Posted on 08/27/2014 2:08:59 PM PDT by NYer
It is a curious conceit of an obtuse generation that it believes itself to be committed to modernity, embodied by devotion to science and reason, and yet is so irrevocably immutable to evidence.
The spiritual (but not religious) Mecca of modernity in the Catholic Church is the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the headquarters of which would likely be a smoking ruin if we had a God quick to anger rather than slow.
The absurdity of this very modern institution is embodied perfectly in their recent USCCB statement on their “Commitment To Dialogue With Muslims.”
What is the bottom line? They are so committed to dialogue with Muslims, it seems, that they will persevere in useless dialogue until every last one of us Christians is dead.
“We understand the confusion and deep emotions stirred by real and apparent acts of aggression and discrimination by certain Muslims against non-Muslims, often against Christians abroad,” the bishops wrote. “Along with many of our fellow Catholics and the many Muslims who themselves are targeted by radicals, we wish to voice our sadness, indeed our outrage, over the random and sometimes systematic acts of violence and harassment—acts that for both Christians and Muslims threaten to disrupt the harmony that binds us together in mutual support, recognition, and friendship.”
In the face of a terrifying juggernaut of death and destruction that 50 years of dialogue have done absolutely nothing to stop and arguably encouraged, the USCCB is committed to more of the same. Everyone knows that dialogue with Islam is impossible since there is no monolithic Islam with which to dialogue, so we have endeavored to dialogue merely with its adherents. I think the most humble and unambitious goal of such interreligious dialogue would have been some sort of consensus that, in general, they shouldn’t try to kill us or anyone else. Even with the bar set so low, by any measurement, 50 years of dialogue has been a miserable failure.
So what do we need? More dialogue!!
You know why? You know what the real problem has been? You and I—we are the problem.
“The bishops expressed sadness over “deliberate rejection” of the call to engage in dialogue with Muslims by some Christians, Catholic and not. They noted that the call to respect and dialogue comes from the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) and has been reaffirmed by subsequent popes. They also noted that, for nearly 20 years, their committee has dialogued with several national Muslim organizations, producing documents on education, marriage and revelation.”
There is no agreement, however, on the value of all human life or even on the need for heads to remain attached to necks.
As I said, no amount of evidence of complete and utter failure of their preferred and ever-so-modern methods are enough to dissuade them from their chosen path. If it hasn’t worked, it’s because all the Christian riff-raff have not been sufficiently on board.
This should come as no surprise as it is exactly the mindset that informs every novelty and impulse of aggiornamento of the last 50 years post-Vatican II. As the Churches empty and close, and committees convene to close Churches by the triple digits, they call the closure committee “Making All Things New.” In the face of the pervasive and manifest failure of aggiornamento, they lament that the spirit of Vatican II, likes its blood brother Communism, has only failed because it has never really been tried. This level of doublespeak and absurd groupthink would astound even Orwell.
One can only shake one’s head in disbelief right up until the moment it gets chopped off.
Ping!
Well stated.
Things we know about Islam:
1) Mohammed thought he met a demon in the cave and ran home to hide. His wife convinced him it was an angle and he went back. He was right the first time.
2) It is true that Muslims do kill other Muslims. So what! If I’m driving the getaway car for a robbery and someone dies, I’m still guilty of Felony Murder. All those “moderate” Muslims are guilty of the crimes of their braver coreligionists.
3) They all seem to unite when they are up against non-Muslims.
4) They only speak in terms of death, so if they need dialogue, let’s give them dialogue in their own language!
As an outsider, I am a bit confused. Each day markomalley posts Msgr. Pope’s daily missive, and I find the Msgr.’s presentation of the “orthodox” Catholic position to be most powerful. Would he be on the USCCB? I find very little of what they stand for to be what he stands for. What am I missing in this picture? (This is an honest question, not a rhetorical or snarky one.)
The call for interfaith dialog is not the grave sin of indifference.
A Muslim mother works at my baby’s daycare. She is absolutely loving towards my son. For the unsubtle, you can distinguish them from the radicals by the fact that she wears no face covering, drives for herself, talks to us fathers without shame, and respects the parents’ wishes. She is not ISIS. And anyone who lumps her in with ISIS without meeting her is dangerously ignorant.
If you’ll excuse a little poetic license in theology inspired from Dante, she may go to Hell if she never converts to Christianity, but if she does, I’m sure it’ll be something akin to the Plains of Elysium (sp?). I’m pretty sure anyone who lumps her in with ISIS after seeing her is pretty much going straight to the malebolge when they die unless they have a dramatic conversion.
Maybe it was acute angle...
(the devil can handle anything but laughter)
Moderate Moslims are irrelevant.
The USCCB is enmeshed in the same network of foundations and non-profits that run the rest of America. I firmly believe it needs to be stripped down so it employs no-one but the bishops it represents. The moment anything is farmed out to the staff to express, the same foundationspeak infects it.
The monsignor is not a bishop and it stands to reason he would not be a member of the USCCB(ishops). In fact, I think most Catholic bishops do not have much sway with the USCCB's pronouncements.
I believe you have to be a special kind of stupid to belong to that organization.
They are irrelevant in Palestine, and maybe Malmo, London and Dearborn. But while they are a scant minority in the street of Gaza, they are mere puppets for the truly powerful who continually reinvent the religion to detract from their own wickedness. Outside of Arab domination (which is most of North Africa, Arabia and the Levant), they are the minority.
I regard Mohammed as the most evil man to ever walk the Earth; compared to him, Hitler was a piker. But God continually speaks to the human heart, and wherever the reinventers don’t continually update and renew Mohammed’s fanatical hatred, people find the truth about Christ, even obscured behind the Koran.
And this is from where the conversion of the Islamofascists will come: not from Bush’s wars (as just as they are), but from the converts from within Islam, who find Christianity to be more than simply than the sort of reactive hatred of the “kill them all” types.
What is the bottom line? They are so committed to dialogue with Muslims, it seems, that they will persevere in useless dialogue until every last one of us Christians is dead.
PFL
They are more than irrelevant here. If I hear one more time how wonderful Moslim women are I need to remind them that they are controlled by Moslim men.
Conservatives actually believe they do not lie.
Few of the people at the USCCB are bishops; that is the problem.
Thanks to both of you, I now understand more about what a msgr. is, and as for the USCCB, I think I get it now. The same thing happens in liberal Protestant denominations, where the staff organizations take positions that many of the clergy and almost all of the laity would be ashamed to be associated with.
Let me be more careful in what I say:
The Committee in question is chaired by an auxiliary bishop, has 7 members, who are all bishops, and 14 advisors who are all bishops. But most of the staff are laity.
Reverend Dr. John Crossin, OSFS
Executive Director
Anthony Cirelli, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Reverend Dr. Ronald G. Roberson, CSP
Associate Director
Ms. Julia McStravog, M.A.
Program and Research Specialist
Mrs. Nancy Robinson
Assistant to the Executive Director
Ms. Nicole Mazur
Staff Assistant
The OP is in response to the above statement by the Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Note all of the members are, in fact, BISHOPS.
Some clarification is required here. Freeper chajin has posed an honest and serious question.
Let's begin with the most basic question ... "what is the USCCB?"
he United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is an assembly of the hierarchy of the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands who jointly exercise certain pastoral functions on behalf of the Christian faithful of the United States. The purpose of the Conference is to promote the greater good which the Church offers humankind, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place. This purpose is drawn from the universal law of the Church and applies to the episcopal conferences which are established all over the world for the same purpose.he Conference is organized as a corporation in the District of Columbia. Its purposes under civil law are: "To unify, coordinate, encourage, promote and carry on Catholic activities in the United States; to organize and conduct religious, charitable and social welfare work at home and abroad; to aid in education; to care for immigrants; and generally to enter into and promote by education, publication and direction the objects of its being."
source.
IOW, as a body, they oversee various programs with good intentions. They do not make doctrine.
Were Msgr. Charles Pope to be made a bishop, he would be required to attend 2 annual meetings and accept assignment to some committee. When the USCCB issues a communique, it does not necessarily reflect the voices or opinions of all its members. Does this help to address your question?
So it’s the staff that are responsible here? Are you kidding me?
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