Isn't it obvious by now that the "progess" espoused by 'progressivism" is actually retrograde. "Progressives," sometime covertly, sometimes in heac verbo, wistfully harken back to some golden age before the rise of the West, before Capitalism, before "patriarchy," certainly before Christianity--always in the past.

If you want to see this infamy in writing, you need only peruse Blackmun's opinion in the ~~~~-murder case, but of course it is ~~~~ywhere. It is the so-called conservatives who are progressive: wee would continue mankind's progress..

"In the 1990s, Ratzinger disciplined a series of Catholic theologians who expressed a belief that non-Christian religions are a positive part of God's plan."

On the one hand, God's plan is inscrutable to us mere humans.

On the other, the Catholic Church knows the plan to at least several decimal places.

This is beyond parody.

You don't need to know what He has planned to know what He's told us.

Presuming, of course, that it isn't all made up out of whole cloth.

After all, He has told other believers precisely the same thing about their religions.

So either he is a habitual liar, or all but one religion (if that many) are dead wrong.

How are you, or the Cardinal, to know which?

No He hasn't.

"...he's put the Catholic Church on the wrong side of progress."

As though the goal of the Catholic Church is to be on the right side of progress.

Isn't the Church's goal to be on the right side of truth, rather than progress?

As any observer of Communism could tell you, progress and truth are not always the same thing.

Oh yes He has. Ask an Islamist, for just one instance.

Jeff:

You're right. The Catholic Church should be guided by the principle that nobody knows anything.

Jeff:
They're wrong.

Jeff--

I wouldn't expect you to know a whole lot about John Allen and the National Catholic Reporter (Allen's day job), but would you really put much stock in Allen's characterization of Ratzinger's actions when he refers to "progressive" governments in Latin America?

Jeff-

You BELIEVE in American constitutional republicanism, I assume, because it has worked, at least up to this point. Many Catholic clergy of the progressive persuasion BELIEVED in "liberation theology" because it was a supposed reconcilliation of Catholicism with socialism/Marxism/statism and a more just way of organizing society.

If abstract "justice" is your goal, socialism is the solution. It is a completely "faith based" conlusion, of course. Cardinal Ratzinger's opposition to such idiocy is based on fundamental Church teaching regarding the nature of man and his relationship with God and the state. "Earthly paradise" is anathema to the basic teachings of the church. It has been in a fight with the faith of reason over this very issue for centuries.

Simply put, you have your faith and Cardinal Ratzinger and his supporters have theirs.

OJ:

How do you know they are wrong. God tell you?

Tom, Brian:

Huh? My only comment was with regard to punishing Catholic theologians for thinking other religions might be a positive part of God's plan.

That punishment both reeks of hubris, and seems internally contradictory.

My point, made elsewhere, about our system is that we are here to talk about it because it works in material terms, no matter what God there might be may or may not think about it. Further, the material characteristics of our society are available to anyone.

Just so long as they are willing to adopt secularism, that is.

Liberation theology has proven its material worth by not working worth a d[arn]m, no matter its spiritual value.

Jeff--

My only comment was with regard to punishing Catholic theologians for thinking other religions might be a positive part of God's plan.

Do you honestly believe that that's an adequate summary of either Ratzinger's actions or those theologians' teachings?

I was looking for the bullet point about his crusade against child rape, but I didn't see it.

Brian:

Talk to the authro--it was the bullet point in the article. Based on the Catholic Church services I've been to, though, it seems at least adequate to me.

It makes sense for the Catholic Church to discipline those theologians for saying that non-Christian religions are part of God's plan purely from an organizational imperative. If all religions are equally viable, then what is the purpose of having a Catholic church? Might as well fold up shop. Ratzinger is getting soft, he's letting non-Catholic Christian religions off the hook. When I was growing up, all of you Protestants were going to Hell.

The theologians, if they are Catholics, should toe the church line. Should Ford keep salesmen on the payroll who say that a Chevy is just as good? I don't get all worried about theologians being disciplined, they chose to be Catholic. If they want to be free to say whatever they think, they should become free agents and get off the Church's payroll.

It isn't only theologians on the payroll who get disciplined, Robert..

Ever hear about Acton?

Robert:

Point taken, but the knowledge available to a Ford sales agent about a Chevy is a darn sight greater than a mere human's about God.

That particular Church line is as hubristic as they come.

Harry, I'm not aware of who Acton is/was, could you enlighten?

Jeff, it has nothing to do about knowledge about the Chevy. Even if the Chevy were superior and he knew it, he still has to kiss the hand that feeds him. If he can't do that in good conscience, he should quit and go to work for Chevy.

Since noone really knows anything about God, then noone can be proven wrong, so for the Church to back their own claims is no more hubristic than any other religion's claims, as long as religion is purely a matter of an individual's free conscience. The real hubris comes when a religion tries to usurp that free conscience through force.

Robert:

Jeff is right. The opinion of two salesmen as to which car is better is wholly a function of their faith.

Opinion of (modern) Cadillac salesman versus Peugeot salesman.

Merely faith? Ridiculous.

Robert:

The Good Cardinal was making a very specific assertion about precisely what God had in mind--considering how often meaninglessness in this life is attributed to God's inscrutability, that seems surpassing odd. It is a far different matter from comparing the objective attributes of a Chevy and a Ford, or Islam and Christianity.

What is worse, it makes acquiring the correct religion a mere accident of birth. Is Cardinal Ratzinger accusing God of being that sloppy?

Jeff, the point is noone has to listen to him unless they want to. You and I know that he is blowing smoke, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for a Catholic who complains that the church hierarchy is supressing their intellectual freedom. The analogy to the car salesman is not in the similarity of theology to cars, but the similarity in 'employment' conditions. The salesman who goes to work for Ford gives up his 'intellectual freedom' concerning the comparative benefits of Ford cars to the competitors. How much sympathy would a Ford salesman who was fired for telling customers that Chevys are better get from the general public?

Robert:

OK--I understand now, and agree with you mostly.

But even taken within the Catholic context, his assertion seems to put the Church in the position of simultaneously both knowing, and asserting as unknowable, God's plan.

Jeff, it's all a Mystery. That's why we need the Church to explain these things.

Robert, Lord Acton-Dahlberg was a Catholic intellectual, widely regarded as the most knowledgable man of his time (Victorian era) or perhaps of all time about church history.

During Vatican Council I, he started a magazine to investigate whether the proposed doctrine of papal infallibility was, in fact, supported by tradition (Orrin's favorite argument for anything). It wasn't.

Pius XI won that argument by ordering Acton (who was a professor at Oxford, not in holy orders and not an employee of the church) to be silent.

As a good Catholic (but a bad scholar), he complied.

Acton is famous for saying that 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

Most people who have heard the phrase think he was talking about government.

He wasn't.

Harry, thanks for the info. I had heard of Lord Acton, but not the part about being censured by the Vatican. But my point remains, even for him. This wasn't a time where he could be hauled before the Inquisition and have his eyes burned out. Maybe there would have been some social costs for being a Catholic apostate in Victorian England, but he had a free choice, no?

Not to remain in the church, he didn't.

There are, it seems to me, two issues here, aside from the issue of human liberty.

One is, was Acton correct about the doctrine of papal infallibility? If so, then Orrin would, I suppose, argue that the doctrine should not have been made a matter of faith and morals.

The other is, can an organization function that operates by suppression?

Again, Orrin keeps saying not.

Harry:

Nonsense, I'm a strong supporter of suppression of subvcersive ideas--like our suppression of communism, nazism, witchcraft, etc. The Church has never been stronger.

OJ:

Aside from the little matter of "One is, was Acton correct about the doctrine of papal infallibility?"

Also, keep in mind that subversion is in the eye of the tyrant.

Jeff:

Why aside? If he wished to be a Catyholic he wasn't entitled to differ once it was decided.

America wasn't particularly tyrannical when it suppressed witches, Royalists, rebels, slavers, anarchists, communists, nazis, white separatists, islamicists, etc.

Well, was Acton correct?

I suppose, until 20 or so years ago, that one wasn't entitled to be a Catholic if one had the temerity to believe moons orbited Jupiter.

I wasn't talking about America, I was talking about tyrants.

America is tyrannical where dissent is concerned. Who cares if Acton was correct--he couldn't be a Catholic if he didn't believe in Catholicism just as peoiple who don't believe in the basis of America aren't American.

It sounds as if Acton both wanted to be a Catholic, and for Catholicism to have greater respect for the truth than, say, communism did.

After all, why should anyone have even the tiniest respect for anything the Catholic Church says if they have so little respect for integrity?

Jeff:

Religions aren't based around the "integrity" of individuals but on universal doctrines.

OJ:

The integrity of individuals isn't at question here.

There are really two questions: Was Acton correct about papal infallibility (irrespective of the contemporary hierarchy's position)?

Second, if he was correct, then does that cast doubt on institutional integrity?

Clearly, disagreement with the hierarchy is reason enough to get the boot. But that doesn't mean one can't draw lessons about the hierarchy itself--and the objectivity of religious truth--thereby.

Jeff:

No, none of those questions matter. Only one matters: is an individual entitled to craft his own set of beliefs in opposition to the tenets of his faith and still maintain that he is faithful.

No.

From this exchange I conclude that Acton's assertions regarding papal infallibility were historically correct.

And that religious doctrine is invented on the fly, and inconvenient history is erased.

Just like, say, Stalinist Russia.

Jeff:

Yes, Stalin was entitled to define Stalinism.

And, equally, the Catholic hierarchy is entitled to reinvent Catholicism, erasing history as required, and ejecting those with the temerity to ask inconvenient questions.

I'll remember that next time you tout religious "objective" morality.

Reinventing Catholicism? Erasing history? What are you talking about?