Gratifyingly balanced comments from Cardinal George addressing the U.S. Catholic bishops. John Allen has the story (hat tip, as usual, to AmP):
Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the
U.S. bishops’ conference, said all Americans should “rejoice” that a
country which once tolerated slavery has elected an African-American as
president – and, in the same breath, he issued a blunt challenge to the
new administration on abortion.
“If the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, that African Americans
were other people’s property and somehow less than persons, were still
settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be President of the
United States,” George said.
"Today, as was the case a hundred and fifty years ago, common ground cannot be found by destroying the common good," he said.
“The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society
when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice,” George
said, drawing sustained applause from the bishops.
This bit is intriguing:
George also appeared to encourage individual bishops to be bold,
almost apart from whatever consensus positions may come out of the
bishops’ conference.
“As we all know, the church was born without episcopal conferences,
as she was born without parishes and without dioceses, although all
these structures have been helpful pastorally throughout the
centuries,” George said.
“The church was born only with shepherds, with apostolic pastors, whose
relationship to their people keeps them one with Christ, from whom
comes authority to govern the church,” he said.
Cardinal Francis George, speaking this morning as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, said…
And Bishop Martino said, “The USCCB doesn’t speak for me.” And Cardinal Ratzinger said, “We must not forget that episcopal conferences have no theological basis… No episcopal conference, as such, has a teaching mission.”
Well, and Cardinal George made a similar point. So Cardinal George’s comments were not a magisterial act. That doesn’t mean they weren’t significant.
And it doesn’t mean the flappings of a butterfly weren’t significant.
If it has meaning or significance to you, then it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
Dear Elaine,
Although a bishop’s conference does not have a teaching mission, per se, nevertheless, it acts as a type of reference for others outside of the Church. If a politician (say, president-elect, Obama) would want to discuss matters of morality from the Catholic perspective, to whom should he go? I suppose he could go to the Vatican, but there is no “red phone” in the president’s draw linked to the Pope (there should be one – just my personal opinion ;). The USCCB is a first stop for such a politician in search of understanding the Catholic perspective. In at least that sense (and others that I will let other posters speak to), the USCCB is very significant.
It behooves the conference, since it is, supposedly, the first-line representative for Catholics in the United States for extra-church authorities, to get its moral guidelines correct. Cardinal Georges’s remarks are important because his is taking a strong pro-life stance in his speech and in this instance, making the Catholic position clearer to Obama than it might have been, otherwise.
The Chicken
The USCCB is a first stop for such a politician in search of understanding the Catholic perspective.
Of course the USCCB may be a first stop for some, but in many people’s experience, anything, even a talk with an atheist or grandma, can also be “a first stop” in the search of such understanding.
Hi B’Art. You’re here just in time to take CT’s place as resident nuisance. How about that.
If it has meaning or significance to you, then it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
The question is whether you recognize the meaning and significance it has to you.
If a politician (say, president-elect, Obama) would want to discuss matters of morality from the Catholic perspective, to whom should he go?
Who is a politician’s master? To his own master he stands or falls. To a politician, the “Catholic perspective” may be the perspective of millions of Catholic voters, the majority of whom voted to elect Obama and, reportedly, to keep abortion legal. “In at least that sense,” the perspective/votes, whatever that may be, of the relatively small membership of the USCCB is relatively insignificant.
You’re here just in time to take CT’s place as resident nuisance. How about that.
In the middle of our porridge plates, there was a blue butterfly painted. And each morning, we tried who should reach the butterfly first. Then grandmother said: “Do not eat the poor butterfly.” That made us laugh. Always she said it, and always it started us laughing. It seemed such a sweet little joke. It was certain that one fine morning the butterfly would fly out of our plates, laughing the teeniest laugh in the world, and perch on grandmother’s lap.
The question is whether you recognize the meaning and significance it has to you.
The question is whether you recognize the questioner.
I see in the water
your image
and it’s true…
As I ride the butterfly,
I offer the rose.
B’Elaine: Gratuitously obfuscating smoke-blowing that impedes rather than facilitates discussion of the relevant combox topic is hereby construed to constitute rudeness, in violation of rule 1.
While gratuitously obfuscating smoke-blowing can easily be identified by reasonable persons, disputed identifications of such between smoke-blowers and reasonable persons will be arbitrated by me or by Jimmy.
Rule 1 violators will be disinvited from participation on the blog. Considering your history, there will not be a plethora of warnings.
There are scads of places on the Internet where your patented brand of BS can find a happy home. This isn’t one of them.
I see in the water your image. Thank you for the invitation. As taught, every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it.
Quit it.
You and I both know you could write the answers to your own BS as well as I can.
What you do is an offense against truth, a form of violating the eighth commandment. Charity has no truck with dishonesty, either on one’s own behalf or another’s.
You do yourself harm and get in other people’s way. Quit it, for your own good and everyone else’s. This is not a game, and I will not enable you by playing any more. Quit it.
Some more interesting parallels between abortion and slavery with reference to the effectiveness of Prohibition before enough hearts and minds were changed.
Fr John Jay Hughes – First Things
“Against abortion? Don’t have one.” “Against slavery? Don’t own one”
I don’t agree with George. The Bible does not prohibit slavery; rather it tolerates if not sanctions it. I wouldn’t own a slave, but it is not contrary to Scripture.
Wasn’t Justice Taney a devout catholic?
–J. Prot.
Good thing we don’t have to go by scripture alone, ha ha!
JR:
Weren’t there popes who had slaves?
In addition, here is George:
“If the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, that African Americans were other people’s property and somehow less than persons, were still settled constitutional law, Mr. Obama would not be President of the United States,” George said.
I haven’t read Dred Scott in a while, but how would the decision prevent the US from electing a Black as president?
-J. Prot.
I don’t know the background knowledge to say how accurate this is, but it could be interesting regarding the history of the Catholic position on slavery:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=1201
If the Dred Scott question was addressed to me as well, I don’t know. My impression, though I’m no historian or Supreme Court expert, is that the Dred Scott case delt with slavery and the return of escaped slaves, so I doubt it would have had much of an impact on a Chicagoan with a free Nigerian father.
Hello Jeb,
First, you criticize a Cardinal for criticizing slavery, when “The Bible does not prohibit slavery…” (probably you don’t drink Coke); then you criticize “popes” for having had slaves; then you criticize again the Cardinal for criticizing the Supreme Court decision mentioned above…
For me at least, it’s hard to understand your point. Are you impying that the Cardinal (or Catholics in general, as an extension) is in no position to criticize slavery, or that slavery shouldn’t be criticized?
Considering that the other day you wrote here that Mark Shea’s reasoning was confusing…
I don’t criticize popes for owning slaves. I do not think owning slaves is per se immoral or contrary to Scripture.
Cardinal George should criticize the abuses inherent in much of slavery. He should encourage masters to be kind to their slaves. He should not connect two things that are quite different (slavery and abortion).
-J. Prot.
The parallel between slavery and abortion can not be drawn and articulately enough. We need to keep doing it until people finally get the proper perspective on the issue of abortion within history. I’d be interested in what anyone thinks about my post concerning Obama’s legacy and abortion – A Black Mark on History: http://tinyurl.com/5c242a
Some historical notes.
One of the reasons Dred Scott was such bad law was that it didn’t deal just with escaped slaves, but asserted that anyone descended from slaves imported from Africa could not have any of the rights of an American citizen. This applied as much to freed slaves as slaves, and even to the children and grand children of slaves. Many people who were tolerant of slavery still realized it was a terrible decision, which contradicted previous precedents.
Technically, Barack Obama would not be subject to Dred Scott, I suppose, but Dred Scott is the ultimate symbol of racial prejudice in the US, which also led to laws against racial intermarriage, which would have delegitimized Obama.
It helps Jeb to have the Catholic methodology for studying and understanding scripture. One part of that is context. If I am not mistaken, it was possible at the time to place oneself into slavery to pay off a debt owed.
I think you would agree that the idea of another man being less than human and therefore asserting some prerogative to force him into servitude as you would a horse is not Christian at all. In fact the de-humanizing of another person is the basis for legal abortion.
Oops, that last was me.
Or rather, it wasn’t. The anonymous comment about Dred Scott was me. *hangs head in embarassment*