Stephen at For God, For Country and For Yale posted parts of an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal regarding a Catholic professor who previously at evangelical Wheaton College. He had become a Catholic while there and was fired after he could not affirm their statement of faith centered on “sola scriptura”. One interesting quote from the article was “Wheaton hasn’t replaced Mr. Hochschild. One obstacle: Most scholars of medieval philosophy are Catholics.” While I don’t know if this statement is true, it would definitely seem to follow. As John Henry Cardinal Newman said "To be deep into history is to cease to be Protestant."
A fairly recent book by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is a book I will eventually buy and get to that partly addresses this subject. Recently Fr. Pacwa interviewed him on EWTN Live (available in rm format) and the author has an article in this months This Rock magazine. He starts off with a quote from Will Roger "The problem with this country isn’t so much what people don’t know, it’s what people think they know that just ain’t so." Though when it comes to Church history it is a combination of the two. I am still annoyed by the Church sized hole in history that I was given in public school. Talk about censorship. Of course though we did get one piece of Church history – the extremely distorted version of the Galileo affair. Sometimes it seems I have spent most of my life unlearning what I thought I knew.
The author says in the article in This Rock magazine "Again, none of this history proves the Church’s claims about herself, but it does lend some support to those claims." Now having read the majority of Warren Carroll’s wonderful and highly recommended series of history books on Christendom I think it is the negative aspects of the Catholic Church that are the most powerful apologetically. Others long before me have remarked after either reading Church history or having some involvement with the Vatican that the only way that the Catholic Church has become the longest living human institution is that it is not just a human institution. If the Holy Spirit had not been guiding the Church it would have long since become a historical footnote.
20 comments
William Carroll’s
I think you mean Warren Carroll.
I have read Woods’ Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. Didn’t know he was a Catholic. Looks like anther book to add to the wish list.
I have read How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
David Brooks did an article on The Victory of Reason that is very similar book.
My post here compares the two:
http://ivycatholic.blogspot.com/2005/12/catholic-capitalism.html
I read the Politically Incorrect Guide to American history and thought that although there were a few good points, the majority of it was sloppily researched and inaccurate (don’t get me wrong–I’m a fairly conservative person, but bad historiography is bad historiography). As one reviewer put it, “imagine a high-strung libertarian screeching.” So even if his new book sounds interesting, I’m going to skip it because he has not proven his credibility as a historian to me. There are plenty of more respectable experts in that field.
I like the direction this is going. We get a “professor of medieval philosophy” and Southern Methodist University gets Charles Curran.
Maybe this could initiate a whole series of professor swapping. Could someone at Notre Dame put Fr. McBrian on ebay?
“Catholic Priest, V2: Fairly old, but remarkably healthy nominally Catholic self-described theologian. No protruding latches or sharp edges. Will assert sola scriptura, sola gratia, or TULIP, depending on pastoral requirements. (Will not assert extra ecclesia nulla salus due to a flaw in programming). Heavily used, but we just don’t need him anymore. Interesting trades considered”
Hey…bring him over to One Red Paperclip! Maybe we could get the cube van for him! Warning: the van is probably younger, but gets worse gas mileage. McBrien is not so much of a gas guzzler, as a production asset…
Hey Ubi,
Don’t forget: “Channels Spirit of Vatican Two on command. Will deconstruct for food.”
Fr. Philip
It’s not like I’d sign Wheaton’s statement of faith, but you’ve got to admire any institution, whether Catholic or Evangelical, that will stick to it’s guns on issues of faith. I wish more Catholic schools were willing, at the very least, to require their theology departments to follow Vatican guidelines.
I read somewhere in blogdom that Warren Carroll is about to put out the next volume in his history. Hope it’s true.
Thomas E. Woods co-authored (with Chris Ferrara and Michael Matt) a book on Vatican II called the ‘Great Fa�ade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church’?
You should take into account that, in that book, among other nice things, he concludes that a certain Cd. Ratzinger is a heretic (find ‘ratzinger’ in this page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890740101/qid=1137092604/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8775314-9031957?n=507846&s=books&v=glance )
He has also written another book on the Churches’ Social Doctrine which that does not seam to be very orthodox: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0739110365/qid=1137092918/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-8775314-9031957?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
This does not mean that “How The Catholic Church…” is a not a great book. Maybe it is.
I don’t think it’s fair to say my book The Church and the Market “doesn’t seem very orthodox.” You would then need to explain why Crisis gave it such a good review, or why the economics department chairmen at Christendom College and the University of Dallas have both endorsed it, enthusiastically.
All of this is available at http://www.ThomasEWoods.com
Thanks.
And although I have never considered Cardinal Ratzinger a “heretic,” I absolutely repudiate all attacks on him that appear in The Great Facade. Those attacks are unfair and I am sorry to be associated with them.
I visited your website.
1. I see that you don’t even list ‘The Great Fa�ade: The Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church’ as one your books. And that’s a good thing since it got enthusiastic endorsements from all the usual rad trad sources. Vatican II is an Ecumenical Council and its teachings are binding on all the faithful.
2. Concerning the book on social doctrine, first of all, a favorable review form Crisis, or any other source for that matter, is not exactly a Nihil Obstat/Imprimatur from your Bishop.
3. Second, there are some – Thomas Storck, for instance – who don’t seam very convinced of the orthodoxy of your approach (http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Storck/NewsTS0617104.html).
You defend that libertarian economincs and specifically the austrian school of economics is compatible with church doctrine. But, for example, the principle of the universal destination of goods, the primacy of labor over capital, defense of just wages or condemnation of iniquous inequalities seam to conflict with absolut property rights and the market society that libertarian principles would lead to. And the Salamanca School economic teachings were never Church doctrine – far from it. And the LvMI interpretation of these teachings seam to be incomplete and anachronic.
4. You seam to imply that what Popes say about economics should be disregarded by the faithful because economics is somehow an autonomous body of thought. Is economics really independent form moral judgements ?
And then there is this:
The DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH – LUMEN GENTIUM – states that (n�25):
“In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. *This religious submission of mind and will* must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, *even when he is not speaking ex cathedra*; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, *the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will.*”
5. I will read your book carefully.
I want you to be right about this.
The problem is I have fallen many times in the error C. S. Lewis describes in ‘Mere Christianity’:
“Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: weare approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. We are looking for an ally where we are offered a either a Master or – a Judge. I am just the same.” (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p.87)
I don’t want to do this ever again.
In 3. I should also have mentioned the concept of Common Good.
I’m going to be as good a sport about this as I can, so let me say this delicately: I wrote an entire book on this subject, a book that answers in great detail every single question and objection you have raised here, precisely so that I would not have to undergo this kind of examination. If you don’t want to read my book, fine, but then at least have the good sense not to expect me to provide lengthy, detailed answers to questions I’ve already written about. I do have other obligations in my life.
As for Thomas Storck, he was written some fine things, but I have never been less impressed by a person’s knowledge of economics.
You spoke like a true christian.
Many thanks for the time you have already spent trying to educate this poor and ignorant proletarian.
Where did anyone ever get the idea that it’s un-Christian to defend oneself temperately, which is precisely what I did?
I suppose it was “Christian” of you to speak to me patronizingly — I love the point about Vatican II being an ecumenical council whose teachings we need to accept, as if I didn’t know that or had ever written anything to the contrary. If you think The Great Facade argued otherwise, then you are unfamiliar with its argument and should not be condemning me on the basis of something you know nothing about. That’s not fair — “un-Christian,” even.
Seriously, what would we think of someone who demanded that Scott Hahn answer eight questions on the sacraments, questions that are easily obtained from his books, and then sulked when he patiently declined? Insufferable.
I meant what I said. You ‘tried to be a good sport’ and say things ‘delicately’. That was mighty christian of you. And I am ignorant, poor and proletarian. And I do appreciate the time you have been spending with me, considering you are a published author and all (not to mention father of 2).
Based on what I read – comments on the ‘Great Fa�ade’ Amazon page, reviews by rad trads, other reviews -, I thought you were a critic of Vatican II and it’s teachings. If you’re not, I’m sorry.
I also hadn’t realised you were in the same league as Scott Hahn (my mistake). I will try to make it up to you in the following way: I have a week vacation coming up. Will dedicate my spare time to reading all your catholicism related online articles and writings. Afterwards, I will read the books (amazon orders take weeks if not months to reach this side of the Atlantic). Maybe I will dedicate a whole blog to this project. (I feel there is a paper or two coming out of all this).
P.S. English is not my first language (as my writing clearly indicates).
Dr. Woods,
Saw you at the Niagara Falls CFN conference in March 2002. Fr Denis Fahey and Coughlin opposed a central bank answerable to noone and thought the banks should be at least answerable to the government. Why do you oppose that ideal? Also, you seem to favor fractional reserve banking in a limited sense, correct?
In what way do you think differently since you wrote the Great Facade with Chris Ferrara? Do you still attend the traditional latin mass or the novus ordo and are you still Catholic? Are your views dramatically different than they were 4 years ago? Just curious and God Bless,
Peter
Dr. Woods?
Which facts, Sir?