Welcome Resistance to the Anti-Jesuit Peanut Gallery
This helped cheer me up!
Amy Welborn posted some comments by Jesuit Father General Peter Hans Kolvenbach about Deus Caritas Est. It's a good encyclical, but anybody with a brain would have some questions about the implications of some of the things the Pope has to say! But, because it's a Jesuit asking the question, we get the usual people saying the predictable things about how horrible this all is (and of course the reason is because of how horrible the Jesuits are).
However, the thing that cheered me up, is all the other commentors who are putting the kabosh on this and naming what's really going on! Like this one:
Why is it that every time a Jesuit (other then Mitch Pacwa or the late John Hardon) speaks, a peanut gallery besmirches the whole Society of Jesus? Fr. Kolvenbach did not say anything negative about Pope Benedict, he merely stated that his ideas about the role of establishing a just society differed from those of P. Benedict.
Aaaah . . . sanity.
(Who can forget how lacking they were in outrage and righteous indignation when Fr. Neuhaus criticized the Pope).
Amy Welborn posted some comments by Jesuit Father General Peter Hans Kolvenbach about Deus Caritas Est. It's a good encyclical, but anybody with a brain would have some questions about the implications of some of the things the Pope has to say! But, because it's a Jesuit asking the question, we get the usual people saying the predictable things about how horrible this all is (and of course the reason is because of how horrible the Jesuits are).
However, the thing that cheered me up, is all the other commentors who are putting the kabosh on this and naming what's really going on! Like this one:
Why is it that every time a Jesuit (other then Mitch Pacwa or the late John Hardon) speaks, a peanut gallery besmirches the whole Society of Jesus? Fr. Kolvenbach did not say anything negative about Pope Benedict, he merely stated that his ideas about the role of establishing a just society differed from those of P. Benedict.
Aaaah . . . sanity.
(Who can forget how lacking they were in outrage and righteous indignation when Fr. Neuhaus criticized the Pope).
posted by Mark Mossa, SJ at 7:26 PM
5 Comments:
I love sanity in the Catholic Church. It's a winning combination. Thanks for sharing this.
I'm just happy to find other Catholics who don't want a return to 1945.
I have read this encyclical several times, and taught it once, and I am still left wondering about parts of the second half. Of course, this does not mean I doubt the authority or orthodoxy of the encyclical--and as anyone who has read a lot of encyclicals knows, hermeneutics here can be a bit tricky (and that's no Jesuitism). Nonetheless, I think it is common knowledge that this second half was in part a left-over from the previous Pontificate, and certain parts sound less Ratzingerian than they should (and having taught a class on Ratzinger, I quickly saw his personal authorship in the first half). In addition, if one cares to look at the Latin, they will find that the English translation is faulty in several parts (like the mention of "autonomous reason" when the Latin simply says reason conscious of itself [suis ipsius]). Nonetheless, I still would have preferred if some sentences were phrased differently. And I believe this is all Fr. General was saying. To aver that he was casting doubt on the "teaching" is simply slander. However, as some readers noticed, there is a tension between a more GC 32 style of looking at "faith working for justice" etc. and a more Acton Institute style of reading those paragraphs in the Encyclical. But this is a complicated issue that needs more working out. As a postscript, if one looked, there are several places in conciliar documents and earlier Papal teaching that would give one the impression that politics or justice is very much the concern of the Church, nonwithstanding the proper delegating of temporal responsibility to the State. Of course, a jejune reading of the Encyclical and an ignorance of the complexities in this matter would prove unaware of this. I do find it amusing though that I have talked to traditional Catholics of the Leo XIII persuasion in social teaching who have expressed basically the same confusion as Kolvenbach, and both professing orthodoxy.
Sorry, I carelessly typoed the Latin. Here is the full quote: ad ambitum scilicet rationis sui ipsius consciae.
To the anonymous commentor on this post, I think you have mischaracterized Amy Welborn, & done so rather harshly. I don't always agree with Amy, but I find her much more "fair and balanced" than many others in the Catholic blogosphere.
I'm troubled by the tone of your comment, and discourage personal attacks on individuals. So, I'm exercising my prerogative as blog moderator and deleting your post.
Please e-mail if you have an objection.
Sincerely,
Mark
Post a Comment
<< Home