff uses (is it solemn?), whether the issue concerns Faith and Morals, and on and on. For example, dissent of the substance of Humanae Vitae was disobedient because the Pope was affirming the ancient Tradition of the Church concerning the moral issue of contraception. Much of the confusion perhaps is based on a misunderstanding of what is required of Catholics regarding assent, and what Catholics might legitimately disagree with. Also, one must understand that the Church is an ancient institution which digests documents over hundreds or even thousands of years. This is in total opposition with the sound bite media culture we find ourselves in. There are many issues brought forth in this encyclical that will be debated for a very long time, and that is fine.
With any encyclical the Catholic needs to discern what are teachings on Faith and Morals and what he may legitimately disagree with. But of course the attitude should be, primarily, one of respect and esteem for the Pope’s teaching even if one ends up disagreeing with certain things the Pontiff writes.
I very much agree with the blogger’s point about people just wanting to mold the Pope’s teachings onto their already held beliefs, and that is wrong. It is also wrong to try to put the force of the Pope’s authority on Faith and Morals behind those already held beliefs when it does not concern them.
I am just providing feedback but I am not sure whether anything I said is against the authors original post.
I think I agree with every word of that, Christian.
I don’t agree that cafeteria Catholocism is a result of people wanting to mold the teachings of The Church to fit their “deeply held beliefs.” For example, I don’t believe many Catholics have held the belief, deeply, that the United States should practice torture in its prosecution of the War on Terror. However these same people were thrust into a situation where this practice became an issue, and instead of relying on their religious morals, the opted for another path – the political one. And let’s face it: in Protestant America, it is much easier to defend an immoral practice in the public arena than to defend adherence to Catholic doctrine.
But that’s not what I said, right? My point was pretty much exactly the one you go on to make, that it’s a matter of political convenience and partisan commitments more than anything else.
“If I may be permitted a moment of deepest cynicism, the obvious answer is that it depends on how nicely the relevant teachings comport with their partisan political affiliations and other preexisting biases, which is how we end up with the oh-so-unsurprising spectacles of predominantly Republican frequent churchgoers being among the most prominent supporters of torture,…”
First, you seem to be conflating church going Republicans with Catholics. I’m sure that there are many Christians who fail our ideal in the matter of, torture, but I have never seen a breakdown by denomination. A lot of those “Churchgoing Republicans” were following the Reverend Hagee.
Second, in my limited experience Catholics experience mental dissonance with church social policy when the objectives of that policy clash in the lebenswelt. For instance, the experience of urban blue collar Catholics with the church’s teachings on equality and brotherhood while their neighborhoods grew increasingly dangerous, alienated many otherwise observant Catholics. Of course this is always the challenge of Christianity, to turn the other cheek.
John, I think this is right. This is why you see someone like Nancy Pelosi, who is practicing Catholic (I think), having liberal abortion views. And in the same way, this is why many neo-conservative Catholics believe the use of torture is an acceptable military practice. It comes out of this “commitments.”
Benedict XVI in “Deus Caritas Est” talks about how Catholic social doctrine’s aim “is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.” Remaining within the bounds of orthodoxy remains critical considering the “the dazzling effects of power and special interests” that is always present in the political sphere, and always attempting to undermine these notions of justice. So, I think you are entirely correct in your analysis of those who selectively pick moral doctrine. It comes out of political expediency.
Yes John, I was referring more to Christian’s comment, and I guess the supposed thesis of Joe Carter’s article, which unfortunately I’m TLDR.
Also, referring more to the modern secular argument that since religious beliefs in the public sphere are a-la-carte, that religion itself is a farce.
I certainly didn’t mean to be. My point, which was spelled out more clearly (albeit still briefly) in the post I linked, was just that frequency of church attendance has been found to be correlated with GOP affiliation, and that this fact, together with the observation that people conform their beliefs more easily to partisan affiliations than to religious teachings, can help us to understand the similarly observed correlation between church attendance and support for torture.
Without belaboring this, where is the correlation between church attendance established? Were surveys done? I haven’t heard this before.
Of course both Catholics and Protestants were practitioners of torture in the past. Never the less I think it unlikely that Catholics, when approached by Gallup, sprung to the defense of Friar Thomas Torquemada on the grounds of Catholic tradition. And I never heard any of the numerous Protestant television preachers say the least kindly thing about thumbscrews.
If what you say is true, I suspect that both Catholic and Protestant, churchgoers, are by definition establishment types. Establishment types do tend to support establishments, even when they’re badly misguided.
The correlation between church attendance and support for torture was found by Pew, I think – it’s linked in the post.
John, I see that I also needed to make myself clearer. I wrote …” you seem to be conflating church going Republicans with Catholics.” I meant to write, conflating churchgoing Republicans AND Catholics. The thrust of the piece dealt with Cafeteria Catholics while the sentence I cited seemed to lump “Churchgoing Republicans” with Catholics. Obviously a great many Churchgoing Republicans are Mormons, Episcopalians, Orthodox etc. I wonder what the breakdown is between denominations regarding torture, and how Catholics rank.
Another possibility comes to mind. Having experienced the new and improved Catholic mass twice in the past six months at funerals, I suspect that most Catholics have grown inured to torture.
IIRC the trend was observable across denominations, though I think Catholics didn’t do as badly as Evangelicals. Here are the data: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=156.
Thanks for the cite. It makes for depressing reading.
Someone should quiz pro-torture Evangelicals, Catholics and Mainline Protestants about their biblical authority for this belief. Come to think of it, what was Torquemada’s? The Catholic Encyclopedia has an interesting biographical sketch which is a partial defense. I know that Roman law included the practice, but significantly, it was prohibited for Roman citizens while mandatory for slaves caught up in investigations. I gather that trusted or beloved house slaves could undergo a kind of faux torture (think the comfy chair).