Punditry

In Australia, a proposed new law could require priests to turn over anyone who confesses child abuse to the police. And Australia’s not alone. In fact, it’s something of a trend.

The Irish Justice Minister introduced a bill earlier this year making it a criminal offense to fail to disclose information to police which would “assist in prosecuting a person who commits a serious offence against a child or vulnerable adult.” That includes priests being mandated to break the seal of the confessional.

Hey what a great idea following on Ireland’s decision to do the same. This is really going to knock out a lot of abuse since child molesters are known for going to confession. Plus now with the new law you know child abusers will really be seeking priests out for confession.

While we are at it let us get rid of lawyer-client confidentiality. Lawyers can plead guilty against the client’s wishes if they are aware of them committing a crime. Why should any relationship be protected if it covers up a crime?

It is certainly understandable a reaction such as this against child abuse, a crime so heinous. Yet as bad as child abuse is what about murder? Shouldn’t the priest or lawyer also be forced to give up any information they have if violating such confidentiality is a good in itself. How about client-doctor also whether medical or psychiatry if they come across information? The law seems very narrow in scope being directed only towards priests.

Besides the practicality of the whole thing seems more like an agenda than being directed towards any actual fruitful end. How would they know that the law was violated in the first place? Sting operations against priests with false confessions to see if they go to the police? Or arrested child molesters making an accusation that they admitted this in confession – something the priest could neither confirm or deny? That scenario has the earmarking of another movie in the vein of “I Confess” by Alfred Hitchcock.

St John of Nepomuk pray for us.

Via Creative Minority Report

In a story involving Brook Village Retirement Home in North Providence.

The complaining resident, Wanda Hughes told DePetro that she wrote a letter to the property management group because she finds the Rosary to be “an in your face ritual.” In the letter she threatens to bring the issue to the ACLU if it is not addressed.

Yeah what could be more in your face than a group of elderly people praying the Rosary in the community room.

Hughes said the community room is “suppose to be open” and the residents can pray in their rooms.

The very idea of people gathering together in a “Community Room” of all places.

This led to a ban that has since been lifted by the management.

[Source]

Msgr. Charles Pope replies to “Friendly Atheist” whose nom de plume is not exactly accurate and I am not referring to the atheist part. Really love the way the Monsignor takes up points in response in a clear and charitable manner. He points out logical fallacies and how words such as legitimacy don’t mean what this commenter thinks they mean.

It is also interesting how many atheists take up the side of liberal Catholics in this case the four Arlington Catechists who won’t take a fidelity oath. Really with the atheists point of view aren’t liberal/conservative/luke-warm/whatever-definition Catholics all just plain wrong for believing in God in the first place? Why take sides when all the players are wrong? Though as Friendly Atheist says “I’m loving this implosion from the sidelines.” The implosion he is referring to is 4 out of 5,000 cathechists not taking the loyalty oath. Not much of an implosion. Maybe it is a form of schadenfreude whenever there is some dispute within the Church with the Magisterium seen as the uber-theists and liberal Catholics seeming closer to the atheist position. Or maybe it is kind of like rooting for a football team you don’t really like because they are playing against a team you hate.

In related atheist comment box news, Mark Shea posts today:

So there’s some dude with the handle L.W. Dickel who has been trying to post here (unsuccessfully thanks to my sleek, leonine ban filter). He posts the same profanity-ridden blasphemous rant over and over again and, as is always the custom with these social inadepts, congratulates himself for being a Thinking Man. After the third or fourth try, I got curious googled his name to see if he was simply filled with hate for this blog or for theistic blogs in general. Turns out the dude is in comboxes everwhere, cutting and pasting the exact same blasphemous monomaniacal rant again and again.

Because Thinking Men cut and paste.

I got hit by the same commenter and while I am very loose in regards to allowing comments, this one was deleted for profanity. I have seen other commenter of this stripe who post the same thing on multiple blogs totally unrelated to the topic at hand. A form of atheist vain repetition like a Buddhist prayer wheel spinning out automatic prayers.

Though maybe the point of this post is to redirect my own constant atheist commenter to another blog as atheist link bait. Oh wait, did I write that publicly? Oh well, wishful thinking.

The Arlington Diocese, which includes nearly a half-million Catholics across northern and eastern Virginia, is one of a small but growing number that are starting to demand fidelity oaths. The oaths reflect a churchwide push in recent years to revive orthodoxy that has sharply divided Catholics.

Such oaths are not new for priests or nuns but extend now in some places to people like volunteer Sunday school teachers as well as workers at Catholic hospitals and parish offices.

…

The Arlington “profession of faith” asks teachers to commit to “believe everything” the bishops characterize as divinely revealed, and Arlington’s top doctrine official said it would include things like the bishops’ recent campaign against a White House mandate that most employers offer contraception coverage. Critics consider the mandate a violation of religious freedom.

Articles like this almost make me wish I was a journalist. Instead of actual research and getting quotes I could just write “critics say” followed by anything I wanted to make a point with – that done I could go home after a days work. Yes religious freedom now means you have the right to be a catechist even if you won’t swear to teach what the Church teaches.

So far, out of the diocese’s 5,000 Sunday and parochial school teachers, four are objecting to it and will not take the oath.

So what exactly is objectionable to them? The Profession of Faith simply starts with the Creed and then says:

With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in tradition, which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely inspired.

I also accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.

Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings with either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate whey the exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim theses teachings by a definitive act.

This section is pretty much a restatement of the levels of Church teaching from the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium section 25. Though an actual document from Vatican II doesn’t count since as much as ye ole spirit of Vatican II.

Now as far as these four women saying they can’t take the oath. Well if their conscience seriously objects to it, than that is what they should do. This is much better than those who would swear the oath and not fully mean it. Oath-taking has fallen on hard times across the spectrum from marriages to politicians swearing to defend the Constitution.

One of the women submitted a letter explaining why she won’t take the oath and I don’t think she really explained why she won’t. One of the reasons is that she says it is not even possible to “specify ALL the teachings proposed definitively.” I find this rather lame as if you can know most of them yet the one you might not knows directly is the one you would object to. As if the Church has hidden the definitive teachings making it impossible to know them all without looking at lots of fine print. She says it is “impossible to know” what she is assenting to. Yeah that shows a lot of faith and trust in the Church. Another reason has even less substance in that the “expression of teachings have not reached their fullest expression in the present.” Well if the Magisterium’s deepening understanding in the area of faith and morals makes it so that you can no longer accept the faith at that point, well then resign at that point.

She even goes on to write that “only a person who is willing to abandon her own reason and judgment, or who is wiling to go against the dictates of her own conscience, can agree to sign such a document.” Wow so of the 5,000 catechetical teachers who will sign this document they are all willing to abandon reason and their conscience. Talk about abandoning reason and pure vanity. Being guided by the Magisterium is not abandoning reason since we must fully engage our reason to come to a fuller understanding of Church teaching.

She also says that forcing this issue she will be depriving students of teachers. Well 4 out of 5,000 is not much depriving. Though the 5,000 figure seems awfully high to me. One thing for sure this policy is already working if it keeps teachers like her from poisoning others with such a skeptical view of the Magisterium and the ability to know what she teaches. She treats this oath like a contract with the Devil where you must make sure there are no loopholes that will back-stab you later.

Via Rorate Caeli

Msgr. Charles Pope points out some interesting data from CARA.

You often hear that ex-Catholics would make up one of the largest denominations. Apparently the category of ex-atheist’s make up a larger percentage. This data relates to people raised in an atheist household, not the retention rate of atheists not raised in such households.

But take a special look at that number at the bottom of the pile, yes the very bottom. Atheists “retain” only thirty percent of their “flock.” To quote the CARA blog: And if you think it is challenging to be a Catholic parent, try being an Atheist parent! Some 70% of Americans raised to believe God does not exist end up being a member of a religion as an adult (about one in five former Atheists drift off to become an open-minded agnostic or None).

N.B this number reflects only those raised as Atheists. A large number of Atheists in this Country are “made” in the sense that they were raised to believe but now are Atheists. It remains to study how many of them remain atheists and for how long.

The Monsignor goes on to write why he thinks this is so and of course the comment section is full of outraged atheists. I must applaud Msgr. Pope for the amount of engagement and his many responses to atheists who mainly assert that the study must be flawed (which of course is always possible).

So what we can take from this study and act on is to obviously raise our kids as atheists so that they will later have some form of belief! Hey it worked in my case raised in an atheist household. Well probably not the best approach, but you do have to wonder if atheist parents will complain about the state of atheist catechesis and the problem of backsliding atheists straying into faith.

(source)

A district judge in Cologne, Germany, recently ruled that ritual circumcision is a crime, violating “the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity,” which outweighs other parental and religious rights. “This change runs counter to the interests of the child,” the court concluded, “who can decide his religious affiliation himself later in life.” (source)

Now of course if the mother had chosen to have an abortion and chopping up the child – bodily integrity not so big a deal. So maybe in utero circumcision?

There has been a lot of ink and pixels spilt over the topic of the CDF’s investigation into the LCWR. The large brunt of the media coverage has used the “War on women” narrative as if the fact that the only thing these religious sisters and nuns are guilty of is the crime of being a women and daring to help the poor.

If this narrative is true then why is the Vatican investigating the LCWR and not the parallel group the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR)? After all they are women also and help the poor.

Why does the Vatican investigate women religious who look like this:

pro-abortion Sisters

or

And not ones that look like this:

or

Well the answer might surprise you. It has nothing to do with the fact that orthodox religious women generally wear habit and ones with more dissident tendencies don’t. Nope, no correlation at all.

The real reason the Vatican is “cracking down” on the LCWR and some women theologians in the United States is because they are noticeable as women. Everyone knows the patriarchal all-male hierarchy is totally misogynistic. The thing is that when women religious wear full habits they become invisible to the Vatican and the CDF. Their women parts and hair are totally hidden in their habits and the CDF forgets they are women and thus leave them alone. The LCWR and all the so brave dissident women theologians are instantly viewed obviously as women without the covering habits.

Now these habit-less religious women did try some camouflage by wearing pantsuits, but this did not go far enough to fool the CDF. This did not work even with the attempts at mannish hairstyles.

Here is Sister Simone Campbell making the classic mistake in not hiding herself in a habit and thus opening herself up to crackdowns from CDF troops.

In fact I expect the CDF paratroopers to descend from the skies and put a stop to this bus tour any day now. After all the signs should say “Religious Sisters on a Bus” and not “Nuns on the Bus.” There should certainly be fines for those who continue to confuse the terms nuns and sisters.

You just got to love the priorities of these women religious:

• Federal money for abortion – No need to organize a bus tour.
• Catholics being forced out of adoption and helping victims of human trafficking – Nope no bus tour needed.
• Attack on our religious freedom and forced support of intrinsic evils – No need for a bus tour.
• A Republican budget that is going nowhere – Organize a tour immediately.

You sometimes run across this quote from Gandhi:

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Though I must admit this quote annoys me. While it makes a valid point about the behavior of some Christians and a warning to all of us – I find it too dismissive. I don’t mind at all the reminder that I must be more like Christ, a reminder I can always use.

I am glad that he found so many examples of perfect Hindu’s that did not cause him such alarm for his own faith.

One thing the statement is so dismissive of is the various martyrs and saints – the exemplars of the faith – those who truly followed Christ. They are just passed over because of those who don’t as closely follow Christ. Judging anything by the people who don’t exemplify something is a rather poor test. Like judging mathematics based on poor math students.

It also reminds me of one of Chesterton’s quotes:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

Gandhi himself was influenced by the writings of G.K. Chesterton, at least in regards to Indian independence. I can’t speak to Gandhi’s personal rejection of Christianity – I just don’t find his stated reasons very compelling.

For example:

…to be a good Hindu also meant that I would be a good Christian. There is no need for me to join your creed to be a believer in the beauty of the teachings of Jesus or try to follow His example.

Yeah that is why there were so many Hindus there in the streets of Calcutta helping out the poorest of the poor before Blessed Mother Teresa arrived. Plus Gandhi’s statement makes no sense in that he says he can be a good Christian without trying to follow Jesus’s example. That you admit to a beauty of a teaching you won’t follow just displays a nebulous understanding of the truth of those teachings.

The Washington Post breathlessly asks “Who’s funding the Catholic bishops’ religious freedom campaign?” Shockingly it appears to be mostly the Knights of Columbus. Yeah that’s really newsworthy. I guess we will have to send out the albino monk assassins to take care of that leak.

Though of course the Washington Post is strangely incurious about the Soros funded group in opposition to the Fortnight for Freedom campaign.

Mondays are usually not the best of days, but I was quite joyous to see that Leah Libresco of the “Unequally Yoked” blog announced that she was now attending RCIA and that she was moving her blog from the atheist portal on Patheos to the Catholic portal.

The “Unequally Yoked” blog was in part based or her disputes with there Catholic boyfriend. This is of course not the first time somebody arguing with a Catholic spouse or boy/girlfriend to get them out of Catholicism turns about. I think of Jimmy Akin’s conversion story for one. Or even in the case of my own conversion story since my wife was a cradle Catholic while I was a cradle Atheist.

It is always rather interesting when an atheist blogger comes over to the “dark side”. This was true in the case of the former “Raving Atheist” blog, Jennifer Fulwiler, and now Leah’s blog with hundreds of resulting comments.

Now it is quite easy to fall into the us vs. them divide and seeing a conversion as a win for our team. Kind of like the Protestant verbiage of “winning a soul for Christ” and keeping score. The personal story is easily lost in such a view. For anyone who had been a life-long atheist up to that point coming to belief is quite difficult and even more so when done in a public way. There is that private interrogation when first you suspect that you are leaving atheism behind and have come to belief in God. That private interrogation can be quite rough and quite scary as you question your motives and try to verify the use of reason that has brought you to this point. Atheism for me had become a crutch and a reason not to repent of my sins. Belief in God is more than realizing that your Sundays now have a recurring event for the rest of your lives. The real recurring event is continual repentance and that is quite annoying when your previous refrain was “I am only human.”

Going from atheism to Catholicism is kind of like a rags to riches story. From having nothing in the spiritual life to the riches of what the Catholic faith delivers. So many saints, so many devotions, and oh so many books! I look back at all my years as an atheist with a certain fondness in that I was striving for the truth despite bumbling around like Mr. Magoo. It is hard to describe the joy of being Catholic despite all the challenges. To find that you could actually overcome sins that you had pretty much given up on despite periodic applications of stoicism. But coming into relationship with Jesus is what is the most joyous. The ride on his back as the lost sheep being returned to the hold is wonderful ride.

There are some advantages of going from atheism to Catholicism compared to conversion from Protestantism. For one once you get over the “yeah there is a God” thing all the Catholic distinctive are much easier to grasp. Not having the Protestant prejudices towards Catholicism makes some of the faith much easier to learn. The fact that the Catholic faith is symphonic and that all the truths of the faith interlock and support each other you are constantly awed in this new understanding that just becomes stronger over the years. There are certainly atheist prejudices that have to be overcome such as what a big lie the Church vs. science meme is. I am quite happy that Leah Libresco will miss out on the theism phase. Coming to belief in God for me did not mean instantly embracing the Catholic Church, it was some years of first a general theism and then movement towards the Catholic Church after reading much of the religious section at the library.

So welcome home Leah!