On “staying”

Friday, May 10th, 2013

At the National Dissenting Reporter, Isabella Moyer is thrilled by the choice of Pope Francis—at last (so the headline would have it) she can remain in the Church because of rather than in spite of the pope.

I appreciate that wisdom sometimes comes late, and I believe that she’s sincere when she says, in seeking to empathize by those who are unsettled by Francis’ election, that she “understand[s], too well, the heart-sinking feeling of being given a pastor, bishop or pope who you believe does not embrace the same vision of church as you do,” but I cannot agree that “we” now “know how [she] felt for the last papacy or two.” I cannot begin to comprehend how one can have struggled to remain in the Church despite disagreement with this bishop or that pope; the entire manner of thinking is foreign to me. It is probably true that if Francis had been Pope when God started drawing me to the Church, it would have been harder to say yes. I might have resisted it a lot more, because it’s easy to get comfortable with the idea of being a papist when the papacy is occupied by someone like Benedict the Great, a man who, merely as Joseph Ratzinger, would have been on the fast track to being a doctor of the Church even if he had never been elected to the See of Peter. Far harder if the pope is a tedious berk! 1  At the same time, however, I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t have become a Catholic! Who would leave—who would remain apart—simply because the current pope is problematic? Who would even consider it? As I’ve noted before, 2 of the apostles handpicked by Christ, one was a dud, and so we should scarcely expect the ranks of their successors, picked at the inspiration of the Spirit as a rule but at the hands of men as a fact, to have a much more favorable ratio of eleven good ones for every twelve. And who would stay if this was the criterion, given that papal history is, alas, a sordid tale more populated with monsters and mediocrities than models of faith? 3

I don’t understand the mindset that produces this line of thought. I don’t understand the reason that one might be a Catholic that would be compromised by personal disagreement with a pope, or by the personal conduct of a priest, etc.  I am a Catholic because this is the Church founded by Christ; until that ceases to be true, per impossibile, I will be here. 4 (I see people  purportedly departing because of the abuse scandal or coming back because of Francis, and I can’t help but think “what in the world is your faith built on that you come and go with the tides?”) To be sure, I expect that this pontificate will be a challenge for me: It is a new and jarring experience to find myself without a pope to whom I can relate and for whom I have little personal affection. I never before had to wake up wondering what new foolishness we would today have to suffer from Rome. But so what? All this is as the seasons.

Having made remarks that are critical of Francis, I should conclude with the observation that, for those of us who are so-disposed, we are Roman Catholics. 5 We cannot and will not act toward Pope Francis in the manner that the dissenters and schismatics on the left acted toward Pope Benedict. I will afford Francis everything that is due to his office—obedience, fealty, respect, and so on. Whatever our feelings about the man, we must remember that his authority has nothing to do with Jorge Bergoglio, about whom we may think as we will; he is our Holy Father the Pope, who has been duly-elected to the Holy See of Rome by the duly-appointed cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and when he puts on that miter, I must listen and do my best to assent, for it is not then Bergoglio who speaks but Peter who speaks through Francis. 6

Notes:

  1. See Kingsley Amis, the King’s English 23 (1997). ↩
  2. See The hierarchy and the bourbon laity, 1 MPA 6 (2012). ↩
  3. See generally John Julius Lord Norwich, Absolute Monarchs (2011). ↩
  4. See The Catholic Proposition, 2 MPA __ (2012). ↩
  5. Cf. Why Roman Catholic, 1 MPA 137. ↩
  6. Cf. Rocco Palmo, B16 Returns, http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2013/05/b16-returns.html?m=1 (last visited May 2, 2013) (“in the end, whether he calls himself Linus, Sixtus, Julius, Adrian, Clement, Pius, John, Paul, John Paul, Benedict … [or] Francis, at his core he’s always the same: that is, Peter – that is, the rock on which the Master continues to build, shape and grow His Church”). ↩
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A few comments on the firearms debate

Wednesday, May 1st, 2013

The contentious public policy dispute of the hour is the question of regulating firearms, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a statement that makes two comments and advances five (very general) calls.

I. The bishops’ call.

When the bishops intervene in public policy questions, they do well to tread lightly. 1 Bishops have a right—in some cases an obligation—to speak about policy, but, recognizing that the path from sound doctrine to sound policy is not always straight, short, and well-lit, 2 they should do so in a manner consonant with the limits of their ex officio competence. 3 With this in mind, let us consider the USCCB statement.

The Conference’s first comment recites a statement by Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace that “limiting the purchase of [handguns] would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone.” People may think as they will whether or not any human right is thus infringed, but it is assuredly not true in the United States that no right is infringed by such a measure. 4 The second amendment would preclude such measures, for better or worse. 5

The second assails the infernal engines of a culture that now wallows in violence and is rapidly becoming indifferent to violence. If their point is that public policy should do something about the movie, gaming, and musical industries—what we might dub the “musical-entertainment complex”—I agree. But the first amendment would preclude such measures, for worse without doubt. 6

Finally, the Conference makes five general calls, and they are so vague that almost everyone could agree with them. (1) “Support measures that control the sale and use of firearms”—which could simply mean universal background checks, for example. (2) “Support measures that make guns safer (especially efforts that prevent their unsupervised use by children and anyone other than the owner).” (3) “Call for sensible regulations of handguns.” Who, assuming that “sensible” means (as it must) “compliant with sound public policy and the Second Amendment,” could disagree? For example: A sensible regulation of handguns might be an amendment to the No Child Left Behind act that ensures that all children learn basic firearms safety. (4) “Support legislative efforts that seek to protect society from the violence associated with easy access to deadly weapons including assault weapons.” Who could disagree, in principle? (5) “Make a serious commitment to confront the pervasive role of addiction and mental illness in crime.” If this meant anything, presumably no one could disagree!

Outside of the privileged categories of faith and morals, 7 our shepherds’ views are always entitled to respectful consideration, 8 but they are not controlling. 9 Here, though, there is little offered for consideration. In this case, we have the opposite extreme from the concerns that prompted my earlier  posts: The Conference intervenes in a public policy debate in a way that is so vague that it says almost nothing and supplies almost no guidance. We are more-or-less on our own.

II. The legality and utility of gun control

The second amendment protects an individual right to possess and thus obtain firearms, primarily, although not exclusively, for the purpose of self-defense. The precise boundaries of this right have yet to be mapped. 10 Nevertheless, not every regulation of firearms violates the second amendment. 11 Background checks, for example, seem unlikely to violate the second amendment: If there are classes of people who are not permitted to own weapons, a traditional exception that Heller expressly declines to disturb, 12 it stands to reason that there can be restrictions on the sale of weapons to such persons, and therefore that public policy may impose an obligation upon (and supply a means for its accomplishment to) sellers of weapons that they determine whether buyers fall into those classes. 13

Moreover, gun enthusiasts err if they say “well, are we going to ban pressure cookers, or knives, or baseball bats, because they’re also used to kill people”: There is a significant difference between an object that is capable of being used for violent purposes, on the one hand, and on the other, an object that is designed for violent purposes. A handgun can be used to inflict violence on targets and game animals, but its primary purpose is to inflict violence on human beings. (Violence used in self-defense is justifiable violence, but violence nevertheless.) A pressure cooker can be misused to inflict violence, but it is not designed, built, marketed, or typically purchased for violent purposes. For this reason, the analogy between regulation of firearms and regulation of any object that can be set to violent purposes is not a strong one, in my opinion, and a rational legislature could distinguish them on these grounds. 14

At the same time, however, I tend to think that we should focus on the cause rather than the instrument. I agree with the Conference’s second point if it means to suggest that that our increasingly-desensitized 15 and violent culture is the fundamental cause of our increasingly-frequent massacres, rather than the continuing availability of instruments that have been around for a long time. If mass violence is increasing but the availability of firearms is not, then something else must be the cause, and we would do well to address that, whatever that is, even if constitutional restrictions limit our ability to do so directly.

Nor is it entirely clear that so-called “gun control” works. For example, take the crime that animated the current round of hand-wringing, and the proposed legislative response: What would universal background checks have done to stop the Sandy Hook mass shooting? Not a thing. Adam Lanza did not buy the guns that he used, and his possession of them was already illegal under Connecticut law. 16 Would they have stopped the Aurora mass shooting? 17 It is far from clear that James Holmes’ background would have flagged him at the times of purchase, 18 and even if it had, why in the world would we suppose that a person who cares so little for the law that he is willing to kill dozens of people will care so much for the law that he will be unwilling to steal the weapons to do so?

Nor should we forget that the touchstone school shooting of the modern era, Columbine, took place during the last great era of gun control, the Clinton-era Assault Weapons Ban (“AWB”). Writing at the National Dissenting Reporter, Michael Sean Winters attempts to salvage the AWB on the ground that it wasn’t strong enough medicine, 19 but I don’t think one can plausibly claim that it’s “a premature conclusion” that it didn’t work. It didn’t. And one cannot plausibly attack that reality by suggesting, as Winters does, that it could have worked if it had been different; that is no more than a backhanded confession that it didn’t work and a proposal of emendations if it should be reenacted.

Finally, public policy—it is usually thought—ought to pursue valid public goals using means that correspond to their goals and the realities of the polity that it will govern. But the “assault weapons ban” checks none of those boxes: If it is directed at eliminating such weapons, it pursues a seemingly-invalid goal (the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court reminded us McDonald v. Chicago, “protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes” 20), and if it is directed at reducing gun violence, it employs futile means, because the overwhelming majority of firearms deaths and non-fatal injuries (respectively, approx. 31,000 per anum and approx. 72,000 per anum 21) in this  involve handguns, not “assault-style weapons.” 22 Public policy should respond to gun violence, but it should do so in ways that correspond to reality rather than progressive dogma.

III. A modest proposal

A ban is out, and won’t work anyway. Background checks and mandatory registration are permissible, but they won’t work either. So what will work? A national conversation on gun policy is premature until we’re ready to face the possibility of answers to that question that we don’t like, and it seems to me that most Americans are not; progressives even less so. For this reason, ultimately, and perhaps surprisingly, I support not only the enhanced background checks that have been proposed (which do not violate the second amendment), but, moreover, a reenactment of the AWB (which may, but probably does not, violate the second amendment). 23

I take this position not because I think that these measures will work, but rather with the hope of advancing the national conversation toward a place where we can talk candidly about what it will really take to deal with gun violence, particularly in schools. Background checks are the best place to start. They are sensible-enough public policy, compliant with the second amendment, and overwhelmingly-popular. They will also accomplish virtually nothing of value—but, then again, neither will any other public policy changes  that are compliant with the Second Amendment. But they ought to be enacted anyway, as should a renewal of the AWB, with or without the changes suggested by Winters and others. These changes may reduce the body count in the next mass shooting, which is a good thing, but they will not “work” in the sense of accomplishing the lofty aspirations of most of their proponents. Their failure might move us toward a more adult conversation about what must be done to deter and respond to mass shootings.

Every mass shooting ends, it seems to me, when the killer takes his own life or when people with guns show up; the logical response is to short-circuit the process by having people with guns already present. America isn’t yet ready to have a conversation that candid. We prattle on about gun control measures that won’t work and argue over whether they’re too much or too little or too unconstitutional. It therefore seems to me that the fastest way for us to make real progress is to publicly subject the assorted canards of the gun control theorists to a fate worse than death: They should be put into practice, 24 with the caveat that when they fail, we shall put them away and never again speak of them.

Notes:

  1. See generally Episcopal competence and the public policy nexus, redux, 2 MPA __ (2012); Episcopal competence and silence, 2 MPA __; Catholic social teaching and public policy, 1 MPA 151 (2012); Is it time for a Catholic political party?, 1 MPA 43. ↩
  2. Cf. SF: [Re] Gillis v. Litscher, reproduced in Simon Dodd, Overthinking It __ (forthcoming 2013) (“when we dive in murkier waters, where the [Constitution's] command is less plain, we should be guided by the ropes of the unenunciated structures and principles that undergird and are presupposed by the Constitution, and by the lights of our forebears: By tradition and by precedent (the latter being tradition given sharper teeth)”). ↩
  3. See Episcopal competence, redux, supra, 2 MPA, at __. ↩
  4. It has become customary in right-of-center circles to invoke the Declaration of Independence’s sonorous announcement that “all men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” which include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and then to announce that our “rights don’t come from government.” Some do. In today’s argot, we call the rights referenced by the Declaration “natural” or “human” rights; they are universal: All people, everywhere, have the same God-given rights, even if they are presently estranged by circumstances. It does not follow, however, that all rights are ex Deo. Some rights are ex constitutio, that is, rights that society has created by withholding from the government the power to abridge them; there is no God-given right to the writ of habeas corpus, see U.S. CONST., Art. I, § 9, Cl. 2. Some rights are ex legibus, that is, rights that society has created through the government; there is no God-given right to timely notice of a parole hearing granted to a person convicted of a crime in which you were a victim, see 18 USC § 3771(a)(2). To be sure, most of the rights that we create are extrapolations from, or hedges against violation of, rights ex Deo. Those rights are not self-executing; the mere possession of them does not effectuate them, and we therefore see, as just mentioned, that millions of God’s people are estranged from the rights He gives them by willful governments and evil men. Thus the role of the polity acting upon and through its instrument, the state. For example: There is a right ex deo to self defense. The rights ex constitutio conferred by  second amendment, and the rights ex legibus conferred by “stand your ground” laws, are preservative of, but distinct from, that underlying right ex deo. Cf. Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution 513 (1960) (“political rights are a means, not an end in themselves. That end is security of life and property”). ↩
  5. See District of Columbia v. Heller 554 U.S. 570 (2008); McDonald v. Chicago, 130 S. Ct. 3020 (2010); but cf., e.g., Hightower v. Boston, 693 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 2012). ↩
  6. See, e.g., Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011); Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952). ↩
  7. See Encyc. Humanæ vitæ, no. 4, 60 AAS 481, 483 (Paul VI, 1968) ↩
  8. Cf. Colby v. J.C. Penney, 811 F.2d 1119, __ (7th Cir., 1987) (Posner, J.); In re Continental Airlines, 91 F.3d 553, __ (3rd Cir. 1996) (Alito, J., dissenting). ↩
  9. There is an asymmetry here: No one would deny that the bishops are competent to judge specific policy proposals against the Church’s teaching. Cf. Encyc. Pacem in terris, no. 160, 55 AAS 257, 301 (John XXIII, 1963); Encyc. Mater et magistra, no. 42, 53 AAS 401, 410-11 (John XXIII, 1961). The reason is straightforward enough: There are several policy responses that can follow from Catholic teaching, cf., e.g., CCC ¶ 2442; Encyc. Caritas in veritate, no. 9, __ AAS __, ___ (Ben. XVI, 2009), but only one truth against which those policies must be judged, and the bishops are preemptively expert in it. Instead of speaking in terms of asymmetry, then, it may make more sense to speak about it being unidirectional: Doctrine does not typically prescribe one policy, but policy must always comply with one doctrine. ↩
  10. Heller holds that a complete prohibition on handguns, or the functional equivalent thereof, is invalid. 554 U.S., at 630. It also indicates in dicta that the rights secured by the Second Amendment are not unlimited and disavows either an exhaustive probe of the precise boundaries of those rights or commentary on the traditional proscriptions on that right. Id., at 626-7; see also Vartelas v. Holder, 132 S. Ct. 1479, 1489 (2012); cf. Hightower, supra, 693 F.3d, at 73 (concealed carry restrictions valid); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81, 91 (2nd Cir., 2012) (similar); National Rifle Ass’n v. Payne, 700 F.3d 185 (5th Cir. 2012) (age restrictions on firearms sales valid); United States v. Huet, 665 F.3d 588, 601 (3rd Cir. 2012) (living with a felon may constitute aiding and abetting their obtaining a firearm); United States v. Skoien, 614 F.3d 638, 640 (7th Cir. 2010) (en banc); (non-violent offenses can trigger mandatory disarming statutes); United States v. Vongxay, 594 F.3d 1111, 1113-14 (9th Cir. 2010) (same). ↩
  11. Cf., e.g., Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) (first amendment free speech clauses not absolute); Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 244 F.2d 432 (7th Cir. 1957) (same); Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990) (first amendment free exercise clause not absolute); United States v. U.S. District Court, 407 U.S. 297 (1972) (fourth amendment not absolute); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979) (fifth amendment not absolute); In Re: Grand Jury Proceedings, No. 410, 2013 US App. Lexis 2752 (11th Cir., Feb. 7, 2013) (same); Andover Data Services Inc. v. Statistical Tabulating Corp., 876 F.2d 1080 (2nd Cir. 1989) (same); Parker v. Hennepin City District Court, 285 N.W. 2d 81 (Minn. 1979) (same); United States v. Carrera, 259 F.3d 818 (7th Cir. 2001) (sixth amendment right to counsel not absolute); Nimrod Marketing Ltd. v. Texas Energy Investment Corp., 769 F.2d 1076 (5th Cir. 1985) (seventh amendment not absolute); Faheem-el v. Klincar, 841 F.2d 712 (7th Cir. 1988) (en banc) (eighth amendment not absolute). ↩
  12. Heller, at 626-27 (“nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill”); see United States v. Carter, 669 F.3d 411, 415 (4th Cir. 2012)  (“[T]he Anglo-American right to bear arms has always recognized and accommodated limitations for persons perceived to be dangerous”). In the analogous first amendment context, cf. R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382-4 (1992); but cf. Brown, supra, 131 S. Ct. 2729. ↩
  13. Cf. National Rifle Ass’n, supra, 700 F.3d, at 205 (whereas strict scrutiny applies within the core right recognized by Heller, intermediate scrutiny applies further out). Dicta in Heller imply that background checks would not violate the second amendment, and so does common sense, but the question remains undecided by the Supreme Court, notwithstanding the lack of serious doubt as to which way that case will come out. The court obliges only in holding, but, as I seem to recall Judge Easterbrook once observing, nevertheless teaches in dicta. A lower court that struck down a background check would not be disobeying its obligations, but it would be begging reversal. ↩
  14. Cf. National Paint & Coatings Ass’n v. Chicago, 45 F.3d 1124 (7th Cir. 1995) (Easterbrook, J.). ↩
  15. I detest double negative “add then take” constructions such as “increasingly less …” (read “decreasingly …”) or “more incorrect” (read “less correct”). Nevertheless, I will reluctantly accept them—or, rather, constructions redolent of them—in cases of diminished symmetry: When a word becomes a term-of-art or otherwise acquires a significant secondary connotation not shared by its cognate. There is a distinction, it seems to me, between “increasingly-desensitized” and “decreasingly-sensitized.” ↩
  16. See Lee Higgins, Newtown massacre: ATF records show Nancy Lanza gun purchases, April 11, 2013, http://www.lohud.com/article/20130410/NEWS/304100064/Newtown-massacre-ATF-records-show-Nancy-Lanza-gun-purchases (last visited April 30, 2013) (Bushmaster and SIG Sauer were bought by Nancy Lanza); Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 29-35 (carrying handgun without permit) and 29-28(b)(10) (issuance of permits to persons under 21); cf. Dana Sherne, Adam Lanza Wouldn’t Have Been Stopped by Stricter Gun Control Laws, http://www.policymic.com/articles/20861/adam-lanza-wouldn-t-have-been-stopped-by-stricter-gun-control-laws (last visited April 30, 2013). ↩
  17. See also Re the Colorado shooting, 2 MPA __ (2012); The Catholic Response to Colorado, 2 MPA __. ↩
  18. Holmes bought his Glock and Remington 870 in late May and his Smith & Wesson in early June; it was not until late June that “Dr. Lynne Fenton reported to the campus police that he had made homicidal statements which indicated he was a threat to the public.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Eagan_Holmes (last visited April 19, 2013). ↩
  19. Beating the NRA, April 10, 2013, http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/beating-nra (last visited April 26, 2013). ↩
  20. McDonald, supra, 130 S. Ct., at __; but see Heller, supra, 554 U.S., at __. ↩
  21. See, e.g., http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/ficap/resourcebook/pdf/monograph.pdf (last visited May 1, 2013). ↩
  22. See, e.g., http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls (handguns accounted for 6,009 of 8,775 firearms homicides in 2010—approximately 68.5%) (last visited May 1, 2013); http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states (similar) (last visited May 1, 2013). ↩
  23. Cf. Heller, at __. ↩
  24. Cf. The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations 153 (Jay, ed. 1996) (“Unfortunately monetarism, like Marxism, suffered the only fate that for a theory is worse than death: it was put into practice” (Ian Gilmour)). ↩
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Catechesis

Tuesday, April 16th, 2013

Let us suppose that it is important for young people to arrive at college with a good grasp of mathematics. How should this be achieved? If you were to propose that we should teach children mathematics by putting trigonometry into the first grade syllabus and calculus into the second, you would be thought quite mad! We all understand, all-but intuitively, that before we can teach children “real math,” we must teach them basic arithmetic. We must give them a solid grounding in the basic, fundamental, foundational principles that underlie math before we can teach them more sophisticated maths. Cf. 1 Cor. 3:2.

In a discussion elsewhere, I was intrigued to see the old-fashioned approach to catechesis faulted as “simplistic”: The preconciliar Church, I was told “was based on a simplistic catechism.” How interesting that in some quarters, Popes Francis I and John XXIII are lauded for their “simplicity,” and “simple” liturgy is demanded, and yet simple catechisms and simple faith are objects of scorn, held up to contempt! It seems to me that those “simplistic” catechisms cannot be so readily-dismissed, because they were, after all, successful in teaching people the faith. Perhaps they did not encourage people to question further, perhaps they could have done more, but they taught well and they taught enough.

A year or two ago, our pastor was giving a homily and he rhetorically asked a question from the Baltimore Catechism, and a murmur went around the room. The older people in the room, those who had been raised on the Baltimore Catechism, instantly—immediately, reflexively—gave the answer. It might have been decades since they gave the question a moment’s thought, and yet, cold, they instantly answered the question in a clear, crystalline, simple, straightforward statement of the truth. I don’t now remember the question, but I would bet an awful lot that if I were to pose the question to a group of average twentysomething Catholics, half would have no answer at all, and the other half would be forced to start composing a mushy ad hoc half-answer. Even those who could answer the question would try to frame their own answer, most likely at some length, rather than simply giving the straightforward answer that their grandparents can even now give.

I recently experienced this myself. A colleague asked about Purgatory, and because I haven’t studied eschatology in any depth, I had to really struggle to give an answer. I had to think about what we believe, and why, and how to sum it up, and how much background is necessary, and so on. How much better a witness might I have been had I had on the tip of my tongue the answer, an answer drummed into me since childhood: “Those are punished for a time in purgatory who die in the state of grace but are guilty of venial sin, or have not fully satisfied for the temporal punishment due to their sins. God requires temporal punishment for sin to satisfy His justice, to teach us the great evil of sin, and to warn us not to sin again. We pay the debt of our temporal punishment either in this life or in purgatory. ‘The fire will assay the quality of everyone’s work; if his work abides which he has built thereon, he will receive reward; if his work burns he will lose his reward, but himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” Baltimore Catechism, nos. 184, 423-24 (quoting 1 Cor. 3:13-15). There is the faith of the Catholic Church quoad purgatory, reduced to three terse sentences and an apropos quote from scripture. There is a clear, crystalline, simple, straightforward statement of the truth.

Whatever faults the old-fashioned method might have had, that which has replaced it is clearly a dismal failure, because many Catholics raised since the council do not now know the essential truths of the faith, and/or cannot articulate them concisely. They may well have been introduced to higher-order concerns—trig! Calculus! But their  formation is built upon sand unless they have first been imprinted with the basic, fundamental, foundational truths of the faith that they will find simply and directly expressed in a catechism such as those ordered by the Councils of Trent or Baltimore or the one written by Pius X, or even a modern one such as YouCat. To replace something that does the minimum with something that does not even do the minimum is foolish and risks disaster. Imagine that an architecture school decided that it was dropping all the classes pertaining to building a sound structure and would instead focus on “architecture as art”—“history of architecture,” “detailing cornices,” and so on! The building collapses; people are killed. The teaching of basic doctrine collapses, souls are lost.

What has been lost! How parlous our situation! How urgently we need to return to what worked! We are flying on the fumes of the generations raised before the disaster, and we must resuscitate Catholic religious education (at risk of putting too fine a point on it) before those generations die.

 

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The selection of bishops

Monday, April 1st, 2013

In The Democratic fallacy, 1 MPA 142 (2012), I noted that calls to elect bishops were not to be taken seriously. The other side of that coin, however, is how bishops should be chosen.

Today, the appointment of bishops is more-or-less an exclusively papal function. If we look at history, we see that various methods of selecting bishops have prevailed, of which the most legitimate was probably the election by cathedral chapters. (The investiture crisis illustrates one of the less-noble alternatives.) In such times, however, logistical realities were paramount: How else could bishops be chosen? It would have been utterly impossible for the Roman Pontiff to appoint bishops; practical compromises were necessary.

If we look at scripture, we see that there is only method of selection attested, apart from personal selection by Jesus. Acts chapter 1 witnesses the selection of Matthias, from the ranks of the disciples, by the eleven, to succeed to the bishopric of Judas Iscariot. This is the only scriptural witness to apostolic succession. But this model, too, implicates some logistical realities. It works when the episcopal college numbers eleven and they all live in community along with all the candidates for consecration (cf. Acts 2:42). When there are hundreds or even thousands of bishops, though? Spread throughout the world? Having (and able to have) little or no personal contact with the candidates? This model would be all-but impossible today, and it would have been completely impossible before the advent of modern transport and communications.

Accordingly, I would suggest that the appointment of bishops, today, is quintessentially a petrine function. Our surest model, that of scripture, in which we see appointments made by the episcopal college, is no longer workable. If a function is proper to the entire episcopal college, however, it is also proper to the Roman Pontiff, the head of that college, 1 and if it would be impossible (or wildly impractical) for the entire college to assume a function collectively, it is most fitting that the function fall to the  college’s head, the Roman Pontiff.

To be sure, if a global cataclysm should take place, severing communications and travel and creating a kind of sedes impedita situation, it would be entirely appropriate for local Churches to return ex necessitate to alternative methods for choosing bishops. In the meantime, papal appointment strikes me as the most appropriate means.

Notes:

  1. Cf. LG22. This is why, in a magisterial context, the pope is able to exercise the infallibility otherwise proper to the entire college of bishops assembled in council. ↩
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The subtext

Monday, April 1st, 2013

The image above is a meme that has been floating around Facebook. My question is very simple: Why does this image exist?

Think about why this juxtaposition of images was  fabricated. What purpose did it serve to find these two images, resize them, and set them in visual apposition? Is this not precisely the invitation to draw unflattering comparisons between the good Francis and that awful Benedict about which Elizabeth Scalia recently warned? Like Elizabeth, “I find myself objecting strenuously when I see people trying to use Francis’ simple tastes as a kind of hammer against his predecessors. ‘See,’ they imply, ‘he’s a good, humble pope who is united to the poor, not like all of those other wasteful, pampered popes who didn’t care about the poor, before him.’ They would pretend that before this month, the poor weren’t on the church’s radar, or the pope’s. To what purpose? Well, mostly to warp a narrative and foment the easiest sort of hate, which is hate rooted in empty cynicism and ignorance.”

Another example just began to circulate: This image of Francis hugging a child. I have no objection to Francis hugging children or saying Mass for prisoners, and so on. To the extent that Francis is lauded for his actions, to the extent he is succeeding as an evangelist because of temporarily-fawning media coverage: Wonderful. Some people, however,  are very clearly using praise of Francis as a cudgel with which to attack Benedict—or at least, to attack a strawman that we are supposed to believe is Benedict. Francis hugs children, unlike that mean old Benedict (oh, except Benedict did that). Francis visited young prisoners, unlike that mean old Benedict (oh, except Benedict did that too). And so on.

I am discomfited by all this, and it has nothing to do with my lingering doubts about Francis, who I think—I hope—would be unhappy to be used in this manner, much as (some reports suggest), he was used in the 2005 conclave. In a homily just this weekend, we were told that with Francis, we are seeing a springtime in the church. Well, just hold on: If Spring is now starting, what are you implying the “Winter” to have been? I agree that the Church has been in a long winter following the council, one from which (in great part thanks to our somewhat-misnamed pope emeritus: In hindsight, we should call him Benedictio, not Benedictus) we are perhaps starting to emerge. But is that what was meant? Is that what the congregation would have understood? We follow Christ—not Paul or Appollos, 1 Cor 1:12, and not Benedict or Francis. Yet the outright contempt in which Benedict seems to be held in some quarters, and the commandeering of Francis as a vehicle for that contempt, is disgraceful.

Ave Benedictus Magnus! Non modo Benedictus sed quoque Benedictio.

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Benedict, Francis, and the future of the “reform of the reform”

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Shawn Tribe offers some thoughts on the future of the liturgy under Pope Francis. I would add one qualification to his  statement that “Benedict XVI understood … the need not simply for legislation, but rather for a renewed liturgical formation and a change in liturgical culture; for there to be lasting effects you first need to change hearts and minds.” I agree, but I must say I don’t think that Benedict fully understood the need for not simply renewed formation and changed culture, but also for legislation. If the enemies of the liturgical project are willing to resist legislation, they are assuredly willing to ignore mere examples, and this may, in the long run, turn out to be the undoing of Benedict’s work. The liturgical renewal that he fostered may fail precisely because it was never set in concrete. It’s all well and good to build the forms, but if you never get around to pouring in the concrete, it’s only a matter of time before the forms are blown down or pulled down.

 

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The infallibility question

Friday, March 15th, 2013

The renunciation of Pope Benedict, the conclave, and the election of Pope Francis are big events in the life of not only the Catholic Church but the broader Christian community. Non-Catholics watching the process have taken the opportunity to ask questions, both questions prompted by events and questions that they might have had for a while, and this has created opportunities for us to talk about aspects of the Catholic Church that are not well-understood by our separated brethren. This post concerns a particular example. In several places, I saw this question asked: “Will Benedict still be infallible after his resignation?” Some Catholics rolled their eyes, because we know the answer so well, but I thought: “What a wonderful opportunity to have conversations about the (infelicitously-named) charism of ‘infallibility’!” And so it went, because non-Catholic friends have asked me about this.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Of course, the answer is no. And there are two reasons why the answer is no; they’re really different ways of expressing the same point, but I think it helps to split them up. First, because the charism attaches to particular actions by the pope, not to the man. 1  The analogous question might be this: Having left office in 2009, can President Bush still sign laws today? In that context, we intuitively know that the answer is no, because signing bills isn’t a personal perquisite of a person once elected to the Presidency, but rather a duty and power of the President of the United States qua an office, which is discharged through the individual who happens to hold that office at the time the bill is passed. So we might stretch a little and say that in that sense, the Presidency and the papacy are both ministries and not personal fiefdoms.[/ref]

The second reason may be a little more surprising. Benedict will not be “infallible” after his renunciation, I told my friends, because he wasn’t “infallible” before it. The pope is not infallible—not in the abstract. He can make dumb choices the same as the rest of us. Rather, the pope enjoys a charism that we traditionally label “infallibility” in specific circumstances and for specific purposes.

At this point, my friends’ eyebrows were usually making a beeline for their hairline—the Catholics, too—so, I said, let’s talk about the so-called “infallibility” of the Pope. And let’s start here: The classic formulation of that dogma was articulated by the first Vatican Council, which taught that “when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra—that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church—he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.” 2 When I refer to it as “so-called” infallibility, I want to be very clear, I am not calling into question the truth of this teaching; rather, the point I want to make is that the terminology that we use to describe the teaching is infelicitous because it is apt to mislead people about what the teaching is actually saying. (That is, by the way, illustrative of the protection offered by the Spirit to Pope, Councils, and Church: The Spirit guarantees indefectibility of faith, not felicity of expression. It is absolutely possible for a Pope or a Council to teach something that is strictly true, but which is phrased in such a way that it is susceptible to misinterpretation. 3)

So let’s get a little deeper down the rabbit hole. When I was converting, one of the most useful things that I read about infallibility was The Church: Learning and Teaching by Ladislas Orsy, SJ. Orsy very smartly distinguished charism from label: Vatican I explained a charism that the pope exercises in some circumstances, and in describing that charism, the council used labels such as “infallibility” and “defining” doctrine. Well, complained Orsy, the problem with these labels is that they can easily be misunderstood:

  • First, they imply that the pope can’t err, but, as a careful reading of Vatican I’s definition makes clear, the pope enjoys the charism in specific circumstances—not in all things, and not as a man. That is why, for example, Pope Benedict was able to write his book Jesus of Nazareth without it being an exercise of the magisterium, as he expressly notes in the foreword thereto. If infallibility attached to the man rather than particular actions, then the man’s every action would be covered, and, contra Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth would perforce be magisterial and “[e]veryone [would not be] free, then, to contradict” it. The charism “qualifies neither a person nor collective nor a doctrine,” but rather a specific “act of judgment.” 4 Thus, the Pope “may advocate historical or scientific views that are absolutely false. He may write books which may be full of inaccuracies and misstatements. God protects him from error only when he is exercising his office of sovereign teacher and lawgiver regarding matters which are the doctrine of the Church, whether these be of faith or morals.” 5 The Mets suck; even if the Pope backs the Mets, the Mets still suck!
  • Second, they arguably imply that when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, he creates doctrine. The word “define” will usually be read (at least in English) to mean the imposition of a definition. This worry is not hypothetical; recently, Richard Posner, an extremely well-respected and smart judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, made a howler of an error by constructing an analogy to constitutional law that suggested that American constitutionalism might be more durable if the courts could periodically “update” the constitution in the same what that the pope can periodically “update” Catholic doctrine through reception of what we would call private revelation. That is utterly wrong. The pope cannot change a single doctrinal point; he cannot “update” doctrine. That is not what the charism that we label “infallibility” means. “[T]he authority of teaching and preaching the Word of God belongs to the Church by virtue of her divine constitution … [and] by reason of the continual assistance [of the Holy Spirit] promised to her by Christ, … which implies no new revelation, but [rather] a special providence keeping her free from error in the function of preserving and expounding the deposit of faith.” 6

So what does infallibility mean? What the Catholic Church believes and teaches about the extraordinary charism to which the Pope has access in specific circumstances is that when questions arise on which the community of the faithful generally—and the bishops especially—are divided on a question of doctrine, he is able to bear authentic witness to the truth that the Church has always preserved in Sacred Tradition. In exercising this responsibility, he creates nothing new; rather, he reliably and faithfully affirms what the Church has always believed, in virtue of Christ’s promise to Peter that his faith would not fail and His charge to him that he must confirm the brethren. 7 The popes “do not appeal to some special, unique revelation unavailable to the rest of the faithful”; indeed, that was precisely the heretical claim of the Gnostics. Rather, “they bear authentic witness to the faith of the whole church, as they guide the church toward the fullness of truth … [and] are charged to take serious pains to search out the faith of the church and to express it in a fitting way. And it is this process that the Holy Spirit guides and sustains and preserves from error.” 8

With this in mind, I join Orsy in suggesting that the charism might be less misleadingly-described were it given the admittedly-cumbersome label “fidelity to the revelation,” and that we might be better-served to use the term “determination” rather than “definition.” 9 I would also suggest that the lutheran David Yeago is perceptive in describing the Church’s teaching in this way:

when the bishop of Rome bears witness to the apostolic tradition ex cathedra, in his capacity as universal pastor, his testimony has a binding force that is final, and admits no appeal; and it can be relied on, by virtue of Christ’s promises to the whole Church, not necessarily to be wise or well-stated or beyond improvement, but nevertheless to represent the faith revealed to Peter, not by flesh and blood but by the Father in heaven. 10

“When you have turned back to me,” our Lord charged Peter, “confirm your brethren.” Catholics read this, in conjunction with a few other passages in scripture, as conferring a commission that we call the petrine ministry, a terrible and awesome responsibility to which Peter’s successors as bishop of Rome—the popes—have succeeded.

So, to summarize: The teaching role of the successor of Peter is a subset of the teaching role of the successors of the apostles (cf. Acts 1:8), and what we call “papal infallibilty” is a specific subset of the teaching role of the successor of Peter. 11 Although the ordinary teaching authority of the pope enjoys respect and adherence, 12 he is protected from making an error only in specific and quite rarefied circumstances—only in those circumstances. 13 And, most importantly of all, I should conclude by saying: The Mets suck no matter what the pope says.

Notes:

  1. Cf. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma 287-88 § 8 (Lynch, trns. 1955). ↩
  2. Pastor æternus, 6 Acta Sanctæ Sedis 40, 47 (1st Vat. Co., 1870). ↩
  3. Cf. Avery Dulles, The Resilient Church 53-4 (1977); Richard McBrien, Catholicism 759 (3d ed. 1993). ↩
  4. Richard Gaillardetz, Teaching with Authority 150 (1997). ↩
  5. John Sullivan, The Externals of the Catholic Church 5-6 (1919). ↩
  6. 6 Charles Augustine, A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law 318, 320 (1921). ↩
  7. Lk 22:32; cf. CCC ¶ 891. ↩
  8. John Wright, That All Doubt May be Removed, 171 America no. 3, at 18 (1994); accord Charles Coppens, A Systematic Study of the Catholic Religion § 99 (1903). ↩
  9. Ladislas Orsy, The Church Learning and Teaching 56, 58 (1987); see also Ott, at 298-99. ↩
  10. David Yeago, The Papal Office and the Burdens of History in Church Unity and the Papal Office 113 (Braaten & Jenson, eds. 2001). ↩
  11. See 1 Adolphe Tanquerey, Manual of Dogmatic Theology 114-132 §§199-229 (1959); Simon Dodd, The Catholic Proposition, 2 MPA 77, 102 (2012) (“it is the testimony of the united college of bishops, or of the Pope as the head thereof, that finally and authentically determines, through the invisible grace of the Holy Spirit, what God has made known in His divine revelation”). ↩
  12. See Lumen gentium, no. 25, 57 AAS 5, 29 ff. (2d Vat. Co. 1964). ↩
  13. See 1 Tanquerey, at 128 § 222(A). ↩
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Habemus Papam!

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ Cardinalem Bergoglio, qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscus!

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Conclave incipit

Tuesday, March 12th, 2013

In die primo conclavis, prædictiones duas habeo. Primus, Angelus Card. Scola eligetur, et secundus, Paulus VII vocabitur. Utrum vel non ille res bona est, non possum dicere. Orate pro Cardinalibus!

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Vere habuimus papam: Benedictus XVI, MMV-MMXIII

Monday, February 11th, 2013

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace:
Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum
Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum:
Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae Israel.

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