No Antidote to the Poison Woman: Juliette Hughes Damns the Church with Faint Praise

It's good to see The Age being "balanced" for once. I jest of course. They have published a reply by Juliette Hughes to Catherine Deveney's column bagging the church (see my blog here).

Hughes is quite a decent writer (see her article here on euthanasia), but this is way from her best piece. As a defence of the Christian faith it fails dismally, giving little reason for belonging to the Church other than that they are nice people and they do good work. She agrees with Deveney that the church hierarchy are guilty of "misogynistic and regressive policies"--although at least she does not subscribe to the "recipe for grumpiness" (as John Allen called it) ie. mistaking the hierarchy for the Church. She says that the Bible isn't a problem for her, because

taking the Bible literally is pointless, for it contains many different stories by many different authors that are easily taken out of context.

"For the instance," she says,

most Catholics don't feel they need to believe that the Bible's account of creation is historically and scientifically accurate.

She is right that the scriptures are not "simply reportage", but like "most Catholics", she misunderstand what is meant by a "literal" reading. The Catechism says:

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal"

It is precisely because the Bible "contains many different stories by many different authors that are easily taken out of context" that it is so important to maintain the literal reading which is achieved by scholarly "exegesis" and "sound interpretation". But Hughes blithely declares that she

can't really take seriously someone who believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.

Well, either she does not know what the Church means when they say the Word of God is "inerrant", or she "can't really take seriously" the Second Vatican Council which declared:

"Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit" DV 9

“We must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation [nb. not scientific or historical curiosity], wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures" DV 11

But of course, Hughes does not believe that "salvation" is something universally required. She makes the rather curious little statement:

I certainly don't believe that someone who isn't a Christian needs "saving".

I know this is politically correct -- for goodness sakes I work in interreligious affairs where the only sin greater than suggesting that your dialogue partner needs to be saved is to suggest that he can only be saved "in the name of Jesus" -- nevertheless it is a curious statement to make in a defence of the Christian faith. I take it that she does believe that Christians need "saving" -- or at least that she herself needs "saving". Perhaps the difficulty is with the word "save", which really seems to have lost any real meaning. The alternative translation of the biblical word "to save" is "to heal" or "to be made whole". And I think everyone would agree that we all need healing to some degree or other, that we are all seeking wholeness of some sort or other. The suggestion -- in fact the call witness -- of Christianity is that real healing and wholeness can actually be found in Jesus Christ.

In this is my real beef with Hughes' article. From beginning to end, it doesn't mention Jesus Christ once. It certainly doesn't mention his resurrection. And is there any other reason for being a Christian than faith in Jesus Christ and believe that he rose from the dead? As saint Paul said, "If Christ be not raised we are the most miserable of all people." Deveney would be absolutely right to say that all Christians -- including Hughes -- are completely mad, if in fact Jesus never rose from the dead.

So if you want to find a real defence of Christianity, don't bother reading Juliette Hughes' defence. I suggest you read The Spanish Bishops Conference's latest statement as translated on Sandro Magister's website. Here is what they have to say about the resurrection:

34. The resurrection of Christ is an historically substantiated event, which the Apostles witnessed and certainly did not invent. This was not a matter of a simple return to earthly life; on the contrary, it was the greatest “mutation” that has ever taken place in history, the decisive “leap” toward a profoundly new dimension of life, the entry into a totally different order, which concerns Jesus of Nazareth first of all, but together with him ourselves, all of the human family, history, and the entire universe. For this reason the resurrection of Christ is the center of Christian preaching and witness, since the beginning and until the end of time. Jesus Christ rises from among the dead because his entire being is united with God, who is love that is truly stronger than death. His resurrection was like an explosion of light, an explosion of love that broke the chains of sin and death. His resurrection inaugurated a new dimension of life and reality, giving rise to a new creation that continually penetrates our world, transforming it and drawing it to itself.

Now there is the real reason for being Christian.

Getting Catholic Ecclesiology and Ecumenism Right

Peregrinus has been having a long conversation with me in the comments section to my blog about the Universally Inclusive Club.

I had penned a long reply to his last comment, and then thought it was too long for a comment and should be a blog all on its own. We are continuing the question of whether the "house" metaphor is faithful to Catholic ecclesiology and ecumenism.

Here are some of Peregrinus' comments:

Lumen Gentium tell us that Christ establshed, and continually sustains, his Church. But pointedly (and I think to the dismay of some) it does not equate the “Church of Christ”, professed in the Creed, and the “Catholic Church”, governed by the Bishop of Rome and the bishops in communion with him. It says that the Church of Christ “subsists in” the Catholic church, but it does not say that it subsists only in the Catholic church. In fact it points to “elements of sanctification and truth” which are found outside the Catholic church, which it describes as “gifts belonging to the Church of Christ”.

People with better qualifications than me have written reams on exacly what “subsists in” means, but in my simplistic way I understand it this way:

- The Church of Christ and the Catholic Chruch are both realiites – or, better, they are both expressions of the same complex (and mystical) reality.

- The Church of Christ is called to unity in the Catholic Church, but that unity has not yet been achieved.

- The call to unity is addressed to the entire Church of Christ, not just to those parts of it which are outside the Catholic Church.

- Such barriers to unity as may exist are not made and maintained exclusively by non-Catholic Christians (or, of course, exclusively by Catholic Christians).

- The call to unity requires us to identify barriers to unity, and to work for their removal.

Yes, the house metaphor has it's limits, yes. No metaphor can really do full justice to the mystery which is the Church. But the bulk of biblical metaphors for the Church – household, vine, body etc. – are metaphors with a clear delineation of who belongs and who doesn't.

The confusing thing about our current state is that:

1) there are many who, because of baptism and faith in Christ are in a real but imperfect communion with the Catholic Church
2) there are local Churches which are Churches in the true sense because they have retained the sacraments and the apostolic succession, and yet are not in communion with the Catholic Church

Both these situations indicate that such individuals and Churches cannot be covered by a clear "in or out" category. In both these situations, true elements of the One Church exist in outside the boundaries of that visible society which is the Catholic Church. But in both cases there is a "fullness" lacking—that fullness of communion in the One Christ which comes through full communion with one another and with the Petrine See. This lack of "fullness" is a serious wound to their existence as individual Christians and as local Churches.

There has been a basic error of interpretation common since Unitatis Redintegratio was promulgated in 1965. The authentic interpretation of the Council by the magisterium since (in particular, a study of JPII's Ut Unum Sint, the Directory on Ecumenism and the Declaration Dominus Iesus) should have cleared this misinterpretation up, but people have not been paying attention. In addition this false interpretation has been muddied by a certain irenic approach in ecumenical dialogue.

It was Garuti's book that alerted me to the fact that although the Council used the term "subsists in" rather than "is", it never affirms that the one Church of Christ "subsists in" any where else, ie. in any other ecclesial communion or communion of local Churches. Thus, although at first I reacted negatively to this, he is right when he insists that

1) the one Church of Christ does not "subsist in" the communion of Orthodox Churches
2) there are not "two" Churches, one East/Orthodox and one West/Catholic
3) there is not one Church "split in half", into East/Orthodox and West/Catholic
4) There is no such thing as the "Orthodox Church", only the Orthodox Churches
5) The Catholic Church is not a "Sister Church" to the Orthodox Churches, because the Catholic Church is the Universal Church whereas the Orthodox Churches are local Churches
6) The Catholic Church is not to be thought of as a "part" of the One Church of Christ
7) The Catholic Church is not to be identified with the Western Church (as it includes many Eastern Churches) and the office of the Pope as supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church does not equal his office as the Patriarch of the West (a title still in use when Garuti was writing)

But above all, we must always keep in mind that the goal of Catholic ecumenism is not "the full visible unity of the Church"—something which already exists--but the full visible unity of all Christians. There is no other way to make sense of the opening line of Unitatis Redintegratio:

"The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only."

Thus the unity of the Church, the Church of the Creed, is not something to be sought as if it does not currently exist. Moreover, if the Church is indeed One (and the Creed tells us that it is, not that it will be), then we have only two choices:

1) It is already One, made up of all those who have been baptised and truly believe in their hearts—who they are is known only to God and therefore the Church is an invisible reality (the Protestant option)
2) It is already One, made up of the baptised faithful who are in communion with the bishops who are in communion with the See of Peter—thus a visible society (the Catholic option)

(Note, as far as I can gather, the Orthodox option is a variation of the Catholic option: It is already One, made up of all those in communion with the bishops who hold the true Orthodox faith and are not in communion with the See of Peter).

As for the fact that Lumen Gentium tell us that the church “coalesces from a divine and a human element”, it is important to read this in the context of the whole paragraph (LG 8). When you do this, you find that it cannot mean, as you make it to mean, that there "the human element" is "therefore fallible." On the contrary, the paragraph makes clear that the human and divine realities are not two, but one reality, as closely connected as the divine and human realities in the Incarnate Word. It specifically says that:

"the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element."
Therefore we cannot say of any part of the visible institution that "this is of human origin" and therefore does not belong to the spiritual reality.

Of course, I say all this without pride. I was once "on the outside"—a true member of the Church of Christ by baptism and faith, but lacking the fullness of that communion to be a fully initiated member of the Church let alone a valid minister of its sacraments. I myself have had to eat the humble pie to say "I was wrong", that God's will for me and for all others was and always will be to accept the invitation and to enter through the door, to sit at the table and by the fire, and enjoy the hospitality which the Father gives through our Lord Christ and the Spirit. It is because I have tasted of this hospitality that it pains me to see so many who are attempting to live full Christian lives without it, and that it gives me great joy every time one of my separated brothers or sisters in Christ gives up wandering in the desert or the forest and comes in to share the good things that God has prepared for them since the foundation of the world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for encouraging genuine Charisms

Having begun a little salvo on the use of the phrase "Baptism in the Spirit", I don't want any of you out there to get me wrong. I am all in favour of people discerning and using their Holy Spirit given charisms, and also in favour of new (and old) movements in the Church that promote specific charisms. But I believe that all Christians receive charisms for ministry through the Sacrament of Baptism. The reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation strengthens and confirms these charisms, as can a later subsequent experience of the Holy Spirit, but even those who have not received valid Confirmation (eg. Protestant Christians) or this subsequent experience (eg. non-Charismatic Christians) have received charisms for ministry. Whether they have discerned their charism or have put it to use is another matter, of course. That's why we have programs such as "Called and Gifted".

The Pope has just recently made comments in his latest "question and answer" session with the Roman clergy. Here he gave two rules for ecclesial movements to flourish in the Church:

1) As St Paul says, "Do not extinguish charisms." If the Lord gives us new gifts, we must receive them with thanksgiving. The Holy Spirit gives us new initiatives with new aspects of Christian life.

2) But if the movements are really gifts from the Holy Spirit, then they will seek to unify, edify and serve the Church.

He used, as an example of the past, the Fransciscans, and as an example of the present, The Neo-Catechumenal Way. I believe that CCR has demonstrated in an exemplary way both these qualities, however, I believe there is also need for what the Pope calls "patient dialogue" which can overcome the "many complications" which occur with the rise of new movements and the recognition of new charisms. However, CCR ought not to assume that their undergirding theology has been given the imprimatur of official Church teaching, just because the Church has received their movement and charism as a gift from God.

What the Pope had to say on this matter is very wise, and I often wonder what today's Church might have been like if a) on the Roman side, the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the early 16th Century had had the ears to hear what Martin Luther was saying to the Church, and b) on Luther's side, if he had been a little more concerned about serving the unity and edification of the Church.

"Is it true? Or is that just something you saw in the Times?"

John L. Allen Jnr has struck a blow at what he calls "the original sin" in journalism: "willful indifference to the facts." The guilty party in this case? The British press, and in particular, The Times, which, by his account, has shown itself to be worse than either The New York Times or The Age when it comes to reporting on religious matters.

(Actually, he didn't mention The Age--and to be honest, the fact that Barney Zwartz is theologically educated and literate makes a huge difference in that sphere. It's their editorial stance that gets me.)

What gave rise to his unusual outburst against his British colleagues is this piece by Ruth Gledhill, but in fact he catalogues a whole series of journalistic furphies published by the British press with regard to the Vatican. His strong opinion is that this sort of stuff, in today's climate, "is not merely irrating, but dangerous".

Gledhill's piece, is, he opines, not only a deliberate sensationalising, but also a deliberate misreading of the leaked IARCCUM text to make it say the complete opposite of what it says.

Here's the first line of paragraph seven, which appears on page five of the report: "This present context, which adds to existing differences between our two communions, is not the appropriate time to enter the new formal stage of relationship envisaged by the bishops at Mississauga." That's a reference to a meeting in Canada in 2000 when representatives of the two groups had discussed the possibility of greater structural unity. In other words, "Growing Together in Unity and Mission" unambiguously says that now is not the time for reunion under the pope. There is simply no other way to read the document -- unless, that is, you're inclined to distort it.

Interestingly, Gledhill herself leaves a comment on Allen's column, defending her piece:

Thank you John for your thoughtful article. I can only urge people to read the entire document for themselves. It can now be purchased from SPCK. One of the most pertinent paragraphs on which I based my story was this:
114. We urge Anglicans and Roman Catholics to explore together how the ministry of the Bishop of Rome might be offered and received in order to assist our Communions to grow towards full, ecclesial communion.
Given the theology of reception, ie women priests, Catholic reception, I find that par pretty unambiguous and nothing like that was in any of the Arcic documents, although Gift of Authority came close.

"Baptism in the Spirit" and the Teaching of the Catholic Church

I was intrigued to read John Allen's recent series on Fr Cantalamessa, the Preacher for the Papal Household (here, here, and here). I was especially intrigued to read about the former Archbishop of Newark's antagonism toward the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in his archdiocese. I was also spurred on to read some more of Fr Cantalamessa's teaching (especially No Need to Fear Charismatic Renewal Cantalamessa CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 26, 2003 and Baptism in the Holy Spirit by Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFMCap). And I have become especially concerned about CCR's use of the term "Baptism in the Spirit".

[Side note: Here's a pet theory of mine. There are many Catholics who belong to Charismatic Renewal who are not really interested in the full suitcase of Charismatic spirituality, but who are more accurately "evangelical" Catholics. They are attracted to CCR because of the vibrant faith, the seriousness of their religion, their zeal for spreading the gospel. But often these folk are not long term adherants to CCR because in the end they don't swallow the "Baptism in the Spirit" stuff. It's a real pity there isn't a CER (Catholic Evangelical Renewal), but then that should be the whole Church--and yes, I know that the CCR thinks that the whole Church should be charismatic too.]

As a Lutheran I was strongly alerted against the incorrect interpretation of this phrase. Lutherans had a strong and healthy distrust of anyone claiming to have had an experience of the Holy Spirit apart from the Sacraments and the external Word of God. Thus, Luther railed against the "enthusiasts", and modern day Lutherans railed against the new Holy Joes in the Pentecostal movement. Bottom line for Lutherans: When the Scriptures talk about being baptised "in/with" the Holy Spirit, they were refering to the Christian sacrament of baptism with water in the name of the Holy Trinity, which conferred the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the recipient.

As a Catholic, I have found that I have only had to modify this thinking in two respects:

1) Confirmation is the completion of Baptism, and in this respect is a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the active and mature ministry of the Christian. The Second Vatican Council taught that "by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed" [LG 11; cf. OC, Introduction 2].

2) In the free sovereignty of God, the Holy Spirit can and does act apart from the sacraments and the ministry of the Church. Again, Lumen Gentium 12: "It is not only through the sacraments and the ministries of the Church that the Holy Spirit sanctifies and leads the people of God and enriches it with virtues..." -- although this statement is not followed with a "but also through" statement. What that "also" might be is thus left open. I, in my Lutheran spirituality, would say "but also through the Word of God".

I am disturbed therefore to read stuff like this:

[We should make an] uncompromising distinction between a "pre-charismatic" Christian and a charismatic Christian - a distinction that seems to needle many non-charismatics, and raises the hackles of some theologians whom I love to challenge. The Pentecost experience of becoming charismatic by being "baptized in the Spirit" (Acts 1:5) is something clearly distinct from and beyond the experience of becoming a Christian by being "baptized into Christ" (Rom. 6:3) by water.

...Dissenting theologians [my emphasis] claim that it was the Church that corporately received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and all Christians partake of that general outpouring... In this view, the baptism in the Spirit is not an additional experience subsequent to becoming a Christian, but a privilege that everyone experiences by simply being a Christian and thus partaking of the fullness of the Spirit-presence of the Church from the time of water-baptism. What makes a Christian Charismatic? Fr. John Hampsch

Well, shoot me, but I'm a "dissenting theologian" in this case. This interpretation of the meaning of the phrase "baptised in the Spirit" is not the teaching of the Catholic Church, whatever Fr Cantalamessa or Fr Hampsch might have to say on the matter. In fact, you can search all you like, but you will find no reference to "baptism in the Spirit" along these lines anywhere in the Catechism, the Second Vatican Council, or the teaching of the Popes. Do a search on the new (excellent) search engine on the Vatican Website for "Baptism/Baptized in the (Holy) Spirit", and you will turn up diddly-squat on this topic.

Over the next few week's I hope to post more on this subject, outlining why I do not accept CCR's interpretation of the Scriptures with reference to what they call "Baptism in the Holy Spirit." I do want to stress, however, that I am not calling into question the experience of the Holy Spirit which CCR folk claim to have had. I believe in the experience, and I have seen its effects. I am simply questioning the wisdom and rectitude of calling this experience a "Baptism in the Spirit", and linking it to scriptural passages in which such terminology appears to be used and in which a similar experience appears to have taken place.

For now, I leave you with the question Cardinal James Hickey addressed to the "Mother of God Community" on September 23, 1995:

More specifically, I believe there is a great need to clarify the meaning of "baptism in the Spirit" as it relates to all the sacraments, but especially in relationship to sacramental baptism and the sacrament of confirmation. Sacramental baptism is recognized by all Christians -- Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant churches as the principal sacrament of initiation and the foundation of the Christian life. "Baptism in the Spirit," a gift characteristic of the charismatic renewal, helps one live out the call to holiness received in baptism; it helps to revivify the divine gifts received in sacramental baptism, in the other sacraments and in the entire tradition of the Church. However, "baptism in the Spirit" is not essential to the Christian life; those who do not receive "baptism in the Spirit" are not second-class Christians! James Cardinal Hickey Address to Mother of God Community September 23, 1995

David B. Hart crucifies Daniel Dennett

You will all, by now, be familiar with the masterful rebuttle of Richard Dawkins by Terry Eagleton. Well, David B. Hart has done a similar (but perhaps even more devastating) job on the recent book by Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

Hart's approach is really very clever. He casts Dennett as the Bellman in Lewis Carroll's absurdist poem "The Hunting of the Snark", except that the "Snark" in this case is "religion". Just as the characters in Carroll's poem are doomed to search for a beast which they neither know or understand or really have any idea about at all, so Dennett is setting out to hunt down a vague thing called "religion", which (Hart claims) he not only does not define or understand but is in fact incapable of either defining or understanding.

This is the fatal flaw in Dennett's project: he never makes it quite clear what he is arguing against. The nature of "religion" is simply assumed to be known by all, and therefore Dennett can use whatever weapons in the hunt he likes, as he variously defines his quarry. Like the Snark in Carroll's poem, he ends up seeking it "with thimbles", "with care", "with forks and hope" while trying to "threaten its life with a railway-share" and "charm it with smiles and soap".

The world of faith is all a terra incognita to Dennett; the only map he knows of it is, like the map used by the Bellman, a "perfect and absolute blank!"-though, in Dennett’s case, bearing a warning that "Here there be dragons." Or, perhaps, "Here there be Boojums".

My only criticism of Hart's essay is that it is perhaps a little to long. His point is well made by about half-way through. Nevertheless, once he has Dennett down, he keeps on kicking.

I haven't read Dennett's book, but I am not likely too either. The only people likely to read it (at least to the end) are those who already sympathetic to Dennett's animosity toward religious faith, and the only one's who will think that it is a good book are those who do not need to be convinced by any kind of argument.

St Thomas More: Patron Saint of "The Age"???

Imagine my surprise (or you might not need to if you read the editorial in today's Sunday Age) when I found a picture of St Thomas More staring at me from the top of the Opinion pages in today's Age. What odd company he's keeping, I thought. After reading the editorial, I found myself not a little incensed that this newspaper would have the audacity to claim St Thomas' patronage for their "Bring Hicks Home" campaign. Not that I think St Thomas' principles are irrelevant to the case, but they are certainly misused by the Sunday Age for its own purposes.

The relevant passage is this:

"This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast," playwright Robert Bolt has Sir Thomas say in A Man For All Seasons, "and if you cut them down … do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"

For more than five years the Australian Government has been flaunting its willingness to sacrifice the law in the case of David Hicks. While the British and US governments refused to allow their citizens' rights to be trampled at Guantanamo Bay and by the US military commission set up to try inmates, the Australian Government has had no such scruples. The Government not only presumed Hicks was guilty, it showed an enthusiastic disregard for his human rights, too.
But if any government is willing to fell a forest of Australian law to ensure the conviction of Hicks, then we are all in serious trouble.

In this editorial, the Sunday Age confuses "THE LAW" in the sense of the Natural Law, the unchanging law, written on the hearts of every human being, which St Thomas defended and died for, and the juridical positivism that passes for law in our modern democracies, which allows laws to be created to serve the convenience of governments and interest groups regardless of whether they are inheritantly true and just. Had More really been a stickler for the "law" in this latter sense, he would have gone along with Henry VII's new "law" of ecclesiastical supremacy without a qualm.

In fact, a very good case can be made for linking St Thomas More's true understanding of law to the David Hick's case, but it is not exactly the same as the use that the editors of The Age make of it. Moreover, if they were really sincere about championing More's principles, they would find themselves having to reverse many of their own publically declared positions, especially in regard to same sex marriage, euthanasia, and embryonic research.

If you want to get a handle on what all this natural law stuff is about, then have a look at this recent address by the Pope to a conference held in Rome.

From Coo-ees in the Cloister - My Caption

They were having a little exercise over on Cooees in the Cloister looking for captions to this picture. Here's my suggestion.

Simon says: "Put your hands on your knees!"

- Ha, ha! You're out, Your Holiness!"

Congratulations! Today you have become a member of the Universally Inclusive Club!

Yes, and its free too! The privileges are that you get to belong to the only club that includes everyone and everything in existence, animal, vegetable, or mineral, living or dead, real or imaginary, near or far, in this universe or somewhere/somewhen else in the multiverse. No one is excluded. To become a member you don't have to do anything. You don't even have to apply for membership. You don't even have to want to be a member. In fact, even if you don't want to be a member, we will not exclude you. Everyone and everything is included in the Universally Inclusive Club (UIC).

Mmm. What a silly idea.

But the way some folk imagine "inclusiveness" this could be what they are talking about. Next to being judgmental, or intolerant, the greatest sin any social group can commit these days is to be "exclusive".

[Reader: Unless you have to pay megabucks to be a member.
Schütz: Yes, unless that.]

So the Church should be "inclusive", in the sense that it should not "exclude" anyone. After all, did Jesus exclude people? Isn't the Church for everyone?

[Reader: This would be where you would say "WTFWJD", isn't it?
Schütz: Right again. I'm glad you follow me.]

I want to say right now that I do not believe the Church should be exclusive. I am a firm believer--perhaps firmer than you, dear Reader--in the inclusiveness of the Church. The very last thing I want for the Church is for the Church to exclude anyone. But perhaps I am just a little bit too inclusive for your tastes. You see, I believe that everyone should be a member of the Catholic Church.

[Reader: I'm going to tell on you. Your supposed to be an ecumenist.
Schütz: Will you please stop butting in. I am an ecumenist, and if you be quiet I will explain it to you.]

Let's use the image of a door. Doors are good things generally for deliniating inside from outside. They can also be open or shut. Wherever a door exists, there will be an inside and an outside. Doors don't exist except as gateways from outside to inside and vice versa. Doors never stand alone out in the paddock for instance.

[Reader: I saw one on the telly tubbies once that was just like that.
Schütz: I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.]

My idea of inclusiveness involves a door into a house where there is a fire burning, and the kettle is on the stove.* The door to this house is wide open and anyone who likes can come in and sit down by the fire and share warmth and mutual fellowship. I also believe that extending the invitation to all and sundry to come in from the highways and byways will involve going out the door and inviting people to come in. But in my understanding of inclusiveness, there will always be an inside and an outside. There room enough "inside" for everyone (all the members of the UIC). The only thing that exlcudes anyone is their own desire not to come in. The door will not be shut until the end of history.

Being exclusive (on the other hand) for me would mean shutting that door; saying, "Sorry, no room at the inn. Go away. You're not welcome." A closed door would be exclusive. An open door is inclusive. Contra the UIC, it is not inclusive to demolish the house and the door and call the outside "inside" so that everyone would be included.

So, in my ecumenical and interfaith work I am most certainly "inclusive", even though it might seem to those who wish to promote the silly idea of the UIC as comparitively "exclusive".

(* The image of the open door, fire, kettle etc. comes from the conclusion to Mons Peter Elliott's talk to the Forward in Faith meeting here in Melbourne:

Let me conclude simply by welcoming you, by daring to welcome you, not with blaring triumphalism or earnest convert challenges, rather by quoting a wise Parish Priest I know. He is currently based in Birmingham. Like me, he worked for some years in the Roman Curia, but in a different department. This man of deep ecumenical commitment and experience put the realistic option in this human way and I address his words to you: “Brothers and Sisters, the door is open, the table is set and the kettle is on….”

Giving up being interesting for Lent

No, not me, I promise. I mean those bloggers (you know who you are--or, perhaps you don't because you aren't reading this) who give up blogging and reading blogs for Lent. I fail to understand this. What sort of self sacrifice is it?

[Reader: Let's see: Kill the blog, lose the ego, spend time doing really worthwile things...
Schütz: Stop it.]

And what about the way this "not-blogging-for-Lent" thing deprives other bloggers in the community of the "mutual e-consolation of the brethren and sistern", eh? It's a bit like taking your bat and ball and saying, I'm not playing for Lent, see you in six weeks time. Real charitable.

Have you ever read anywhere that Lewis and Tolkien and Co. gave up their Inkling's meeeting--their conversation, their pipes, their songs and their pints--for Lent? By all means engage in self-improvement and self-sacrifice during Lent, but please don't give up being interesting, and by no means give up being human!

A Slowly Baked, but Well Done Conclusion on Hicks

I have never as much as mentioned the name "David Hicks" in this column so far. Partly the reason for that is that my ability to make up my moral mind on the whole affair is almost as slow and tardy as the US Military have been to lay charges against the sole Australian in Guantanamo Bay.

But after a long time in the oven, I think I can say that the timer has gone off, and I have come to the point where I can take a stand. Not that I will be going to any "Bring Hicks Home" vigils or marches or anything in the near future. Maybe I should, if my conclusion is right. I haven't got that far yet. Maybe that will be the icing on the cake...

Anyway, my ten bobs worth, if you want it, is virtually the same as that expressed by Peter Faris QC in today's edition of Crickey. He writes:

In my opinion, Hicks is a vile, despicable and abhorrent creature who chose to support the Taliban, one of the worst regimes in recent history. He is not a hero and certainly not an Australian hero. He deserves to be condemned for what he has done. But despite all of this, he has the fundamental right to be tried by a court or released. He has not been tried. He must be released

.I couldn't agree more. This isn't a case of merit, it's a case of simple human dignity. I believe that respect for the inalienable dignity of every human being is foundational for all ethical and moral action. Hick's dignity (nb. his dignity that rests on what he is--a human being--not on what he has done, which has no dignity about it and in fact appears not to have valued the human dignity of others very highly) is not being respected, and something should be done about it.

Incidentally, when I was home over New Years, I heard a bunch of farmers discussing the issue. I was surprised to find that every one of them was critical of the Howard Government for not doing more to bring David Hicks back to Australia. They, however, were not being driven by any sense of the dignity of the human being enshrined in natural law. They had come to their conclusion on the basis that it was shameful for Australia to allow one of its citizens to languish inthe hands of a foreign power. For them, the extradiction of Hicks would represent an assertion of Australian sovereignty and autonomy. There's something in that, as Neuhaus would say.

A Truly "Romantic Notion"

In the Cathnews report on the ignorant suggestion by the Times-Online that the Anglican and Catholic Churches were ready to formally reunite any moment now, the Anglican Bishop of North Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies, is quoted as saying:

If a Pope gives a directive, every parish priest follows it. If the Archbishop of Canterbury offers a directive, most ministers of a parish would think that a nice piece of advice. The very thought we would hand over our authority would be a romantic notion at the least.

Ha, ha! The joke is on you, Bishop! The truly "romantic notion" is that "if the pope gives a directive, every parish priest follows it"!

Poison Woman

That woman--Catherine Deveny--is poisonous. Following an Archepiscopal telling off for her last foray into the subject of religion, she has thrown the fat into the fire with this rather nasty little diatribe.

She could hardly be more offensive if she tried to be. Do we really need to know what she would be willing to do on the consecrated altar of a church? And is this really journalism? Why did the editor of The Age feel justified in giving it column space? Is the article particularly insightful? No. Is it funny? No. Is Ms Deveny (as Jane Austen would say) "a person of information"? No. So what is the point of printing it? Maybe if Ms Deveny wants to write this sort of stuff she should start a blog. I don't pay my $1.50 each day to read this garbage.

But, let's cut her some slack. Perhaps Catherine Deveny is more sinned against than sinning, more "poisoned" than "poisonous". Judging by what she has written in both columns, she has not had a particularly positive experience of the Catholic religion. There could be anyone to blame for that--her parents, her priests, her school teachers, some nun somewhere--even (contra Monty Python) the Romans. It just goes to show that when we are in the business of evangelising (ie. telling the GOOD news) we sometimes (as a Church) are far better at communicating BAD news. And that's really tragic.

It would have been nice if she had, for instance, been given some decent biblical catechesis as a youngster, and then she would know a) how to read the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and b) how to read the legal codes of the Torah. It would also have been nice if, when she asked her priest why they didn't have altar girls in their parish, he had shown her some respect and at least attempted an explanation. After all, people don't respect institutions that don't respect them.

Jesus, the Pope and Harry Potter all say: "Stand up to Evil!"

The Pope made a strange comment (I thought) in his most recent Sunday Angelus mini-homily. He said that Jesus' command to "Love your enemies"

does not consist in surrendering to evil -- as claims a false interpretation of "turn the other cheek" (Luke 6:29) -- but in responding to evil with good (Romans 12:17-21), and thus breaking the chain of injustice.

Who on earth would ever interpret "turning the other cheek" as "surrendering to evil"? I thought.

Then tonight, as we were reading through tomorrow's Gospel from Maddy's First Communion bible (it's an attractive production called the "International Children's Bible" and uses the "New Century Version" translation which is very simple for her to read), I saw this translation of Matthew 5:38-39

"You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." But I tell you, don't stand up against an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, then turn and let him slap the other cheek too."

I thought to myself, that has to be a mistranslation. But in fact it is a quite literal translation of the Greek "me antistenai". Yet I can't help but think that in translating the text this way, the translators have, as the Holy Father puts it, made a "false interpretation" of Jesus' meaning, suggesting that we should simply "surrender" to evil.

In Ephesians 6:10ff, St Paul speaks at length about "with-standing" or "standing against" evil, and he uses exactly the same word that Jesus does here. He says that we need to wear the "whole armour of God" to protect ourselves from the threats of evil. He lists five "defensive" shields against evil (truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation) but only one "offensive" weapon: "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

In the light of St Paul's teaching, then, Jesus is clearly using "me antistenai" to mean "do not retaliate", and even more specifically, "do not retaliate to violence with violence", but as the Holy Father says, "confront evil with the weapons of love and truth alone."

I understand it was Ghandi who coined the term "non-violent resistence". Jesus went one step further: he indicated that not only was violent resistence out of the question for his followers, the only truly Christian resistence to violence is LOVE.

I want my daughter to grow up knowing that standing up to evil is her duty as a Christian, and that LOVE is the greatest power she can bring to bear against the forces of evil. Oddly enough, this idea is reinforced by one of her favourite book series, Harry Potter. Harry has no special magical powers to stand against the evil of Voldemort, but Dumbledore alerts him to the fact that he has the greatest and most powerful weapon of all, a weapon that was gifted to him by his parents.

Dumbledore: Harry, do you know why it is that Professor Quirrell could not bear to have you touch him?
[Harry shakes his head]
Dumbledore: It was because of your mother. She sacrificed herself for you, and that kind of act leaves a mark.
[Harry reaches up to touch his scar]
Dumbledore: No no, this kind of mark cannot be seen. It lives in your very skin.
Harry: And what is that?
Dumbledore: Love, Harry. Love.

666: Number of the Beast

Righto, I'm going pay this one. It's really neat and only needs a tweek or two to be comprehensible in Oz rather than Yankee. It comes from this little site I picked up from another registered blogger on the Catholic Converts sites.

OK, you know that 666 is the Number of the Beast, but did you know that:

660 Approximate number of the Beast
DCLXVI Roman numeral of the Beast
666.0000 Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666 Number of the Millibeast
/666 Beast Common Denominator
1010011010 Binary of the Beast
1-666+ Area code of the Beast
0666 Postcode of the Beast
1800-666-666 Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute. Over 18 only please.
$665.95 Retail price of the Beast
$732.66 Price of the Beast plus GST
$799.95 Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
$656.66 Kmart price of the Beast
Route 666 Way of the Beast (I can't Ozzi-fy this one!)
666 deg C Oven temperature for roast Beast
666mg Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
Netscape 6.66 BetaBrowser of the Beast
i66686 CPU of the Beast
666I BMW of the Beast
668 Next-door neighbour of the Beast

Melvin Konner: An interesting perspective on Dawkins, Harris and co.

Most of you by now will probably be bored with my obsession with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the rest of the Evangelical Atheistic Bunch. Bear with me.

I came across this on YouTube (see for eg. here) but a better collection of audio visuals is available at: http://beyondbelief2006.org. "Beyond Belief '06" appears to be a conference held in November last year for the discussion of Richard Dawkins et al.'s atheistic propositions. The "about us" section on their home page says:

Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

The material here is really very interesting. I spent my time listening to Mel Konner's lecture (about 54 minutes into this section of the presentation). Konner is no believer. But neither is he about to join the cohorts of Dawkins Troopers. His lecture concludes with this variation on a Golda Mayer answer by whether she believed in God: "I believe in the human species, and the human species believes in God." His presentation runs for about 35 minutes, after which we get to hear from Sam Harris in a "rebuttal" about as convincing as his efforts on the Stephen Crittenden Show.

Watch it all if you have the time. Konner is an atheist, but a calm and rational atheist. We Christians can learn from such calm and rational scepticism.

Pope Dodges Thorny Questions about Women's Ministry in the New Testament

Not that I blame him, of course. There is, after all, a time and a place for everything, and last Wednesday's weekly audience was perhaps not the place for this discussion.

After mentioning the daughters of Philip, who "prophecied"--an act which he defines as "the faculty to speak publicly under the action of the Holy Spirit"--he goes on to elablorate:

We owe to St. Paul a more ample documentation on woman's dignity and ecclesial role. He begins with the fundamental principle, according to which, for the baptized "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), that is, all united in the same nature, though each one with specific functions (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27-30).

The Apostle admits as something normal that woman can "prophesy" in the Christian community (1 Corinthians 11:5), that is, pronounce herself openly under the influence of the Holy Spirit, on the condition that it is for the edification of the community and in a dignified manner. Therefore, the famous exhortation "the women should keep silence in the churches" must be relativized (1 Corinthians 14:34).

The much-discussed problem on the relationship between the first phrase -- women can prophesy in church -- and the other -- they cannot speak -- that is, the relationship between these two indications which are seemingly contradictory, we leave for the exegetes. It is not something that must be discussed here.

He skirts around another tricky passages too, that of Phoebe the "deacon" or "minister":

In other passages, the Apostle mentions a certain Phoebe whom he calls "diakonos" of the church of Cenchreae, the small port city east of Corinth (cf. Romans 16:1-2). Although at that time the title still did not have a specific ministerial value of a hierarchical character, it expresses a genuine exercise of responsibility on the part of this woman in favor of that Christian community.

There will be many who will read the transcript of this audience and eagerly desire that the Holy Father will find a "time and a place" for the discussion of these points somewhere in the future. My Lutheran friends, who have been wrestling with just these biblical passages in the last couple of decades, would be very interested, because it is upon the interpretation of such scriptural passages that they will make their decision about the ordination of women.

For the Catholic Church, the refusal to ordain women has always and continues to be the example of Jesus in choosing only men to constitute "The Twelve". Thus it is membership in the twelve and not the title "apostle" which the Church counts as foundational as the pattern for the priesthood. Twice in the same paragraph, the Pope emphatically underlines the Church's "obvious" position on this:

Of course, as we know, Jesus chose 12 men among his disciples as fathers of the new Israel "to be with him, and to be sent out to preach" (Mark 3:14-15). This fact is obvious but, in addition to the Twelve, pillars of the Church, fathers of the new People of God, many women were also chosen and numbered among the disciples.

Women to whom the Church may have given the title "apostle", such as Mary Magdalene "the apostle to the apostles" (a title the pope discusses) and the "apostle" Junia (Rom 16:7, whom he doesn't discuss), do not stand as patterns for the priesthood, but for a special role of Christian witness.

Nevertheless, this Audience highlights the many, many Christian women upon whom the development of the infant Church to a great extent depended.

Most notable is his brief discussion of the Virgin Mary:

who with her faith and maternal endeavor collaborated in a unique way in our redemption

. That looks to me like an endorsement of the title "Co-Redemptrix". How do you read it?

Wanted: Someone to Thank

Ad in Saturday's edition of The Age:

Atheist seeks "Someone to thank". Deities need not apply. Angels will be considered on merit.

You think I'm joking, don't you? Well, this is what German paraglider Ewa Wisnierska said after (unintentionally) breaking the human altitude record on Wednesday:

"I don't know who to thank. I thanked the angels, but I don't believe in God."

Ms Wisnierska and her paraglider was sucked up into a storm cell, carried to an altitude of 9946 metres, frozen over with ice and lost consciousness, before being returned to earth safely and in one piece 60km from where she took off from Mount Borah north of Tamworth. Yes, well might she want someone to thank.

God knows (if you believe in him) what Richard Dawkins would make of this need to thank someone, but there is in this small instance an indication of exactly what it is that leads people to faith in divine power(s). It is an almost universal "inbuilt" need in human nature, and could indicate that human beings are indeed "wired for faith". Whether this inbuilt "need" corresponds to external reality is a subject for the "existence of God" debate. The Romans knew the need to thank someone for unexpected good providence--they coined the name "Fortuna" for the Goddess of Fortune. But they also knew that Fortuna could be a capricious god, with her "favourites". A Chinese paraglider caught in the same storm as Ms Wisnierska was found dead on Thursday. Of course, Dawkins would blame it on the "religion meme".

Still, there is something a little sad about Ewa Wisnierska's plight of being such a convinced atheist that in her time of thankfulness she could only turn to the heavenly "help" rather than to the Heavenly Master to express her thanks. And you have to wonder about a spirituality that claims atheism yet is happy to admit the existence of angelic powers.

As Obelix the Gaul would have said in the times of the Romans: "These Germans are crazy

The Unexamined Opinion Is Not Worth Holding

It was, of course, Socrates who (according to his student Plato at least) said that "The unexamined life is not worth living." From what we know of him, he might well have also said: "The unexamined opinion is not worth holding."

Socrates had the annoying habit of asking questions of people, especially challenging them to question their unexamined opinions. It did not make him popular. In fact, he was sentenced to death for it.

I haven't been sentenced to death yet, but I have, often, been sentenced to silence when in polite company. When I hear an opinion expressed that shows signs of not having been sufficiently thought through, I cannot resist embarking upon an examination of the opinion. I pose questions, inviting the opinion holder to elaborate and defend their opinion. Partly this is for my own sake, trying to understand what their meaning is, but also, I must confess, I embark upon this interrogation out of compassion and concern for the one who has expressed the half-baked, barely thought-through opinion, in the hope that we might together proceed to a point of agreement on what the actual case may be.

I usually receive one or both of the following reactions:
1) Everyone is/I am entitled to their/my own opinion.
2) I don't have to justify myself to you.

Both these protestatations are, of course, quite correct. BUT, I would say, in answer to (1) no-one is entitled to hold an opinion for which there is no justification, and (2) you have to be able to justify your opinion to yourself and (if you have a religious conscience) God. If you are able to justify your opinions to yourself before God, then you ought also to be able to justify your opinion to anyone who asks you to give an account of it. You are entitled to your own opinion only in so far as you are able to defend it. If, upon examination, you find that your opinion cannot be justified, you ought (in good conscience) to give it up, or at least to adapt it.

Thus, if you were to say "Life only begins at 14 days after birth", I would expect you to be able to argue the point. Not because I have a right to hear your justification for this odd opinion, but because you yourself need to be able to justify it to yourself (and the aforementioned deity whom you may or may not belive in). Further, when I justify my opinion "that life begins at conception", I am duty bound to be able to justify this assertion. In making that justification, I am not trying to "force my opinions onto you", rather, I am attempting to show that the opinion is rational and has merit.

If you disagree with me, then I would expect you to do me the honour of pointing out where I have gone wrong in my opinion. Conversely, when I point out the possible errors in your own reasoning, I am doing you the honour of taking you and your opinions seriously enough to engage them.

I would expect that you would treat yourself with equal honour and examine all your own precious opinions in the light of the available data and the application of rational argument.

Yes, everyone is entitled to thier own opinion. But you are not entitled to an opinion which you have not even bothered to thoroughly examine or which you refuse to examine when challenged.

New entry on Year of Grace blog

A dramatic turn of events takes place in the latest installment of my conversion journal from 2000-2001. See my blog "Year of Grace".

Academics embrace the Blog

You don't have to search far in the realm of the academy to find those who "pooh pooh" blogs. But this is slowly changing, and the discussion below on the meaning of "heresy" on the First Things blog is a good case in point. The three interlocutors are all professional theologians, and the issue they are nutting out among themselves is as serious as any discussion that would normally take place over a period of months in an monthly academic journal. To be sure, the discussion has more of the feel of a faculty room debate than a dissertation, but I think what we are seeing here is that the blogging genre can be just as effective in making a sound academic point.

Professor Oakes makes a couple of observations nevertheless. First, the subject itself came up as a "blogging" issue. He carried out his (brief) research by doing

a random spot-check of some Catholic blogsites of a conservative bent–where heresy is often used as the term of choice when these bloggers are in their Colonel Blimp harumphing mood–tells me it’s time for some clarity here.

Secondly, he adapts his academic style to the new genre, saying:

let me assert my conclusion without all the attendant footnotes to establish my case (this blog entry, after all, is not my Habilitationsschrift).

I think the difficulty that academics will have in embracing the blogosphere is precisely that they cannot tell the difference between a blog and an Habilitationsschrift. Blogs still have their footnotes and references, of course, but the footnotes are the comments and the references are the hyperlinks.

And I think I have said before, in answer to the accusation that blogging does not allow "peer review" like a conventional journal, that blogs are subject to much greater "peer review"--or at least peer examination--than any journal. Again, the discussion between Oakes, Barr and Pistick bears this out.

So keep on blogging, guys.* We are the future of the academy.

(*generic term including Louise and Dixie etc.).

The Terminology of "Heresy": Catholics, Protestants and the Ecumenical Dialogue

There has been an discussion on the First Things Blog "On the Square" on the terminology of "heresy", and its usefulness or otherwise in regard to ecumenical dialogue. Well worth reading. Here are the links:

Edwards T. Oaks, SJ. "Are Protestants Heretics?"

My lucubrations for today’s webposting would like to argue just this one single point: Doctrinal clarity is lost when Catholics call Protestant heretics. To be sure, that habit of unthinkingly hurling accusations of heresy at Protestants pretty much died out after the Second Vatican Council, when talk of “separated brethren” became all the rage. But a random spot-check of some Catholic blogsites of a conservative bent–where heresy is often used as the term of choice when these bloggers are in their Colonel Blimp harumphing mood–tells me it’s time for some clarity here. Which prompts the following reflections

Stephen Barr, "Response to Oakes on Protestants and Heresy"

While I agree with the general sentiment of Fr. Edward Oakes’ observations yesterday concerning the invidious or vituperative use of the word heresy, I feel that he is turning into a matter of sentiment what should be a matter of precise definition. If the word heresy is thought of merely as an insult or a taunt, then I agree that it is improper for Catholics to use it of Protestants, or Protestants to use it of Catholics. We should not be attempting to wound one another. Much better to call each other brothers.

The word heresy in Catholic teaching, however, has a very precise technical meaning today. It is not, as Oakes would have it, “explicitly [to] deny key doctrines of the faith.” The word key is not part of the definition of heresy given in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which reads: “Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith.”

Alyssa Lyra Pitstick "A Heretic Is as a Heretic Does"

Fr. Edward Oakes has been thinking about what constitutes a heretic. Let us take the next step with him in upping the ante of precision for the use of the word.

He is right that “unthinkingly hurling accusations” is counterproductive. But if heresy concerns dogmas with “objective truth value of their own,” such that they even “become church-dividing,” then to identify heresies thinkingly and clearly is essential to ecumenical efforts, because doing so points out precisely what still divides us. Indeed, it highlights what is most church-dividing, for the heretics (from whichever perspective) were willing to part company with their brethren rather than compromise their principle of choice. We can’t work on those points unless we know what they are.

Edward T. Oakes, S.J. "On Heresy: A Final Word (Until the March Issue of First Things)"

...Fortunately, I am quite sure that there is no substantial difference between me and Stephen Barr, although I think he misunderstood the import of my use of the word feeling to describe my dilemma. At all events, it was not remotely my intention to raise my feelings (which are a buzzing, cacophonous chamber of confusion in the best of circumstances) as the standard for determining what does and does not constitute heresy. Quite the opposite. For part of my request asking readers to submit a better term was driven by my need for a more exact standard by which to judge different species of heresy.

...Although I find much to agree with in Dr. Pitstick’s distinction between material and formal heresy, I am surprised that she would say “Formal heresy also does not require that the heretic abjure his church membership, as Oakes claimed. Indeed, it would be surprising if a heretic did so abjure, since he has convinced himself that his doctrine is the correct one.” For it was the gravamen of my posting that the more radical heresies inside the Catholic Church made me recognize greater orthodoxy among some Protestants than I do with some Catholic theologians. Surely Haight’s heresies are more radical than anything one would ever encounter among the evangelicals of Evangelicals and Catholics Together.

I do, however, happily accept her rebuke for my poor formulation of what the Reformers took with them. I think I did rather give the impression that, under my reading, the Reformers were raiding the larder of Catholic doctrine and that the purpose of ecumenical discussion is to get it back. While rejecting her charge that I subscribe to a Protestant ecclesiology, I basically agree with her when she says “From the official Catholic perspective, then, the Catholic Church conserves the whole truth, while the ’separated brethren’ share in many elements of it.” In that sentence, I think I can detect agreement between the two of us: Reformation heresies are not of the irreconcilable kind like docetism, otherwise ecumenical dialogue would be rendered pointless from the outset.

Crickey.com on the Catch the Fire Supreme Court Judgement

I wanted to blog on this last December when the issue was current, but didn't have access to this article in crikey.com. Now I have it. It is a brief news report by Peter Faris QC on the decision to send the case back to VCAT for re-judgment, but it included these comments:

One of the remarkable features of the judgement is the personal and religious criticisms made of Pastor Scot by the presiding judge, Nettle JA. In the context of a case involving religious vilification, the comments were alarming.

The complaint against Pastor Scot arose from a presentation he made at a church seminar which was tape-recorded by agents of the Islamic Council.

Nettle JA listened to the tape. He said the following of Pastor Scot:

“I dare say, for example, that there would be a large number of people who would despise Pastor Scot’s perception of Christianity and yet not dream of hating him or be inclined to any of the other stipulated emotions” [33]

“I have listened to the tape recording of [Scot’s] Seminar, although I confess that I lacked the endurance to do it more than once” [63]

“I dare say too that there may well be people who, although not Muslims, would think it a far better thing if people like Pastor Scot kept his ideas about the Koran and Islam, and for that matter Judaism and Christianity, to himself and left others to do likewise. It is at least arguable that the world would be a happier place if he were bound to do so. But that is not the law.” [80]

These are “interesting” comments about a Christian Pastor and his right to practice his religion.

Nettle JA also makes this interesting finding, this time about the law: “it is conceivable that a statement made about religious beliefs in the course of a talkback radio broadcast could run foul of s.8 of the Act while the same thing said as part of intellectual discourse within a seminary or faculty of theology would not have that effect.” [17]

The consequences of the decision to the media in Victoria could be significant.

Bishop Richard John Neuhaus? Read carefully...

You have to read carefully sometimes. I just about fell off my chair reading the First Things blog this morning when I came across this throw-away line by Richard John Neuhaus "Now that I am to be a bishop, I will have to be more judicious in what I say." My reaction: "What the?! When did that get anounced? How could I have missed that?"

I missed it by skipping the opening paragraph of the blog, which read:

Some Muslims in America are unhappy with us. And apparently they know something I don’t. This from The American Muslim:

“The most extreme and most sophisticated example of patronizing intolerance in contemporary America, because it most starkly illustrates the reversal of truth and falsehood, was Michael Novak’s seminal article in the April 2003 issue of America’s leading journal on religion in public life, First Things. Its founder, Bishop Richard John Neuhaus, a convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism, changed the environment in Washington by his enormously influential book, The Naked Public Square. This journal and its elite pundits are today the world’s most influential force in shaping policy toward the role of religion, including Islam.”

Neuhaus wryly comments:

I’m waiting to hear from the Vatican on my elevation to the episcopate.

Ah well, no Bishop RJN then. For a moment there, I had a small hope he might have been coming down under to help out with our local shortage.

Jewish stories

I am about to start teaching a course at Anima Education on Monday night on Jewish stories. Actually, its a course on the Bible called "A Walk through the Scriptures", but it reminded me of something that a Jewish friend of mine said recently about his rabbi.

When asked if his stories were true, the rabbi said, "I only tell three types of stories: true stories, really true stories, and really, REALLY true stories."

My sort of guy.

The Garuti quote I was looking for...

In my last post, about Orthodoxy and Communio, I referred to a quote from Garuti's "The primacy of the Bishop of Rome". I've found it now, and it wasn't Garuti himself, he was quoting the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Committee in its "Commentary on the Munich Document" (1983). It is in a footnote to the comment that in Orthodoxy "the episkope for the universal church is seen to be entrusted by the Spirit to the totality of local bishops in communion with one another." The footnote then reads:

The way in which the document focuses on the 'local church' through eucharistic ecclesiology does not readily correspond to the actual situation of bishops and their churches today. Although this model offers some useful insights, the character, numerical size, and geographical extent of most local churches makes application problematic.

Make of that what you will, I guess.

Another take on Richard Dawkins

Not quite in the same vein as the interview send up of Richard Dawkins that Louise gave us, here is another You-tube presentation entitled "The Santa Delusion: Richard Dawkins for Little Children." Warning: Do not let your little ones see this.

Orthodox readers: Please Explain!

In a comment on her blog, Dixie has included the following quotation from Fr Stephen Freeman:

The Orthodox Church has perhaps the weakest ecclesiology of all, because it depends, moment by moment, on the love and forgiveness of each by all and of all by each. Either the Bishops of the Church love and forgive each other or the whole thing falls apart. “Brethren, let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” These are the words that introduce the Creed each Sunday, and they are the words that are the bedrock of our ecclesiology...

That puts Orthodox ecclesiology quite nicely I think. And of course is not always a bad thing to be "weak", as St Paul said that "God's power is made perfect in weakness."

Nevertheless this sort of ecclesiology sounds fine in theory, but does it actually work in practice? A footnote in a "The Primacy Of The Bishop Of Rome And The Ecumenical Dialogue" by Father Andriano Guruti (I don't have the actual reference in front of me here and now) calls into question this "sweetness and light" version of Orthodox ecclesiology.

So does the following story from Catholic World News:

Split deepens among Orthodox in Ukraine

Kiev, Feb. 12, 2007 (CWNews.com) - An Orthodox group in Ukraine loyal to the Moscow patriarchate has asked the country’s government to make Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople a persona non grata in their country, and extend the same designation to Orthodox prelates affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The request made by the Union of Orthodox Citizens of Ukraine (UCCA) is the latest move in a fierce contest for leadership of the Orthodox believers in the country. The group accused the Ecumenical Patriarchate of “stirring up interdenominational hostility” in their country by recognizing the growing Kiev Patriarchate-- an Orthodox group that split from Moscow after Ukraine achieved independence.

The UCCA request came at a time when Petro Yushchenko, brother of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, is visiting Constantinople to meet with Patriarch Bartholomew. The Yushchenko government has sought to ease tensions among Orthodox leaders, without accepting the claim of the Moscow patriarchate to exercise sole jurisdiction over the Orthodox churches of Ukraine.

Perhaps one of our orthodox readers would be kind enough to explain how a communion "of love and forgiveness of each by all and of all by each" is demonstrated in such a situation?

The Dawkins Delusion, by Dr Terry Tommyrot

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Louise, for the best laugh I have had in ages.

Everyone else, get yourself over to this blog on Purcell's Chicken Voluntary and watch Dr Terry Tommyrot being interviewed on his latest book "The Dawkins Delusion". His basic arguement? That Richard Dawkins doesn't exist.

(or you can find it here on Youtube).

Sorry, I'll read that again...

My apologies to any of you who are trying to follow the link to my new posts on my blog "Year of Grace". I gave the wrong link! Check it out now.

Elizabeth Harrington on the Timing of the Communion Hymn

I have posted on my other blog "Sing Lustily and with Good Courage" on Elizabeth Harrington's latest column In Liturgy Lines. Take a look!

I'm sure he didn't mean that: Past President of LCA-Vic David Stolz

I'm sure he didn't mean it as it sounds, but this comment by the Rev. Dr David Stolz (recently retired long serving President/bishop of the Victorian District of the Lutheran Church of Australia) from a "scoop" interview in the February edition of The Lutheran) is really quite scandalous taken at face value:

Lutheran congregations with an empahsis on holy living are disloyal to Luther's teaching, which holds law and gospel in creative tension.

Yes, Dr Stolz, Lutheranism does (or at least, Lutheran theologians do) hold law and gospel in creative tension, but not sin and holy living! Even in the Lutheran rite of confession and absolution, the penitent is asked "Do you intend, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to lead a holy life, even as Christ has made you holy?" In that sense, ALL LCA parishes should be emphasising "holy living".

What Dr Stolz is attacking is what he calls "Baptocostalism" (what a wonderful word!), by which he means "the emphasis on holy living and personal piety that is a primary feature of the teaching and practice of the Reformed churches." He is refering to terms like "purpose-driven life" or "living your life for God" or "wanting to follow Jesus."

One knows what he means. Or does one? At least the last two of these three terms are core Christian ideals. One wonders what the good Doctor would make of Pope John Paul II's insistence that "we are all called to be saints"? Of course, we are aware that Lutheranism has the doctrine of "simul justus et peccator", but this doctrine is supposed to be comfort to sinners in distress, not to make complacent sinners comfortable!!!

In any case, the seriousness with which the Catholic Church takes holy living is one of the great differences I have noticed about life as a Catholic compared to life as a Lutheran.

Footnote: The same edition of the Lutheran has no less than five letters against evolution, several of them exhibiting what can only be a "young earth" theology. Issue was apparently taken with an article by Pastor John Pfitzner about global warming, in which he stated that "Whole ecosystems will be undermined [by global warming] with unknown impacts on food chains. In the past, plants and animals have had millions of years to adapt to changing climatic conditions."

The issue is with the word "millions". One letter states: "This comment seems to border on evolutionary thinking. Where does Pastor Pfitzner stand with death coming into the world only after the fall of Adam and Eve?" Another: "Flora and fauna have not had millions of years to adapt in the past, as Pastor Pfitzner asserts. The earth's not that old." And another: "Evolution is not an option for Christians!" And we thought Catholics were having difficulty coming to grips with science!

New posts on "Year of Grace"

I have added three new posts on my "Year of Grace" blog--the blogsite where I am in the process of publishing the journal I kept between Easter 2000 and Easter 2001 as I made my way from being a Lutheran pastor to a Catholic layman. The three new posts include the birth of our second daughter, Mia, the beginning of Cathy's dissolution process, and the Sermon I preached on Reformation Day, 2000.

At this point in my conversion journal things were reaching a bit of a head, as you will see by reading the sermon. From November 2000 to January 2001 I made very few entries into my journal (probably because I was focused on helping Cathy with our newborn Mia), but the die was cast in this period. Keep checking it in the weeks to come for the next exciting episodes!

Rocket Science 101: Healthy Habits for Attracting Vocations

As our good friend, Shannon O'Donahoo enters the Seminary this week with about half a dozen other fine young men, there is this timely piece reported on Zenit: Six Effective Habits of Vocational Recruiting. The six habits are:

1. putting the Eucharist at the center of vocational work.
2. personally inviting young men to become priests (most effective when it comes from priests)
3. Seminaries being faithful to the magisterium
4. Families (especially fathers) being faithful
5. Priests interacting with possible candidates
6. possible candidates attending World Youth Day

I don't know if one can actually make a habit of attending World Youth Days (since they only occurr every three years and are not always accessible possible candidates), but all the rest are pretty well common sense I would say.

After all, it isn't rocket science.

When a Faulty Conclusion Leads to a Final Solution

In a Zenit piece this week, Father John Flynn reports:

Euthanasia is not only on the table for the elderly. There is increasing pressure for it to be practiced on newborns who suffer from illnesses or are disabled. The United Kingdom's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecology proposed that "active euthanasia" should be considered for sick babies, the Sunday Times reported Nov. 5. The proposal came in a submission made by the college to an inquiry being held by the Nuffield Council of Bioethics on the issue of prolonging life in newborn babies.

Its submission received support from John Harris, a member of the government's Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University, the Sunday Times reported. "We can terminate for serious fetal abnormality up to term, but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it OK to kill the fetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?" he asked.

This parallels the discussion on ABC radio National's Philosopher's Zone.

There we find the discussion about the definition and purpose of philosophy. The panel decides that there are in fact two distinct goals of philosophy which lead in opposite directions. David Braddon-Mitchell (Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney) said:

So if philosophy is an activity, it could be an activity with two goals: one could be improvement; the other could be in some sort of vaguely objective quasi-scientific sense, truth. And those goals aren't the same goal, so it might be two very different activities, both of which are legitimately called philosophy. And I actually think sometimes philosophy goes wrong when people confuse those goals. They believe they're the same goal, and so they have constraints on their truth-directed activity, by 'It'd better be good for me to discover this truth', and they have constraints on their it being good for them activities, which is they'd better be constrained by what's objectively true.

Braddon-Mitchel then proposes Michael Tooley as an example of one who sees philosophy as a search for "truth" and then proposes answers to the question of how to live on the basis of that "truth":

Michael Tooley, in a paper about abortion and infanticide, which defended the view that infanticide is perfectly OK provided the kids are young enough not to have their own conception of their plans and so on in the world. That paper's got terrifically good arguments in it, and there's an enormous literature complaining about it and issuing kind of denunciations of it, but very few really good considered responses to the argument.

Well, yes, "terrifically good arguments", based on premises that are totally faulty. In an (totally oversimplified) nutshell, the argument goes that since it is okay to kill unborn babies right up until the time they are born, it makes no sense to say that is not okay to kill them afterwards. And that is a perfectly watertight argument as long as the premise -- that it is okay to kill unborn babies -- is true.

The fact is that we, as Christian philosophers, do not grant what the panel on the Philosopher's Zone proposed, namely that there are two goals to philosophy. It is our firm conviction that there is no contradiction between objective, absolute Truth and what is good for me/society/humankind. They are one and the same thing. If, by asking the question of "what is true?", we come to a conclusion which is completely unpalatable (and not merely inconvenient for my own personal preferences, desires or "freedom") -- what a friend of mine would call the "Uugh Factor" -- then we ought to be re-examining our premises and argumentation. And so the conclusion that it is morally licit to kill newborn babies should make us re-examine the argumentation upon which we have reached this conclusion -- even if it comes up with the inconvenient truth that it was wrong in the first place to affirm the morality of abortion.

At least we can thank people like John Harris and Michael Tooley for one thing, and that's pointing out how ridiculous it is that our legal system makes a distinction between human persons on the basis of which side of the birth canal they're on. There at least they have shown a ray of true reason and logic.

Clearing the Deck on Euthanasia

It seems that here and in Italy and just about everywhere the euthanasia "debate" is up and running once again. Here in Australia, Greens Senator Bob Brown has just introduced a bill for euthanasia into the Senate. And in Italy cardinals and politicians are still spatting over the Welby case. It is precisely on issues like this that we need very clear "natural law" argumentation (see my previous blog).

The Australian debate has been amply assisted in the right direction by none other than that infamous rag "The Age" in excellent articles by Juliette Hughes and Odette Spruyt.

In Italy the problem has been exacerbated by Cardinal Martini putting his oar in where it's neither wanted nor helpful. Cardinal Ruini made the only decision he could in the truly difficult case of Piergiorgio Welby. Welby was on life support. Without this life support he would (and did) die. Too many people (including Cardinal Martini) are confusing the Welby case with the situation where a patient opts to refuse over burdensome extraordinary mechanical treatment, where the treatment is disproportionate to the outcome that can be reasonably expected.

The fact is (as Cardinal Ruini has quite simply and accurately identified) Welby's desire and intention was not merely to end burdensome treatment, but actually to end his life. Cardinal Ruini refused the request of Welby's family for a church funeral because "Mr. Welby repeatedly and publicly affirmed his desire to end his life, something that is incompatible with Catholic doctrine".

This emphasis upon intention is well maintained in an essay just published by Fr Michael Whelan of the Aquinas Academy entitled "Euthanasia: Some Questions and Issues Arising." In this essay--which is a fine example of arguing completely from the basis of reason and natural law without any reference whatsoever to revealed law--Whelan maintains that:

to withhold extraordinary mechanical means, without which someone will die–for example, when a person is in a vegetative state with no realistic hope of that changing--it may be morally acceptable to turn off the machines that are keeping that person alive; that is not euthanasia;

He appears to be agreeing with Martini at this point, but then he makes a distinction which Martini fails to make, the very distinction upon which Ruini based his decision:

the critical question to ask is, “What is intended?” If you intend to kill the individual that is an essentially different moral act to one in which the intention is not to kill the individual but to ease the individual’s distress or avoid unnecessary and/or undignified processes to eke out a few more months of life. (Needless to say, the intention to kill should not be masked by protestations that what you are doing is simply to ease the person’s distress or carrying out “what Grandma would want”. If you intend to kill you intend to kill, no matter how you disguise it.)

This short paper is worth reading in depth, and would be a good basis for the study of the issue in parishes. Note however that Fr Whelan's paper can in no sense be called a "Bible study" for the reason I have a ready stated: it doesn't refer to a single Bible verse. Nevertheless I believe the conclusion it comes to is one which is entirely Godly, entirely virtuous, and entirely Christian. It is the type of clear thinking that Christians have to learn to display in public discourse if we are to head Bob Brown's euthanasia bill off at the pass.

Natural Law, Protestants and the Infidel

I picked up a second hand copy of Helmut Thielicke's 2 volume "Ethics" in St Peter's Bookroom (East Melbourne) yesterday. And put it down again. (If you would like to purchase it, it's still sitting there for $20--a bargain). What interested me is his discussion of "orders of creation" and "natural law". This was done in the context of the "argument with the Roman Catholics".

I well remember sitting through Pastor Noel Wiess' classes on Ethics at Luther Seminary and listening to him dismiss almost the totality of Catholic ethics on the basis that "it was natural law". He instead preferred the "Faith active in Love" model. Of course, that eventually translates as "doing what I think is right on the basis of my warm fuzzy feelings for others".

An article entitled "Protestants and Natural Law" in First Things by J. Daryl Charles does an excellent job of showing the recent origins of the antipathy to natural law in Protestant theology, stemming from Barth (but obviously also from folk like Thielicke).

In his World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict bases his entire ethic upon a "grammar of peace" derived from reason and natural law. A point which both Benedict and Charles make is that only the natural law makes it possible for Christians to dialogue on ethical issues with secularists and adherants to other religions. The ethics of radical discipleship to which Barth (and Bonhoeffer) called the churches is essential for Christians to hear--and as Pope John Paul II said in Centesimus Annus, "There is no solution to the social question apart from the Gospel"--but unless we wish to wait for the conversion of the entire world before we make any headway on matters like weapons disarmament or ending abortion or feeding the hungry we need a platform from which to discuss the essential dignity and rights of the human being.

Natural Law gives us that starting place. As Christians, we recognise that it has its source in God just as much as the revealed law, but it is not necessary to affirm this to affirm the basic validity of natural law. Human reason alone (an attribute which is common to a majority of human beings--even though it often doesn't seem that way) is sufficient to establish the basic dictates of the natural law. As Luther wrote in "Against the Sabbatarians" (not in "How Christians Should Regard Moses" as Charles indicates):

If the Ten Commandments are to be regarded as Moses' law, then Moses came far too late, and he also addressed himself to far too few people, because the Ten Commandments had spread over the whole world not only before Moses but even before Abraham and all the patriarchs. For even if a Moses had never appeared and Abraham had never been born, the Ten Commandments would have had to rule in all men from the very beginning, as they indeed did and still do.

Of course, there are plenty of secular philosophers who have wished to deny the existence of a "natural law" (Kant, Hume, Hobbes, Rousseau), but if anything, the process of interreligious dialogue has proved them wrong on this. There are some things that all human beings who care to put their minds to it can agree upon. (The unfortunate thing is that so few are ever ready to do so.) It is for this reason that I have argued elsewhere that the world's religions can co-exist peacefully without giving up their claims to absolute Truth or their right to seek converts (the Catholic Church certainly doesn't) as long as they are agreed on this absolute truth of natural law: the dignity of every human being is sacrosanct and to be respected and protected above all other rights and responsibilities.

We must also learn from this in our political debate. So often we are regarded as "pushing our religious views" when all we are doing is arguing on the basis of natural law. In this, we need to improve our argumentation so that we make it clear that when we defend human life, or institutions upon which the well-being of human life depends, we are arguing upon the basis of natural law, derived not from revelation but from reason (even though we are motivated by Christ's love to do so).

Unfortunately, most of the secular world today has lost the sense that Luther had, ie. that the 10 Commandments were not something novel exposed upon humanity by a capricious God from outside, but are already written upon the hearts of every human being. As Pope Benedict says, the natural law is as internal to human ethical behaviour as grammar is to language: it is "the grammar of peace".