A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Bishop’s statement opposing health care bill March 16, 2010

Just for the record, the USCCB, of which I am no great friend, does oppose the current health care bill (the senate approved version) being debated in the House of Representatives. 

In Cardinal George’s words:

It [the bill] expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures. In so doing, it forces all of us to become involved in an act that profoundly violates the conscience of many, the deliberate destruction of unwanted members of the human family still waiting to be born.

The bill funds billions of dollars for community health centers that by statute will be able to perform elective abortions.

Cardinal George goes on to discuss the Catholic Health Association, CHA, directly, whose views regarding the inclusion of abortion in the language of the bill as a “pig in a poke:”

This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association. They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote. Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke.

Mark my words – if this bill passes, we will have a federally enshrined, permanent “right” for a woman to have an abortion, on your dollar, in locations throughout the US.  The bishops see this.  CHA is being hopelessly naive, or has otherwise compromised its principles, in claiming otherwise.  Sr. Keehan complained that I was pitting Catholic against Catholic in this ‘great work of social justice.’  I think the bishops would agree that, if anyone is causing internecine Catholic strife, it is the CHA and Sr. Keehan.

UPDATE: Fr.Z analyzes the situation.   The great Fr. shares many of the concerns and criticisms of CHA that I have.

Tolerance is not a virtue March 16, 2010

I haven’t opined much on the ongoing situation in Colorado, where a kindergartner was not allowed to re-enroll in Catholic school due to the child’s parents living a lifestyle which is counter to the Catholic faith.   This has become a very unpleasant imbroglio.  The usual sorts, the professional protestors, are of course up in arms, decrying the Church and viciously attacking the pastor.  But even many Catholics are upset about this, and feel that the pastor acted inappropriately in his prudential judgement. 

Alot of these folks hang their argument on the idea of tolerance.  They believe that Jesus was ‘tolerant,’ and thus we should must be, too.  Dr. Jeff Mirus, at Catholic Culture, argues otherwise:

The idea of tolerance is often invoked, and in many different situations, as the guiding principle which trumps all others. In fact, tolerance is typically introduced as the only possible answer to the question of how Jesus would have acted in any given situation. It is the classic rhetorical WWJD response. But it seems to me that this notion must be discredited before it does any further damage to authentic human culture, and so I feel compelled to raise two critical points.

The first point is that Jesus was not tolerant. He was quick to forgive whenever forgiveness was sought, which is a very different thing. But he was formidably intolerant of unrepentant sinners, of those who refused to change in response to the proclamation of the Kingdom. The New Testament repeatedly reinforces this intolerance of the unrepentant, in both the gospels and the epistles. Indeed, if a public sinner will not change at the behest of the Church, he is to be avoided and excluded as a “heathen or a publican”.

The second point, as may be easily imagined from the fact that Jesus did not practice tolerance, is that tolerance is not a virtue. Patience is a virtue. Courage is a virtue. Faith, hope and love are preeminent, supernatural virtues. But tolerance is merely a good or bad prudential decision, based on circumstances. There can be no appeal to tolerance as to a general principle of right order. The only possible question is whether, with respect to any particular difference, tolerance or intolerance is the course most conducive to the common good, that is, to the well-being of the whole community. In other words, it may or may not be the best course to admit the student despite his irregular “family situation”, but the solution must be determined by an examination of all the goods at stake in the context of the specific range of available options. It cannot be determined by proclaiming tolerance a virtue in and of itself.

Where tolerance is deemed a virtue rather than a prudential decision, it is not only impossible to build a virtuous society, it is impossible to build any kind of cohesive society whatsoever. This is so because universal tolerance means the acceptance (and therefore tacit approval) of all behaviors, irrespective of their impact on the common good and on human flourishing. To put the matter simply, tolerance perceived as a virtue always rewards vice. Thus, while I began this discussion with the the purpose of elucidating the way complex prudential questions should be resolved, along with the perfectly legitimate differences of opinion which can result, I close it almost gratefully with the proclamation of an inflexible principle: The invocation of tolerance as a virtue will always undermine prudence, the real and necessary virtue that enables us to match proper solutions to particular problems.

I certainly agree that ‘tolerance’ is not a virtue.  There are many in the Church today who wrongly interpret Jesus’ exhortation to love one’s neighbor as a call to accept any action on another’s part.  This is nothing more than license, and license is the pathway to sin and cutting oneself off from the graces available through the Church.   Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate – Charity in Truth, reminds us with its very title that the virtue of charity, of love, must be grounded in the Truth Christ proclaimed.  Jesus did not accept everyone as is – he accepted those who begged forgiveness for their sins, often with the stern admonition that they sin no more (as in today’s Gospel – John 5:1-16). 

Too often we hear voices in the Church calling for us to ‘accept’ everyone.  This is not correct, as acceptance of sin is a sin in and of itself.  We do need to love those who sin and not judge them in terms of the state of their salvation, but we can definitely assert that they are not living according to the doctrine of the Faith.  In fact, we must do so, as we are all called to live and act according to the Truth of the Faith, and to help bring others to that Truth.