This is a cowardly cheap shot at Neuhaus. You ignore the careful distinctions Neuhaus makes and resort to an ad hominem attack against his Lutheran background. Take issue with his interpretation of "l'affaire Reese" if you wish, but save the cheap shots for your drinking buddies.
Neuhaus effectively is saying that the Vatican pressure was aimed only secondarily at Reese and primarily at America. In other words, Ratzinger while still at the CDF was telling America (and aiming the message through this magazine to the other Catholic intellectuals) that it's one thing to try to play the "neutral" and "give both sides" game when matters truly have not yet been defined authoritatively, but that when this or that doctrine of faith or morals has been clearly defined by the Magisterium, to do the "give both sides" routine (unless it is aimed to help people better understand and accept the Magisterium's doctrine) actually constitutes a form of dissent.
I wrote on an earlier thread on Reese that the decision was primarily aimed at the magazine, not at Reese. Neuhaus makes this clearer: Ratzinger at the CDF played a masterstroke. The whole cover that the Jebbies and other Catholic intellectuals have been using for decades is based on a two-part strategy: (1) never openly oppose settled doctrine--to do that is to invite being labeled a dissenter and have the label stick--that kind of open defiance, they would say, is okay for extremists ike Daniel McGuire or Matthew Fox or Call to Action. But we are going to be more clever. We will avoid getting labeled as open dissenters while (2) at the same time introducing the dissenting arguments under the cover of "giving both sides."
For a long time they've gotten away with that. They go right up to the edge of openly challenging settled doctrine on, say, women "priets" but calculatingly stop short of directly opposing it. (And before anyone responds that they do openly challengee it, you need to read much more carefully what they write. I know because I teach among them and I know how they respond when accused of open dissent--the Reeses have very carefully stopped short of that; McBrien thought he had but actually crossed the line and got disciplined by the bishops for it; McGuire and CTA openly cross the line. If you are not aware of these differences, you need to become aware because that's how the quasi-dissenting types like Reese have survived so long.)
Ratzinger has nailed them. He has effectively called their bluff. He's said, it's only a game you are playing, thinking you can go right up to the line and just stop short of it. No, if you "give both sides" when one side has been clearly determined to be settled doctrine, you are being an unfaithful, disloyal Catholic.
I have said this to my colleagues repeatedly and they become furious and show me in excruciating detail just how they have avoided crossing the line. Their defense rests on fine distinctions that lay people don't see. Then they laugh at the conservative Catholic people who lump the Reese's in with CTA and McGuire--laugh at them as ignoramusess who don't know the subtleties of theology the way the Jebbies do.
Now Ratzinger has nailed them. He's said, those fine distinctions will not save you in cases where the Magisterium has clearly spoken, e.g., on ordination of women, stem cell research etc.
Of course they won't agree with him, of course they won't accept his verdict. They will grouse that he doesn't really understand the fine points of theology.
But he has nailed it down and they know he has blown their cover. They'll grouse, yes, but they'll also stop playing this game, at least to some degree and in some ways. They'll either boldly cross the line into open dissent with the CTAers etc. or they will back away and be more cautious about playing the "giving both sides" game.
What is gained from that? Well, at least some of the great unwashed middle-brow Catholic faithful (college students etc.) will no longer have dissenting positions thrown quite so openly in their faces as continuing to be "live options" for Catholics. Will it clean everything up? By no means. But it's a start, a warning shot across the bow, a putting on notice, not of the McGuires and CTA types but of the great middle ranks of the liberal Catholic dissenters who have done so much to befuddle the Catholic faithful precisely because they played this game of "presenting both sides" so well.
Neuhaus is worth reading and I wish him well in his continuing education. Try to develop a sense of humor.
We agree on the basic points about the struggle within Catholicism.
THE Jebbies have been playing this game forever, even when they were loyalists. Pascal outed them a long time ago.
----Of course they won't agree with him, of course they won't accept his verdict. They will grouse that he doesn't really understand the fine points of theology.------
But they can't play "I'm the Theologian and you're just a church adminstrator" game on Benedict. He knows his stuff, and he knows how to play that game.
It will be interesting to watch. And no doubt good for the church.