Infallibility has its limits

New York Daily News ^ | April 27, 2005 | MARIO CUOMO

[gbcdoj]

I don't agree with spreading heresy, but you are simply wrong about him saying "mater si, magistra no". See the link I gave for the story on that: It's a quote from Wills, not Buckley, and it isn't referring to Buckley but to Frank Meyer. The two quotes I gave you from Buckley on the encyclical are written 3-4 months after it was published - that's awfully fast for a memory problem.

[bornacatholic]

Well, his Brother, Reid, made the same "mistake" as I did. The American Spectator carried a very long piece in which Reid corrected his brother and defended Holy Mother Church.

I'll bet I have a copy of that kicking around. I'll check.

[gbcdoj]

http://eutopia.cua.edu/printarticle.cfm?ID=67

On July 29, 1961, a short notice in an NR weekly events column observed: "whatever the final effect (of the encyclical), it must strike many as a venture in triviality coming at this time in history" when communism was rising with its dehumanizing usurpation of the economy, and free market economies in the US, Japan, and Europe were booming. Two weeks later, a single line in NR's gossip column quipped: "Going the rounds in Catholic conservative circles: Mater si , Magistra, no." (Contrary to Fr. Collins' assertion, Buckley wrote no essay with this title, seminal or otherwise). America subsequently condemned NR for these remarks, on grounds that it was presumptuous and disrespectful to even appear to criticize an encyclical. However, as Buckley noted in the August 26 NR, "National Review has made no substantive criticism of Mater et Magistra'. It merely pointed out that "coming at this particular time in history, parts of it may be considered as trivial." He also noted correctly that the encyclical, like other social encyclicals, lays out broad principles and does not prescribe specific votes on US federal entitlement or welfare programs. "There is room for disagreement as to whether a particular social measure is dehumanizing in its tendency; Catholics can disagree on this matter."

On September 23, Buckley published in NR a letter he had written to America editor Fr. Thurston Davis, SJ, which Davis had refused to publish. The Mater si quote, Buckley explained, spoken "by a Catholic scholar in Virginia, was flippancy pure and simple. I take no objection to your denouncing the flippancy as having been in imperfect taste: I am quite prepared to subject myself to the criticism of my elders on such matters."

[bornacatholic]

Thanks, gbc. It turns out it is I who have the memory problem. I apologize. There is no doubt that brother Reid wrote a long piece correcting his brother. I still can't find it, yet - although I did find Joe Sobran's "Le noveau Canard" which refuted the ugly charges of antisemitism against him.

Heck, Buckley was willing to throw anyone under the bus (including his Dad) if it meant currying favor with a certain clique of N. Y. intellectuals.

[Pio]

Thanks...it just seemed to me that more than just the usual dissenters were kicking around girl priests. One of them: The high profile Bill Bennett, Washington power-lawyer, ...looks like his conversion was a half-baked one in the Deal Hudson mode.

[Cvengr]

At least he makes no claim of his theology being 'systematic'.

[Salvation]

**the cardinals have chosen a good and holy man who, we are told, rather than reform the status quo will reaffirm it more insistently than before**

Thanks be to God!

Coumo only needs to take the word "instead" out of his sentence. (And go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation!)