Four Catholic Journals Indulge in Doctrinal Solipsism

From Thomistica:

Emeritus Pope Benedict the XVI, in a letter to the Cardinal McCarrick in 2004 when he was merely His Eminence Cardinal Ratzinger and prefect of the CDF, made it very clear that the death penalty was not an intrinsic evil and ought not be depicted as one. Indeed, he made clear that regarding the death penalty, questions of war and peace, and so on, laymen had a just claim to exercise their prudential judgment and that disagreement among Catholics on such issues ought not be compared to dissent on matters such as abortion and euthanasia.The letter of then-Cardinal Ratzinger may be found here.  To quote it:

"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."

One can understand how these points seem not to matter, however, in a doctrinal climate in which what matters is rhetorical posturing to catch progressive winds rather than doctrinal rectitude.  The journals take a general prudential inflection of the Church and, with an impatient spasm of imprudence, describe the penalty as an evil in itself--"abhorrent".  The seeming willingness of some in the Church to entertain any change that may be marketed as "progressive" is certainly a factor in the development of such an attitude. The market for mutationist views of doctrinal development--for the proposition that the Church can absolutely contradict what it has solemnly proclaimed as true, whether about contraception, or abortion, or capital punishment--is a growing market in the antinomian first world... (continued)

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• National Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register, America, Our Sunday Visitor Unite to End Capital Punishment

National Catholic Reporter, National Catholic Register, America, Our Sunday Visitor Unite to End Capital Punishment

"We, the editors of four Catholic journals — America, National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter and Our Sunday Visitor — urge the readers of our diverse publications and the whole U.S. Catholic community and all people of faith to stand with us and say, “Capital punishment must end...”

Read More at The National Catholic Register

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• Four Catholic Journals Indulge in Doctrinal Solipsism

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A Deeper Look at the Many Evangelicals Turning Catholic

 From the National Catholic Register's Matthew Warner:

"According to a 2009 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, four people leave the Catholic Church for every one person that joins it. Keep in mind that this stat doesn’t count those born into Catholicism as “joining” it. However, it’s still a sad statistic. But we shouldn’t be misled by it.

There are also studies that show Catholicism has a higher rate of retention than all other religious groups. In other words, when people convert to Catholicism, they don’t do so because they didn’t like where they were and just wanted to try something new. Their conversion is deliberate and intentional and they generally stick with it. On the other hand, when people leave the Church, they generally drift around a bit from one denomination to another.  This says a lot. The Catholic convert is actually experiencing real, lasting conversion. Those leaving the Church seem to be lost and searching souls that most likely had no idea what they were leaving in the first place.

I’ve long noticed, as have many others, a kind of trend as well. It’s not so much from “Evangelicals” converting to Catholicism necessarily. It’s that of intellectuals converting to Catholicism. And that’s not to say these intellectuals were strictly intellectual. But I mean it to say that they took their reasons for believing very seriously.  We only have to look back a few generations to find Chesterton, Merton, Newman, etc. as part of the same trend.

In my own experience, I’ve seen that more people who convert to Catholicism do so on account of their reason. Whereas those that leave the Church do so based on some emotion or negative experience associated with the Church.

When I ask an evangelical why they left the Church. The answer is almost always an emotion. Something made them feel a certain way. Or they just didn’t like the way something was done in Catholicism. Or it didn’t suit their lifestyle. Or some other experience made them feel nice..."

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President Obama's Analysis of the "Divide" in Catholicism

President Barack Obama holds a round table briefing July 2 in the Roosevelt Room with Catholic press, including Register publisher Father Owen Kearns (left foreground).

"..In addition, Father Kearns noted the president’s analysis of the divide in Catholicism.

'The president said he had fond memories of Cardinal Bernardin and that when he started his neighborhood project, they were funded by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,' he said. “After the first question, from the National Catholic Reporter‘s Joe Feuerherd, the president jokingly asked, ‘Was there really [a controversy at Notre Dame]?’”

'The president spoke about how during Cardinal Bernardin’s time the U.S. bishops spoke about the nuclear freeze, the sanctuary movement, immigration and the poor, but that later a decided change took place,” added Father Kearns. “He said that the responses to his administration mirror the tensions in the Church overall, but that Cardinal Bernardin was pro-life and never hesitated to make his views known, but he had a consistent ‘seamless garment’ approach that emphasized the other issues, as well. The president said that that part of the Catholic tradition continues to inspire him. Those issues, he said, seemed to have gotten buried by the abortion debate."

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President Obama Meets With Catholic Press Tomorrow

Posted by Tim Drake

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:39 PM

Tomorrow morning at 10:45 Eastern time, the president is hosting a round table at the White House for members of the Catholic press.

The National Catholic Register’s publisher, Father Owen Kearns, will be among eight religion reporters and editors in attendance at that gathering.

The purpose of the gathering, according to Chris Hensman, press secretary with the National Security Council, is a “preview of the president’s upcoming visit with Pope Benedict XVI.” The president is meeting with the Pope on July 10.

Father Kearns just received the invitation to the meeting yesterday via e-mail. At this point, there isn’t a complete list of the media who will be in attendance, but our understanding is that it’s strictly Catholic print media, not radio or television.

According to Father Kearns, the meeting is unprecedented. He has not previously met a sitting U.S. president, nor has he been previously invited by the president to a White House gathering for members of the Catholic press.

When Father Kearns asked the purpose of the round table, he was told, “It’s for the president to inform us, to listen to concerns, and to answer questions.”

The meeting is not a press conference.

“It sounds like what we would call a listening session,” said Father Kearns.

We’ll have an update about the meeting on the blog tomorrow.

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Father Euteneuer: Legion has 'lost it'

By Matt C. Abbott

In addition to Father James Farfaglia, Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, has weighed in on National Catholic Register executive editor Tom Hoopes' take on the election results.

Writes Father Euteneuer:


The Legion of Christ priest who defended Sean Hannity's dissent on birth control on Fox News last year was bad enough, but the editorial in the National Catholic Register after the election shows that the Legionaries have allowed another misguided agent to speak in their name and on their watch. They are now officially part of the problem, not part of the solution. Editor Tom Hoopes is a layman, but he does the Legion's bidding and should be fired immediately for his absurd editorial in support of Barack Obama. Even were it not for Hoopes' personal glowing support of the most radical abortion president in American history, certain other points of his editorial are just naïve:

1. 'In America, there's no reason to fear the president.' — Has Mr. Hoopes ever heard of the coercive power of the Attorney General, the IRS, the FBI or the ATF that viciously persecuted pro-lifers in the previous pro-abortion administration? I have personally been visited by the two latter entities, and they are not boy scouts. Has Mr. Hoopes seen the radical federal judiciary (appointed by the president) routinely overturn the will of the people on critical moral issues? Doesn't he know that the president appoints the delegation to the UN which will now use our tax dollars to ram abortion down the throats of poor countries like never before? Let us hasten to emphasize that the unborn 'in America' have every reason to fear this president, but apparently they can be overlooked because, in Hoopes' opinion, Obama is 'a civil, decent man.'
   
   
2. Mr. Hoopes seems to think that he can just have a little gentleman's disagreement with Obama, '...if [he] dare attack the voiceless, defenseless unborn.' This is the measure of the insanity of this editorial. What does he mean 'if'? Is he simply unaware of the public record of this man who is preparing to attack the unborn in unprecedented ways? The radical cabinet appointments Obama is making should be curbing all the naïve estimates of this man's beneficence toward the unborn both at home and abroad. Extreme pro-aborts like Hillary Clinton (Sec. of State), Tom Daschle (Sec. of HHR) and Ellen Moran (White House spokesperson) will only be marshaled as attack dogs of an Obama administration against the voiceless, defenseless unborn. Where exactly is that 'change' America voted for?
   
   
3. Mr. Hoopes says that teaching children to dislike and belittle the president 'undermines civic responsibility and social cohesion.' Well, outside of the fact that it was the Obama supporters who engaged in that type of vicious behavior toward the current president, his idea of 'civic responsibility and social cohesion' does not come from Catholic social doctrine. It comes from political correctness. Our Church says that these are based on solidarity with the poor and suffering, and in violation of that principle, President Obama will systematically exclude the unborn from any measure of our social concern. Mr. Hoopes' 'Can't we all just get along?' ground rules for talking nice about that 'impressive man' are not even realistic, let alone Catholic.
   
   

There is more that could be said about this terrible editorial, but I would violate charity if I went further. Suffice it to say that I thought for a moment that I was reading the other NCR (National Catholic Reporter). HLI has worked with the Register in the past to expose the evils of the culture of death, but I am tired of sell-outs. We decidedly refuse to be part of the problem. I am immediately canceling our subscription to the newspaper and will encourage others to do the same. The Legion has finally lost it on this one, and I will not support such dereliction of duty from a religious order that claims to represent the Church and bears the holy Name of Christ.

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