What planet is "America" magazine living on?

In seeking an answer to this pressing question, let's begin with this oddly triumphant, openly arrogant bit of spittle-stained spin from Michael Sean Winters, who writes regular diatribes for America magazine:

Pope Benedict XVI will receive President Barack Obama in audience at the Vatican on July 10. Let the gnashing of teeth begin.

Admit it, wasn’t your first impulse to call Dr. Mary Ann Glendon and ask, "If you were still the ambassador, would you show up or would you boycott?" The Cardinal Newman Society, which spent the better part of the spring telling the world that no Catholic could in good conscience share the stage with President Obama, perhaps now they will start issuing press releases entitled "Pope Creates Scandal" or "Outrage at the Vatican." The Catholic News Agency, which featured the headline "Vatican announces Pope’s vacation without confirmation of Obama visit" just a few weeks ago, has nary a mention of the visit on its website this morning. Cat got your tongue?

Obama’s Catholic critics need to re-calibrate their message and it is difficult to see how they will compete with the pictures of Obama in the frescoed halls of the Vatican, his beautiful wife and children in tow, shaking hands with the Holy Father. Actually, in addition to shaking hands, it is traditional that the Pope will present a gift to the President. Does that count as an "honor" of the kind forbidden by the bishops’ document "Catholics in Political Life"? Notre Dame, of course, has a tradition of conferring an honorary degree upon every new president that pre-dates presidential visits to the Holy See.

Christopher Blosser has already noted that Winters' post fails in at least three substantial ways: it completely misrepresents the very different natures of the Vatican visit and the Notre Dame commencement, it misrepresents the 2004 document "Catholics in Political Life," and it disregards the actions and words of dozens of U.S. bishops. Those points aside, it's a brilliant piece of argumentation. I would add this to Blosser's comments: Benedict XVI and President Obama, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, will discuss "their shared belief in the dignity of all people." Regardless of the spin (does "all people", for Obama, include the unborn? I think not.), it's fair to say this meeting will involve some sort of actual dialogue—the sort of dialogue that didn't take place at Notre Dame, despite the spin (see a pattern here?) aggressively and shamelessly put into play by Fr. Jenkins and others.

It does not offend Obama's Catholic critics that the Pope is meeting with a non-Catholic. Not only does the Pope (as well as nearly all Catholics) meet with non-Catholics everyday—in situations ranging from formal to informal to private to public—we are mindful that Jesus often met with and ate with tax collectors and sinners (cf., Lk 15:2), which elicited complaints from the Pharisees and scribes. We are (or should be) mindful that all of us are sinners, and that when we have encountered Jesus, he has not publicly honored us and bestowed his blessing on it despite our sins, but has simply said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). What Jesus did not do—and the Vicar of Christ will not be doing (unlike Notre Dame)—was to bestow public honor and praise on those who rejected the Law and rejected him.

If Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for " shedding the blood of the prophets" (Matt. 23:30), what do you think he might say to those who claim to believe "in the dignity of all people" while unfailingly upholding the killing of the unborn? The scribes and Pharisees failed the Law; those who support abortion fail the law placed by God into the heart of every man, as Pope John Paul II so eloquently stated:

Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops-who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine-I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church. (Evangelium Vitae, 62).

Winters argues:

In saying we must work with President Obama we are not suggesting breezily that we should "agree to disagree" and move on. We are saying that we can better witness to our beliefs by engaging the President. We are saying that if we spend time in the trenches with him fighting for the rights of workers, the rights of immigrants, and the rights of citizens to health care, our testimony on behalf of the unborn will be more persuasive to this President and his party which is otherwise so dedicated to the vindication of rights but here, on this issue, has a horrendous blind spot.

Without meaning to sound glib in the least, I have to ask: "And how is that going for you? How has that worked out over the past, say, thirty years with the Democrat Party? Are you making progress?" (The same questions, to some extent, can and should be asked just as well of those who have hitched their wagon tightly to the Republican Party.) Some engagements lead to marriage; other engagements are manifestations of a conflict or disagreement over essential matters. Winters seems to prefer the former; I prefer the latter.

The second piece of evidence that America is (at least sometimes) living on another planet is found in a June 22nd editorial, which concludes with this:

It is not hard to find examples of incendiary speech. Tiller’s critics were wont to step up to the line of incitement and then draw back. Bill O’Reilly regularly called the Kansas doctor “Tiller the baby killer” and devoted 29 segments of his Fox television show to vilifying him. “If I could get my hands on Tiller...” he threatened. “Well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes.... It doesn’t get worse. Does it get worse? No.” Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City is now best known for his proclamation to the Gospel of Life Convention in April: “We are at war!” Though the bishop went on to explain that the struggle is a spiritual one and the means nonviolent, he announced an apocalyptic struggle against evil “that may rival any in time past.”

Defenders of life must recall the warning of the Sermon on the Mount: “If a man calls his brother ‘Fool,’ he will answer for it...; and if he calls him ‘Renegade,’ he will answer for it in hell fire.” For the Gospel of Life to be good news, it must reflect a higher righteousness.

Jack Smith, editor of The Catholic Key, has done the heavy lifting on this bit of raw ugliness, writing, "Of course, in the convoluted (nuanced) style America’s editors are adept at, there is enough plausible deniability built into their argument to render the piece content-free on defense. But the message is clear – Bishop Finn’s comments are to be identified with O’Reilly’s, and whether or not they are responsible for Tiller’s murder, they and all pro-life people who speak forcefully in defense of life will find themselves in hell." He then goes on to list six ways in which the comments are wrong (I would say even slanderous). Point #2 is especially noteworthy:

Bishop Finn’s talk was a challenge to committed people who defend life through charitable and political activity: “peacefully, prayerfully, and legally.” It stood as a warning to those people to get their own spiritual house in order in the still authentic Catholic tradition of recognizing the true nature of what we fight against. The Bishop’s stated reference point was St. Paul who teaches “Put on the armor of God, in order that you can stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For, our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the rulers of this darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” (Eph 6:10-12).

So the editors of America, without a shred of evidence, imply that a good bishop who publicly upholds both the dignity of human life and the reality of spiritual warfare is somehow responsible, even if indirectly, for the actions of a mentally-disturbed, enraged murderer. And they are willing to denigrate a shepherd who is giving witness to the truth yet apparently cannot stand it when valid criticisms are made of Fr. Jenkins, Notre Dame, and, yes, President Obama. Perhaps they are in agreement with another leftward Jesuit that Obama is "the most effective spokesperson" for "the spirit of Vatican II", in which case, to heck with the bishops and their silly documents.

Exhibit #3 is not, strictly speaking, a piece in America; rather, it is a post by Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J., former editor of the magazine and one of this generation's most accomplished practitioners of misdirection, obscuration, and ad hominem, famous in my book for saying of Benedict XVI, "He's an extremely bright man, but he doesn't have any street smarts." His ability to misrepresent the issues at hand and the positions of those he disagrees with is impressive; in another life he could have become wealthy making these.

Fr. Reese's June 23rd post, made on the "On Faith" blog, is titled, "Pope's Delayed Message on Greed"; it begins innocently enough:

A new encyclical on Catholic social teaching will soon be released as Pope Benedict's response to the current economic crisis. The encyclical, "Caritas in veritate" (Charity in Truth), has been in preparation for more than two years, but was delayed because the pope wanted it updated to respond to the world financial crisis. It could be published as early as June 29 if the various translations are finished.

But then the urge to take cheap shots and let rip an ad hominem blast is too much to resist:

Conservatives will be shocked and disappointed by the encyclical, which will reflect Benedict's skepticism toward unbridled capitalism based on greed.

Consider the apparent assumptions behind that remarkably silly statement:

• Conservatives are all defined by their complete support and commitment to capitalism.
• Conservatives are especially supportive of unbridled capitalism.
• Conservatives are greedy.
• Conservatives will thus be "shocked and disappointed" by the encyclical.
• Liberals, by implication, are not supportive of capitalism and are not greedy.

All of these assumptions—which are, I think, fairly drawn from Fr. Reese's statement—is either blatantly false or seriously problematic. Part of the problem is that the term "conservatives" (like the term "liberals") is so ambiguous that it begs for at least some note of qualification. It reminds me of a wry anecdote made by a conservative thinker who was criticized for writing a book that did not espouse capitalism: "One could not understand what I was after, if I would embrace neither capitalism nor communism; he [the reader] seemed to imply that I must be engaged in some dismal Fascist conspiracy":

Another, remarking on my reluctance to endorse either of these sets of dogmas [that is, capitalism and communism], asked just what conservatives do want: "Are they Keynesians?" Now we scarcely can wonder at the bankruptcy of liberalism, when its most articulate spokesmen think of the problems of modern society are no more than an exercise in economic theory, and are unaware that Karl Marx was the popularizer of both the terms "capitalism" and "communism," and seem to quite ignorant of the existence of Christian social principles, or of private property which is not "capitalistic" in the Marxist sense, or of traditions and political institutions far older than Keynes, or Marx, or even the modern industrial system.

One might suspect the author had Fr. Reese in mind, except that Fr. Reese, to be fair, does not reduce everything to a matter of economic theory. Nor was he writing much in 1954 when Russell Kirk wrote the passage above in his book, A Program for Conservatives. Sure, Kirk was a certain type of conservative, often called "paleo-conservative," but he is also widely recognized as being a seminal (even the seminal) thinker in the appearance of modern American conservativism, a movement heavily indebted to his book, The Conservative Mind, published in 1953. That book, by the way, says almost nothing about economics, hence the anecdote above.

The natural objection is, "Well, we're not living in the 1950s, in but in 2009." True enough, but this only opens the door to this fact: conservatism today is a widely disparate, argumentative, and conflicting mess of competing groups, movements, principles, perspectives, and beliefs. The following folks are considered conservative, but are, I think it is obvious, widely divergent in many ways: George W. Bush, Michael Medved, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, Sean Hannity, Jonah Goldberg, Bill O'Reilly, and Mark Steyn. And none of these, in my reading, are staunchly committed to Catholic social doctrine, even if some of them are certainly advocates of a nearly unbridled capitalist system of economics. But what, then, of Pat Buchanan, Fr. James V. Schall, Dr. David Schindler, Wendell Berry, or James Kalb?

But Fr. Reese wishes to push buttons, and facts often get in between a person and the button. Are we really to believe that liberals are not into capitalism and "greed"? What of Ted Turner, George Soros, Herb Kohl, Bill Gates, John Kerry, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, John "Jay" Rockefeller, and David Rockefeller Jr., just to name a few? Why is it that Big Money and Democrats stroll hand-in-hand, and why do Democrats tend to respresent the wealthier congressional jurisdictions? And why do Republicans/conservatives give more to charity than do Democrats/liberals? And so forth and so on.

Having said all that, what planet is America living on?

• UPDATE (June 27, 2009): Michael Sean Winters continues to not get it, writing (on the NCReporter site), "Admit it conservatives: You wish the pope had said, 'No!' You wish he had refused to meet with Obama." Uh, no. When a person has to base their argument on what they think their opponent wishes, well, they don't have an argument. Christopher Blosser responds.

Comments

[Ed Peters]

You know, there are plenty of writers I don't agree with, but there are some I just can't read. Michael Sean Winters is one.

[Joe]

Come on Carl. "The second piece of evidence that America is (at least sometimes) living on another planet..." You perpetuate the charade. America does not live on another planet, and by so saying you ignore the real issue; They live in a false Church. Who cares if Jesuits run it, it is still a heretical publication. Until we call spades spades, this stuff will go on. America, and the Jesuits as an organizational entity, have betrayed the truth. No matter how nice they are and how many soup kitchen they sponsor. Who can contest that? What does more damage, a Jew-hating schismatic bishop, or the Jesuit order's long separation from Biblical truth/ And which gets more press time? It really is rather phenomenal. We get uppity about a group of hyper-conservative German schimatics while USF goes lavender. America is a disgrace, fairly regularly. It epidimizes what is wrong with American Catholicism, while bankrolling cushy Jesuit salaries. I promise you Saint Ignatius in Heaven is not in disagreement. All the polite talk with Fr. James Martin and his happy Broadway efforts aside.

[Carl E. Olson]

You perpetuate the charade.

My turn: Come on Joe. Really? I don't think so.

[Brad]

You know, I'm pretty sure Catholics expend far more effort tearing each other down than anyone external to the organization.

[Jack]

Winters fails to note the major, and probably the only, reason why this pope is meeting with B. Obama, i.e., he is a head of state, and so is the pope, as the head of the Vatican city-state. This kind of "minor" detail somehow managed to elude Winters. America the magazine is virtually unreadable.

[Dave Mueller]

I read an article by Michael Sean Winters on the George/Kmiec "debate" and he so completely misrepresented it (as a victory for Kmiec!?!??!?!) that he is simply not worthy of being taken seriously.

[o]

I'm still trying to work out which parallel universe L'OR lives in.

[Joseph Fromm]

America magazine does not represent the width and breadth of thinking by the great men of the Society of Jesus. A clique of some like minded Jesuits eliminate the possibility of intellectual freedom that is so highly touted when defending the "Vagina Monologues", yet is never adhered to when ideas get outside the clique's bubble. The ten new Provincials are the board of directors of America, they are ultimately responsible for the content and editorial direction of America. I can only hope that the tradition of 100 years of great Catholic journalism at America magazine can once again represent the "American Catholic" experience. Would it not be wonderful to read Schall, Fessio, Mankowski and Pacwa in America?

[Harrison Jones]

I don't really see that there is anything worth arguing about in his article. The comparison he tries to make is so obviously unapplicable that I don't see that it is necessary to bother about it.

[Robert Miller]

Carl:

Wonderful post.

Jack and Joseph Fromm have it right, in my opinion.

I think Pius XI would have met with Hitler in the 1930s, if AH had cared to meet with him. But AH, unlike Obama, didn't believe he could schismatize the Catholic Church in Germany/Austria.

It seems obvious that, especially with his appointment of a "Catholic" theologian as his ambassador to the Vatican, BO has more audacious hopes than AH ever entertained.

Maybe, now that I think about it, some US bishops ought to have a quiet conversation with B16 about whether His Holiness ought to rescind the invitation -- wearing his Bishop of Rome hat, rather than his Sovereign of the Vatican State hat.

But then, who am I to ask? I just want to be a co-worker of the truth.

[Ed Peters]

good point joe. And McDermott, Baker, Conn, Muller, and so on.

harrison, right. it's just that some folks like MSW are sooooo over the edge that it's okay for us to affirm among ourselves, that we are not the crazy ones. that done, let's move on.

[Harrison Jones]

Haha I see. Consider it affirmed.

[Joseph Fromm]

I have a few further thoughts on the subject. America magazine seems to have painted itself into an idea corner. They have become something akin to The Village Voice of Catholic media. However, their historical place is a Catholic New York Times. Since they have such a stringent liberal editorial policy, they must maintain the status quo even if it leads them into Bishop bashing and Obama adulation. The priests of America magazine in maintaining this stringent liberalism in their editorial direction has diluted the moral authority of their priesthood. Maybe its time to move the headquarters out of Manhattan and relocate to somewhere like Spring Hill College, Alabama. They need the fresh perspective and we need a fresh America and the Society of Jesus could save a few bucks in rent in the process.

[Dr John James]

I dont think anyone would have minded if Notre Dame had met with Obama to engage in a debate or public dialogue about public policy in relation to the President's adminstration and the priniciples that underpin his decisions in relation to protecting the lives of those most vulnerable. Of course, he should be treated courteously.
But that is very different from conferring an honorary law degree on a President who has set about removing every legal protection for the lives of the unborn and standing and applauding while he tells you that he will set his course firmly in opposition to the infallible statements of the Ordinary Magisterium, which has stated again and again that abortion is a unique expression of moral decay, both in individuals and cultures.
It will be interesting to see the communique that is issued after the meeting with Benedict.

[T. Shaw]

My conclusion about "America" is that every word is encrypted.

Here's what their scribblings say, in plain English.

"Barack mounts His Throne to shouts of joy!
A blare of trumpets for The One!"

[Jack]

I have to further Dr. James's point. The whole ND controversy was never about BO speaking there; it was about giving him the sports equivalent of a trophy. That was what went over the line and everyone knew it. So, ND changed the subject to "dialogue" and "civility", etc. They could never defend giving him the trophy, any more than Hesburgh ever would have given Wallace a trophy in the 1960s. Heck, Hesburgh (that champion of "dialogue" when it means bringing Air Force One to ND), never would have thought of even inviting Wallace to speak. The hypocrisy of the situation reeks to high heaven. God is not mocked an this ongoing sophistry by Jesuit "elites" will be accounted for at some point.

[Dan Deeny]

If Michael Sean Winters wants to help out, he should volunteer to teach English at St. Aloysius Gonzaga High School in Nairobi. He can then transfer his writing and reading skills to students and write articles from Nairobi. His own writing will have more meaning, I think.

[Dan]

What has happened to the Jesuits, as represented by America's editorial posture, is sad but something that the Church has seen time and time again in the course of her history. Orders and movements come and go. The Church endures eternally. Still, it is sad to see such corruption of the Jesuits' great intellectual tradition.

[Telemachus]

Carl, I'm sorry this is so long. It's been a while, and I won't do it frequently.

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"...if we spend time in the trenches with him fighting for the rights of workers, the rights of immigrants, and the rights of citizens to health care, our testimony on behalf of the unborn will be more persuasive to this President..."

No... no, no, no... no. I'll elaborate:

(1) A part of me wishes that Pope Benedict XVI would write in his latest encyclical "Catholics are NOT Marxists, so stop talking like a bunch of Marxists, you ninnys!" I wouldn't mind if he followed it up with "Catholics aren't capitalists, either," because it's true. There is no "system" which would please God, only truth. The unrestricted market economy (and if you think you know what that means, think again) is the most moral and most just form of economic order, but it won't save us no matter how well maintained it is. No GOOD society functions without a virtuous, God-fearing people who are willing to work and help one another through mutual, voluntary support, and Pope Benedict has made this quite clear in his previous writings.

Yet, if forcing "universal health care" on all would cause the quality and availability of health care in the United States to decline severely, are we as Catholics supposed to support it because it's "nice" and because it "sounds Christian?" In contrast, if allowing unrestricted, voluntary market interactions would bring about an availability of affordable health care to everyone on some level -- but NOT on an equal level, mind you -- would we all be enjoined to fight against this because "markets are greedy" and "profit is un-Christian?"

(2) More importantly, what would "universal health care" look like as established by something like the Obama administration? Or by any administration, for that matter? I'll tell you: no medical establishment would be allowed to exist that did not make unrestricated abortion available and widely promoted. That would mean the death of the pro-life movement, period, at least publicly. We'd have to work covertly: one might as well be in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia at that point, and I'm not being merely polemical. These fools at America Magazine are shooting themselves in the foot if they think that they can somehow "bring about health justice" or whatever and then ask "Oh, by the way, do you think we can get rid of abortion now?"

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Look, it may sound wacky (it shouldn't), but civil authority has been THE enemy of the Church for much of human history since Christ. Islamic radicals are nothing compared to what was done by millenia of power-mad rulers within our own societies, democratically-elected or no. If you don't believe me, at least read "Triumph," available through Ignatius Press no less. Beyond that, there is so much documentary evidence, so much written history, so much intellectual thought, both secular and religious, that justifies allowing people to be free from violence and coercion, why should Catholics join with tyranny-minded narcissists in order to "immanentize the Eschaton?" Such are not the thoughts and actions of believers in Christ, but those of people controlled by fear of reality and resentment of the successful.

But I ramble on... just read Thomas E. Woods' fantastic "The Church and the Market," the last word as far as I'm concerned. There's a tradition of economic and civil liberty within the Catholic Church, and I hope it will be revived again soon, and not by the Church leadership, for that is not its role. Rather, we as laity must show that we can live in virtue AND liberty simultaneously. If we can't, then maybe we DO deserve slavery.

Um, yeah, I'll be back in another couple months, I guess. End the Fed.

[Gabriel Austin]

In his TROJAN HORSE IN THE CHURCH, D. v. Hildebrand described quite accurately the results of progressivism in the Church. And that he defined quite nicely as "change for the sake of change".
He noted the role of the Jesuit Fr. Teilhard's mechanical evolutionism which would lift us all up with no effort on our part.
I note that Fr. Teilhard believed in the fraudulent Piltdown Man, and the mysterious Peking Man.
It is a curiosity to attempt to understand what was it that infected and infested the Society of Jesus; that it turned in upon itself. .

[Norah]

That's Trojan Horse in the City Of God