Daniel Nichols at
Caelum et Terra has a couple of
utterly brilliant posts on the subject of the ‘real problem’ with American nuns; and the language he uses I do not think I can top:
Meanwhile, though, the more traditional orders, the ones who wear habits and attract young women to the convent, like the sisters in this photo, are, many of them, bowing to the god of Americanism. There are too many instances of American habited sisters swooning over the late candidacy of Rick Santorum, defender of torture and assassination as foreign policy.
What I want to know is whether the Vatican is going to wait forty years before doing something about this. One can’t help but worry for the young minds in the care of teaching sisters whose first religion is America, who endorse candidates whose political positions fly in the face of Catholic social teaching.
And:
For conservative Catholics, rejecting the Church’s clear teaching on war, nationalism, torture, economic justice, etc comes too easily. They fall back on the claim that these things are “not taught infallibly”. But this magisterial minimalism leaves them in a very precarious position, for they have long denounced those on the left who make the same “non-infallible” argument when rejecting the ordinary magisterium on birth control or women’s ordination.
[...]
In fact, the Church teaches that the ordinary magisterium is to be received with faith, and this includes not only things like liturgy and traditions of prayer, but the clear Mind of the Church on social issues. Catholic social teaching is just applied moral theology.
[...]
[N]o one is claiming that Catholic social dogma can only result in one particular social order. It can be interpreted in many ways. I personally interpret it in the most radical way, but I don’t argue that other, more moderate interpretations can be valid. However, there are basic principles that cannot be denied. You may argue for social democracy and be in accord with those principles, or you may argue for distributism. You may wish to see a well regulated market economy. But nowhere in Catholic social teaching can you find justification for the sort of free market ideology that has ruled in this country, and increasingly around the world, for thirty years. You can nowhere in the Catholic tradition find justification for torture, or assassinating foreign enemies, or invading a country because you claim that they may be a threat.
If you claim otherwise, excuse me for doubting your faith.
That was a great, great post. The interesting thing about religion and politics in America is that while many secular people think that religion has an excessive influence on politics, in an odd way, the real situation is the opposite.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that secular politics is now shaping the churches more than the other way around. Large sectors of the Catholic Church in America are being “Republicanized” while the GOP really could care less about Catholic Social Teaching.
It is clear by now that organized money totally runs the political process in the United States and the churches are the puppets with Mammon as the puppet master, although certain religious figures have certainly benefitted financially and personally from their connections to the Right.
As for the unorthodox religious Left, as
Mr. Nichols mentions, it is quite moribund, with its members aging rapidly. The threat of radical liberation theology is largely chimerical.
Hello, John! Thank you for the comment!
ReplyDeleteOne wonders whether it might not be high time for another Catholic political movement, of the sort which created the Zentrumspartei in nineteenth-century Germany. (Too bad that its successor, the CDU, has completely sold out to neoliberalism and the austerity malaise.) Given the nature of the American political system, I don't think a third party would be a solution; also, the Republican Party is too heavily dominated by neoconservatives, libertarians and fusionists to be sympathetic to any faithful Catholic social platform. The pro-life Democrats are still only a nascent movement as yet, but one hopes Catholics could flock to it.
Hi Matthew,
ReplyDeleteRegarding a revived Catholic political movement, my own opinion is that modern American Catholic movements are often dominated by single-minded zealots who do not tolerate much in the way of creative approaches to modern problems. My own experience is that these folks are usually more aggressive and tend to end up controlling these movements.
I remember back when Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago called for a "seamless garment" approach to life issues that would add opposition to militarism, capital punishment, and support for social justice to the pro-life movement's focus on abortion.
Cardinal Bernardin was strongly critiqued for his approach as many pro-lifers (erroneously) thought that he was trying to downplay the abortion issue. Really, though, the Cardinal wanted to present Catholic Social Teaching in its totality, which is the way it ought to be presented.
Instead, we have EWTN, the Catholic cable network, barely mentioning (if they ever did) the papal denunciations of the Iraq War, or the papal critiques of neoliberalism, etc. I believe that many devout American Catholics are doing what many Evangelicals have done since the 1980s, that is, retreating into a subculture that is increasingly disconnected from reality.
It is very sad because, as you mentioned, there are many historical examples of Catholics and other Christians dealing with the problems of the world in creative and intelligent ways. I do hope that more groups like the pro-life Democrats come into being because we really need to change the perception of faith-based politics as something exclusive to the Rick Santorums of the world.
Hm. I can certainly see your point, John. I am not the biggest fan of EWTN, though they have on occasion prompted me to investigate and revise several of my historical beliefs (on the history of religious persecutions in England, for example).
ReplyDeletePart of the strategy for building such a movement would very likely have to be a pre-emptive distancing of the Catholic position from the Evangelical one, making it clear that while pro-life is a moral position which should not be negotiated away, it cannot be the only position. Such a movement might also have to get more and stronger support from further up the hierarchy, if (and this is a big 'if') their credibility hasn't already been shot to pieces. It's a thorny problem; and you're right, it is very sad that faith-based politics has been relinquished to such a great extent to the Americanist Santorum-style 'conservatives'.