Category: Moral Theology

Responding to my post on How To Make Amends, a reader writes:

Once again, you’ve accepted the claims of Frs. DiNoia and Cole where they contradict Mr. Balestrieri, and not addressed the conflicts between the statements of Fr. DiNoia and Fr. Cole regarding the delegation to reply to Mr. Balestrieri, nor the harm done to the reputation of Mr. Balestrieri by unnamed sources within in the Vatican according to CNS, nor how the CDF decided to help this American student with his homework with a carefully crafted letter in less than 10 days of his visit there.

It would appear that you do not understand the nature of the post on which you are commenting.

This post recommends a fundamental change in strategy on Mr. Balestrieri’s part. Following his receipt of Fr. Cole’s letter, he engaged in a pattern of behavior guaranteed to tick off the Vatican and severely damage his canonical complaint’s prospects of success. Following this turn of events, I decided to

(1) point out this fact in a vivid manner so that it would have the twin effects of

(a) forcefully making the point for Mr. Balestrieri’s benefit and

(b) forcefully warning the public of the problems just created for Mr. Balestrieri’s case and then to

(2) recommend a course of action that stood the best chance of getting his case back on track.

(1) was the point of How To Tick Off the Vatican and (2) was the purpose of How To Make Amends. That is the nature of the post on which you are commenting: It is not meant to provide continuing analysis of the debacle. It is meant to point to the most promising way out of the debacle.

The approach I recommended means not continuing the tit-for-tat, “he said/she said” game that Mr. Balestrieri was playing. There comes a point that, no matter how strongly one believes that one has been wronged, prudence dictates that one turn the other cheek and not continue to alienate those who you need not to alienate. Mr. Balestieri has done incalculable damage to his canonical case and to his career by the approach he took. I tried to point to a way he could staunch the bleeding and try to salvage both of these.

The approach I was recommending meant precisely not continuing to analyze who said what when and thus the post does not include the kind of analysis that you seem to expect it to.

The “application” of the letter as you put it to the case of not a libelous leap by Mr. Balestrieri as you suggest here.

I have not suggested that Mr. Balestrieri has committed libel. What I have said is that in his News Release No. 2 he grossly misrepresented what the Vatican did. That is unquestionable, as can be demonstrated by looking only at material he has placed on his own web site, not relying on anything Fr.s DiNoia and Cole have said elsewhere. See How To Tick Off The Vatican and Tunc et Nunc.

Rather, the substance of letter itself makes it clear it applies to the case of John Kerry and any Catholic politician who advocates an abortion right in defiance of Church teaching. The letter speaks for itself without any “spin”.

No, this is precisely the problem. The letter does not make it clear that it applies to the case of John Kerry. No matter how much I want it to do so, it does not. No matter how much you want it to do so, it does not. No matter how much Mr. Balestrieri wants it to do so, it does not. Kerry is not mentioned in the letter, and Fr. Cole appears to be addressing two situations that are not clearly and unambiguously a match for Sen. Kerry’s horrendous and ambiguous statements regarding abortion.

“Well by all means use it, no restrictions whatsoever.” Permission was given to make Fr. Cole’s 9/11 letter public. The “confusion” as you put it in your mock apology commenced with the CNS interview of Fr. DiNoia.

Two points:

1) “No restrictions whatsoever” doesn’t mean that one is free to represent the reply as something it is not. Permission to publish an informal reply from an individual theologian at the Dominican House of Studies does not entail permission to represent this reply as “formal,” “official,” “binding,” “decisive,” and from “the Vatican.”

2) Your above remark also appears to involve the same misunderstanding of the post How To Make Amends. What I wrote was not a “mock apology” but a serious proposal for the kind of things Mr. Balestrieri could say to try to get out of the mess he got himself into.

Finally, Jimmy, where do you stand?

I want to see pro-abort Catholic politicians slapped with severe canonical sanctions.

Do you dispute the Fr. Cole’s letter communicates the teaching of the Church?

No, I don’t dispute it. I would say that the final brief treatment of the civil right to abortion that the letter provides that does not make it fully clear what kind of support for this right Fr. Cole has in mind. He appears to be thinking of supporting such a right simpliciter–i.e., thinking that the existence of a civil right to abortion is of itself a good thing as opposed to something required by extrinsic circumstances per Evangelium Vitae 73.

Do you dispute that “if I obstinately deny by teaching and preaching, or doubt that abortion is not intrinsically evil, I commit the mortal sin of heresy”?

I don’t deny that the obstinate post-baptismal doubt or denial of the truth that abortion is intrinsically evil is a heresy.

I don’t think Mr. Balestrieri was “unfair” to Frs. DiNoia or Cole.

I have confidence that this is your opinion.

However, the facts say otherwise. He grossly misrepresented the letter from Fr. Cole.

I think somewhere Frances Kissling must be delighted that Catholics see fit to mock Marc Balestrieri in this week before the election.

I suspect that she doesn’t even know my blog exists.

I’m also not going to write off the use of irony as a way of making a point. Jesus was rather big on it.

Sometimes irony is even the kinder way to explain what a person has done compared to offering a blunt and flatly analytical dissection of it.

Excerts from NYT editorial by the good Archbishop:

Words are cheap. Actions matter. If we believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, we need to prove that by our actions, including our political choices. Anything less leads to the corruption of our integrity. Patriotism, which is a virtue for people of all faiths, requires that we fight, ethically and nonviolently, for what we believe. Claiming that “we don’t want to impose our beliefs on society” is not merely politically convenient; it is morally incoherent and irresponsible.

As James 2:17 reminds us, in a passage quoted in the final presidential debate, “Faith without works is dead.” It is a valid point. People should act on what they claim to believe. Otherwise they are violating their own conscience, and lying to themselves and the rest of us.

Schwing!

READ THE EDITORIAL (Evil NYT-noid Registration Warning).

UPDATE: BTW, I should mention that Archbishop Chaput’s last name does not rhyme with “kaput.” The T on the end of his name is silent and the U is long.

Having successfully ticked off the Vatican, one might decide that the odds of winning one’s already-difficult case are now so reduced that the most productive thing to do is to withdraw the case and move on with life, letting others find a way to canonically nail pro-abort Catholic politicians in the future. Barring that, one might try to minimize the damage by adopting a humble, loyal-son-of-the-Church tone and making amends. A press release like this (which may be used in whole, in part, or in modified form) could be helpful. . . .

PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A HYPOTHETICAL PRESS RELEASE THAT HAS NOT BEEN ISSUED BY MARC BALESTRIERI. IT IS MEANT TO INDICATE THE KIND OF THINGS HE COULD SAY TO MAKE AMENDS. PLEASE DO NOT POST IT OR E-MAIL IT CLAIMING THAT IT IS AN ACTUAL PRESS RELEASE.

AN APOLOGY

I would like to apologize to all those mentioned in or affected by the press releases I issued this week. In particular, I would like to apologize to the Very Reverend Fr. Augustin DiNoia, O.P. and Fr. Basil Cole, O.P. In my eagerness to see Sen. John F. Kerry canonically prosecuted for his horrendous support of the abortion holocaust in America, I said and did things that were at times unfair to them and to others. Worse yet, I misrepresented the actions of these two great servants of the Church and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

I would like to make the following clarifications:

1. The Vatican has not said that Sen. John F. Kerry has excommunicated himself for heresy or that he is presently excommunicated.

2. The response I received from Fr. Cole was the unofficial opinion of an individual theologian on matters of principle. He did not apply and was not asked to apply these principles to Sen. Kerry.

3. It would be up to a Church tribunal to determine whether or not the sanction of excommunication applies or should be applied to Sen. Kerry.

I wish to express my profound regret for producing confusion on these points, and I apologize to all who I have harmed by leading them to think otherwise on these points.

Fr.s DiNoia and Cole were only seeking to help me by providing a personal commentary on matters of principle. I never asked them to apply these principles to the case of Sen. Kerry. I very much regret that their goodwill in this matter has been repaid with such controversy and confusion due to my actions. I specifically apologize to them for the offensive tone I have taken in some of my prior press releases.

I also hope that a way forward can still be found in the canonical action filed regarding Sen. Kerry with the Archbishop of Boston. The abortion holocaust in America has killed so many individuals, and Sen. Kerry has been so consistent in his support of this ongoing horror that I think it is imperative that the fundamental incompatibility of Sen. Kerry’s position with the Catholic faith be made clear to all. By taking the position he has, Sen. Kerry has inflicted tremendous damage on the faithful of America, and his actions have resulted in more babies being killed.

Only if the voice of Christ is clearly heard in this matter can the public be awakened to the unacceptability of the “Personally opposed but . . .” position. The abortion holocaust cannot be ended until that happens.

The following are helpful suggestions on how to tick off the Vatican. These suggestions are of a purely prudential nature and thus independent of the merits of any individual case that one might use in the course of following them.

1. Go to the Vatican.

“I went to the Vatican in search of the truth” (4; numbers in parentheses are to the numbered press releases online
here).

2. Meet with someone at one of the dicasteries.

“Lacking guidance from the Vatican, [I] sought an appointment and was received by an official of the Congregation in its halls in Rome” (2).

3. Ask him some questions.

“I went to Rome in person to submit two critical questions to the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith” (2).

4. Receive an unofficial response to your questions from an outside theologian.

“The Response was an unofficial response prepared by an eminent theologian” (3).

Now the ticking off begins.

Continue reading “How To Tick Off The Vatican”

Dr. Edward Peters has now added a Q & A section on the Balestrieri affair. He’s even taking the snarky questions (and assertions) he gets. So far the question lineup includes:

* Why do you say Fr. Cole’s letter is “private”? Cole said Balestrieri could publish it.

* Peters should not criticize Balestrieri’s case publicly.

* What has Peters done for pro-life over the last 30 years?

* It sounds like no matter what Balestrieri did in Rome, you’d have a problem with it.

* Why does the heresy case have to start from scratch?

* If you’re such an “expert” in all this, why didn’t you do it yourself?

Now that you know the questions, GET THE ANSWERS. (Scroll down)

Dr. Edward Peters has now added a Q & A section on the Balestrieri affair. He’s even taking the snarky questions (and assertions) he gets. So far the question lineup includes:

* Why do you say Fr. Cole’s letter is “private”? Cole said Balestrieri could publish it.
* Peters should not criticize Balestrieri’s case publicly.
* What has Peters done for pro-life over the last 30 years?
* It sounds like no matter what Balestrieri did in Rome, you’d have a problem with it.
* Why does the heresy case have to start from scratch?
* If you’re such an “expert” in all this, why didn’t you do it yourself?

Now that you know the questions, GET THE ANSWERS. (Scroll down)

Dr. Edward Peters has some good material on the Balestrieri affair. Excerpts:

Like some other observers of B/DF’s heresy case, I have kept my reservations about its canonical persuasiveness muted. First, it’s not my case; second, my concerns about its problems might be wrong; third, unknown factors might develop to improve its chances of succeeding. But there seems little point in worrying about such things now. At this point, there only remains to salvage from the experience some object lessons, of which I think there are many. Here I will mention just one, on canonical technique.

Two impressions are given about the trip Balestrieri made to Rome after he filed his heresy case against Kerry: one version has him posing interesting academic questions about heresy to various Church officials (mostly at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), the other has him disclosing his status as an active litigant but asking more or less the same questions of the same people. Conceivably, he could have approached some Vatican officials one way and others in the other, but either way, it’s problematic.

[Well-worth-reading elaboration snipped for space. Go read it.]

So now, it seems to me, the canonical case against Kerry and of host of other scandal-mongering pro-abortion Catholic politicians has to be reconstructed, basically from scratch. Perhaps some of the research generated by B/DF can be used in such a case, but it is not likely to be primarily a “heresy” case next time, and it’s certainly not going to come together quickly or be tried in the media.

CHECK IT OUT.

“Tunc et Nunc” is Latin for “Then and Now.”

Above are two images taken from screenshots of Marc Balestrieri’s web site, DeFide.Com. The first was taken Tuesday morning before I went to work. The second was taken Wednesday evening after I got home from work. They are different in significant respects and will convey markedly different impressions to the typical reader. They also illustrate the problem of how Marc Balestrieri dug the hole he is presently in.

Tunc: Mr. Balestrieri advertised Fr. Cole’s letter as “the Vatican’s Response“–a statement that will convey to the ordinary reader’s mind that it is a formal, official response from the Vatican.

Nunc: Mr. Balestrieri advertises the same letter as “the Vatican Requested Theologian’s Response“–a statement which will convey to the ordinary reader’s mind that it is the reply of a theologian who wrote at the Vatican’s request (though it does not completely dispel the idea that this is a formal, official reply).

That shift is a good thing. Balestrieri had to stop representing the letter in such a misleading way.

Unfortunately, the misrepresentation was obvious at the time . . .

Tunc: The address at the top of the letter reads: “Fr. Basil Cole, OP, STD; Dominican House of Studies; 487 Michigan Ave., NE; Washington DC 20017-1585.” This makes it clear that the letter is not a Vatican reply but the reply of an individual theologian.

Tunc: Fr. Cole says in the opening paragraph of the letter: “I receive a request from the Very Reverend Augustin DiNoia, OP, the undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to respond unofficially to your dubia [questions; lit., “doubts”] . . .” This makes it clear that the letter is not an official Vatican response, as would be suggested to the ordinary reader by advertising it as “the Vatican’s Response.”

Tunc: In reply to the questions posed by Mr. Balestrieri, Fr. Cole replies: “My response ad I^um [“to the first”]: Affirmative. . . . My response ad II^um [“to the second”]: Affirmative.” This makes it clear that these are the replies of an individual theologian (“My response . . . My response”) and not “the Vatican’s Response.”

Most unfortunately, a press release labeled NEWS RELEASE No. 2 (hereafter, “Tunc“) was issued October 18th which contained multiple seriously misleading statements:

Tunc: Its headline read “SEN. JOHN KERRY “EXCOMMUNICATED,” ACCORDING TO VATICAN RESPONSE”–suggesting that the Vatican issued a response indicating that Sen. Kerry has been excommunicated. This is an extremely grave misrepresentation as the headline of the press release frames the way the matter will be portrayed in the press and may be the only thing about the piece and individual sees or hears.

Nunc: One reads the entirety of Fr. Cole’s response [.PDF WARNING!] and finds no mention at all of Sen. Kerry.

* * *

Tunc: “A Los Angeles based expert in Canon Law . . . announced Friday on EWTN’s the World Over Live with Raymond Arroyo that an important Vatican congregation has given an unprecedented boost to his case for heresy against presidential candidate John Kerry.” This conveys the impression that the CDF (“an important Vatican congregation”) has directly commented on the case involving Sen. Kerry.

Nunc: In a press release with the snarky title “A REPLY TO THE VATICAN” (a.k.a. NEWS RELEASE No. 3″), Balestrieri states: “I explained to Fr. Funes [at the CDF] that I was a Canon lawyer submitting these dubia strictly seeking a theoretical clarification of the two issues concerned, and confirmation of the conclusions of my research. No names were ever mentioned in the conversation” and “At no point in time, moreover, was any request for further information about those circumstances made to me.”

* * *

Tunc: “Mr. Balestrieri, Director of De Fide, said the Response was written by the Reverend Fr. Basil Cole, O.P., an expert theologian based in Washington D.C., who was delegated by the Undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Very Rev. Fr. Augustine di Noia, O.P., to formally respond.”

Nunc: Balestrieri says: “I sincerely hope that in publicly denying any “official” or formal emanation of the text from the Vatican, which had never been claimed, that certain individuals not risk their salvation . . .” (NEWS RELEASE No. 3).

* * *

Tunc: “The Response is significant in that it represents the first time in modern history since Roe v. Wade in 1973 that such a clear reply is given to the Catholic faithful.” This suggests that the response was written to a broad audience of the faithful.

Nunc: One reads in Fr. Cole’s letter that: “I receive a request from the Very Reverend Augustin DiNoia, OP, the undersecretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to respond unofficially to your dubia . . .”

* * *

Tunc: “Drafted under the auspices of the official Vatican Congregation with competency to decide doctrinal questions, it is entirely unambiguous”–suggesting to the ordinary reader that the reply is official even though that word isn’t used.

Tunc: “Rev. Basil Cole, O.P., contacted Balestrieri to inform him of his delegation to answer the two questions. Three days later, the written Response was issued.” This again suggests that it is an official reply to the mind of the ordinary reader.

Tunc: “The Response holds that the dogmatic force of the two propositions is ‘manifest,’ a term not lightly used by any theologian. This means that one is dealing here not with a matter of a theologian’s personal opinion, but with two core non-negotiable Articles of Faith. The Response, therefore, is ‘official’ and binding in that it simply restates infallible teachings of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium . . .”

Tunc: “The extensive detail of the response, decisively clarifying the matter was unexpected. Normally, only a bishop may request such clarification of doctrine from the CDF [which is a dicastery of “the Vatican”] and receive an official reply.

Nunc: A press release titled “A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS” (a.k.a. NEWS RELEASE No. 4), Balestrieri states: “It is clear that neither De Fide nor I never [sic] stated that that the response received was an ‘official’ document of the Vatican.”

* * *

Tunc: “The Response goes even further in specifying that any baptized Catholic who publicly states, ‘I’m personally opposed, but I support a woman’s right to choose,’ is in fact presumed by Canon Law to be guilty of heresy, with the burden of proving that he is not shifted to the violating politician.”

Nunc: One reads Fr. Cole’s letter and finds no mention whatsoever of the burden of proof. (Balestrieri is extrapolating from something the document does say but this does not change the fact that the document does not say what he claims.)

* * *

Tunc: “Such responses usually take a much longer time to be received, and they are rarely made public.” This suggests that the CDF made the “response” public.

Nunc: “The theologian said explicitly that I was free to publish the document ‘to the whole world if I wanted to'” (NEWS RELEASE No. 3).

The above examples represent portions of Balestrieri’s Monday press release that would misrepresent the nature and conent of Fr. Cole’s letter to the mind of an ordinary person. There are other statements in this press release concerning canon law that are incorrect or weird. Nevertheless, it appears from the above misrepresentations–identified from the text of Fr. Cole’s letter and Balestrieri’s own press releases–that Fr. DiNoia of the CDF would have ample grounds for regarding Balestrieri as having misled him and Fr. Cole regarding the use he was planning to make of Fr. Cole’s letter.

A reader writes:

You didn’t quite state the facts on the Al Kresta program about Kerry’s abortion statements during the presidential debates.

I didn’t claim to be. As I’ve said on this blog, I think Kerry’s real position is that he thinks abortion is a good thing. I think he is dissembling on this point to keep from losing votes. What I did on the Kresta show was to point out how Kerry could spin his recent remarks in a way that would result in a church tribunal finding him not guilty of heresy, which is at the core of the Balestrieri complaint.

By the way, are you a Canon lawyer?

No. I do, however, have significant background in ecclesiastical law, as well as the theological background needed to parse the heresy question. For what it’s worth, I was contacted by a canon lawyer who heard my interview on Kresta and wanted to compliment me. I was also contacted by a theological expert who wanted to compliment me. Both were in agreement that the Balestrieri complaint is seriously flawed and that it will be next to impossible to get a tribunal to issue a finding of heresy on the basis of this complaint.

I was disappointed that you helped Kerry build a case (and he might seek the radio transcript) against any future Church action on his voting actions, motives, and public statements on abortion. You are a smart man but you shouldn’t help Satan’s warriors in their defense.

I appreciate your concerns, though a parallel argument to the one I sketched could be constructed by any competent canonical or theological counsel Sen. Kerry might engage should the matter ever go to trial (which is very unlikely).

My concern is that the case Mr. Balestrieri has made is seriously flawed and incapable of producing the desired result unless a tribunal were to deliberately intervene to supply its deficiencies. As long as there was a chance of that happening, I remained quiet about the problems with the complaint.

Now Mr. Balestrieri has made success a practical impossibility by his handling of Fr. Cole’s letter–a practical impossibility meaning that it would take an amazingly miraculous intervention for the case to achieve the desired result.

This changes matters.

Since the odds are now infinitesimal that the complaint will meet with success, it becomes an imperative to warn Catholic faithful of this fact lest they be bitterly disappointed and disaffected when the action fails.

It was already a longshot–as many had pointed out–but this recent round of events has prompted many to become emotionally invested in the case in a way that can lead to needless suffering, disillusionment, and suspicion if they are not warned.

Mr. Balestrieri has engaged a serious issue in a very public way that now affects thousands of individuals who have joined or formed opinions about his case. It is important that when one does things like this that one does them with one’s eyes open, recognizing the obstacles that exist.

It is also important that one do them right, which has not happened in this case.

Mr. Balestrieri’s conduct in the matter has also made it harder for a canonical solution to be found to the problem any time in the near future. Now the shadow of this complaint will hang over future attempts to find canonical solutions to the ongoing scandal of pro-abort Catholic politicians and will make obtaining such solutions more difficult.

UPDATE: Another point I forgot to add . . . It is a good thing if arguments pro-aborts and their defenders would use before tribunals get explored now. This lets those seeking to prosecute them (a) anticipate such arguments and have rejoinders ready and (b) seek grounds that are not vulnerable to these arguments.

Marc Balestrieri’s canonical complaint against Kerry on charges of heresy is highly problematic. His reasoning contained enough of a sketch of a case that, if a tribunal wanted, it could have used the complaint as the occasion of coming down hard on Kerry, and by extension other pro-abort Catholic politicians, but in order to do so it would have to supply the deficiencies in Balestrieri’s complaint.

After the events of the last few days, that will never happen, barring an amazingly miraculous intervention. Nobody in Rome is going to want to do Balestrieri’s work for him if they are under the impression that he tried to hoodwink them.

It therefore remains to the future to find a canonical remedy to the ongoing scandal of pro-abort Catholic politicians. There are a number of potential ways that a canonical remedy could emerge (including the pope deciding to create new law on the matter), but here is a promising avenue that is already on the books:

Canon 1369

A person who in a public show or speech, in published writing, or in other uses of the instruments of social communication utters blasphemy, gravely injures good morals, expresses insults, or excites hatred or contempt against religion or the Church is to be punished with a just penalty.

Canonists such as Ed Peters have pointed out for years the opportunity this canon provides for providing a canonical remedy to the harm being caused to society by the scandalous actions of pro-abort Catholic politicians. Using this canon one can cite speeches and other communications of pro-abort politicians, point to the fact that John Paul II (in Evangelium Vitae) has clearly acknowledged the scandal that such communications cause (scandal in the technical sense of leading other into sin), noting that public support for abortion legislation has a gravely crossive effect on good morals on a matter of fundamental human rights, and then slap such politicians (or those who refuse to mend their ways) with canonical sanctions.

In fact, since the canon mentions the infliction of a just penalty, it means that the punishment is on a sliding scale that can be calibrated to the severity of the damage an individual politician has done to good morals (as calculated based on factors such as the politicians degree of support for evil legislation, how publicly he has done it, how prominent an individual he is, and how defiant he is regarding correcting his ways).

Since this canon provides a generous ability to canonically nail such politicians for the evil they are inflicting on society, the finding of a canonical remedy turns principally on the will of tribunals to apply this law to them.

Balestrieri tried to use a personal canonical complaint that was clearly provided for under the 1917 Code of Canon Law. It is not provided in the current (1983) Code of Canon Law (see “A canonical case against Kerry”; scroll down), but a tribunal could conceivably decide to accept such a complaint anyway. His case thus could have been used as the occasion for Church authorities to act.

But the real key here is Church authorities deciding to apply this law to pro-aborts. Thus far they have not. But this year’s interventions by a number of prominent bishops on the question of abortion may be a sign that Church authorities are appreciating the lack of results produced by the previous strategy of private dialogue with politicians and that they may be considering new strategies for dealing with the scandal the politicians are causing.

Canonical sanctions would certainly make a dramatic statement about the incompatibility of the pro-abort position with the Catholic faith.

It would let the voice of Christ be heard clearly.