Chaput to the Papist: “A quieter approach has not been effective…”
Young Thomas Peters, a.k.a. the “American Papist” and one of the more popular bloggers among the conservative Catholic set, has a sit-down with Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput about the election. The Papist’s excerpts from the video indicate that Archbishop Chaput will be one of those seeking a major change in the bishops’ approach when they meet in Baltimore next week:
On vocal bishops: “The bishops are aware … a quieter approach to these things has not been effective … we have to be stronger in what we say. We’ve just had it.”
On Faithful Citizenship: “[It is] not very clear. We either ought to get rid of it, or say things much clearer.”
On claiming Obama is a pro-life candidate: “It would be foolish to say that someone who … runs on a party platform that has no regret at all about abortion … to call that position pro-life is really strange.”
On IRS investigations: “It’s simply bullying. It shouldn’t stop us from talking about the important issues of our time.”
On the separation of Church and State: “We do believe in it. We don’t like the state to tell us what to do. We don’t believe in the separation of faith and politics.”
on November 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 am
Chaput, of course, is entitled to his opinions.
Just as I am.
And I disagree with this guy.
(So much for this hierarch’s influence.)
on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am
I’m afraid that one result of the “maverick bishops” speaking out in disagreement with “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” (which was overwhelmingly passed by the USCCB) is that our Church is increasingly looking more Protestant…Protestant defined as folks who cast about, looking for a pastor who “tickles their ears” at the expense of “sound teaching” (II Tim. 4). When bishops give the subtle — or not so subtle — message that their own teaching doesn’t really matter after all, chaos ensues. So much for “full, visible unity.” Sigh.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
I thought there was an interesting moment when they were discussing why some people want to call Obama pro-life. Archbishop Chaput summarized reasonably well the idea that the kind of social and economic programs Obama would support might help women struggling with a problem pregnancy to choose having the baby rather than aborting it. He gave a little laugh and said, “But that’s what we should be doing anyway.” First, it seems to me that it is clearly Catholic teaching that this is the kind of thing government should do (helping the poor and helping families) even it it wouldn’t lower the abortion rate. And it seems to me that most conservative pro-lifers argue against social and economic programs to help the poor on the grounds that government hurts more than it helps, robs people of their dignity, creates a culture of dependency, and so on. But when I heard Archbishop Chaput laugh and say that’s what we should be doing anyway, I thought to myself, “But we aren’t, and you’re not speaking up and saying we should. You’re speaking out against Obama, but you’re not saying a McCain administration would be obligated to follow Catholic social teaching on the role of government in helping the poor.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
It would be easy to be facetious and say what does the good Bishop know wbout the “quieter approach”? Or, close to elections, the Bishop plays to his base.
But that’s not helpful and may bring that kind of reaction in some quarters of our divided Church.
I think David N is quite right in his critique. i alos think the Bishop is quite wrong in how he read the tea leaves -what hasn’t worked is the heavy handed Hitler analogizing approach of “one-issue” Right To life.
And it’s not about being “quieter” in my opinion, but about the full message of the Gospel.
What concerns me is that post-election we’ll see this continued divide harden more and the already collapsing center (see the most recent Pew reports) will have more problems holding if not just hanging on.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
On the separation of Church and State: “We do believe in it. We don’t like the state to tell us what to do. We don’t believe in the separation of faith and politics.”
Sorry, your Excellency, but you can’t just have it one way: “We don’t like the state to tell us what to do.” Separation of Church and State means just that: a SEPARATION.
It’s one thing to speak prophetically (which is a vital part of the Church’s mission). It’s quite another to tell people that if they vote for a particular candidate, they are either in a state of mortal sin or that they are not “serious” Catholics.
Recently, former Republican Senator Santorum (an avid Catholic pro-life politician) said that Senator McCain is not even pro-life. He said that he served in the US Senate with him and that he, in fact, did not vote pro-life. He said that he is simply using the pro-life issue to woo the Catholic vote. If that is true, our “prophetic” Bishops have fallen for his ploy “hook, line and sinker”…as they do every Presidential election.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
David,
When you say “But we aren’t” doing enough, how much is enough? Social welfare spending is the single fastest growing portion of state, local and federal spending and has been for decades. That’s a fact. Even under Reagan, social welfare spending increases kept pace with his significant military increases. Growth in these areas under Bush have been greater than they were under Clinton – even before the Dems took over congress. Through all this there has been no correlation between spending and abortion rates. What specifically aren’t we doing that we should, or that we haven’t already tried?
Catholic social teaching is that we work for a society in which all children are welcomed and nurtured. There are many ways we can do that, that don’t involve large bureacratic and dehumanizing programs – which is always the Democratic solution, and contimues to be Obama’s. How many times will we come up with wasteful, impersonal programs only to hear ten years later, when they have failed, that the answer is more wasteful, impersonal programs?
As a conservative I am frequently accused of “meanness” in this arena. Yet when I look around the results where big government progressives have held sway for two or more generations and see rampant illegitimacy, crime, hopelessness, the family essentially non-existent, faith communities shrinking in size and influence, where women and the elderly are routinely neglected and abused I have to ask when will people stop blaming people who have nothing to do with their plight and start holding those who have been supposedly “fixing” the problems accountable?
on November 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
What concerns me is the mixing of his opinion as a private citizen and his role as a bishop and teacher…..his focus on a single issue obstructs his ability to objectively look at both parties and both candidates – neither passes the complete pro-life agenda. His fall back is to focus on the single issue and tell us how to vote (not his teaching role!).
His comments also destroy any concept of collegiality, the strength of a united USCCB (what happened to the 97% favorable vote for Faithful Citizenship), subsidiarity, etc. His appeal is authoritarian.
Here is an interesting story: In 1989, an international group of 163 theologians signed a document known as the “Cologne Declaration”, sparked by the decision of Pope John Paul II to appoint conservative and rigidly doctrinaire Joachim Meisner as archbishop of Cologne. (think Chaput)
The heart of that statement was a defense of the right of free and open discussion in the church and decried a new Roman centralism, making use of questionable forms of control and intolerable interference.
At the time, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger rejected the Cologne Declaration, stating that “there is no right of dissent” in the church, and he suggested that the theologians who signed the declaration were engaged in a “political power ploy”.
Critics of Ratzinger viewed those statements as ironic, given that in 1968, another group of mainly German-speaking theologians issued a similar call for reform, known as the “Nijmegen Declaration”. Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, then a member of the faculty at the University of Tubingen, was a signatory. The document asserted “the freedom of theologians, and theology in the service of the church, regained by Vatican II, must not be jeopardized again”.
As they say in America, “Whatever”.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
OK — I’ ok dare to say it . When the issue is killing hundreds of thousands of babies who will never see the light of day, I’ m a one issue voter.
But the questions to be answered be ratioal argument are
1. Are there a million SJC babies killed each year?
I think that most abortions are had in the first trimester, and classic Catholic theology holds that those fetuses are not persons. Yes, more attention needs to be paid to contemporRy biology and psycholgy before a thoroughly sure answered. An be reached . But I find that the officialChurch’s lack of argumentation can hardly be persuasive — tv official Church just press ts ssaertions, not conclusions of sound argument ts.
2. Even if such arguments had been presented to ou whole cilil society, it is unlikely that the hard– core feminists would easily be persuaded any them, and the weild tremendous political peer at this time. Sometimes I think that the old feminist movement has to die out (and the old Calholic bishops with them) before any rational dialogue can even begin to start.
So, having no hope that voting
against obama will advance the cause of those babies, I’ ok vote for him tomorrow
By the way, though my Ph. D. In philosophy was not particularly strong in ethics, it was quite strong in logic — and I remember very, few seminarians in the advanced logic courses, and those that were there were all Franciscans. So i think I am more competent talk about the official Church’s ” argumenta”
against abortion than many of my classmates are.
( Please excuse the typing, I’ m using my miserable little phone for this.)
on November 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I apologize for the incoherent post above . My phone seems to have gone mad1. Sorry!!
on November 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Ann–
Maybe the feminist movement will come full circle. I know you didn’t mean “old feminist movement” in this way, but pioneers of women’s rights like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Emma Goldman were opposed to abortion.
Also, I’d never go mano a mano with you, Ann, as to logic–you’d no doubt tie me up in knots–but I just don’t get why the debate about when legal protection attaches to a human being should require proponents of such protection to prove that it begins at conception. It seems to me that when we’re talking about something as bedrock and important as the continuum of human existence that begins at conception, the burden of proof should always be on those who argue that protection begins somewhere further along the continuum. In the absence of such proof, the default position should be the moment of conception.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I understand that Chaput is never elected to any positions at the uccb despite several nomination. I doubt that Finn (of KC fame) is ever nominated.
Score one (or two) for the American bishops.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I permit myself to revert to an earlier posting in which I stated that most abortions are done for convenience.
Posted by David Nickol
on October 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Abortion is demeaning to women. The man had all the fun; she gets all the problems.
Gabriel,
How true. But don’t you think it would be even worse if women had fun, too? Then, instead of just dutifully satisfying men, they might also start having sex when they wanted to, and think what that might lead to.
[I give a pass on trying to respond to this facetious comment. I am reminded of 'baptism, schmaptism"].
Here are the reasons women give for having abortion. I can’t find anything about ski trips.
Percent
<0.5 woman’s parents want her to have abortion
1 rape or incest
1 husband or partner wants her to have abortion
1 doesn’t want others to know she had relations or is pregnant
3 mother has health problems
3 possible fetal health problems
3 other
8 has all the children she wanted or all children are grown
11 is too immature or young to have child
12 has problems with relationship or wants to avoid single parenthood
16 concerned about how having baby would change her life
21 unready for responsibility
21 can’t afford baby now”.
These seem to me to be arguments about convenience – arguments which are answered simply with the suggestion “Don’t copulate”. [This was the attitude of the original, the serious feminists].
As Senator Barbara Boxer asked “Since when is pregnancy is a disease?”. One cannot get it from a seat in a public toilet. Nor are babies dropped in a womb by a stork.
Now the bishops are quite clear in what they are saying: we are responsible for our actions. Even Mr. Obama got it right when he referred to pregnancy as a punishment, so to speak. It is a self-inflicted punishment.
I note that 1% is given as the rate for pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, the two most grave problems. Illness can be a difficulty – but it is one to be faced at the time. In the case of a difficult pregnancy, a doctor has no way of knowing who will die.
It makes sense to argue that it is the availability of abortionists – who earns substantial amounts – which has made abortion so widespread. Is this much different from the availability of heavy drugs? Is it so far removed from the availability of drugs in poor neighborhoods?
To say that the Church has no or little activity in efforts to alleviate the condition of the poor is simple ignorance. [I refrain from saying malevolent ignorance].
What do you think our 90.000 nuns are doing? Our 45,000 priests? Take but one example – go visit Covenant House.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
In the absence of such proof, the default position should be the moment of conception.
William,
The problem is that the pro-life side is the side trying to make changes in what is the existing default position that personhood begins at birth.
Even when abortion was illegal, it wasn’t because the default position was that life (personhood) began at conception. It is not as if the pro-life movement just wants to take things back to before Roe v Wade, or earlier, when abortion in the United States was prohibited in all 50 states. It’s that the pro-life movement is introducing an entirely new rationale for criminalizing abortion, and it has implications that go far beyond abortion itself and raise all kinds of questions as to what it would mean to declare a pregnant woman has a person with “human rights” inside of her. It is unprecedented.
I will bring up early embryo loss again. In the light of the fact that perhaps up to 80 percent of the time, death occurs within a few days of conception, what needs to be done to conform to this sentence from the Catechism: “Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.” Why is there no research into the causes and prevention of death on this massive scale?
on November 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Ken Lovasik, fascinating quote from foremr Sen. Santorum…Do you have a link handy?
on November 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
David,
I think Ken Lovasik is quoting Santorum from a time before McCain had secured the nomination. Here’s part of an article in which Santorum endorses McCain as the pro-life candidate:
http://www.lifenews.com/nat3883.html
on November 3rd, 2008 at 6:32 pm
That is a pretty fancy video, by the way, for a blogger. It was clearly shot with two cameras.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
David N, thanks for that. Santorum is an interesting character–blasted Catholic Charities for taking government money (in front of John O’Connor not less) then became a champion of faith-based programs. Go figure.
on November 3rd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Neither a quiet nor a loud approach will be effective.
I’d like to offer my own thoughts on this inflammatory issue. One dotCommonweal poster sparked comments by asking if Catholics can at least agree that abortion is wrong. Archbishop Chaput adds eternal fire to the fuel by suggesting we may confront 40 million aborted souls at judgment day if we cast our votes incorrectly this election cycle.
I readily concede that abortion on demand is a scourge on America. It darkens the moral landscape in ways that few other evils do. As a lawyer with decades of practice behind me, I am less convinced than Archbishop Chaput and other Catholic bishops that the solutions to the abortion issue will be found in the legal system. Laws prohibiting abortion will be as successful as laws prohibiting alcohol consumption. Prohibition brought widespread corruption, selective enforcement, and disdain for the law, damaging the legitimacy of the entire legal and social system. Laws banning abortion will inevitably have similar effect. I do not know what the solution is, but I suspect the abortion problem is intractable for the foreseeable future. We do not ignore intractable issues or sweep them under the rug, but we also don’t attempt to impose unworkable solutions pretending to solve the intractable issues, either.
I have a “coin” in my pocket. A prayer is inscribed on the reverse side: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” Abortion, in my opinion, requires serenity, something in short supply in the Culture Wars.
I carry that coin in memory of my son. On the obverse, the coin has a triangle bounded by the words, “Unity–Service–Recovery.” Inside the triangle are the words “2 months” inside a circle. My son is 28 years old and has been an incurable alcoholic for the past ten years. The longest period of sobriety in that ten year period has been about 60 days, acknowledged by his “2 month” coin awarded at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting he attended in a short interval of attempted sobriety between longer intervals of jail, homelessness, despair and hospitalization. Now, just about all I have left of my son is that coin.
Alcohol/drug addiction is another scourge across our land, along with abortion. There are over six million drug/alcohol addicts in the United States. A hundred thousand people each year die of drug and alcohol poisoning. Over a million Americans die each year of diseases brought on by drug use or alcoholism. Millions more live blighted and shortened lives of crime, poverty, destroyed families, physical and sexual abuse, high risk sexual behavior and lost hope because of drug and alcohol addictions. For whatever it is worth, drug and alcohol addiction play a significant role in the incidence of abortion, too. I do not minimize the scourge of abortion by recognizing an even more pernicious and widespread scourge that has focused my attention for some time now.
Like abortion, a solution to addiction also appears intractable. There are no easy answers. In particular, attempts to impose legal solutions to the scourge of alcohol and drug addiction appear to be mostly unsuccessful. Nevertheless, I can make prudential judgments about the best means to deal with these and other scourges that we encounter today. In particular, the bishops do not have the right to prioritize my actions, admittedly miniscule, in dealing with these scourges. The bishops, pointedly, do not have children. I do.
In the past eight years, the party in power has squandered an unprecedented series of budget surpluses, bringing us to the brink of an economic depression. It has engaged us in an unjust war sold on false pretenses, endangering our success in a simultaneous legitimate war against terrorism. It has substantially destroyed the liberties that made this country great. Meanwhile, the party in power abandoned or ignored practical efforts to address the scourges of abortion, drug and alcohol addiction, poverty, and many others. We now have limited resources to deal with these scourges. I recognize that other Catholics have every right to disagree with my opinions regarding the party in power. Nevertheless, I will vote for Barack Obama as the person who, in my prudential judgment, has the best chance to change course and remediate the damage of the last eight years and turn our nation’s attention to the intractable social problems of our time. He may not succeed, but I reject any suggestion that a vote for Obama is sinful.
On judgment day, I may well face millions of aborted souls and millions of souls afflicted with the damage of drug and alcohol addiction all asking me to explain my lack of success in dealing with their respective scourges. To all of those souls, I can only explain that my time and resources were limited and then recite the serenity prayer and ask for God’s mercy. What will our bishops say to those they ignored?
on November 4th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Anon for Now. –
Thank you for your powerful post. Your son and you will be in my prayers.
on November 4th, 2008 at 8:30 am
I would also add my prayers and thanks. David
on November 4th, 2008 at 10:55 am
First, prayers to Anon.
Now:
-Did bishop Finn deserve a seperatet hread?
-Bill D.’s comments on dissent deserve some expansion. While the Tradionals hav ecoopted “orthodoxy” for their view -meanin gby the book in all things Roman, clearly there is a group of “positive dissenters” who love the Church, feel very much belonging to the Eucharistic community but who think they make the ultimate decsion s about what is less than credal/infallible. They don’t appreaciate the heavy handed be good children approach.
-I think Sean overstates his “big governmen trgument>’, but that’s his ideology. I thought it interesting that the head of the lif eCycle Institute at catholic U thinks that progressive tax, income redidtribution is in line with Catholic Social teaching.
Of course, then there’s the common good, and how important iy really is…
on November 4th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I thought that Chaput was at his most convincing when he said that any version of the common good that destroys the good of the individual is not “the common good” at all. This seems to me to be an effective Catholic message that bolsters arguments for the whole Catholic uber-partisan programme.
on November 4th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I add my prayers for both you and your son, Anon.
on November 5th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Anon, thank you for your insight.