Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Mary Ann Glendon on Vatican-U.S. relations

Inside the Vatican interviews Mary Ann Glendon, the former United States Ambassador to the Holy See, who resigned her post this past week to allow President Obama to select a new ambassodor:

Can you also elaborate now about what you see as the common points between the Vatican and your country? 

Ambassador Glendon: For the past several years, there has been a strong correspondence between the views of the U.S. government and the Holy See on the importance of strengthening the global moral consensus against terror (especially against the use of religion as a justification for violence); promoting human rights (especially religious freedom); fostering inter-religious dialogue; and working for peace in the Middle East and other troubled areas of the world. And of course President Bush and Pope Benedict XVI shared a common outlook on a wide range of social and cultural issues.
      

There is another area of common concern, however, where it seems to me that neither the U.S. nor the Holy See receives the recognition they deserve. I’m referring to their commitment to the relief of poverty, hunger, and disease.  On those fronts, a natural partnership has grown up between the United States, as the world’s largest and most generous donor of humanitarian aid, and the Holy See, which oversees the world’s largest network of health care, educational, and relief agencies.          

 

That community of interest intensified over the past eight years thanks to President Bush’s energetic embrace of one of the most important political ideas of the late 20th century, namely, that social services can often be delivered more efficiently, effectively and humanely through the mediating structures of civil society, than by government acting directly.  President Bush has said he considers his initiatives with faith-based institutions as one of the “crowning achievements’ of his presidency, a presidency that saw the U.S. government double its aid to Latin America, quadruple it to Africa, and triple it worldwide. Through creative partnerships between government and faith-based organizations, America has provided the world with successful models for getting official aid to its intended beneficiaries with low transaction costs and high accountability. 
             

These initiatives, permitting participating religious groups to maintain their principles and identity, are very much in the spirit of Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est ("God Is Love") where he wrote that  “The state that would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing the suffering person—every person—needs:  namely love and personal concern." The notion that charity is merely a social service, he pointed out, “demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human” (DCE, 28b).  

Read the entire interview.

Vatican: Williamson's comments are unacceptable, anti-Semitic

From the Associated Press:

The Vatican said Monday that comments by a recently rehabilitated bishop that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust were unacceptable and violate Church teaching.

In a front-page article, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reaffirmed that Pope Benedict XVI deplored all forms of anti-Semitism and that all Roman Catholics must do the same.

The article was issued amid an outcry from Jewish groups that Benedict last week lifted the excommunication of a traditionalist bishop, Richard Williamson, who has denied that 6 million Jews were murdered during World War II.

The Vatican has stressed that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson's views.

Williamson and three other bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago after they were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent — a move the Vatican said at the time was an act of schism.

Read the entire piece.

Tom McFeely of National Catholic Register writes:

Bishop Williamson, who is English, said he didn’t believe any Jews were gassed to death in Nazi Germany’s Second World War death camps. And the SSPX bishop suggested the aggregate death toll of Jews murdered by the Nazis was only a small fraction of the total of six million Jews who died, according to Holocaust historians.

But the Vatican wasn’t even aware of Bishop Williamson’s Holocaust-questioning comments on Jan. 21, the day Pope Benedict XVI signed the Vatican decree lifting the excommunications.

Furthermore, the Vatican subsequently stressed that the lifting of the SSPX excommunications had no connection to Bishop Williamson’s controversial statement.

On Jan. 24, the day the decree was publicly announced through a statement released by the Congregation for Bishops, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said, “Saying a person is not excommunicated is not the same as saying one shares all his ideas or statements.”

One hopes that this should be an obvious point. But, obviously, it's not obvious. McFeely also writes, "One final point: It should be remembered that the lifting of the excommunications was required because of a single ceremony of consecration, undertaken in 1988 without the permission of Pope John Paul II by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the SSPX."

Amy Welborn has an excellent post about this mess, in which she reflects on the Vatican's need to get up to speed when it comes to anticipating and handling media fall-out.

Pelosi: Downturn in economy means we need more contraceptives!

Somehow or another the production (ahem) of contraceptives will stimulate (ummmm) the economy. Really. So says the Speaker of the House—and "without apology"! You can't spoof this stuff. (Ht: Mark Shea).

Cue Chesterton:

Perhaps the nearest to a description of it is to say this: that my contempt boils over into bad behaviour when I hear the common suggestion that a birth is avoided because people want to be "free" to go to the cinema or buy a gramophone or a loud-speaker. What makes me want to walk over such people like doormats is that they use the word "free." By every act of that sort they chain themselves to the most servile and mechanical system yet tolerated by men. The cinema is a machine for unrolling certain regular patterns called pictures; expressing the most vulgar millionaires' notion of the taste of the most vulgar millions. The gramophone is a machine for recording such tunes as certain shops and other organisations choose to sell. The wireless is better; but even that is marked by the modern mark of all three; the impotence of the receptive party. The amateur cannot challenge the actor; the householder will find it vain to go and shout into the gramophone; the mob cannot pelt the modern speaker, especially when he is a loud-speaker. It is all a central mechanism giving out to men exactly what their masters think they should have.

Read G.K.'s essay about why he despised "birth control."

A note from Roy Schoeman...

... about some upcoming talks and appearances by the author of Salvation Is From the Jews:

I hope and pray that you had a very Blessed Christmas season, and have a New Year that brings you deeper into the Sacred Heart of our beloved Lord!  I also wanted to let you know of a couple of upcoming engagements…
 
On Tuesday, February 3rd at 2PM  I will be giving a talk at the Montrose School in Medfield, Mass.  If you are interested in attending, contact me for more information.
 
On the evening of February 9 I will be speaking to the inmates at Norfolk prison.  I hope to see none of you there!  But your prayers are very, very welcome.
 
I will be giving some talks along with Marino Restrepo (who has a very interesting conversion story and a very exciting ministry – see www.marinorestrepo.com ) in the Eastern Massachusetts/Rhode Island area around March 18-21.  As venues become fixed I’ll put them up on my site.  Immediately following I will be speaking at a week-long retreat in Rougemont, Quebec.
 
For those of you in the U.K., I will be leading a retreat at the Pantasaph Retreat House in Wales, U.K. (quite close to Manchester and Liverpool) over the Easter Triduum this year, Thursday April 9 to Easter Sunday, April 12.  I expect it to be quite exciting, trying to enter deeply into those days of the Passion and the central event of our Salvation with a perspective rooted in the Judaism of the time.  For more information, contact me or the retreat house at [email protected].
 
April 25 and 26th I will be speaking at Holy Spirit Parish in Hamburg, Michigan (not far from Detroit).
 
May 20-26th I will be speaking in and around Quito, Ecuador.   Then May 28-June 1 will be on a speaking tour in the San Francisco/Northern California area organized by my publisher, Ignatius Press.   In mid-June I will be returning to England – right now June 20th is a fixed date in London, with several other talks in the UK in the days immediately preceding and following that one.
 
I have some time free in the UK around the June 20th date, and during the Northern California tour – if you know of someone who might like to have me speak then, drop me an email.
 
I will post all available information on these venues, and any others that come up, on my website at www.salvationisfromthejews.com/talks.html .  As I get more details, I will put them up, but of course you are always welcome to email me for more information, too.
 
One reason to send out notices like this is, of course, to inform people who may be able to come to one of the events, but the main reason – other than just to stay in touch – is to shamelessly beg for prayers for these activities, and for my “ministry” in general.  Not for my sake, but that the Jewish people, Jesus’ own people, may come to the fullness of the life with God that they brought to the rest of the world!  And to console the Heart of our beloved Lord, who is still waiting (and weeping) to be recognized by “His own” (Jn 1:11) – and of course, that His will may be done and He may return in glory!  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states (para. 674):
 
The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel."
 
Let us all pray for that glorious day! ...
 
May God Bless you abundantly!                   
 
-- Roy

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Links/Articles:

• Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ | Preface to Honey From the Rock | Roy Schoeman
• "Jews Demand Signs" | An Interview with Roy Schoeman
• Judaism Fulfilled | An Interview with Roy H. Schoeman
• The Jews and the Second Coming | Roy H. Schoeman

The School of Ronald Knox | An Interview with David Rooney

The School of Ronald Knox | An Interview with David Rooney, author of The Wine of Certitude: A Literary Biography of Ronald Knox | January 26, 2009 | Ignatius Insight

David Rooney's The Wine of Certitude is an in-depth overview of the life and literary accomplishments of Monsignor Ronald Knox (1888-1957), the famous Catholic convert and apologist from England who was a major figure in the English Catholic literary revival during the first half of the twentieth century. Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, recently interviewed Rooney about the book and Knox's place in the annals of Catholic literature.

  Ignatius Insight: You admit in the Preface that you didn't begin reading Ronald Knox until you were well into your adult years. Which of his works did you read first, and what was it that you found so attractive and engaging about his writing?

David Rooney: Yes, I was a latecomer to his writings. I had been doing book reviews mainly in American and British Church history for some years, and then a reprint of his book A Retreat for Lay People was sent to me unsolicited. I decided to look into it, and I was immediately taken by Knox's acute discernment of the state of people's spiritual lives. He came across in that book—and as I subsequently found, in his other retreat books and compilations of sermons—as wise and compassionate, and particularly skilled at elevating a reader's mind to the presence of God in our lives.

Ignatius Insight: What are some of the unique challenges faced in writing a literary biography as opposed to writing a standard biography?

Continue reading...

30,000 participate in Walk for Life West Coast

First, several pictures of the Walk for Life WC can be viewed on the Walk's website.

From The Christian Post:

More than 30,000 pro-lifers flooded San Francisco’s waterfront Saturday, capping a week of anti-abortion demonstrations coinciding with the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.

The 5th Annual Walk for Life West Coast was also held just one day after President Barack Obama reversed the Bush administration's ban on federal funding of international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.

"Women deserve better. Men deserve better. We all deserve better than abortion," Feminist for Life speaker Karen Shablin, a former member of the National Abortion Rights Action League, said Saturday, according to Walk for Life organizers.

For the past five years, the Walk for Life West Coast has been trying to reach out to women who have been affected by abortion and to show support for them and for women in crisis pregnancies – an aim slightly different from that of the much larger rally on the East Coast which drew up to 250,000 in Washington Thursday and raises awareness from a political standpoint.

This year’s rally in San Francisco took on a more political tone, however, as it was held just four days after the inauguration of President Obama, who many pro-life conservatives believe is on track to becoming the most pro-abortion president in the history of the nation.

"President Obama is the fulfillment of what the abortion industry always wanted and that was a black face to validate abortion," said the Rev. Clenard Childress, a Baptist pastor and founder of BlackGenocide.org who has spoken at the Walk since its inception in 2005.

As Feminist for Life’s Shablin, an African American, pointed out during Saturday’s rally, 37 percent of abortions are performed on black women – who make up only 13 percent of the population.

The San Francisco Chronicle (which, prior to the Walk, mocked the event as a "pony show") reports:

A short distance away, a few hundred counterdemonstrators gathered with signs proclaiming support for abortion rights, same-sex marriage and a variety of other causes. Some spoke of finding common ground.

"I feel for the other side," said Patricia Jameson, 24, of San Francisco.

She said she worked against abortion as a youth minister until three years ago, when she was raped by her pastor and had an abortion. Now, she said, "I can't imagine my life without the fact that I can choose."

"In a lot of ways, the pro-choice and pro-life people are not that far apart," said Eleanor Levine, 66, of Oakland, whose pink Styrofoam coronet read, "Imagine Peace." Many of the anti-abortion marchers probably voted for Obama and oppose war, she said, and "it's important that we figure out how to get together."

"They want to protect women as well," said Marcela Smid, 28, a UCSF medical student who has performed abortions under a doctor's supervision at San Francisco General Hospital. "We just see reality very differently."

The tone was more confrontational along the route of the march on Embarcadero, where some abortion-rights advocates shouted at the marchers and gave thumbs-down signs while others chanted slogans like, "If you don't like abortion, then don't have one."

Some anti-abortion marchers shouted back, but the two sides stayed on opposite sides of a police barrier. There were no arrests or incidents of violence, said Sgt. Lyn Tomioka, a police spokeswoman.

The marchers, 10 to 15 abreast, covered the length of the Embarcadero from the foot of Market Street northward as they trekked toward Marina Green for a closing rally.

California Catholic Daily details some of the opposition to the March for Life. Sfist.com provides a snapshot of some of those protesting the Walk for Life (warning: partial nudity). IndyBay.org has several pictures of angry, vulgar protesters.

"They don’t care about human rights. ... They just care about babies."

From "Life on the Mall," an essay by Kathryn Lopez for National Review Online:

 I walked the March from the Mall to the Supreme Court after attending the pre-rally. I walked the March and hung around on the House side of the Capitol for a little while. The only display of anger I saw came from a woman walking a block away from the Supreme Court with a big round “Keep Abortion Legal” sticker from the National Organization for Women. She was furious, saying to a friend, “They don’t care about human rights. I can’t believe all these people. They just care about babies.”

Of course they care about babies. Some of them have had a lot of them, and brought some of them along; others look on with joy at the families. But it is because they know these babies are human—which shouldn’t be in dispute, though it seemed to be back when Obama was in the statehouse arguing that a newborn shouldn’t have the same rights as an older baby—that they care about this issue.

And that message—that this is a human-rights issue and men, women, and children deserve better than a culture that values the legal “choice” of abortion over all other values, including compassion and common decency—was emanating from the March for Life this year, and so many of the events surrounding it. “Healing” had a big presence there.

When I made my way over to the Supreme Court Thursday afternoon—hours after I expected to, there were just so many people; people, mercifully, it was a joy to be around—a middle-aged guy named Chuck was talking about his great regret: that he did not “protect” his girlfriend and their child. She needed reassurance when she got pregnant and he knew it. But instead, he gave her none and let her abort their child. He said that the momentary relief he felt as a young man that he had no baby to be responsible for doesn’t compare to the guilt he has felt for shirking his responsibility and letting that child be eliminated. But that child has not been eliminated from his memory—and, by telling people his story, Chuck may be able to make a difference in a lot of lives.

Read the entire piece.

Monsignor William Smith, requiscat in pace

The Journal News (and a number of Catholic blogs) report this sad news:

Monsignor William Smith, professor of moral theology at Saint Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers since 1971 and one of the leading Catholic voices in the U.S. on medical ethics, died yesterday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers.

Smith, 69, was a Yonkers native who grew up in St. Denis parish.

He was ordained a priest in 1966 and shortly thereafter was chosen by Cardinal Terence Cooke to pursue a doctorate in moral theology and return to teach at his hometown seminary.

Smith became a leading Catholic spokesman on issues like abortion, reproduction, euthanasia, stem-cell research and cloning.

Read the rest of the article for information about a wake and funeral Mass.

Monsignor Smith was, for many years, a contributing editor to Homiletic & Pastoral Review, which is published by Ignatius Press and edited by Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

The Dawn Patrol has some links, including a YouTube video of Monsigner Smith lecturing on the "Moral Magisterium of Pope John Paul II." And John Mallon has posted a 1995 interview he did with Monsignor Smith about contraception and other moral issues that is definitely worth reading.

The Templars: The Mini-Series, The Myths, and the Truth

The Templars: The Mini-Series, The Myths, and the Truth | Sandra Miesel and Carl E. Olson | Ignatius Insight Podcast | January 25, 2009

Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, talks to Sandra Miesel, a medieval historian and co-author of The Da Vinc Hoax and Pied Piper of Atheism, about the NBC mini-series, "The Last Templar".

The mini-series, which airs Sunday, January 25th, and Monday, January 26th, is based on the 2005 novel, The Last Templar, written by Raymond Khoury. The novel was on The New York Times bestseller list for 22 months and sold over four million copies.

The novel is similar in many ways to The Da Vinci Code, including its use of the Templars, its reliance on the "Gnostic gospels," and its claim that ancient documents provide definitive proof that Jesus Christ was not divine. USA Today, for example, writes of the mini-series, "The last time you saw this template, it was called The Da Vinci Code."

The novel, according to its website, is "a thought-provoking exploration of religion in today's world, and of historic fact versus faith, particularly regarding the origins of the Catholic Church. Through the investigation into the Templars' history and their mysterious discovery, and though the interplay between Tess - the agnostic, scientific skeptic - and Reilly, who turned to the Church after his father shot himself when Reilly was just a boy, the book presents a spirited look at the early days of the Church and invites the reader to question matters which most of us take at face value."

Carl and Sandra examine some of historical claims of the novel and discuss the ongoing popularity of the Templar mythology.

Listen to the podcast...

Excommunications lifted for SSPX bishops

Just received this newsflash from Inside the Vatican magazine:

Extraordinary news came on the afternoon of January 24, with the removal of the excommunications of four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X. In a document signed by the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops in the Holy See, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re dated January 21, 2009 (see text below).

 

     Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galaretta and Richard Williamson (two Frenchmen, a Spaniard, an Italian, and an Englishman) were consecrated bishops on June 30, 1988, by the Society's late founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and his co-consecrator, Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer (also deceased), in a ceremony at the seminary in Econe, Switzerland. The following day it was announced by Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, at that time head of the Congregation of Bishops in Rome, that all six men had incurred excommunication latae sententiae (automatic excommunication), the penalty laid down in the revised Code of Canon Law, Canon 1382, for directly participating in an episcopal consecration in the absence of a papal mandate.

     The January 21 document says that Bishop Fellay, the Superior General of the Society (one of the four consecrated bishops, photo left) had written in December to Cardinal Dario Castrillon-Hoyos, Prefect of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, requesting the removal of the excommunications, saying, “We are always firmly determined in our will to remain Catholic and to place all our efforts at the service of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept its teachings with filial animus. We believe firmly in the Primacy of Peter and in its prerogatives, and for this the current situation makes us suffer so much."

     For his part, Pope Benedict, increasingly impressed by the attitude of the group to open a dialogue about remaining questions, and to respect the legitimate authority of the Holy Father, decided to lift the excommunications.

     The document says this was the Pope's reason: “This gift of peace, at the end of the Christmas celebrations, is also intended to be a sign to promote unity in the charity of the universal Church and to try to vanquish the scandal of division.”

Read the entire story.

Canon lawyer Dr. Ed Peters has some initial observations. More to come soon, I'm sure, as more details are made available.

Vatican officials express "disappointment" in Pres. Obama's...

... decision to overturn the so-called Mexico City Policy. From The New York Times:

Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, urged Obama to listen to all voices in America without ''the arrogance of those who, being in power, believe they can decide of life and death.''

Fisichella said in an interview published Saturday in Corriere della Sera that ''if this is one of President Obama's first acts, I have to say, in all due respect, that we're heading quickly toward disappointment.''

Obama signed an executive order that ended the ban on Friday, reversing the policy of the Bush administration.

''This deals a harsh blow not only to us Catholics but to all the people across the world who fight against the slaughter of innocents that is carried out with the abortion,'' another top official with the Academy for Life, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, told the ANSA news agency.

''Among the many good things that he could have done, Barack Obama instead chose the worst,'' he was quoted as saying Saturday.

In somewhat related news, a certain law professor admits that he, after all, be considered by President Obama for the position of Vatican Emissary.

Were Charles Colson's comments justified?

From Christianity Today, an interview with noted Evangelical author Charles Colson, who has played an instrumental role, with Fr. Richard Neuhaus, in the "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" initiatives:

How will Neuhaus' death affect Evangelicals and Catholics together?

It's a terrible setback because Cardinal Avery Dulles died a month before Neuhaus died. It was like a double-barreled blow. They were the principal leaders on the Catholic side of the dialogue. In some respects, those are two giants of the faith that you can't replace. But God in his sovereignty, his providence, knows exactly what he's doing.

The timing of Neuhaus's and Dulles's deaths is really significant when you realize that Pope Benedict on November 19 in what was otherwise a routine audience in St. Peter's square, gave a homily on justification and fully embraced the position that Evangelicals and Catholics Together had taken [in the 1997 document, "Gift of Salvation"]. He didn't identify it as such, but that's what he did.

Eleven years after that document was written, the Pope, the head of the church, concluded his homily by saying Luther was right, so long as you don't exclude charity, that is love, and the works that flow from love. Which of course none of us does.

Whoa. Hold on a second. First, since when did the Pope take his directives on soteriology from the ECT documents, as significant or meaningful as they might be? Secondly, the qualification—"so long as"—is very, very important. And if Colson is saying that he, as an Evangelical, believes that justification involves charity and works done in love, well, then welcome to Catholic Soteriology 101. A key question is: what did Luther really believe about the relationship between faith and charity? Benedict XVI rightly notes this, indirectly, when he states,

For this reason Luther's phrase: "faith alone" is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love. Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love. So it is that in the Letter to the Galatians in which he primarily developed his teaching on justification St Paul speaks of faith that works through love (cf. Gal 5: 14). [emphasis added]

One of several reasons this makes me a bit huffy is that it's not at all evident (far from it!) that what an Evangelical such as Colson believes about justification, faith, and charity is what Luther believed. For example, Luther posited a form of "extrinsic justification," that is, justification is an external action, not an internal transformation. And that, of course, is opposed to the Catholic understanding of justification and the one apparently held by Colson. Unfortunately, Colson, in my opinion, makes matters even worse:

Do the Catholics in ECT right now take the same position on justification as Neuhaus and Dulles?

Oh yes. There are probably 12 to 13 other Catholic [leaders] who hold that position. And now of course the Pope holds it, so it almost doesn't matter who else holds it, in the way the Catholic Church is structured.

All shifts that take place in Catholicism happen very gradually. Vatican II was an exception. That's not the way in which theological development occurs within the catholic communion. It occurs in a gradual process in which the pope, and in this case, a cardinal and a couple priests see a way to express something differently and they would argue that there's no change.

Of course, if you compare it with Trent, there's a profound change. But they would see it as the development of doctrine. And if it's contrary to some church council — as this was, clearly — then nothing happens immediately.

Cardinal [Edward] Cassidy took ["The Gift of Salvation"] back to the Vatican in 1997 and was teaching it to the bishops. It sort of percolated through the church, and the Pope, who — significantly — was an Augustinian, picked it up. And then a decade later, it ended up in the catechism. That's just the way change occurs in the Catholic Church.

I don't, unfortunately, have time to dig into this very far, but here are a couple of problems: First, to repeat, the position that Colson takes as his own and (now) the Pope's, is hardly new or unique. It is the belief that justification involves faith intimately bound up with love and hope, (which result in good words accomplished by grace), as befitting the theological virtues given by the Holy Spirit. I'm glad Colson agrees with that view, but it's not evident at all that this view is the same as Luther's; quite the opposite.

Secondly, the statment about Trent is puzzling. After all, Trent stated:

For, although no one can be just, but he to whom the merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are communicated, yet is this done in the said justification of the impious, when by the merit of that same most holy Passion, the charity of God is poured forth, by the Holy Spirit, in the hearts of those that are justified, and is inherent therein: whence, man, through Jesus Christ, in whom he is ingrafted, receives, in the said justification, together with the remission of sins, all these (gifts) infused at once, faith, hope, and charity. For faith, unless hope and charity be added thereto, neither unites man perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of His body. For which reason it is most truly said, that Faith without works is dead and profitless; and, In Christ Jesus neither circumcision, availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by charity. (Session 6, chapter VII)

How, I wonder, is this different in substance from what Benedict said and what the Catechism say? The Catechism, for the record, states:

Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us. (par 1991)

Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. (par 1992)

In short, Colson's comments are puzzling. Have I missed something?

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:
• Was The Joint Declaration Truly Justified? | An Interview with Dr. Christopher Malloy
• Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick | Mark Brumley
• Theosis: The Reason for the Season | Carl E. Olson
• Has The Reformation Ended? | An Interview with Dr. Mark Noll
• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation | Geoffrey Saint-Clair
• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy | Martha Rasmussen
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 1 | Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 2 | Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Answering The Call To Full Communion | An Interview with Dr. Francis Beckwith
• Thomas Howard and the Kindly Light | IgnatiusInsight.com
• Objections, Obstacles, Acceptance: An Interview with J. Budziszewski | IgnatiusInsight.com
• Thomas Howard on the Meaning of Tradition | IgnatiusInsight.com
• Surprised by Conversion: The Patterns of Faith | Peter E. Martin

Shocker

Not really. Not at all, actually. After much speculation and rumors running both ways, President Obama, the AP reports, "on Friday quietly ended the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide information on the option.":

Liberal groups welcomed the decision, while abortion rights foes criticized the president.

Known as the "Mexico City policy," the ban has been reinstated and then reversed by Republican and Democratic presidents since Ronald Reagan established it in 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.

A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said Obama signed an executive order on the ban, without coverage by the media, late Friday afternoon. That was in contrast to the midday signings with fanfare of executive orders on other subjects earlier in the week.

Obama's action came one day after the 36th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion.

The Bush policy had banned U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion. The rule also had prohibited federal funding for groups that lobby to legalize abortion or promote it as a family planning method.

<snip>

In a move related to the lifting of the abortion rule, Obama also is expected to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), probably in the next budget. Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law.
The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.

Catholics who oppose abortion can, however, taken solace in knowing that President Obama's opposition to poverty and injustice closely aligns with Catholic social teaching.

UPDATE: President Obama's decision is "very disappointing," says Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, rejoices that the President's "repeal of the global gag rule ends eight long years of policies that have blocked access to basic health care for women worldwide."

Does evolution lead to disbelief in God?

From Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity?, writing for Christianity Today:

So does a belief in evolution automatically lead to disbelief in God? Actually, Darwin didn't think that. Darwin was not an "intellectually fulfilled atheist"; rather, he called himself an agnostic. Atheists say God does not exist, while agnostics say they don't know one way or the other. Moreover, Darwin did not boast about his unbelief; rather, he approached it with marked public caution. Shocking the mores of traditional believers may be Dawkins's thing, but it certainly wasn't Darwin's.

Here we must distinguish between Darwin the scientist and Darwin the unbeliever. Darwin, who was raised Anglican and even considered becoming a clergyman, did eventually relinquish his Christian faith. But he did not do so because of evolution.

The story is told in Adrian Desmond and James Moore's authoritative biography, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. When Darwin's daughter Annie died at age 10, Darwin came to hate the God he blamed for this. This was in 1851, eight years before Darwin released Origin of Species.

Around the time of Annie's death, Darwin also wrote that if Christianity were true, then it would follow that his grandfather Erasmus Darwin and many of his closest family friends would be in hell. Darwin found this utterly unacceptable, given that these men were wise and kind and generous. Darwin's rejection of God was less an act of unbelief than a rebellion against the kind of God posited by Christianity. A God who would allow a young girl to die and good people to go to hell was not anyone whom Darwin wanted to worship.

Read the entire piece.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Book Excerpts:

• On Being Amazed In The Cosmos: Christoph Cardinal Schönborn and "The Purpose of the Path" | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Excerpts from Chance or Purpose: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith | Christoph Cardinal Schönborn
• The Mythological Conflict Between Christianity and Science | An interview with physicist Dr. Stephen Barr | Mark Brumley
• The Universe is Meaning-full | An interview with Dr. Benjamin Wiker, co-author of A Meaningful World | Carl E. Olson
• Deadly Architects | An Interview with Donald De Marco & Benjamin Wiker | Carl E. Olson
• The Mystery of Human Origins | Mark Brumley
• Designed Beauty and Evolutionary Theory | Thomas Dubay, S.M.

Peter Kreeft on "Three Ways of Living"

Three Ways of Living | The Introduction to Three Philosophies of Life | Peter Kreeft

The Inexhaustibility of Wisdom Literature

I have been a philosopher for all of my adult life, and the three most profound books of philosophy that I have ever read are Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs. In fact, the book that first made me a philosopher, at about age fifteen, was Ecclesiastes.

Books of philosophy can be classified in many ways: ancient versus modern, Eastern versus Western, optimistic versus pessimistic, theistic versus atheistic, rationalistic versus irrationalistic, monistic versus pluralistic, and many others. But the most important distinction of all, says Gabriel Marcel, is between "the full" and "the empty", the solid and the shallow, the profound and the trivial. When you have read all the books in all the libraries of the world, when you have accompanied all the world's sages on all their journeys into wisdom, you will not have found three more profound books than Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs.

  These three books are literally inexhaustible. They brim with a mysterious power of renewal. I continually find new nourishment in rereading them, and I never tire of teaching them. They quintessentially exemplify my definition of a classic. A classic is like a cow: it gives fresh milk every morning. A classic is a book that rewards endlessly repeated re-reading. A classic is like the morning, like nature herself: ever young, ever renewing. No, not even like nature, for she, like us, is doomed to die. Only God is ever young, and only the Book he inspired never grows old.

When God wanted to inspire some philosophy, why would he inspire anything but the best? But the best is not necessarily the most sophisticated. Plato says, in the Ion, that the gods deliberately chose the poorest poets to inspire the greatest poems so that the glory would be theirs, not man's. It is exactly what Saint Paul says in 1 Corinthians. And we see this principle at work throughout the Bible: the striking contrast between the primitiveness of the poet and the profundity of the poem, between the smallness of the singer and the greatness of the song, between the absence of human sophistication and the presence of divine sophia, divine wisdom. Something is always breaking through the words, something you can never fully grasp but also never fully miss if only you stand there with uncovered soul. Stand in the divine rain, and seeds of wisdom will grow in your soul.

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An "idiosyncratic and genuinely insightful view" of Benedict XVI

The January 26th issue of National Review has a short review, written by Michael Potemra, of Peter Seewald's Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait, published recently by Ignatius Press. Potemra writes that the book "lives up to its title: It offers an idiosyncratic and genuinely insightful view of one of the world’s great spiritual leaders." As to the question, "Why is the current pope so doggedly countercultural?", it is because, Seewald notes, Benedict's father was so passionately and courageously opposed to Naziism. Seewald quotes Cardinal Ratzinger as saying, "In the faith of my parents ... I found confirmation for Catholicism as a bulwark of truth and righteousness against that kingdom of atheism and lies represented by National Socialism" (p. 138).

Potemra writes:

How could such an intelligent Church liberal—as Ratzinger had been at Vatican II—have become such a strong advocate of orthodoxy in dogma? “There is a break in his biography, no question,” says Küng. “I believe there must still have been, somewhere in his heart, an unenlightened shrine to an old-fashioned God.” This is the crux of the matter: Ratzinger believes in a God Who pre-exists human decisions about Him, and Who offers more solid guidance than evanescent intellectual fashions do.

This echoes what Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D., author of Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait), has said about his former professor (in this Ignatius Insight interview):

His methodology is to take as his starting point contemporary developments in society and culture, then he listens to the solutions offered my his fellow theologians before returning to a critical examination of Scripture and Tradition for pointers to a solution. He is not satisfied to analyze a topic, but, having dissected the issue, he then attempts a systematic answer by seeing the topic in the context of theology as a whole. Unlike Küng, who is always in tune with the latest fashion, Ratzinger is not afraid to be unfashionable. Unlike Rahner, who produced a full systematic theology, Ratzinger's theology is fragmentary--filled with brilliant insights into almost every subject of theology and yet not a fixed "system".

Using the best findings of academic theology, Ratzinger goes beyond them to create something new and original. He is more than an academic. He is an original thinker, whose scattered writings on a host of subjects are "seminal", awaiting development by others. Finally, unlike either Küng or (especially) Rahner, Ratzinger writes with a clarity and, at times, literary beauty, that never fails to impress.

Related Ignatius Insight excerpts and articles:

• "A Revolutionary of the Christian Type" | Peter Seewald | The Preface to Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait
• Benedict XVI's Theological Vision: An Introduction | Monsignor Joseph Murphy | From the introduction to Christ Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI
• The Theological Genius of Joseph Ratzinger | An Interview with Fr. D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.
• The Courage To Be Imperfect | The Introduction to Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age (A Theological Portrait) | D. Vincent Twomey, S.V.D.
• Ratzinger on the Modern Mind | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• On Reading the Pope | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Ratzinger's Faith and Reason | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.

Fr. Haight and the Jesuits

Sandro Magister of Chiesa on the matter of the writings of Fr. Roger Haight, S.J., and the ongoing investigation, by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, into heterodox statements within those writings:

At the Vatican, they are seriously concerned about this case. They do not believe that it is at all confined to academic circles. Haight is a theologian with a significant capacity for communication, he is appreciated by the "liberal" culture extensively present in the media, and enjoys widespread support within the Church, especially in the Society of Jesus.

Of the last seven theologians scrutinized by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, four are Jesuits. In addition to Haight, the others are Anthony De Mello, Jacques Dupuis, and Jon Sobrino, the last of these a leading exponent of liberation theology.

It was no surprise that one year ago, while the Society of Jesus was assembled to elect its new superior general, the Vatican authorities called its many theologians and exegetes back to greater doctrinal fidelity and a more effective "sentire cum Ecclesia."

Naturally, not all Jesuit theologians have been suspect. In order to convince Haight to correct his positions, the American province of the Society of Jesus asked for help from Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles, a theologian of recognized greatness and unquestionable orthodoxy, in spite of his advanced age and precarious health. Cardinal Dulles died in New York last December 12.

But it is beyond doubt that Haight's theology finds a generally hospitable atmosphere in the Society of Jesus. He lives in New York, at the residence of the Jesuits who publish "America," a leading magazine for progressive Catholicism. In March of 2008, when he was already prohibited from teaching and was about to receive new sanctions, he published in "America" an extensive overview of Catholic theology at the end of the 20th century, with the major theologians classified in seven categories, thoroughly described and evaluated. It was all to demonstrate that the future of Catholic theology depends on its capacity to represent the articles of the Creed in a form that is comprehensible to the dominant culture in the West.

Another American Catholic magazine that has come out in support of Haight is "Commonweal." In January of 2007, it published an impassioned apologia of his thought by the title "Not So Heterodox. In Defense of Roger Haight." Its author was a highly esteemed theologian, Paul Lakeland, a professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut, one of the 28 universities and colleges run by the Jesuits in the United States, and its first holder of the chair in Catholic studies named after the Jesuit theologian Aloysius P. Kelley.

Other American theologians have instead expressed severe criticism of Haight, who for several years was also president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. A couple of noteworthy critics include William Loewe, of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and John Cavadini, a professor at Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana and a consultant for the doctrinal commission of the United States conference of Catholic bishops.

Another critic of Haight's positions is himself a Jesuit, who also teaches at a university of the Society of Jesus, the most important one in the world. He is Gerald O'Collins, a professor of systematic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, a specialist in Christology.

O'Collins made a memorable quip after news came of Haight's first condemnation: "I wouldn't give my life for Roger Haight's Jesus. It's a triumph of relevance over orthodoxy."

Read the entire piece.

• Damning the newly departed with faint praise (Jan. 12, 2009; on Fr. Haight and Fr. Neuhaus)

Ratzinger on "Biblical Aspects of the Theme of Faith and Politics"

Biblical Aspects of the Theme of Faith and Politics | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger | From Church, Ecumenism, & Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology

The reading and the Gospel that we have just heard stemmed from a situation in which Christians were not a self-organizing subject of the state but were rather outcasts being persecuted by a cruel dictatorship. They themselves were not allowed to share the responsibility for their state; they could only endure it. Theirs was not the privilege of shaping it as a Christian state but was rather the task of living as Christians in spite of it. The names of the emperors who reigned during the period to which tradition dates both texts are enough to make the situation clear: Nero and Domitian. And so the First Letter of Peter, too, calls the Christians in such a state strangers or "exiles" (1:1) and the state itself "Babylon" (5:13). In doing so, it very emphatically indicates the political position of the Christians of that time, which corresponded roughly to the position of the exiled Jews living in Babylon, who were not the subject but rather the objects of that state and therefore had to learn how they could survive in it, since they were not allowed to learn how to build it. Thus the political background of today's readings is fundamentally different from ours. Nevertheless, they contain three important statements that have significance also for political action among Christians.

1. The state is not the whole of human existence and does not encompass all human hope. Man and what he hopes for extend beyond the framework of the state and beyond the sphere of political action. This is true not only for a state like Babylon, but for every state. The state is not the totality; this unburdens the politician and at the same time opens up for him the path of reasonable politics. The Roman state was wrong and anti-Christian precisely because it wanted to be the totality of human possibilities and hopes. A state that makes such claims cannot fulfill its promises; it thereby falsifies and diminishes man. Through the totalitarian lie it becomes demonic and tyrannical. The abolition of the totalitarian state has demythologized the state and thereby liberated man, as well as politicians and politics.

But when the Christian faith falls into ruins and faith in mankind's greater hope is lost, the myth of the divine state rises again, because man cannot do without the totality of hope. Although such promises pose as progress and commandeer for themselves the slogans of progress and progressive thinking, viewed historically they are nevertheless a regression to an era antedating the novum of Christianity, a turning back along the scale of history. And even though their propaganda says that their goal is man's complete liberation, the abolition of all ruling authority, they contradict the truth of man and are opposed to his freedom, because they force man to fit into what he himself can make. Such politics, which declares that the kingdom of God is the outcome of politics and twists faith into the universal primacy of the political, is by its very nature the politics of enslavement; it is mythological politics.

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The Holy Father reflects on Christian unity

From Vatican Information Service:

WORK AND PRAY FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

VATICAN CITY, 21 JAN 2009 (VIS) - In today's general audience, held this morning in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope recalled how the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began last Sunday, inspired this year by the words of the Prophet Ezekiel: "That they may become one in your hand".

 "Full unity, for which the Lord prayed and for which all His disciples must tirelessly strive, is linked to the very life and mission of the Church in the world", he said. "For this reason it is important that all Christian communities become aware of the urgent need to work with every possible means to achieve this great objective".

 "Aware that unity is above all a 'gift' of the Lord", Benedict XVI continued, "it must be implored with tireless and faithful prayer, escaping our own concerns and addressing ourselves to Jesus. This is the invitation the 'Week' makes to believers in Christ from all Churches and ecclesial communities. Let us respond generously".

 From the words of the Prophet Ezekiel it is clear that "the Lord wishes all His people to proceed patiently and perseveringly towards the goal of full unity. Such a commitment requires humble and docile adherence to the command of the Lord, Who blesses it and makes it fruitful".

 "Ezekiel's vision has particular significance for the entire ecumenical movement, because it highlights the vital need for authentic interior renewal in all members of the People of God, a renewal which only God can bring about. ... The week of prayer for unity thus becomes, for all of us, a stimulus to a sincere exchange of ideas, to an ever more humble acceptance of the Word of God, and to an ever deeper faith.

 "The Week", he added, "is also a good occasion to thank the Lord" for "the meetings, dialogue and fraternal gestures He has allowed us to accomplish". In this context the Pope recalled his three meetings with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, and the patriarch's participation in the Synod on the Word of God held in the Vatican in October 2008. He also spoke of his "sharing the pain of the Patriarchate of Moscow for the passing of our beloved brother in Christ, His Holiness the Patriarch Alexis II. I remain in communion of prayer with these our brethren as they prepare to elect a new patriarch of their great and venerable Orthodox Church".

 He went on: "I have also had the chance to meet representatives of the various Christian communities of the West, with whom I continue to consider the important witness Christians are called to give today, ... in a world ever more divided and facing so many cultural, social, economic and ethical challenges".

 In this Pauline Year, said Benedict XVI, "let us make St. Paul's longing our own", for the saint "spent his life entirely for the one Lord and for the unity of His mystical Body, and with his martyrdom rendered a supreme witness of faithfulness and of love for Christ".

 "The desire dwelling in our hearts is that the day of full communion may come quickly, when all the disciples of our one Lord may finally celebrate the Eucharist together, the divine sacrifice for the life and salvation of the world".

 Following the audience, as is the tradition on today's feast of St. Agnes, the Pope blessed two lambs, the wool of which will be used to make the palliums bestowed on new metropolitan archbishops on June 29, Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles.

 Subsequently, in a brief ceremony, the Holy Father received the tile of honorary citizen of the Austrian town of Mariazell, home of a famous shrine which he visited in September 2007.

• The Papacy and Ecumenism | Rev. Adriano Garuti, O.F.M. | From Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Ecumenical Dialogue
• The Vatican, Ecumenism, and Tolerance | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation | Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Was The Joint Declaration Truly Justified? | An Interview with Dr. Christopher Malloy

The audacity of asking for a definition of "hope"

I should point out that my post, "How shall we judge our new leader?", was not plagiarized from Amy Welborn's post, "Put not your trust." I say that in jest, but we did hit on several of the same points and we quote the same Juan Williams' piece. In fact, I just read Amy's excellent post a couple of hours ago for the first time. Highly recommended. A quick taste:

I wonder if we, in our celebrity culture, still obviously yearning for a monarchy and even for spiritual leadership, place too much weight on the presidency.

Secondly, why do people need a president to give them hope? Let me repeat - I can see it in relationship to #1 above, that he functions in that way - but, in general, who needs the presence of a particular individual in the White House to shape how they feel about life, about possibility, about the responsibility to serve others?

The topic of "hope", as Amy notes, was a key part of the campaign run by President Obama; the "audacity of hope" was both catchy and rather inchoate. I was struck, in watching a bit of the television coverage yesterday, by the number of people who talked about "having hope" and "needing hope" and so forth as they spoke about the election and the inauguration. The Seattle Times ran an editorial cooing about how "Inauguration Day 2009 was an adult conversation about the audacity of hope." There is now hope for the economy, hope for international affairs, hope for the entire world, hope for equality, hope for just about everything. Ta-da!

Ironically, some of the news articles and opinion pieces that talked about this vague and ill-defined (never-defined?) "hope" also spoke of the victory of "pragmatism" over against "ideology", the advent of an "optimistic pragmatism", and the acceptance of a "centrist pragmatism." (Of course, pragmatism itself can easily become an ideology of sorts, so the "pragmatism" vs. "ideology" construct seems a bit contrived.) It is beyond me how hope that is as wildly unrealistic as it is widely bantered can be squared with a practical, foot-firmly-on-terra-firma approach to matters. Part of answer surely lies in the desire for "spiritual leadership" mentioned by Amy. I touched on this notion a couple of years ago in an article, "An Apologetic of Hope," written for This Rock:

In the Dictionary of Theology, Rev. Louis Bouyer wrote that "even today, one of the most urgent problems facing Christian thought is to give a greater emphasis to the definition of supernatural hope in the context of the different hopes harbored in the modern world." Christian hope, he explained, cannot be confused with a natural though doomed attempt to achieve human perfection. This is especially important in the face of evils that have been perpetrated in the name of social, political, and technological "progress."

In recent decades, theories about politics and society have frequently been based on the belief that freedom, human dignity, and justice are shifting cultural values or man-made ideas created to meet particular needs at various points in history. This is the essence of trendy theories that undermine belief in an objective, transcendent moral order. Their materialist assumptions lead to the belief that man’s "hope" and "meaning" is found in material things—ranging from political movements to fine wine to video games—and that progress is inevitable because of advances in science and technology. Man’s hope for anything beyond himself is diverted into dead ends, including the literal ones produced by abortion, euthanasia, and other "solutions" to man’s material problems.

In a culture of death, the tension that man experiences as one who is "on the way" must be dulled or destroyed. As Peter Kreeft shows in Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, the questions "In what may I hope?" and "What may I hope for?" are either infrequently asked or are relegated to the realm of private belief. Sometimes they are "answered" by pointing the questioner to earthly hopes for improved health, longer life, more justice, less hate, a helpful government.

But man is desperate to reach beyond himself, to find fulfillment beyond this world. Christians should readily pose questions pointing to true hope: Why do I exist? What is the meaning of my life? What am I living for? Is there something beyond here and now? It is Christian hope, based in the gospel, that answers man’s questions about his ultimate destiny.

All of this, of course, is addressed far more eloquently and with profound insight by Pope Benedict XVI in Spe Salvi (which came out after my article, otherwise I would have referenced it many times):

 Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope. Given the developments of the modern age, the quotation from Saint Paul with which I began (Eph 2:12) proves to be thoroughly realistic and plainly true. There is no doubt, therefore, that a “Kingdom of God” accomplished without God—a kingdom therefore of man alone—inevitably ends up as the “perverse end” of all things as described by Kant: we have seen it, and we see it over and over again. Yet neither is there any doubt that God truly enters into human affairs only when, rather than being present merely in our thinking, he himself comes towards us and speaks to us. Reason therefore needs faith if it is to be completely itself: reason and faith need one another in order to fulfil their true nature and their mission.

Faith in politicians is a perilous path, whatever one's political persuasion. Some of President Obama's supporters will undoubtedly be frustrated, even angry, as he makes decisions and implements policies. On the other hand, those of us with many questions and doubts may be surprised. Hopefully for the best, but it's best to be a bit pragmatic about one's chances when earthly, political hopes are the issue at hand.