Pushing and Shoving the Pope
I’ve said it many times, but I think this point needs re-stating now that the pope is in the United States: it is both meaningless and counterproductive to use the (flawed) American political divisions in the Catholic context. But we see this all the time, especially through the media, but also among Catholics. Just look at the bevy of papal stories over the past few days. The pope is too conservative. But, no, conservatives have been disappointed by the pope. The pope used to be conservative, but is becoming liberal on the job. Most of the pope’s positions are liberal. The pope is pulling in two opposite directions, liberal and conservative, confounding his critics.
Of course, there is no such duality in the thought of Pope Benedict. He is preaching the message of Christ, a message that is universal and consistent. It has nothing to do with American politics and the phony culture war. If we cannot liberate ourselves from this way of thinking, then there is a great tendency to try to pull the pope in one’s own ideological direction while perhaps secretly wishing that he did not devote quite so much attention to the stuff your opponent likes. Honestly, do you think the pope thinks in these terms?
Instead of pushing and shoving the pope in the direction we would like, we need to widen our perspective. We need to reconnect the whole. Instead of pulling the pope toward “our” position, we should ourselves move toward the pope’s position, by letting go of the secular ideological and cultural baggage that continues to weigh us down.
While extremely pronounced in the US (with a long-standing fondness for viewing things through a dualistic lens and demonizing one’s opponents), these divisions are by no means unique to it. And Pope Benedict himself has reflected on this issue– the address to the Swiss bishops in 2006 contains a particularly lucid insight. The problem, as he sees it:
“I have pondered on this – I have been pondering on it for a long time – and I see ever more clearly that in our age morality is, as it were, split in two.
Modern society not merely lacks morals but has “discovered” and demands another dimension of morality, which in the Church’s proclamation in recent decades and even earlier perhaps has not been sufficiently presented. This dimension includes the great topics of peace, non-violence, justice for all, concern for the poor and respect for creation. They have become an ethical whole which, precisely as a political force, has great power and for many constitutes the substitution or succession of religion…
This is one aspect: this morality exists and it also fascinates young people, who work for peace, for non-violence, for justice, for the poor, for creation. And there are truly great moral themes that also belong, moreover, to the tradition of the Church…
The other part of morality, often received controversially by politics, concerns life. One aspect of it is the commitment to life from conception to death, that is, its defence against abortion, against euthanasia, against the manipulation and man’s self-authorization in order to dispose of life…
The morality of marriage and the family also fit into this context…Marriage is becoming, so to speak, ever more marginalized… The awareness that sexuality, eros and marriage as a union between a man and a woman go together – “and they become one flesh” (Gn 2: 24) – this knowledge is growing weaker and weaker; every type of bond seems entirely normal – they represent a sort of overall morality of non-discrimination and a form of freedom due to man…”
And the solution:
“[w]e must commit ourselves to reconnecting these two parts of morality and to making it clear that they must be inseparably united. Only if human life from conception until death is respected is the ethic of peace possible and credible; only then may non-violence be expressed in every direction, only then can we truly accept creation and only then can we achieve true justice.”
In other words, there is such a thing as a consistent ethic of life, based on the human dignity that is essential to Christianity. Too often in the United States, there is a tendency to make excuses for whatever aspect of one’s chosen ideology flies in the face of Church teaching. Abortion becomes a choice. War becomes a prudential judgment. No, we need to show some consistency, and that is the first step in persuading people that our beliefs have some merit. As long as pro-lifers support war, torture, the death penalty, and economic policies based on individual self-interest, then the “pro-choice” set will dismiss them as hypocrites (with some justification). And as long as fighters for peace and social justice insist on twisting individual rights to support killing the unborn and treating marriage as a vessel for mere selfish satisfaction, then they will never convince their opponents that their quest is in earnest.
It is incumbent on Catholics to cross this divide, instead of justifying it. As Pope Benedict recently put it, we must have an “anthropology that recognizes the human being as a subject of rights prior to all institutions, with a value that must be respected by everyone.” With this as a springboard, we are bound to challenge both sides of the secular divide. But are we living up to the challenge, or are we still trying to pull the pope in our own direction? And where do we start? Well, a good first step in this direction would be to stop using meaingless terms like “liberal” and “conservative” in the Catholic context.
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Interestingly, the Pope not only says that the two parts of morality are connected, he seems to suggest that, until a society gets right with respect to issues like abortion, it won’t be able to make progress with things like poverty and war: “Only if human life from conception until death is respected is the ethic of peace possible and credible; only then may non-violence be expressed in every direction, only then can we truly accept creation and only then can we achieve true justice.”
i don’t see the logic in what you’re saying –
if abortion isn’t dealt with, then war can’t be dealt with…?
how can the pope be construed to say that ?
“Only if human life from conception until death is respected is the ethic of peace possible and credible.” So the ethic of peace is impossible and incredible if human life is not respected, at ANY point from birth till death. Of course.
How that leads you to say that somehow abortion must be dealt with “first,” as if that is the “greater” of two intrinsic evils, is beyond me.
One could just as easily say the reverse — war is of greater moment and priority than abortion.
And if one said that, one would be just as incorrect.
That’s the whole point of a consistent ethic. It is of one piece. It stands or falls all at once. That’s why such an ethic requires conversion — a full recogntion of its total and compelling power. The idea of relative evils, the idea of an order of problems to fix — these are inherently opposed to the Gospel ethic.
Good post. But as anyone who has read the Compendium knows, our ‘consistent ethic of life’ is stated in very general terms, and does not preclude sharp disagreements about policy and priorities. Moreover, there is the problem of language–for example, does B16 mean the same thing by ‘rights’ that we Americans do? To ‘move toward his position’ may not be as easy as it sounds.
G Alkon,
“So the ethic of peace is impossible and incredible if human life is not respected, at ANY point from birth till death. Of course.”
Actually, the document says from ‘conception’ until death, not from ‘birth’ until death.
Hello G. Alkon,
I could be wrong, but the way I understand the intent is that we as a people need to respect all life, from conception unto natural death, and until we reach that ideal, poverty and war will probably be inevitable. That doesn’t me that we should try our greatest to stop and prevent these, but rather peace and social justice will never be totally realized until we transform our society to be consistent with the message of the Gospels.
BA – I think it’s clear the Pope does NOT mean that abortion needs to disappear before we can then move on to war, as if there is a chronological order in which these things must be done. Such a position makes absolutely no sense. I think it’s clear he means that for “non-violence” to be complete, it must start at the very roots: respect for life itself.
In terms of chronological order you imply, and in addition to G Alkion’s correct point about war’s immediacy :one could also argue that if abortion is truly the “greatest evil,” then one would think we would have a harder time “clearing it up,” and thus war would chronologically come first.
This is not even to deny that abortion is in some sense the “greatest” evil. It’s indeed the “greatest” evil because the persons killed are always innocent. Nevertheless, even if abortion is the “greatest” evil, this is not opposed to the conviction that opposition to war is just as important as opposition to abortion.
MI-
You mean opposition to unjust wars, right?
What Blackadder highlights is obvious to me.
A culture that protects and supports abortion on demand is one that is built of and sustained by a disrespect for life. Human beings formed in these ethos – of saying that a human being only has value if I decide it does – are being formed to be indifferent about the needs of others and being schooled in the art of dehumanization.
Saying “won’t be able to make progress” rather than “won’t be able to solve” was probably too strong. And I don’t think the Pope means to say that people should stop working towards things like peace until the abortion problem is solved. If you look at the context of the Pope’s remarks, he is trying to give a reason why people who are working against war and poverty but who find the Church’s teaching on life and sexuality off putting should reconsider. And the reason he gives is basically: unless life is respected at all its stages, you won’t succeed in what you are trying to do.
There is this wonderful passage from Benedict’s initial greetings:
For well over a century, the United States of America has played an important role in the international community. On Friday, God willing, I will have the honor of addressing the United Nations Organization, where I hope to encourage the efforts under way to make that institution an ever more effective voice for the legitimate aspirations of all the world’s peoples. On this, the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the need for global solidarity is as urgent as ever, if all people are to live in a way worthy of their dignity – as brothers and sisters dwelling in the same house and around that table which God’s bounty has set for all his children.
Must we first reach global solidarity if we are to live worthily of our dignity?
Such ‘If, thens’..are too simplistic here, are they not?
Br Matthew points to a meaningful slip, which I suppose I can do nothing to hide.
That does not change the point however — there is absolutely no justification for the suggestion that the Pope is somehow prioritizing abortion over war as a problem to be “gotten right.”
That more than one person is reading this meaning into his statement — against his own words, against logic, against common sense — is very revealing of a very seriously screwed up mentality.
This, by the way, gets to the heart of a lot of VN debates.
I did not say, MM did not say, Benedict did not say, that war is “more evil” than abortion. And yet, to the suggestion that intrinsic evils not be ranked, BA and other insist, against logic and against the words of the pope and against the very idea of intrinsic evils, that somehow abortion must be seen as “more evil” or at least more urgent than other intrinsic evils.
Again, and this is really obvious and not hard to understand — the whole point of intrinsic evils is that such ranking is logically absurd and dangerously misleading.
I see that I was careless and that I missed BA’s thoughtful post of 9:19 pm, with which I am in relative agreement. My post above was in response to those of Terry and Liturgical Dancer.
Mark,
“Must we first reach global solidarity if we are to live worthily of our dignity?”
Yeah, that is what the Holy Father is saying. Just as in the following conditional, that is:
“Only if human life from conception until death is respected is the ethic of peace possible and credible; only then may non-violence be expressed in every direction, only then can we truly accept creation and only then can we achieve true justice.”
he is clearly saying that non-violence and an ethic of peace are only possible in a culture were human life, from conception to death, is respected. Again, this doesn’t mean that people with a special calling to work for peace should lay aside those concerns until abortion is eliminated, only that these concerns are interrelated. Those striving for an end to war should realize how their success is bound up with those who are praying outside of abortion clinics, starting crisis pregnancy centers, and working to strike down unjust laws. Though he doesn’t explicitly say so, I would suspect the Holy Father might say that the contrary also applied. That we cannot expect to create a culture which respects and welcomes the unborn and aged until we cease prematurely opting for war.
G. Alkon,
I should not have even mentioned the correction. I knew it was probably just a typo, and anybody could have seen that for themselves. Regardless, I didn’t mean to suggest that you deliberately tried to change the meaning of the text. My apologies.
You mean opposition to unjust wars, right?
Sure, feddie, if that makes you more comfortable with the claims I have made. But this, of course, assumes a rigorous approach to just war teaching, the same rigorous approach that Benedict applies. It’s an approach which leaves virtually NO ROOM WHATSOEVER for war at all.
Though he doesn’t explicitly say so, I would suspect the Holy Father might say that the contrary also applied. That we cannot expect to create a culture which respects and welcomes the unborn and aged until we cease prematurely opting for war.
Yes, I think this is absolutely right. Although respect for the sacredness of life is the most basic necessity, I think war is the most primal way respect for life has been opposed in human history. War is a primal expression of the “myth of redemptive violence,” which expresses itself in increasingly complex and insidious ways, such as torture and the killing of absolute innocents, the unborn. So I think there is a sense in which war is the most basic disrespect of human life, and that there is a sense in which abortion is the most basic disrespect for human life. Both are true statements, depending on what is being said.
I think G. Alkion is right: that these kinds of distinctions get at the heart of a lot of the VN debates, i.e. a lot of the debates in the contemporary Church.
“But this, of course, assumes a rigorous approach to just war teaching, the same rigorous approach that Benedict applies. It’s an approach which leaves virtually NO ROOM WHATSOEVER for war at all.”
I wholeheartedly agree with the former, but respectfully dissent from the latter.
I think the import of the word ‘virtually’ is key in unpacking this new bloggers’ disagreement.
thanks br matthew –
i strongly agree with your comment of 12:09 am
Matthew,
thanx that was the point is was attempting to make, with my awkwardly done rhetorical positting.
Hello G. Alkon,
If I offended you, or made you doubt the mentality of many contemporary Catholics, then I am truely sorry. My intention was go get accross the same point that Br. Matthew did in his post, which I believe he did very eloquently.
Peace :)