Over the summer I had a student come by my office to get some documentation for fall registration. It was a purely ordinary, businesslike affair--he is one of my advisees, and I see him every term. This summer, however, for the first time, I learned something new and rather startling about him. He is a Neo-Feeneyite. I write "Neo-Feeneyite" because he told me that he rejects Fr. Feeney's view as having been condemned. But he then went on to insist to me that Fr. Feeney was still right about the old "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus" controversy. (For those who may be unfamiliar with this arcane little controversy, Fr. Feeney held that we must strictly interpret "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus" as meaning that anyone who is not a card-carrying member in good standing of the Roman Catholic Church is going to go to hell. This is not the Church's understanding of the phrase, but the phrase does, indeed, capture a de fide teaching of the Church--it must be believed by the faithful.) When I mentioned to him the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the matter, he told me that Vatican II was "merely a pastoral council", as though that meant that what it taught was somehow not infallible. We wrestled with the matter for a little while, but I soon tired of it and let it go.
The reason I mention all of this is because Michael Liccione has posted some wonderful stuff on all of this--not just "Extra Ecclesiam" but the whole question of the development of doctrine--over on Pontifications. Michael is both a fine philosopher and an admirable apologist, and I cannot recommend his posts highly enough. The comments (over 30 so far) are also very good, making for a fine dialogue.
I've already discussed my view of the development of doctrine in the thread on Just War Theory. The long and the short of it is that I think Michael is exactly right, while my student, though he is a smart fellow, is basically just a different kind of protestant.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Sanity In Der Spiegel
It's good to see that not everyone is being a moron about Katrina and global warming: Claus Christian Malzahn sets the record straight, and gets the perspective right.
What Are You Laughing At?
In a story from the Times (of London) last month we are told about efforts to determine which jokes are the most offensive to Christians and other religious folks. I take it that the idea was to test the British government's Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which had its third reading in July. A vote was taken to determine winners in such categories as Most Offensive Joke, Funniest Joke, etc.
I'm of two minds about religious jokes. I must confess that I sometimes think they're pretty funny. One of my favorites concerns a Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Baptist riding in a train together. The Baptist notices that he's riding with clergy, but he's unfamiliar with the Orders, so he asks the Jesuit and the Dominican why their habits are different. "My brother here is a member of the Jesuit Order," says the Dominican, "while I am a member of the Dominican Order." "What's the difference?" The Baptist asks. "The Jesuit Order was established to combat the Protestant heresies," says the Jesuit, "while the Dominican was established to combat the Albigensian heresy." The Baptist looks confused. "I'm still not sure I see the difference," he says. The Dominican pipes up immediately: "When was the last time you saw an Albigensian?"
Other religious jokes I find more irritating than funny. The "Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer, for example, strikes me as in very bad taste. I mentioned the other day that I became a Roman Catholic in 1983. Well, as it happens, I converted to Christianity before that--in 1979 I left my abject atheism behind and became an Episcopalian. Tom Lehrer was very popular among the Episcopalians that I used to hang out with, and the Vatican Rag was a particular favorite. I think the main reason was because my friends were mostly "high church" Episcopalians who had Rome Envy, so jokes about Rosaries and Communion Wafers struck them as funny because it was a vicarious way of saying "Yeah, we're members of that club, too." These same folks thought that Monty Python's Life of Brian was hilarious, but I still think it falls somewhere between blasphemy and anti-Semitism.
Am I just a killjoy? Why do I think some religious jokes are funny but others are offensive? For the life of me I can't see why I should laugh at a joke about a man hanging on a cross. Even if I did not believe that man to be the Son of God I would not think it funny, but given who that Man was and what He was doing the joke is not only not funny, it is downright blasphemous. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the lines "Get down on your knees/Fiddle with your Rosaries/Bow your head with great respect and/Genuflect genuflect genuflect" (from the Vatican Rag) seems to me to make light of something that is infused with sublimity and importance. To think it funny, it seems to me, is a little like thinking that the Mona Lisa is funny because she has no eyebrows--it says more about the folks who are laughing than about the object of laughter. I think some people may think it is somehow "with it" to find things like the Vatican Rag or Life of Brian funny--they appear to think that laughing at these things shows that they are in the know, members of the club. But really it just shows how banal their faith is. In my opinion.
OK, so maybe I'm a dork. "Blessed are the cheesemakers" isn't funny to me. But that joke about the Jesuits cracks me up every time.
De gustibus non disputandum est.
I'm of two minds about religious jokes. I must confess that I sometimes think they're pretty funny. One of my favorites concerns a Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Baptist riding in a train together. The Baptist notices that he's riding with clergy, but he's unfamiliar with the Orders, so he asks the Jesuit and the Dominican why their habits are different. "My brother here is a member of the Jesuit Order," says the Dominican, "while I am a member of the Dominican Order." "What's the difference?" The Baptist asks. "The Jesuit Order was established to combat the Protestant heresies," says the Jesuit, "while the Dominican was established to combat the Albigensian heresy." The Baptist looks confused. "I'm still not sure I see the difference," he says. The Dominican pipes up immediately: "When was the last time you saw an Albigensian?"
Other religious jokes I find more irritating than funny. The "Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer, for example, strikes me as in very bad taste. I mentioned the other day that I became a Roman Catholic in 1983. Well, as it happens, I converted to Christianity before that--in 1979 I left my abject atheism behind and became an Episcopalian. Tom Lehrer was very popular among the Episcopalians that I used to hang out with, and the Vatican Rag was a particular favorite. I think the main reason was because my friends were mostly "high church" Episcopalians who had Rome Envy, so jokes about Rosaries and Communion Wafers struck them as funny because it was a vicarious way of saying "Yeah, we're members of that club, too." These same folks thought that Monty Python's Life of Brian was hilarious, but I still think it falls somewhere between blasphemy and anti-Semitism.
Am I just a killjoy? Why do I think some religious jokes are funny but others are offensive? For the life of me I can't see why I should laugh at a joke about a man hanging on a cross. Even if I did not believe that man to be the Son of God I would not think it funny, but given who that Man was and what He was doing the joke is not only not funny, it is downright blasphemous. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the lines "Get down on your knees/Fiddle with your Rosaries/Bow your head with great respect and/Genuflect genuflect genuflect" (from the Vatican Rag) seems to me to make light of something that is infused with sublimity and importance. To think it funny, it seems to me, is a little like thinking that the Mona Lisa is funny because she has no eyebrows--it says more about the folks who are laughing than about the object of laughter. I think some people may think it is somehow "with it" to find things like the Vatican Rag or Life of Brian funny--they appear to think that laughing at these things shows that they are in the know, members of the club. But really it just shows how banal their faith is. In my opinion.
OK, so maybe I'm a dork. "Blessed are the cheesemakers" isn't funny to me. But that joke about the Jesuits cracks me up every time.
De gustibus non disputandum est.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Assent, Dissent, and Disagreement
J oe Cecil over at LiberalCatholicNews (technically known as In Today's News) says that he remains "frustrated because a point I am trying to make is not understood by the very people with whom I am raising the issue." I don't think I am the only one he has in mind, but since he mentions me by name I think I must be at least one of the folks contributing to his frustration.
His claim appears to be not that the war in Iraq is manifestly unjust, and that those of us who do not think so are dissenting from Church teaching because two Popes and who knows how many other theologians have said, several times, that "unilateral" and "preventative" or "pre-emptive" warfare is contrary to Just War Theory. Rather, he claims only that, whether or not the war in Iraq is objectively just or unjust, faithful Roman Catholics are bound to accept the judgments of Pope John Paul the Great, Pope Benedict XVI, and the many other worthies of the hierarchy who have decided that the war is, in fact, unjust according to the necessary and sufficient conditions of Just War Theory. For Joe, then, the requirement to give intellectual assent applies not just to magisterial Church teachings, but to the prudential judgments of certain prelates and theologians. Whether or not Joe intends this argument to be a mere tu quoque (he avers as how many "conservative" Catholics are just as much cafeteria Catholics as anybody else when it comes to issues such as this one) is, I suppose, beside the point--it is a claim seriously made and must be seriously addressed.
In all fairness I must point out that this may not, in the end, be the most accurate statement of Joe's position--it is entirely possible that I still do not fully understand him, so I strongly recommend that folks have a look at his argument for themselves. His posts are long, and thoughtfully argued, so I cannot pretend to be doing justice to them by giving a quick summary.
As for my position, I have no illusions that my views about the war in Iraq are shared by Pope Benedict XVI, or indeed by many in the episcopacy. I am an American, and many of them are Europeans, and, to be blunt, I attribute much of our disagreement to that. Nor will all American conservatives agree--there is a fair amount of isolationism among certain quarters of the conservative domain. My view is not a fully theological view--it is partly a moral claim. In my opinion the war is not merely a just war, it is a war that we are morally obliged to fight and to win. I believe this because I believe that we have a moral obligation to vindicate the rights of those who are not capable of vindicating their own rights. This vindication may take many forms, but in some cases only military intervention will be effective.
Whether this in itself will make the war justifiable from the point of view of Just War Theory is an open question, in my view. I do not take it as obvious that the war in Iraq does not meet the criteria of Just War Theory, but I am certainly open to the possibility that it does not, even though at present I believe that it does. But it is certainly worth noting, whatever else one might think about Just War Theory, that doctrine does, indeed, undergo development over time, and our understanding of Just War Theory is not something that we can regard as definitively settled even while we do believe that it is definitively settled that all warfare must be just. One of the criteria of a Just War, according to the classical formulation that we find in such authors as Aquinas, is that the cause be just. Just think about that criterion for a second. If you were to ask yourself, Is this war just? you would apparently have to also ask yourself Is my cause just? If that's not a question that is bound to lead to some question begging down the line somewhere, then I don't know what would count as question begging. The situation is fraught with difficulty, as they say.
Much of this, however, is irrelevant to the question of whether the Church requires assent to the prudential judgments of Popes and other Bishops. History is littered with manifestly bad prudential judgments of Popes and other Bishops, though, so one would think that a self-proclaimed "progressive Catholic" would be somewhat circumspect in this matter. It was the prudential judgment of several Popes that being a slave does not harm human dignity, but Vatican II taught otherwise. This is a clear case of the development of doctrine. We do not want to say that the Church's magisterial teachings are open to change, otherwise there can never be any assurance that what the Church teaches is definitively true. The truth is irreformable. But our understanding of the truth is not irreformable. We are now in a position to draw an important distinction--to say that, with regard to being a slave, there is one sense in which it does not harm human dignity, but another sense in which it does. From the point of view of the human essence, nothing temporal or corporal can change the fact that we are all, fully and equally, human beings, created by God out of love. Even the most abject slave under the worst conditions is no better or worse, qua human essence, than any other human being. But from the point of view of our capacity to pursue our divinely ordained end as humans, it is equally clear that slavery is an impediment and, as such, it is per se wrong to keep any human being as a slave. Did the Popes who said that serving as a slave is not harmful to human dignity mean it in the sense that I have outlined here? Probably not. The sense in which they intended it was probably false (though it is difficult to know for sure just what their innermost thoughts were), though in the end there is a sense in which the claim is true. A sense that must be balanced against the sense of Vatican II, which also must be regarded as true.
Some folks will complain that this is a kind of "backwards engineering", trying to force truth upon opinions that we no longer regard as true under ordinary conditions. There is a tension here. On the one hand, we do tend to think that our own views about morality are somehow benefitting from generations of hard work by moralists and theologians (not to mention historians, scientists, and all the others who contribute to the body of human knowledge). On the other hand, we must guard against the temptation to be overly positivistic about this fact--we must be careful not fall into the hubris of thinking that because we have come along at this moment in history therefore we must always be right and the moralists and theologians of the past, whenever they disagree with us, must be wrong. But we must also guard against the temptation to think that truth is relative. If we really do believe that the Church's magisterium is guided by the Holy Spirit, and if we really do believe that truth is not relative, then we are not "backwards engineering" the truth when we try to find ways of understanding just how the Holy Spirit has worked in the Church through centuries of temporal and contingent human history. If you don't accept the indefectibility of the Church and her magisterium, none of this is a problem. But then you're not a Catholic. Indeed, if you reject the indefectibility of the Church's magisterium, you don't have any reason to believe anything with any confidence. There will be no reason to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, or even that God exists--both of these claims are taught by the Church through her Scriptures and her Tradition. If the Church is not indefectible, then she may very well be wrong about the existence of God and there is no compelling reason why we ought to believe these things.
One of John Henry Cardinal Newman's most important works, in my opinion, is also one of his least read: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, published in 1870. In this work Cardinal Newman explores the epistemology of intellectual assent of the sort required by the Church, and he notes that giving intellectual assent does not always entail fully agreeing with or even understanding what one is giving assent to. A favorite example of mine is what he has to say about the Athanasian Creed. He reminds us that it is also known as the "Psalmus Quicunque" and that
This is all a very long way of suggesting that it may be possible for folks who do not agree with Popes about slavery or the war in Iraq to still be operating within the confines of intellectual assent. We may assent without fully agreeing, and this does not entail dissent, especially if the form our disagreement takes turns out to be misunderstanding. Popes have a certain authority in matters of faith and morals that ordinary lay people do not have. If this were an argument about what follows, logically, from certain theological first principles, or which theological first principles are to be believed de fide, I would be a fool to say that the Pope has no more authority than I to make a determination of justice. But Pope Benedict XVI, for all his theological training and expertise in matters of morality and theology, may not, in the end, have all of the facts required for making the sort of judgment he is out to make. Of course, I may not have all the facts either. But given that it is a disagreement about matters of contingent fact, about empirical evidence in support of a claim of moral licitness, then Pope Benedict XVI has no more authority than I or anyone else to make the final call.
A similar case can be made about the death penalty. Although I am, myself, in agreement with John Paul the Great on this matter, I do not think that those who favor the death penalty are actually in a state of dissent. The Church has never taught, it never will teach, and JPII was not teaching, that the death penalty is per se wrong. Whether there are, or ever could be, conditions under which capital punishment would be required to protect the common good is not a moral judgment, but a prudential one, and JPII may very well have been mistaken in making the judgment that such conditions no longer obtain. I happen to think he was not mistaken, but of course, I could be mistaken. Those who disagree with me, I take it, do not do so as a matter of intentionally rejecting what they believe to be a teaching of the magisterium. Presumably they would say that they do not think that they are dissenting from what the Church teaches, but that they intend to be faithful and submissive to what they believe the Church does teach. There is disagreement, not dissent.
His claim appears to be not that the war in Iraq is manifestly unjust, and that those of us who do not think so are dissenting from Church teaching because two Popes and who knows how many other theologians have said, several times, that "unilateral" and "preventative" or "pre-emptive" warfare is contrary to Just War Theory. Rather, he claims only that, whether or not the war in Iraq is objectively just or unjust, faithful Roman Catholics are bound to accept the judgments of Pope John Paul the Great, Pope Benedict XVI, and the many other worthies of the hierarchy who have decided that the war is, in fact, unjust according to the necessary and sufficient conditions of Just War Theory. For Joe, then, the requirement to give intellectual assent applies not just to magisterial Church teachings, but to the prudential judgments of certain prelates and theologians. Whether or not Joe intends this argument to be a mere tu quoque (he avers as how many "conservative" Catholics are just as much cafeteria Catholics as anybody else when it comes to issues such as this one) is, I suppose, beside the point--it is a claim seriously made and must be seriously addressed.
In all fairness I must point out that this may not, in the end, be the most accurate statement of Joe's position--it is entirely possible that I still do not fully understand him, so I strongly recommend that folks have a look at his argument for themselves. His posts are long, and thoughtfully argued, so I cannot pretend to be doing justice to them by giving a quick summary.
As for my position, I have no illusions that my views about the war in Iraq are shared by Pope Benedict XVI, or indeed by many in the episcopacy. I am an American, and many of them are Europeans, and, to be blunt, I attribute much of our disagreement to that. Nor will all American conservatives agree--there is a fair amount of isolationism among certain quarters of the conservative domain. My view is not a fully theological view--it is partly a moral claim. In my opinion the war is not merely a just war, it is a war that we are morally obliged to fight and to win. I believe this because I believe that we have a moral obligation to vindicate the rights of those who are not capable of vindicating their own rights. This vindication may take many forms, but in some cases only military intervention will be effective.
Whether this in itself will make the war justifiable from the point of view of Just War Theory is an open question, in my view. I do not take it as obvious that the war in Iraq does not meet the criteria of Just War Theory, but I am certainly open to the possibility that it does not, even though at present I believe that it does. But it is certainly worth noting, whatever else one might think about Just War Theory, that doctrine does, indeed, undergo development over time, and our understanding of Just War Theory is not something that we can regard as definitively settled even while we do believe that it is definitively settled that all warfare must be just. One of the criteria of a Just War, according to the classical formulation that we find in such authors as Aquinas, is that the cause be just. Just think about that criterion for a second. If you were to ask yourself, Is this war just? you would apparently have to also ask yourself Is my cause just? If that's not a question that is bound to lead to some question begging down the line somewhere, then I don't know what would count as question begging. The situation is fraught with difficulty, as they say.
Much of this, however, is irrelevant to the question of whether the Church requires assent to the prudential judgments of Popes and other Bishops. History is littered with manifestly bad prudential judgments of Popes and other Bishops, though, so one would think that a self-proclaimed "progressive Catholic" would be somewhat circumspect in this matter. It was the prudential judgment of several Popes that being a slave does not harm human dignity, but Vatican II taught otherwise. This is a clear case of the development of doctrine. We do not want to say that the Church's magisterial teachings are open to change, otherwise there can never be any assurance that what the Church teaches is definitively true. The truth is irreformable. But our understanding of the truth is not irreformable. We are now in a position to draw an important distinction--to say that, with regard to being a slave, there is one sense in which it does not harm human dignity, but another sense in which it does. From the point of view of the human essence, nothing temporal or corporal can change the fact that we are all, fully and equally, human beings, created by God out of love. Even the most abject slave under the worst conditions is no better or worse, qua human essence, than any other human being. But from the point of view of our capacity to pursue our divinely ordained end as humans, it is equally clear that slavery is an impediment and, as such, it is per se wrong to keep any human being as a slave. Did the Popes who said that serving as a slave is not harmful to human dignity mean it in the sense that I have outlined here? Probably not. The sense in which they intended it was probably false (though it is difficult to know for sure just what their innermost thoughts were), though in the end there is a sense in which the claim is true. A sense that must be balanced against the sense of Vatican II, which also must be regarded as true.
Some folks will complain that this is a kind of "backwards engineering", trying to force truth upon opinions that we no longer regard as true under ordinary conditions. There is a tension here. On the one hand, we do tend to think that our own views about morality are somehow benefitting from generations of hard work by moralists and theologians (not to mention historians, scientists, and all the others who contribute to the body of human knowledge). On the other hand, we must guard against the temptation to be overly positivistic about this fact--we must be careful not fall into the hubris of thinking that because we have come along at this moment in history therefore we must always be right and the moralists and theologians of the past, whenever they disagree with us, must be wrong. But we must also guard against the temptation to think that truth is relative. If we really do believe that the Church's magisterium is guided by the Holy Spirit, and if we really do believe that truth is not relative, then we are not "backwards engineering" the truth when we try to find ways of understanding just how the Holy Spirit has worked in the Church through centuries of temporal and contingent human history. If you don't accept the indefectibility of the Church and her magisterium, none of this is a problem. But then you're not a Catholic. Indeed, if you reject the indefectibility of the Church's magisterium, you don't have any reason to believe anything with any confidence. There will be no reason to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, or even that God exists--both of these claims are taught by the Church through her Scriptures and her Tradition. If the Church is not indefectible, then she may very well be wrong about the existence of God and there is no compelling reason why we ought to believe these things.
One of John Henry Cardinal Newman's most important works, in my opinion, is also one of his least read: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, published in 1870. In this work Cardinal Newman explores the epistemology of intellectual assent of the sort required by the Church, and he notes that giving intellectual assent does not always entail fully agreeing with or even understanding what one is giving assent to. A favorite example of mine is what he has to say about the Athanasian Creed. He reminds us that it is also known as the "Psalmus Quicunque" and that
It is not a mere collection of notions, however momentous. It is a psalm or hymn of praise, of confession, and of profound, self-prostrating homage, parallel to the canticles of the elect in the Apocalypse. It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we warn first ourselves, then each other, and then all those who are within its hearing, and the hearing of the Truth, who our God is, and how we must worship Him, and how vast our responsibility will be, if we know what to believe and yet believe not.Newman isolates two kinds of assent in his Essay. One form he calls "real assent", the other "notional assent". The latter is the sort that we give to demonstrative proofs; the former is the sort that we give to "realities", things that we have experienced in a more vivid way than by merely having them proved to us by a formally valid deduction. I can give notional assent without giving real assent, simply because the two kinds of assent are given to two very different kinds of object. This does not mean that they ought not always to be given together: clearly they ought to be if they can be. But it is not always possible that they come at the same time.
This is all a very long way of suggesting that it may be possible for folks who do not agree with Popes about slavery or the war in Iraq to still be operating within the confines of intellectual assent. We may assent without fully agreeing, and this does not entail dissent, especially if the form our disagreement takes turns out to be misunderstanding. Popes have a certain authority in matters of faith and morals that ordinary lay people do not have. If this were an argument about what follows, logically, from certain theological first principles, or which theological first principles are to be believed de fide, I would be a fool to say that the Pope has no more authority than I to make a determination of justice. But Pope Benedict XVI, for all his theological training and expertise in matters of morality and theology, may not, in the end, have all of the facts required for making the sort of judgment he is out to make. Of course, I may not have all the facts either. But given that it is a disagreement about matters of contingent fact, about empirical evidence in support of a claim of moral licitness, then Pope Benedict XVI has no more authority than I or anyone else to make the final call.
A similar case can be made about the death penalty. Although I am, myself, in agreement with John Paul the Great on this matter, I do not think that those who favor the death penalty are actually in a state of dissent. The Church has never taught, it never will teach, and JPII was not teaching, that the death penalty is per se wrong. Whether there are, or ever could be, conditions under which capital punishment would be required to protect the common good is not a moral judgment, but a prudential one, and JPII may very well have been mistaken in making the judgment that such conditions no longer obtain. I happen to think he was not mistaken, but of course, I could be mistaken. Those who disagree with me, I take it, do not do so as a matter of intentionally rejecting what they believe to be a teaching of the magisterium. Presumably they would say that they do not think that they are dissenting from what the Church teaches, but that they intend to be faithful and submissive to what they believe the Church does teach. There is disagreement, not dissent.
More Thoughts on Liturgical Latin
David Meadows over at Rogueclassicism mentions that Vatican Radio offers daily Latin prayers in audio format. I mentioned in a post the other day that I also like to pray the Daily Office in Latin, and I thought that those who might like to do likewise would be interested in this link to Paxbook.com, the stateside supplier of books from the Libreria Editrice Vaticana. You can order your very own copy of the Liturgia Horarum (in Latin). There are two versions: an economy model that is bound in a not-so-very-ugly vinyl cover, and a very nice leather bound version. I used the vinyl covered version for nearly 15 years and then decided that it was worth shelling out for the leather. Neither version is exactly cheap--the leather bound versions are about US$170 each, and the vinyl ones are roughly half that. But the books are sturdy, fun to use, and absolutely worth the price in terms of the spiritual payoff that comes from committing oneself to the Office on a daily basis.
For those who either don't know or don't like Latin, I can also recommend this resource. It is a translation into beautiful Anglican English of the Roman Breviary of 1911. It comes in a single volume and is only $65 even though it's bound in leather. Well worth it, even though it is not the form of the Office in use now. Even if you are bound to the Office, don't forget that you are permitted to use older breviaries if you get permission; the rest of us, presumably, may use whatever we like, but I'm a fan of the new Breviary.
For those who either don't know or don't like Latin, I can also recommend this resource. It is a translation into beautiful Anglican English of the Roman Breviary of 1911. It comes in a single volume and is only $65 even though it's bound in leather. Well worth it, even though it is not the form of the Office in use now. Even if you are bound to the Office, don't forget that you are permitted to use older breviaries if you get permission; the rest of us, presumably, may use whatever we like, but I'm a fan of the new Breviary.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Don't Go Away Mad, Just...
As the Three Stooges used to say. Apparently the Head Bloggo over at In The News was upset by my portrayal of his position yesterday (you can read his response in the comments to that post). The irony, of course, is that it wasn't really him that I was trying to irritate, as the title of the post was supposed to indicate. However, given that I irritated him, I apologize, and I suppose it was very naughty of me to be trying to irritate anybody in the first place. What can I say? I'm just a wascally wabbit.
After perusing his blog for a while, I decided that I was right about one thing: nobody should go there to learn about what the Church teaches. However, I think it is clear from his blog that he is a very sincere Christian who does the best he can to live what he believes to be the principles of his faith. I certainly recognize the value in that, even though my own opinion is that it is necessary to have a properly formed conscience if one is to live the Roman Catholic faith successfully. Clearly, however, there is plenty of room in the blogosphere for folks like him, and like me, to discuss the faith and how to live it in this world, and I admire him for trying so hard.
After perusing his blog for a while, I decided that I was right about one thing: nobody should go there to learn about what the Church teaches. However, I think it is clear from his blog that he is a very sincere Christian who does the best he can to live what he believes to be the principles of his faith. I certainly recognize the value in that, even though my own opinion is that it is necessary to have a properly formed conscience if one is to live the Roman Catholic faith successfully. Clearly, however, there is plenty of room in the blogosphere for folks like him, and like me, to discuss the faith and how to live it in this world, and I admire him for trying so hard.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Dappled Thinking
Further proof, if more were needed, that one should not go to a place called "liberalcatholicnews" to learn what it is that the Catholic Church actually teaches. Anyone who thinks that it is actually against Church teaching to defend the morality of the war in Iraq on just war grounds is, in a word, mistaken.
The status of "just war theory" itself is rather interesting. Just war theory has been a part of Catholic theology only since the medieval period, but of course that does not mean that we ought not to take it seriously--it is quite well established. But the necessary and sufficient conditions for a just war under the classic formulation of ius ad bellum (justifications for going to war) do not, in and of themselves, preclude any and all reformulation. George Weigel, Michael Novak, and others have argued quite convincingly that the war in Iraq has been just from day one. And there is no reason to suppose that just war theory itself cannot be expanded to include the use of military force to prevent or relieve unjust oppression. Indeed, that would appear to be a perfectly good justification for going to war against Nazi Germany.
The status of "just war theory" itself is rather interesting. Just war theory has been a part of Catholic theology only since the medieval period, but of course that does not mean that we ought not to take it seriously--it is quite well established. But the necessary and sufficient conditions for a just war under the classic formulation of ius ad bellum (justifications for going to war) do not, in and of themselves, preclude any and all reformulation. George Weigel, Michael Novak, and others have argued quite convincingly that the war in Iraq has been just from day one. And there is no reason to suppose that just war theory itself cannot be expanded to include the use of military force to prevent or relieve unjust oppression. Indeed, that would appear to be a perfectly good justification for going to war against Nazi Germany.
Stormy Weather
A post at Gathering Goat Eggs reminds me of a great novel by Carl Hiaasen called Stormy Weather about the devastation visited upon southern Florida by hurricane Andrew in 1992. Much of the action follows the shenanigans of the sorts of folks that Peggy Noonan would like to see shot on sight. It's rather difficult to imagine enjoying reading about the destruction caused by a hurricane, but there is a certain satisfaction in reading about bad guys getting what they deserve. There must be a special circle in hell reserved for the folks who would exploit or otherwise take advantage of the misery of others, especially when it is on the order of what we're observing in the aftermath of Katrina. I can't endorse shooting anyone, but if we can find a real life version of Skink....
Venite, Adoremus!
I converted to Catholicism in 1983, more than a decade after the demise of the Latin Mass. At the time I was a graduate student in Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so I was familiar enough with Latin to know that I was not missing out on much compared to what I was reading and studying, but I still felt small pangs of regret. The Mass of the rubrics of 1960 (the so-called "Tridentine" version of the Mass, though its resemblence to what Trent mandated is rather tenuous) was available in Raleigh, so I went to it a couple of times, but even though the whole thing was in Latin it might as well have been in Chinese for all the "Latin" one got to experience. Much of the Mass was said "secretly", that is, inaudibly, by the priest, and those parts that were said audibly were said so badly that they were not recognizable as Latin. I began to form the opinion that the loss of the Latin Mass was no big deal.
I even wrote an essay, which I never sent off to any forum, in which I argued at some length against the use of Latin in the liturgy. Looking back on what I wrote, I find that I now disagree, virtually point by point, with everything I wrote. In fact, I now regard the use of Latin in the liturgy as important for almost the very reasons I offered before for getting rid of it! Given that Pope Benedict XVI has mentioned his own fondness for Latin in the liturgy (see especially his Spirit of the Liturgy, available from Ignatius Press), I thought I might rehearse some of my thoughts nearly 20 years later.
In 1985 I argued that the unity of the Roman Church lay in her doctrine, not in the language of her liturgies, and that vernacular liturgies facilitated participation by the faithful. I now think that it is rather important to have an outward sign of that doctrinal unity, and the Latin language is the perfect candidate, seeing as how it has served as the language of the Church since the 2nd century. Outward signs are important, I think, not simply because we are a Sacramental Church that recognizes that the human condition is both material and non-material, body and soul, but because we have reached a point in our history in which doctrinal unity needs to be emphasized more often than not lest it be forgotten. I am less convinced these days that hearing a liturgy in Latin will promote a lack of lay participation in the liturgy, since the participation one tends to find these days seems to me to be of limited value anyway. At the few "Tridentine" liturgies I attended there was very devout and pious participation, though of a very different variety. People were not holding hands, or singing crappy songs, or laughing and chatting during the exchange of peace, but they were participating nonetheless. They even appeared to have some idea of what was going on, even though the language was not recognizable even as Latin. Because of the work I do I sometimes travel to countries where the language is not English, and I am not always able to follow the liturgy anyway; if it were in Latin everywhere I would actually have a better chance of participating in a meaningful way, since at least I know that language. Not everyone knows Latin, of course, but neither does everyone know French or German or Italian or Chinese or whatever local vernacular they may find in use, so anyone who travels will be no worse off with Latin than the vernacular.
I mentioned the tradition of the Church's use of Latin. That does not reflect a mere antiquarian interest on my part. Latin is the language that was spoken by the first martyrs of the Roman Church; it is the language of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great; it is the language of the Christian humanists, of St. Thomas More and Erasmus. In short, it is more than just a liturgical or theological language, it is a great treasure-trove of the human spirit that crosses the centuries and encompasses some of the greatest literature the world has ever known. In this sense it is a very fitting outward manifestation of the inner glory that is the Body of Christ.
In 1985 I argued that I could see nothing wrong with using Latin in the Mass if that is what one prefers in some aesthetic sense, but I suggested that aesthetics alone do not justify making Latin the norm. After nearly two decades of slumming through ICEL translations and sloppy theology based on sloppy language, I find that my curmudgeonly ways are now suggesting something rather different to me. The Latin language is not without its charms, of course, but it is also a remarkably suitable language for liturgy and theology, as the test of time has shown. English is good for these uses, too, I think, but the use of Latin forces one to be a little more careful in the manner of one's expression. Given its much longer history, the use of Latin also has the potential of keeping one's thinking in line with tradition.
I'm now rather obsessive in my use of Latin. I pray the Daily Office in Latin, I say many of my private prayers in Latin, and I often translate parts of the Mass into Latin as I "participate". I'll grant you it's not for everybody, but for me it's been a shot in the arm on those occasions when I've had to sit through something particularly banal.
For those of you who might be feeling some regrets of your own, either for never learning Latin, or for not taking it seriously when you were in school--well, it's never too late!
I even wrote an essay, which I never sent off to any forum, in which I argued at some length against the use of Latin in the liturgy. Looking back on what I wrote, I find that I now disagree, virtually point by point, with everything I wrote. In fact, I now regard the use of Latin in the liturgy as important for almost the very reasons I offered before for getting rid of it! Given that Pope Benedict XVI has mentioned his own fondness for Latin in the liturgy (see especially his Spirit of the Liturgy, available from Ignatius Press), I thought I might rehearse some of my thoughts nearly 20 years later.
In 1985 I argued that the unity of the Roman Church lay in her doctrine, not in the language of her liturgies, and that vernacular liturgies facilitated participation by the faithful. I now think that it is rather important to have an outward sign of that doctrinal unity, and the Latin language is the perfect candidate, seeing as how it has served as the language of the Church since the 2nd century. Outward signs are important, I think, not simply because we are a Sacramental Church that recognizes that the human condition is both material and non-material, body and soul, but because we have reached a point in our history in which doctrinal unity needs to be emphasized more often than not lest it be forgotten. I am less convinced these days that hearing a liturgy in Latin will promote a lack of lay participation in the liturgy, since the participation one tends to find these days seems to me to be of limited value anyway. At the few "Tridentine" liturgies I attended there was very devout and pious participation, though of a very different variety. People were not holding hands, or singing crappy songs, or laughing and chatting during the exchange of peace, but they were participating nonetheless. They even appeared to have some idea of what was going on, even though the language was not recognizable even as Latin. Because of the work I do I sometimes travel to countries where the language is not English, and I am not always able to follow the liturgy anyway; if it were in Latin everywhere I would actually have a better chance of participating in a meaningful way, since at least I know that language. Not everyone knows Latin, of course, but neither does everyone know French or German or Italian or Chinese or whatever local vernacular they may find in use, so anyone who travels will be no worse off with Latin than the vernacular.
I mentioned the tradition of the Church's use of Latin. That does not reflect a mere antiquarian interest on my part. Latin is the language that was spoken by the first martyrs of the Roman Church; it is the language of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great; it is the language of the Christian humanists, of St. Thomas More and Erasmus. In short, it is more than just a liturgical or theological language, it is a great treasure-trove of the human spirit that crosses the centuries and encompasses some of the greatest literature the world has ever known. In this sense it is a very fitting outward manifestation of the inner glory that is the Body of Christ.
In 1985 I argued that I could see nothing wrong with using Latin in the Mass if that is what one prefers in some aesthetic sense, but I suggested that aesthetics alone do not justify making Latin the norm. After nearly two decades of slumming through ICEL translations and sloppy theology based on sloppy language, I find that my curmudgeonly ways are now suggesting something rather different to me. The Latin language is not without its charms, of course, but it is also a remarkably suitable language for liturgy and theology, as the test of time has shown. English is good for these uses, too, I think, but the use of Latin forces one to be a little more careful in the manner of one's expression. Given its much longer history, the use of Latin also has the potential of keeping one's thinking in line with tradition.
I'm now rather obsessive in my use of Latin. I pray the Daily Office in Latin, I say many of my private prayers in Latin, and I often translate parts of the Mass into Latin as I "participate". I'll grant you it's not for everybody, but for me it's been a shot in the arm on those occasions when I've had to sit through something particularly banal.
For those of you who might be feeling some regrets of your own, either for never learning Latin, or for not taking it seriously when you were in school--well, it's never too late!
Move In Day, Moving Standards
Classes will be starting here at Ohio University next Tuesday, and the dorms are officially open for moving in today. This year's freshman class is the largest on record for Ohio University: like many other colleges and universities in Ohio, Ohio University has had to increase freshman enrollments and raise tuition in order to make ends meet. In order to get more freshmen enrolled, we had to lower our admission standards.
That's not something that our administration likes to admit, let alone talk about. At a time when our new president has redefined our peer institutions, rejecting the old Miami University in favor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the University We Most Want To Be Confused With, it can be a rather embarrassing topic. Right now there's not much similarity between Ohio University and UNC, other than the word "University" in the two titles. Having taught at both institutions, however, I am happy to say that there are good and bad students everywhere. I've also taught at Duke University, Rutgers, and the University of Richmond, and I can't honestly say that the students at any of those institutions were obviously head-and-shoulders above the students at any of the others. Everywhere you go, you will find some folks who are willing to work hard and who have sufficient intellectual curiosity to make them genuine college material, just as you will find some other folks who are there for the sports program. The difference lies primarily in the proportions, I suppose, but in disciplines like philosophy and classics the material tends to be self-selecting: you can't bluff your way through elementary classical Greek, and if the course is taught properly you can't really bluff your way through philosophy, either.
So perhaps the lowering of admission standards is not the end of the world. Perhaps it opens up higher education to some folks who, given the right circumstances, will find ways to excell and in ways that the standard predictors of college success can't measure. It's possible. It's also possible that performance will decline, but I think the jury is still out on this: we must wait and see. But it is essential that the material that is presented not be dumbed down. That standard of what counts as a liberal education ought to be raised, if it is changed at all. With lower admission standards, that will mean that students have to work harder, but the payoff will be greater if they persevere.
That's not something that our administration likes to admit, let alone talk about. At a time when our new president has redefined our peer institutions, rejecting the old Miami University in favor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the University We Most Want To Be Confused With, it can be a rather embarrassing topic. Right now there's not much similarity between Ohio University and UNC, other than the word "University" in the two titles. Having taught at both institutions, however, I am happy to say that there are good and bad students everywhere. I've also taught at Duke University, Rutgers, and the University of Richmond, and I can't honestly say that the students at any of those institutions were obviously head-and-shoulders above the students at any of the others. Everywhere you go, you will find some folks who are willing to work hard and who have sufficient intellectual curiosity to make them genuine college material, just as you will find some other folks who are there for the sports program. The difference lies primarily in the proportions, I suppose, but in disciplines like philosophy and classics the material tends to be self-selecting: you can't bluff your way through elementary classical Greek, and if the course is taught properly you can't really bluff your way through philosophy, either.
So perhaps the lowering of admission standards is not the end of the world. Perhaps it opens up higher education to some folks who, given the right circumstances, will find ways to excell and in ways that the standard predictors of college success can't measure. It's possible. It's also possible that performance will decline, but I think the jury is still out on this: we must wait and see. But it is essential that the material that is presented not be dumbed down. That standard of what counts as a liberal education ought to be raised, if it is changed at all. With lower admission standards, that will mean that students have to work harder, but the payoff will be greater if they persevere.
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