It’s not every day that I read an editorial in a Catholic magazine that I like, but this is good:
The divisive effects of the new American sectarians have not escaped the notice of the Vatican. Their highly partisan political edge has become a matter of concern. That they never demonstrate the same high dudgeon at the compromises, unfulfilled promises and policy disagreements with Republican politicians as with Democratic ones is plain for all to see. It is time to call this one-sided denunciation by its proper name: political partisanship.
[….]Four steps are necessary for the U.S. church to escape the strengthening riptide of sectarian conflict and re-establish trust between universities and the hierarchy. First, the bishops’ discipline about speakers and awards at Catholic institutions should be narrowed to exclude from platforms and awards only those Catholics who explicitly oppose formal Catholic teaching. Second, in politics we must reaffirm the distinction between the authoritative teaching of moral principles and legitimate prudential differences in applying principles to public life. Third, all sides should return to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI that in politics there are usually several ways to attain the same goals. Finally, church leaders must promote the primacy of charity among Catholics who advocate different political options. For as the council declared, “The bonds which unite the faithful are mightier than anything which divides them” (“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” No. 92).
This is by Jesuits, whom I personally have a soft spot for. I’m no longer able to remember which things my grandfather said they taught him and which things Frank Pembleton said they taught him, but I know they teach people things.
Personally, I would take this editorial a step farther: if a bishop is clearly doing the work of the Republican party, his diocese should lose its tax exempt status.
(via)
Jay Andrew Allen
Is Benedict the Umpteenth really set to crack down on this? Call me a curmudgeon, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
And, dude…bonus points for the HOMICIDE reference.
DougJ
I don’t know. He’d be smart to, though.
Balconesfault
I always had the sense that Ratz was the guy pulling strings back in 2004 for the American Bishops to throw in behind Bush versus Kerry … when the pontiff himself seemed more than a bit pissed off about the whole “unjust war” thing.
asiangrrlMN
I don’t think Benedict will do jack about it, but I like what this guy wrote. I think it would be the right road for the sectarians to travel–which means they won’t.
Zifnab
Dude, what was the last American President the Catholic Church seriously came out against? The Catholics know how to run a religion in a political world. They reliably come out behind whatever political force happens to be dominant, and get the chief pumba to thank them for doing it.
Pope Benedict pressed Bush on abortion, abstinence and foreign aid. He’ll press Obama on capital punishment and education. That’s just how the Catholics roll. Find what they support that you support and encourage you in that direction. :-p
All this talk of ending political partisanship is just a great way to sweep the last eight years of Bush-lovin’ under the rug so they can go into four/eight years of Obama-lovin’.
Bill E Pilgrim
I was reading today about how younger people are shunning religion, and the piece said that one reason was that religion has come to be associated with extreme social conservatism, which has become so unpopular especially in that age group.
Seems obvious enough. But I found myself thinking, hmm, wouldn’t it be funny if the real story looking back in fifty years wasn’t how embracing the religious right damaged the Republicans but how embracing the Republicans damaged religion?
Thankovsky
@DougJ:
From what I understand, Benedict’s political position within the Vatican is a very weak one. I think he’s at least somewhat cognizant of the fact that taking a hard-line position in the Western world is no longer an option; on the other hand, the Cardinals that surround him in the Vatican, and a lot of the clergy in Africa as well, are just insanely arch-conservative. It really is a no-win situation.
asiangrrlMN
@Bill E Pilgrim: I like this hypothesis. Someone needs to research it!
DougJ
Interesting.
Thankovsky
@DougJ:
It’s what I hear tell, anyway. As someone who grew up Lutheran, I can’t help but feel a little Schadenfreude. Thirty Years War, bitches!
edit: It raises an interesting question, though – what would happen with the Roman Catholic Church, if the Vatican were to quickly fade from relevancy? One could argue that it already has, of course, although I think that remains to be seen. But were the Vatican to suddenly disappear one day, I imagine that Catholicism would actually not change all that much, because it really is beyond debate that Catholicism has become a much more decentralized institution over the past century. Catholics in the U.S. would continue to split between liberal and ultra-conservative, those in South America would probably skew towards the Liberation Theology side of the spectrum, those in Africa would probably also have a really polarized split between progressive and ultra-conservative, etc.
PeakVT
Finally, church leaders must promote the primacy of charity among Catholics who advocate different political options.
Looks like somebody has read the New Testament lately. I rarely get the same impression from evangelicals.
Anne Laurie
Ratzinger, “the Vatican’s Rottweiler”, was elected at least in part to “purify” the Mother Church of those candy-arsed Vatican II theories about love & tolerance & compassion. He’s been slightly more subtle about this than his political soulmates among the American GOP, but he’s got the same my-way-or-the-highway spirit. This is the man who spent 25 years as the “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” — aka The Holy Office, or The Inquisition. He had no problem with remitting the excommunication of the Lefebvrist cardinals, for instance, until the whole Holocaust-denial issue started to get traction in the secular media. He’s also spoken openly, if not ex cathedra, about the future of a “smaller, yet more committed” Catholic church.
Thankovsky
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, don’t get me wrong – Benedict is anything but progressively-minded. But it really does sound like he’s trapped, too. The gamut of Catholic opinion is way too spread out for him to make a clear call on any issue. There’s really no way one can easily reconcile the opinions of, say, Bono, Andrew Sullivan, and Bill Donahue. Yet he also seems to realize that he’s going to have to give some ground on some cultural issues in the U.S. and Western Europe, or risk losing whatever ground he still maintains there.
JGabriel
As a religiously agnostic cultural Catholic who put in his years as an altar boy and learned some dogma along the way, there is little that pisses me off as much as listening to some random jackass bishop rant about abortion, then go out and support politicians who are pro-death penalty. The church is against them both equally, but somehow that hasn’t reached the ears of American clergy?
Yeah, right. The editorial DougJ cites is a nice corrective or counterweight. Good to see that at least some of the Jesuits are paying attention.
.
Thankovsky
@JGabriel:
Well, one thing that gives me hope, as a liberal Christian, is the fact that I see a lot of changes happening with the younger generation of Christians – especially Evangelicals, surprisingly. A lot of them are wising up to the very inconsistency that you mention, ie: claiming to be pro-life, when one also supports unnecessary wars, the death penalty, and extreme socioeconomic injustices in this very country (to say nothing of opposing birth control, which could obviate the need for abortion!). I fervently believe that we’re on the verge of a great cultural shift towards truly compassionate, socially just politics in this country; I’m looking forward to it.
Anyway, that’s enough out of me for one night. Sleep well, Balloon Juice!
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
Wow, just like the Republicans.
.
Mike S
If the Catholic Church wants to become relevant again, they need only do one thing.
Adopt the “Buddy Christ” into their formal teachings.
That was the church my family went too when I lived across the river from Redbank. I have no use for the church now. The fact that Bernard Cardinal Law was allowed to give a Mass in honor of John Paul was the final straw for me. The people who are upset about Obama and Notre Dame sure don’t seem all that upset that the guy who helped priests rape thousands of children gets a prime gig like that.
That fact alone makes their mock outrage laughable.
mclaren
This problem will solve itself over time. People used to genuflect and clutch roary beads and moan and wail to invisible creatures in the sky because technology formerly did not exist to regrow spinal cords and regenerate limbs.
Once that technology gets perfected, those of you who believe in a guy who allegedly died on a cross and came back three days later and now eat bread and call it his flesh and drink wine and call it his blood can continue your zombie-worshipping pretend cannibalism, but the rest of us won’t care. Miracles will no longer be required.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Via Kos: E. J. Dionne on the Pope and the right wing reaction to the President’s Notre Dame visit.
Interesting that the Pope is siding with Obama on ‘life issues’. That is sure to piss the purists off. More.
Little Dreamer
Oh, that’s profound! Is this what passes for good blogging these days? So, by your methodology, the drug addict who wanted to teach me how to shoot Meth up through my veins when I was a young and impressionable teenager must have been a good guy too, huh?
geg6
Sounds to me like the Jesuits, as usual, are being pragmatic and intelligent in the face of the craziest wingnuttiest pope since Leo XII. As a recovering Catholic, I must admit I still retain affection for the Jesuits, the only somewhat liberal and reality-based order in all of Catholicism.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Little Dreamer:
If that is who you look up to then I guess it works for you. That tidbit makes understanding your ravings easier though, so thanks for that.
Davis X. Machina
In thirty-five to fifty years, the median Catholic, and the median Muslim, will both be a sub-Saharan African.
Little Dreamer
WTF are you talking about? If I looked up to someone like that, I wouldn’t be asking the fucking question, would I?
Perhaps you need some time to sit and work that out in your brain?
The preposition that the Jesuits are good just because they teach people things is ludicrous. But, I don’t expect you to understand that, it might be too difficult to grasp for you.
someguy
@ DougL – correct me if I’m wrong but the Pope didn’t exactly endorse abortion there, did he? I’m of the impression that somebody wrote in the vatican newspaper that, paraphrased, Obama isn’t as bad on abortion as the Vatican had been led to believe based on Obama’s campaign rhetoric, and the Vatican is, as always, pleased with any government program that gives aid to people under the rubric of social justice. They call that a ‘life issue’ too, I guess they were messaging before messaging was cool. That’s not exactly putting the guys in funny hats on the streets with “get your hands off my womb” placards; it’s more akin to the surprise expressed when we find out a particular Republican hasn’t taken millions in graft, divorced his cancerous wife, or molested his interns. Just because you say, “well, this one is less evil than we’d first suspected” doesn’t mean you endorse supply-side economics and optional wars. I mean, nice try, but I don’t think you and Dionne are going to have any luck moving the pope out of the “reactionary” column and into the “sweetness and light” column.
Josh Hueco
@mclaren:
Pound that shoe harder, mclaren.
Aimai
Bitchy,little dreamer.
Aimai
kay
@someguy:
The Vatican statement takes away the core argument that Republicans and Catholics are using to explain why they are treating Obama differently than pro-choice Republican politicians.
It’s a problem for them, because it appears blatantly partisan.
The claim is he is treated differently because he is uniquely radical on abortion, not because he is a Democrat.
The Vatican statement says he isn’t uniquely radical on abortion.
Leaving….Democrat.
kay
This is cynical, but it looks like lobbying to me. The Catholic Church receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal dollars to deliver various humanitarian and social services world-wide.
President Bush’s policy priorities aligned with Catholic doctrine. They could both take the money and carry the message. They have a problem with Obama. They can take the money, but his message doesn’t align with doctrine. It’s a lot of money.
Whether it was a great idea to have religious lining up with every other interest group for their cut of the federal cash is a question I’ll leave to religious.
Doesn’t seem wise to me, but what do I know.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
As much as the religious right and some bishops want the Pope/Vatican to scorn Obama, it ain’t happening. Practicality, pragmatism and all that jazz. An Archbishop who responded to the article over there even said as much.
That’s all, nice try though. ;)
kommrade reproductive vigor
I’ll grant you that Jesuits are less obnoxious than some orders but to this lasped Cath., this reads more like an attempt to defend turf (Back off the universities, arseholes).
Yeah but some of your goals suck.
I thought this was pretty funny though:
Here’s hoping Terry and his fellow loons will start picketing their offices. I’d say Dobson must be pissed that he didn’t get a mention, but I’m sure he’ll see this as a tacit nod of approval.
dmv
All I can say is that there are some very strange views of Catholicism and the Catholic hierarchy in this thread.
Bulworth
I hope ND doesn’t cave into the goons at EWTN (The reichwing Catholic station that has been pushing this 24/7) or First Things or George Weigel.
chrome agnomen
why should any of them have tax exempt status under any circumstances. people GIVE them money, for dog’s sake. and, accepting the fact that one can deny a speaker arbitrarily in a private function, why the caveat that they not speak if they explicitly oppose formal catholic teaching? these people resemble the right in denying the possibility that they can ever have anything to learn from people who oppose their tenets.
Tom
I’m biased because I had eight years of Jesuit schooling, but they are a great order. Definitely the most liberal in terms of teaching empathy for others and other points of views. They do a great job of teaching students about other religions. I learned a great deal about Judaism, Hinduism, Buddism, etc… in my time with them.
Above all else, they teach students to serve others, not reprimand others. They realize that the best way to get your point across is to understand who you’re talking to and what their point of view is. Then you can start a dialogue. They really seem out of place in today’s catholic church despite being the largest order.
aimai
Its not even that they are afeared that Obama is going to challenge their views on abortion from the bully pulpit of the five minutes after he receives the honorary degree. They don’t think for one minute that Obama is going to give a stemwinding speech on the pleasures and priorities of gay abortion on demand. They are simply hysterical–and I use that word advisedly–that they will not be permitted to humiliate and attack feminism, “abortionists” and the democratic party in the person of Obama. If he were going to show up and allow them to insult him and his political party freely (if the Notre Dame authorities would) they’d be all for it. They can’t bear the thought that their “dignified rejection” of “Obamanism” or whatever crap they are spewing has to be ratcheted up to 11 to even get any attention from the press. And also Obama (and the dems) are continuing to simply “brush them off his shoulder.”
aimai
TheFountainHead - 'Easily Led'
As a product of Jesuit education at both the high school and university level, and an atheist as a result*, I’ll make two comments.
1. If the Catholic church is to survive in America it will do so on the backs of the Jesuits who have long embraced modernity and the need for casuistry.
2. This is absolutely written as a shot across the bow of the Christian Right, to which the Jesuits certainly do not belong. It is a clear warning that dogma for dogma’s sake will not be tolerated in the educational institutions the Jesuits have cultivated.
*Note: My atheism is not due to any distaste for the Jesuits, quite the opposite, they gave me the education and tools to become one myself.
Ash Can
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Doesn’t Dobson believe that all Catholics are going to burn in hell because they’re not really Christian, or some such reason?
@chrome agnomen:
Along with taxation would come representation. If religions were taxed along with everyone and everything else, they could legally demand to receive the government services they were paying for. As a result, tax dollars would be supporting, to varying degrees, Catholic schools as well as public ones, yeshivas, Evangelical megachurches, and Fred Phelps. And in this case, why even bother having a First Amendment?
Tax exemption is part of telling churches that they’re constitutionally on their own. It’s the responsibility of us churchgoers to shell in if we want churches to go to. If others are forced to shell in as well, then they can rightfully tell the churches what they can and can’t do with that money. And this is what the Founding Fathers were smart enough to avoid.
Louise
I seem to remember that the last Jesuit editor who wrote about politics and rationality got canned. Wonder what will happen to this guy?
Thanks for throwing in Pembleton, Doug. Every day is better with a Homicide reference.
Face
/busts out Webster
Bill H
I went to Marquette, in Milwaukee. As a non-Catholic, I was required to take a moral philosophy course rather than a theology one. The prof was a Jesuit. He and I got into about three or four knock down drag out arguments, one was on birth control and a couple of them spanned as much as three classes. I recall one was on there being an answer to all questions of morality. I backed down on none of them and, of course, neither did he. The class loved it. I was sure he was qoing to flunk me, but I didn’t care. He wound up giving me the highest grade in the class.
geg6
@TheFountainHead – ‘Easily Led’:
Quite right. Which is why I still retain affection for them. I’m not quite an atheist, probably because of them. I had a great teacher who was a Jesuit who opened my mind to so many different religious and political philosophies and who was so open and up front about the Church’s politics and factions that he will always be one of the people I cite as a huge influence in my life. And when I informed him I was leaving the Church and considered myself a Deist, he was actually happy for me and approving of my decision because he said it showed I had thought deeply about and made a mature decision about my own personal philosophy in life.
When I was applying to colleges, I knew I had to apply to at least one Catholic one to please my parents. And Jesuits are the reason I applied to Georgetown and NOT Notre Dame (which my mom would have preferred). Couldn’t afford it, but I got accepted which made everyone happy.
Jesuits are generally liberal and value thinking for yourself. And that’s why Jesuits will never run the Vatican.
Sam
How many people are going to get that Frank Pembleton reference? Fantastic though, nonetheless. That show should be rerun more. Law and Order should be rerun less.
Tom
That’s the thing about the Jesuits, they really allow students to make up their own mind — almost force them to, actually — about religion. They don’t put the fear of God into people. They don’t make you believe by teaching you HAVE to believe in Christianity or go to hell. If you leave the Jesuits believing in a Christian God, you’re a true believer. Conversely, they lose a lot of people, but at least those people made up their own mind.
DougJ
It’s interesting seeing all these positive comments about Jesuit education. I was an altar boy but never attended Catholic schools so my only interaction with Jesuits had to do with a priest who would fill in over the summer when our regular priest was gone. You could tell right away with him that he was a lot more intellectual than our usual priest.
NonyNony
@Ash Can:
ARGH! NONONONONO! That is NOT the rationale for tax-exempt status for Churches. It has NOTHING TO DO with government services at all. In fact, there’s established case law that says that under some circumstances, school districts have to provide certain services – like busing – on behalf of parochial schools.
The tax-exempt status of churches relates to their status as Non-Profit Corporations. This is also why they aren’t allowed to endorse political candidates from the pulpit – because they fall under the tax law applicable for Non-profit Corporations. That’s it – any church can choose to incorporate as a For-profit Corporation if it wants to, give up its status as a “non-profit” and get into politics all it wants. Few choose to do so because the ones who most want to dabble in politics are ALSO the ones that lurve them their tax-exempt status and ability of their members to make their donations to the church as tax deductible charity.
But the tax status of churches and the First Amendment separation of Church and State provisions are completely and utterly separate issues. The non-profit status of churches is something that was granted in acknowledgment of the historical position of churches as the main providers of charity in a community and a way to encourage that behavior. It gets abused by charlatans and political operatives (any system will have its abusers) but fundamentally the reason for it is because the church in question is supposed to be doing charitable good with its donations. And most churches do – the number of “pastors” who game the system to make a fortune and dabble in politics is relatively small compared to the number of churches out there.
I’m personally an atheist and have little love for religion in general, but it irritates me to no end to see people perpetuate the myth that the tax exempt status of churches in this country is due to some Separation of Church and State Constitutional issue. It isn’t – it’s all about standard tax law and using the tax code to encourage behavior that the folks making the law wanted to encourage.
geg6
@DougJ:
I really believe that Jesuits value intellectual rigor over dogma. Believe me, I hold nothing and no one in the Church in high regard other than the Jesuits. I think they should just go with a schism and start their own church for Catholics who think.
JC
@Tom: Another comment in support of the Jesuits. They’re the true thinkers of the church. My brother, who goes to Fordham, has had a lot to say about how they’ve challenged him since he got there.
someguy
@ DougL
When are you people going to realize that Catholicism is Fundy Light – all the dogmatism, twice the kneeling, and 50% less plastic hair? (Though Benedict’s hair is absolutely fabulous, in a super duper almost suspiciously manly Aryan sort of way, doncha think?)
FWIW, most of the political advocacy outfits in D.C. are non-profits. You’re allowed to be an issue-advocate and maintain non-profit status, as long as you don’t start endorsing specific candidates. Take away the RC’s status as a non-profit and you’re going to have a bunch of winger ‘public interest’ law types suing to whack Open Society and similar groups, and arguing that singling out the Catholics but not the Godless Heathen is a violation of the Establishment Clause. Not that I’m against it; I think Barry O should do it just to stick it to them and pretty much all the other churches; let’s see if you people really believe that mumbo jumbo if it actually costs you something to believe it.
JGabriel
kay:
No, they really didn’t. Not on war, not on the death penalty, not on social justice. Abortion is pretty much the only plank on which the Catholic church aligned with Bush, or right-wingers in general.
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Tom Q
I, too, had a Jesuit education — high school in NY — and echo what others are saying about it. Having come from a “Doubt”-like parochial grade school, I was shocked at how open the discussion was; in the beginning, it felt like hearing heresy every day.
As it happens, I was at a reunion two weeks ago, and this subject more or less came up. One classmate, who’s gone on to be very active in gay issues, expressed not only contempt for the right-wing directives coming out of the Vatican over the last 25 years, but also huge disappointment in the Jevvies from not more vocally resisting…a role they’d happily filled down the centuries but seemed to shirk of late, as the combination of JP II and GWBush made it seem like righties ruled the world.
Which may highlight another problem: our American media seems to think “the Catholic view” is synonymous with “Bill Donohue’s opinion”. As others have pointed out, Andrew Sullivan, E. J. Dionne, even Stephen Colbert are active Catholics — and they represent the views of probably 50%, maybe more, of American Catholics — yet you’ll never see them on to discuss the church’s viewpoint; it’s always some loud-mouth rightie like Buchanan or Donohue. Maybe the (comparative) silence of progressive Catholics in our national conversation is just a subset of the wired-for-GOP standard that decides what is discussable in public.
Kathy
My husband went to a Jesuit high school while I went to a public high school, he is now our in-house expert on Jewish and Muslim theology. I must say in an age where so many conflicts are arising over religion, the public schools should use the Jesuits as an example. They really do a terrific job of teaching about religion without the indoctrination. My daughter has narrowed her college search to Jesuit schools due to my husband’s example.
Also Doug J. I loved the Frank P. reference as well (but I’m old enough to remember him.)
Ash Can
@NonyNony: I appreciate the correction; many thanks.
dadanarchist
Jesuits!
But they are educated and believe in learning and rational debate and discussion.
And weren’t some of them down Latin America-ways commies?
I really think it is asking too much to expect Bill Donahue to give them the time of day.
And, of course, one of the rationales behind officially establishing Opus Dei was to provide a conservative counterweight to the purported “liberalism” of the Jesuit order.
Snark aside: the Jesuits are one of the few religious orders I hold in any sort of esteem.
HyperIon
Hmm, I guess I did not realize this came from the bishops.
While employed at a catholic women’s college, I was impressed at the overall “liberal” atmosphere. But then Gloria Steinem was NOT allowed to speak at the campus auditorium because of her stance on birth control and abortion. I imagined then that it was a local decision but now I realize it was the church borg policy.
Tom
I was psyched when that Latin American Cardinal was mentioned in the Pope discussion. I knew enough to know he wouldn’t get the nod, but it was progress.
someguy
Well, it’s good to see you’ve gotten over that whole ‘involved with the Dominicans in conducting several inquisitions-not-just-the-Spanish-one’ thing.
Matt in HB
Add another to the list of Jesuit educated agnostics, former rebpublicans, and fans of Homicide. Although it’s been 20 years since I graduated from my Jesuit HS in Ohio, I have distinct memories of the open dialog about faith. I took a semester class on ethics and morality in which the teacher encouraged all of us to find our own conclusions and perspectives on the gray areas and contradictions. Not dogmatic in the least. In fact, it seemed like they had no interest in cajoling people in to believing in Jesus, and only wanted to give people the opportunity to find their faith.
Ending 12 years of catholic schooling with four years of Jesuit HS left me entirely unprepared to deal with the dogma of the religious right. They seem the polar opposite of the thoughtful and scholarly men who taught me much more than the three Rs.
mak
Another Jesuit alumnus here (St. Joe’s in Philly).
Not enough Catholics, let alone publics, realize what a conservative JPII was, and how he stacked the Vatican and the rest of the church hierarchy with reactionaries. They just saw the grandfatherly (Reaganesque) happy face. The Jessies have always been the DFHs of the Church, but during JPII’s reign were marginalized at Rome HQ to the same extent that Democrats were in Washington circa, say, 2001-2005.
And let’s not forget noises out of Ratz’ early papacy about a “smaller, purer” church, or some such, which, as another commenter has noted, sounds an awful lot like the republican party of late. And we all know how that’s working out for them, even if they don’t seem to.
The only thing that kept the Jesuits in the game during the conservative ascendancy was the prestige, power and MONEY generated by their edumacational institutions.
Which brings us to Ratz’s recent reach-around to the majority of U.S. Catholics who aren’t crazy and who support President Obama (E.J. Dionne writes about it today): I suspect it has more to do with the fact that US Catholics, while a tiny percentage of the world population, fill about half the world’s collection plate. It seems that Ratz is simply half an election cycle ahead of the republicans in realizing that “smaller and purer” is no way to either win elections or pay off pedophilia settlements.
Surabaya Stew
Count this as another endorsement of the Jesuits. No schooling was involved here, just 15 years or so of weekly church attendance growing up. My reasons for leaving Catholicism were despite the thought-provoking messages they preached, not due to them. As a result, going back to church (albeit, Episcopalian) in my 30’s was a pleasant experience. Had another branch of the Holy Orders been involved in the childhood homilies, this modern-deist/cultural catholic would likely still be an atheist/agnostic.
Persia
@Sam: I still miss that show. Reed Diamond on Dollhouse was not enough, both because he didn’t show up enough and because the show gives me the heebie-skeebies.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@someidiot:
When are you going to stop taking what I said and twisting it into shit that I didn’t say? Sheesh!
Former altar boy, Our Lady of Lourdes school (Spokane) and Jesuit taught. Agnostic now and the Jesuits were a help in opening my eyes. Great people, very intelligent and generally very low key. That they are willing to take a shot at the religious right says a lot. They are people who agree to disagree, and do so very politely.
They aren’t being nice with this shot.
someguy
You shouldn’t praise a fundamentally illiberal institution when it shows an occasional glimmer of having evolved, at least in some precincts, to the extent that it could win a chess match against australopithecus, given a 5 or 6 move headstart. BTW, enjoy the occasional glimmer of post-enlightenment thought it while it lasts. The African catholics who will come to dominate the church appear to be way to the right of western european and american ones. Pretty soon we’re going to be longing for the old Africa where sharia law was the only threat to the West.
thomas
if half the education in this country was half as good as that provided by the Jesuits we’d be much better off.
As a recovering RC with 19 yrs of catholic ed (Jesuits in grad school) I can only say that their liberal, catholic (as in universal) approach to education is something we all should be exposed to.
kay
@JGabriel:
I’m going to disagree, in terms of Catholic delivery of social services and humanitarian aid.
They don’t deliver social services relating to the death penalty. They don’t make a call on delivering humanitarian aid to war-torn countries. They just deliver the aid. They can act as a delivery system for federal aid on war, and stay out of the policy discussion.
Abortion and birth control are different. The Republican position aligns precisely with Catholic doctrine, allowing them to accept federal money to deliver social services while practicing the doctrine.
It’s not just “overseas” either. I’m willing to bet your city or county contracts with Catholic Charities to deliver social services. When they do that, they’re making a POLITICAL call.
Bubblegum Tate
I, too, have a soft spot for Jesuits, but that is sort of counterbalanced by the fact that my mom worked for a Jesuit university for many years, and those good, moral men of god totally fucked her over when she got breast cancer and started missing work to have surgery/radiation/chemo–which was costing the university health plan a pretty penny. But that’s my own beef with the regents of that university; on the whole, I agree with the positive things being said about Jesuits in this thread.
Blue Raven
I’m sorry, y’all, but the Jesuits do have a match in the Roman Catholic tradition without the Inquisitorial baggage. I give you the DeLaSalle tradition of Roman Catholic humanism. I was raised in it and people think I was Jesuit-trained. Close, but DeLaSalle was a lot kinder while still possessing a great deal of rigor. When I wound up with Jesuits in charge of my education, whether CCD or ex-priests in public schools, the rigor I had was a match for theirs. DeLaSalle approaches are a lot of why the French were far more sensible toward the American Indians than the English were. You want thinkers’ Catholicism? DeLaSalle can teach the Jesuits a bit more humanity and both trads can go trotting off together, leaving the wannabe Dominicans to chew the Franciscans’ heads off.
Quicksand
Bubblegum, if that’s balance to you, then you’re a better person than I.
I’d be bitter.