Friar and priest at Santorum rally
After I posted my essay on the real problem with American nuns last week there was discussion in the combox about whether or not I was exaggerating. Mark Shea said that a single photo of nuns with Santorum does not necessarily mean that they are died-in-the-wool Americanists. You would think that Mr Shea would know better than that; after all he has long butted heads with Americanists on his own blog. Perhaps none of them happened to be religious sisters.
Nuns at Santorum rally
Or perhaps he was reacting to my admittedly strong language. After all, I did accuse them of “bowing to the god of Americanism” and called them “… sisters whose first religion is America, who endorse candidates whose political positions fly in the face of Catholic social teaching.”
Let me clarify. I don’t think you will find a conservative Catholic, nun or not, who would agree with my description of them. Indeed, they would be horrified. In their minds they are devoted “orthodox Catholics” who love God and Jesus Christ above all things. To suggest that their real god is America would offend them deeply.
Allow me to submit that they deceive themselves. I chose that language for its shock value. I am of the Flannery O’Connor school: sometimes you have to talk REALLY LOUD to the hard of hearing. But the language is also accurate. When conservative (or liberal) Catholics disregard something that Christ or His Church clearly teaches it can only be because they value something else more than Christ and His Church. But if you value something more than God, doesn’t that show your true priorities?
For conservative Catholics, rejecting the Church’s clear teaching on war, nationalism, torture, economic justice, etc comes too easily. They fall back on the claim that these things are “not taught infallibly”. But this magisterial minimalism leaves them in a very precarious position, for they have long denounced those on the left who make the same “non-infallible” argument when rejecting the ordinary magisterium on birth control or women’s ordination.
Nuns listening to Santorum
In fact, the only things that are taught de fide are those that were defined by an ecumenical council, or formally defined by a pope. If you held only to those relatively few things you would still have the basics of the Catholic Faith, but it would hardly resemble the wholeness of the lived Tradition, which includes wide areas of non-infallible teachings and practices, the things that put flesh on the bare bones of infallibly declared dogma.
In fact, the Church teaches that the ordinary magisterium is to be received with faith, and this includes not only things like liturgy and traditions of prayer, but the clear Mind of the Church on social issues. Catholic social teaching is just applied moral theology.
But of course not all conservative Catholic who reject Catholic social teaching admit it. Some, like Fr Richard Sirico and Congressman Paul Ryan, do so while claiming to adhere to that teaching. This would be laughable were it not for the fact that they convince those eager to be convinced that this is indeed the case.
I’m sorry; no one is claiming that Catholic social dogma can only result in one particular social order. It can be interpreted in many ways. I personally interpret it in the most radical way, but I don’t argue that other, more moderate interpretations can be valid.
However, there are basic principles that cannot be denied. You may argue for social democracy and be in accord with those principles, or you may argue for distributism. You may wish to see a well regulated market economy. But nowhere in Catholic social teaching can you find justification for the sort of free market ideology that has ruled in this country, and increasingly around the world, for thirty years. You can nowhere in the Catholic tradition find justification for torture, or assassinating foreign enemies, or invading a country because you claim that they may be a threat.
If you claim otherwise, excuse me for doubting your faith.
Bad examples. The teaching on women’s ordination IS infallible; in fact, those who believe in women’s ordination seem to be the same set who can’t even say the Nicene Creed properly because it refers to God as a Father, and refuse to listen to Christ’s parables because all men are evil. The teaching on birth control is necessary from a continuity standpoint of our understanding of what the sacrament of marriage is all about, and is also therefore infallible- you can’t change it without changing the definition of the sacrament of marriage.
That cafeteria Catholics and Americanists exist on both the left and the right, is, no doubt, true. But the examples you choose on the left are just as much sexual libertinism as the examples on the right are fiscal and revenge libertinism.
I should have mentioned that the other tactic is to assert that disputed teachings are in fact infallible, even though they do not meet the traditional criteria.
It is not that I disagree with you, it is just that the social teachings can also be called infallible, in the sense that, like the teachings you cite, they are taught by the ordinary magisterium. Not technically de fide, but surely held by the Church to be true.
This is a great post. Many Americanists probably just do not know any better and the bishops certainly are no help. Look at the “religious freedom” rallies the bishops are using Lockean vocabulary in this “fight” with the goverment.
The nuns on tour are a clear example: Sister Simone Campbell. etc.
Re: Ted,
What he is saying is that the conservatives who don’t take the Church’s condemnation of aggressive warfare and the use of weapons of mass destruction (a condemnation, BTW, that hangs on the US for the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima & Nagasaki) seriously are in the same position as those that don’t accept the Church’s teachings that impinge on their sexual pigginess.
There are some matters of interpretation on how they are to be lived out, but we can’t say we’re exempt from them.
Being photographed standing next to somebody is a poor way to establish one’s fundamental sympathy with heresy. That was my point. And it remains my point.
True, a random photo proves nothing, as you know from your unfortunate shot with that scoundrel Fr S. But if you are photographed with a presidential candidate whose positions run counter to clear Church teaching on every issue but one, and that snapshot exists because you chose to attend his campaign rally to cheer him on I don’t think it is a stretch to conclude that your nationalism has eclipsed your Catholicism. And if you belong to a young growing congregation it is a greater threat to the integrity of the Church than a bunch of aging nuns from dying orders over on the other end of the spectrum.
For folks like Fr Sirico and Paul Ryan the have clearly chosen hard edged laissez faire economics as their true faith. Their ‘Catholicism’ is just detail or coloring not foundational or central. In the case of many of the religious you cite and discuss, I would believe that most are or wish to be true Catholics and are probably unaware of how far they have strayed into Americanism, Republican party ideology and hard right economics. In pointing out the error of their ways you are engaging in the essential work of reforming the Catholic Church, making the Church truer to its calling.
Daniel, I completely agree that the social justice teachings are EQUALLY infallible to the teaching against women’s ordination and birth control- both come down to a consistent teaching on life that recognizes our biology given to us by God as the *primary* scripture; and both are about true tolerance that most human beings find incredibly hard to practice.
I find it very interesting that those preaching social justice the loudest, are just fine with killing baby girls and African Americans in the womb and spreading poison around to destroy women’s fertility. Just as I find it very interesting that those who cry loudest for justice for the unborn, are perfectly willing to crush a male child’s testicles in front of his parent to get the parent to confess to whatever the questioner thinks they’re guilty of.
Sean- Yes, exactly. That is why I said that they would be horrified at my accusation. Their assumptions are largely unexamined.