Faith admits doubt, says himself. And then President Barack Obama suggested that this doubt should compel Catholics to continue the debate over abortion.
Poor man. He's being guided by a couple of Jewish lads from Chicago so how would anyone expect him to be informed about the Catholic faith.
There is no debate over abortion for Catholics. It's pay, pray and obey, and they've been given their orders.
All that talk of appealing to universal rather than parochial principles? Only Catholic principles apply. It's not a matter of debate at all.
Persuade through reason, suggests the President, and clearly he was preaching to the wrong choir. The University of Notre Dame is run by priests from the Congregation of the Holy Cross. If he was looking for an audience that was skilled at persuading through reason, he should have tried the Jesuits.
They're all about being of service to others, a point on which the President has spoken favorably. Also, they're the religious order for debate, for splitting hairs like the most skilled lawyer and using reason to persuade.
Except, of course, they answer to the Pope himself, and the morality of abortion isn't a matter of debate. The Catholic Church is not a republic and it's certainly not a democracy. So if the leader of the free world suggests that everyone should temper their passions and be humbled by doubt, he won't find a receptive audience among the Roman-collared crowd.
No matter how glib a tongue God might have put in his head.
7 comments:
A point well made indeed.
What I resent most is being told how to be a Catholic. God knows I am not the most obedient of the Church's darling daughters; I am quite free with some of my interpretations and I harbor a great deal of European sense of humor about the Church; but, what kind of Catholic I am it's between the Church and me, between God and me, I may have my disagreements and some things I simply ignore, but nothing brings the Roman dragon out of me and makes me breathe Roman fire more than being told how to be a Catholic. I don't debate Catholicism. So, Mr. O is out of luck in that department. (Not the first time in my case...) Along with a zillion other people, he is incredibly ignorant about the Church; tone deaf I would say. But, as he keeps drinking his own bath water, he takes it upon himself to tell over 800,000,000 Catholics to debate and 'open their minds.' Nobody told him that even the Jesuits (whose university I attended and I do know them well :) )will not debate the most fundamental points of the magisterium. Dogma, may be, as a theological debate that has nothing to do with anyone else outside the church.
Nothing disgusts me more than ignorance and the arrogance that comes from that ignorance.
Did I just sound irritated? Oh, yes. :)
The neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago, Hyde Park, is bulging with those who think they know it all because they were educated at prestigious institutions.
Knowing that you don't know everything is the true mark of a well-rounded education.
It's also a sign of humility, something else that's lacking in a man who tells us to be humbled by doubt. Apparently he has no doubt.
Well said. It's nice to have no doubt.
I see that you deleted a comment. Oh, dear... I can only imagine. :)
I need to do something about my sense of self-worth and doubts. It just occured to me that (in spite of my bad spelling and grammar) I was educated at equally prestigious universities. True, it was not in law and other such squirmy degrees.
Ergo (see, I am educated) I shall henceforth have no more doubts.
Ooooh, that was bracing. Right up there, I'm sure, with sniffing powdery substances.
*feel free to delete this. My sarcasm sounds almost naked.***
Nothing so underhanded as all that. I posted and then caught a grammatical error so I started again.
No prestigious institutions for me -- just a lot of Catholic ones. I'm a product of the Jesuits and they're the ones to blame.
Oh... just grammatical error.
Actually, I got my masters at a Jesuit University--Loyola. So, I blame the Jesuits also. :)
...and Jesuit universities are prestigious! :) First step towards attaining the upper state is to call everything either prestigious, or transformational or, ahem, humbling without really being humbled.
Oh, heck. It's late at night. No idea waht I'm talking aobut.
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