Posted on 07/02/2010 6:56:08 PM PDT by Desdemona
Today’s New York Times, with another front-page attack on Pope Benedict XVI, erases any possible doubt that America’s most influential newspaper has declared an editorial jihad against this pontificate. Abandoning any sense of editorial balance, journalistic integrity, or even elementary logic, the Times looses a 4,000-word barrage against the Pope: an indictment that is not supported even by the content of this appalling story. Apparently the editors are relying on sheer volume of words, and repetition of ugly details, to substitute for logical argumentation.
The thrust of the argument presented by the Times is that prior to his election as Pontiff, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger did not take decisive action to punish priests who abused children. Despite its exhaustive length, the story does not present a single new case to support that argument. The authors claim, at several points in their presentation, that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Ratzinger had the authority to take action. But then, again and again, they quote knowledgeable Church officials saying precisely the opposite.
The confusion over lines of authority at the Vatican was so acute, the Times reports, that in the year 2000 a group of bishops met in Rome to present their concerns. That meeting led eventually to the change in policy announced by Pope John Paul II the following year, giving the CDF sole authority over disciplinary action against priests involved in sexual abuse. By general consensus the 2001 policy represented an important step forward in the Vatican’s handling of the problem, and it was Cardinal Ratzinger who pressed for that policy change. How does that sequence of events justify criticism of the future Pope? It doesn’t. But the facts do not deter the Times.
The Times writers show their bias with their flippant observation that when he might have been fighting sexual abuse, during the 1980s and 1990s Cardinal Ratzinger was more prominent in his pursuit of doctrinal orthodoxy. But then, while until 2001 it was not clear which Vatican office was primarily responsible for sexual abuse, it was clear that the CDF was responsible for doctrinal orthodoxy. Cardinal Ratzinger’s primary focus was on his primary job.
After laying out the general argument against the Vatican’s inaction—and implying that Cardinal Ratzinger was responsible for that inaction, disregarding the ample evidence that other prelates stalled his efforts—the Times makes the simply astonishing argument that local diocesan bishops were more effective in their handling of sex-abuse problems. That argument is merely wrong; it is comically absurd.
During the 1980s and 1990s, as some bishops were complaining about the confusion at the Vatican, bishops in the US and Ireland, Germany and Austria, Canada and Italy were systematically covering up evidence of sexual abuse, and transferring predator-priests to new parish assignments to hide them from scrutiny. The revelations of the past decade have shown a gross dereliction of duty on the part of diocesan bishops. Indeed the ugly track record has shown that a number of diocesan bishops were themselves abusing children during those years.
So how does the Times have the temerity to suggest that the diocesan bishops needed to educate the Vatican on the proper handling of this issue? The lead witness for the Times story is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson: a former auxiliary of the Sydney, Australia archdiocese, who was hustled into premature retirement in 2004 at the age of 66 because his professed desire to change the teachings of the Catholic Church put him so clearly at odds with his fellow Australian bishops and with Catholic orthodoxy. This obscure Australian bishop, the main source of support for the absurd argument advanced by the Times, is the author of a book on Christianity that has been described as advancing “the most radical changes since Martin Luther started the 16th-century Reformation.” His work has drawn an extraordinary caution from the Australian episcopal conference, which warned that Robinson was at odds with Catholic teaching on “among other things, the nature of Tradition, the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, the infallibility of the Councils and the Pope, the authority of the Creeds, the nature of the ministerial priesthood and central elements of the Church’s moral teaching." Bishop Robinson is so extreme in his theological views that Cardinal Roger Mahony (who is not ordinarily known as a stickler for orthodoxy) barred him from speaking in the Los Angeles archdiocese in 2008. This, again, is the authority on which the Times hangs its argument against the Vatican.
And even the Times story itself, a mess of contradictions, acknowledges:
Bishops had a variety of disciplinary tools at their disposal — including the power to remove accused priests from contact with children and to suspend them from ministry altogether — that they could use without the Vatican’s direct approval.
It is not clear, then, why the Vatican bears the bulk of the responsibility for the sex-abuse scandal. Still less clear is why the main focus of that responsibility should be Pope Benedict. On that score, too, the Times blatantly contradicts its own argument. Buried in the Times story—on the 3rd page in the print edition, in the 46th paragraph of the article—is a report on one Vatican official who stood out at that 2000 meeting in Rome, calling for more effective action on sexual abuse.
An exception to the prevailing attitude, several participants recalled, was Cardinal Ratzinger. He attended the sessions only intermittently and seldom spoke up. But in his only extended remarks, he made clear that he saw things differently from others in the Curia.
That testimony is seconded by a more reliable prelate, Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide:
“The speech he gave was an analysis of the situation, the horrible nature of the crime, and that it had to be responded to promptly,” recalled Archbishop Wilson of Australia, who was at the meeting in 2000. “I felt, this guy gets it, he’s understanding the situation we’re facing. At long last, we’ll be able to move forward.”
The Times story, despite its flagrant bias and distortion, actually contains the evidence to dismiss the complaint. Unfortunately, the damage has already done before the truth comes out: that even a decade ago the future Pope Benedict was the solution, not part of the problem.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
You're making a very common mistake.
There are lots and lots of purely historical events without any question of the supernatural, which would themselves fall for "lack of evidence" if put to the more rigorous tests used to screen out putative stories of miracles, etc.
You may answer, "ECREE."
That's good, but giving something purely naturalistic the "Mythbusters stamp of approval" as CONFIRMED when it is merely "plausible" is also a false positive.
But the real issue is deeper: it is the a priori assumption that "miracles do not happen" and must be explained away or dismissed.
Saying "the laws of nature prove there are no miracles" is merely a symptom of confusion, because the laws of nature are ex post facto empirical descriptions, based on observation under controlled conditions.
And real scientists are the first to tell you one verified counter example is both necessary and sufficient grounds to uproot a model or a law of nature (cf Newtonian vs. Relativistic laws of motion.)
Secondly, there is both a theological / religious (especially for the Christian) and a scientific problem with ECREE.
For the Christian, it is well recorded that "He could do no mighty works there because of their lack of faith". If you try to experiment on God to test miracles, then He knows. And your lack of faith may hinder His power: or, He may just get pissed that you have the nerve to think of yourself worthy to "experiment" on Him.
(Malachi's "put me to the test in this" notwithstanding, because that was a specific challenge to people within a covenant with Him to live up to their end of the bargain as far as offerings, not a general beer-drinking wager where God "double-dog-dares" humanity to take him on.)
For the scientist, the problem is that the very precondition which is accepted as making science possible -- that of "uniformity of causes in a closed system" is the thing which is being tested.
And if you can't guarantee what the causes are, you can't control for them, nor can you vouch for the integrity of the system being tested.
It's like the old brain teaser / joke out of Games magazine some 25 years ago or so.
A bunch of people are traveling by train through...let's say France.
They see a brown cow.
The first man speaks up: "Look, all cows in France are brown."
The second one corrects him: "No, all cows in France on that side of the train are brown."
The third one goes, "No, that's not quite right, either. All cows in France on that side of the train are brown on at least one side."
The fourth man (a Games Magazine reader) corrects them all: "The correct formulation is, 'All cows in France on that side of the train are brown on at least one side at least part of the time."
Cheers!
Absolutely! And for me, some of those prayers are answered:
"Don't you dare post that!"
<grin...>
You might want to re-read Romans 11 ("...and so all Israel will be saved") before making such grand pronouncements.
Cheers!
The brown cow metaphor was very appropriate.
If not, what is the consequence?
I can think of two.
One, they become "nonfalsifiable".
Note that by definition this !="false"; it just means that in order to help avoid false positive errors, we methodologically reject such choices.
Two, they are falsifiable in principle but not in practice: which is why history is not a science, we cannot *actually* replicate everything.
But even if we accept some of these stories, the only risk is that we are incorrect. It does not mean they ALL must be incorrect.
Your error is caused by involuntarily carrying over the scientific mindset (as I said before) of "uniformity of causes in a closed system" coupled with "Occam's razor".
In science, technology, engineering, once we have a model which accounts for something, we then assume that under the same conditions, the same efficient causes are operating: so we must accept ALL stories of similar conditions (at least as "plausible") once we have accepted the putative mechanism for one.
From there it is a convenient shortcut to accept all such happenings (ECREE), forgetting that even mundane events may be factually false (shouting the N-word at Congressman Lewis) even if they are allowed by the laws of nature.
Then, carrying over this assumption to stories of the supernatural, the (mistaken) assumption is naturally made that if one ever accepts even ONE miracle, one is "honour-bound" (or at least bound by logical consistency and intellectual rigor) to accept all of them.
This then becomes an immediate reductio ad absurdum.
But the problem with this argument is, the consequent doesn't hold!.
Miracles are held to be (for the sake of this type of argument) not merely the workings of the same old uniform nature, in a way unexpected to us (cf "Cargo Cults" and their understanding of airplanes), but the explicit interference in our world, in a way, type and fashion we cannot account for.
The cynical atheists then use this as a further argument against God as unreliable or vindictive (to quote Saruman, "You may find the shadow of the wood at your own door next. It is wayward, and senseless, and has no love for men.").
But the problem is, since miracles are held to be the direct actions of a person or personages unknown by experimental methods, we cannot attribute EACH and EVERY miracle to the same source: and in fact, it is even possible, nay, preferable, to instill a lower-level ECREE to look at the source and provenance of any miracle story: men tell lies about God as much as they lie about politics. But just because people have faked miracles, or lied about them, is not sufficient grounds to categorically rule out all of them. The presence of counterfeit $50 bills does not invalidate the US Mint. (It doesn't argue *for* it either, it just argues for the presence of real $50 bills, leaving unsettled the question of *their* ultimate origin and provenance.)
Cheers!
lol. That describes PLENTY of "adults" around here.
"To not be satisfied with love and met expectations is the definition of neurosis"
Maybe in a Jungian sense but not in general.
No, that definition of neurosis is valid in a "Jungian sense" and in a very general sense.
INDEED. AGREED.
No, it's not. It's the Gospel. I'm sorry Rome clutters it up with so much idolatry and superstition, and I thank God for His free gift of grace through faith to me. Grace saves through faith. Grace is the cause and faith is the means God has chosen to reach His children; to renew their minds and turn their stony hearts to flesh.
That's what the Bible tells us, and those who don't see that fact should pray for new eyes.
The old ones are failing them.
Excellent metaphor about the cows.
LOL.
Your virtue will not save you. Christ's virtue saves.
RC apologists habit is to state the affirmative and then attempt to disprove it.
Doesn’t wash. Your conclusions are not Scriptural. They are products of the doctrines of men.
8~)
When they first proposed setting up the Religion Forum, I was one of the few FReepers who vociferously protested forcing religious discussion into a ghetto.
Now that we're stuck in this ghetto, its gotten so bad that if we want to have a decent discussion unmolested by the bigots, we have to designate the thread with a CAUCUS designation.
Its a shame the FreeRepublic has aped the rest of the liberal world in this regard.
The fact that these Catholic Threads go on over and over provides a bigger problem.
God's plan is immense and does not include the randomness of men's decisions. If God's plan did include such randomness it would be evidence that God does not care very much about His creation. So permitting the kind of free will that you seem to be would actually demonstrate an indifferent God rather than a loving one. A loving God takes no chances with those He loves, and does not shirk the responsibility commensurate with His act of creation.
So, while it may make us feel good as we type our original words in our posts, if we truly believe that our answers are "freely" chosen, that is, not under the control of God, then we must necessarily suppose that God does not care what our answers are. As believers we are wholly owned by God, bought with a price. Therefore to any extent an OMNIPOTENT God is not in active control of who He owns is also the extent to which God does not love who He owns.
Ah, Forest Keeper. Your post is sweet manna on the parched terrain of this thread. Bless you. Your comments confirm God's word and glorify His Son. Thank you.
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