I'm going to comment on a new interview with Bishop Barron:
I can imagine Barron is very persuasive if you're already sympathetic to Catholicism and desperate for pat answers to objections. Likewise, he's persuasive if you lack a proper frame of reference to assess his explanations.
1. He says doctrine is a living thing because it exists in living minds. Doctrine doesn't exist on the printed page, like a static set of symbols. So as minds mull over and think about and question and toss back and forth ideas, those ideas unfold, develop, catch the light in new ways.
But in traditional Catholic theology, the deposit of faith is supposed to be unchanging. It's a once-for-all-time deliverance. And its unchanging content is what makes it a benchmark.
2. Apropos (1), he says we need an authority to make that discrimination (between authentic and inauthentic development).
i) Yet in traditional Catholic theology, the deposit of faith in itself is supposed to be a benchmark to discriminate between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, orthopraxy and heteropraxy. But in modern Catholic theology, the standard of discrimination has shifted from the deposit of faith to living authority.
ii) In addition, the appeal to living authority is circular, for the concept of ecclesial authority in Catholic theology undergoes change and development. So how can a changing and evolving concept of authority discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate change and development? By what standard can one discriminate a legitimate from illegitimate concept of authority?
iii) Finally, it's not as if the hierarchy is a disinterested party regarding the definition of ecclesial authority. It benefits from an expansive concept that enhances the power of the hierarchy.
3. Responding to the allegation that Catholics don't think for themselves but operate with blind faith or blind obedience to hierarchy, he says nobody thinks utterly for himself, we're massively influenced by our concrete situatedness. A certain consensus emerges in the course of the church's internal conversation that provides a normative framework. A conversation disciplined by a divinely sanctioned authority.
Again, though, that's circular. What's the relationship between a divinely-sanctioned authority and a normative framework? Which emerges from which?
4. He compares the development of doctrine to signposts and guard rails keep us from veering off the cliff. But that doesn't prevent us from moving forward. Indeed, that's what makes progress possible.
That's a nice metaphor, but it's only a metaphor. Problem is that it doesn't match up with Catholic history:
5. Responding to the allegation that Catholics are homophobic, he says that reflects shift from epistemic framework to psychological framework. Disputants make this move when their argument is unconvincing.
I agree with him.
He also says that tactic "gets us nowhere."
That's true, but misses the point. The gaystapo isn't seeking an honest, open-ended debate about homosexuality (or transgenderism). To the contrary, the LGBT lobby wants to shut down debate. An honest debate is a threat to their agenda.
6. Responding to the charge that Catholic history is rife with violence and corruption, so that only the Protestant Reformation could fix it, he says that's true of every human institution. That happens at every time and place. That's a consequence of the Fall.
This isn't the first objection to Catholicism I'd reach for. That said:
i) Barron appeals to the Fall, but as a theistic evolutionist, Barron denies a historical Fall. He interprets the fall of Adam as an Everyman figure.
ii) More to the point, the papacy authorized religious violence. For instance:
So that's hardly incidental to Catholicism. It's not just a symptom of the human propensity for violence in general, so that Catholic violence in particular is coincidental to Catholicism. Rather, this is violence instigated and sanctioned by the papacy.
iii) Moreover, the Catholic church is supposed to enjoy special divine guidance and protection. So the excuse that Catholics churchmen are no worse that everyone else is an inadequate defense. Catholicism sets the bar higher for itself.
Barron said, should the responaw to Catholic corruption and violence be that we tear up the Gospel, that we forget about Jesus, that we throw the sacraments out, that we ignore the saints?
i) That's not all of a piece. Actually, Protestants were right to abolish the cult of the saints. Likewise, we were right to abolish invented sacraments.
ii) Does Barron really think Protestants tear up the Gospel and forget about Jesus?
Barron says we shouldn't just look at religious violence and corruption, but look for the saints, the saints are always there, there are always saints around.
In a sense that's true. And that's consistent with Protestant theology. Throughout church history, God has a remnant.
7. Responding to the charge that sexual abuse is rooted in celibacy, Barron says there's not even correlation. He points to domestic sexual abuse and sexual abuse in the public schools.
i) However, that's an exercise in misdirection. The specific allegation is not that sexual abuse is rooted in celibacy, but that homosexual abuse is rooted in celibacy. Pointing to heterosexual abuse furnishes no explanation for a pattern of homosexual abuse.
ii) And the phenomenon is larger than the homosexual molestation of minors. Catholicism also has a massive problem with consensual homosexual activity between Catholic clergy and adults. The abuse of minors is just a special case of homosexual clergy in general.
iii) Barron then makes the utterly counterproductive move of comparing the Catholic abuse scandal with the Boy Scouts. He mentions 12,000 cases of sexual abuse in the BSA. He doesn't give a source, but here's one report:
I agree with Barron that there's a parallel between the Catholic Church and the BSA in that regard, but it's ironically shortsighted and self-defeating for Barron to draw attention to that comparison since the common denominator is homosexual adults in positions of power over underage boys. Far from proving Barron's point, it reinforces the fundamentally homosexual motivation in the conflagration of abuse scandals engulfing the Catholic church and the BSA alike.
Barron says the effort to link clerical celibacy to the abuse of minors reflects "knee-jerk anti-Catholicism".
But critics like me are using Catholic sources like the John Jay report, which documented an 8-1 ratio between the sex of the perp (male) and the sex of the victim (male). And the homosexual link has been further confirmed by Catholic priest and academic sociologist Fr. Paul Sullins:
You have to wonder why Barron refuses to face the facts. Does he have a personal stake in the issue? Is it because he's a closet homosexual? Is it because he's a team player, and if he publicly conceded the link between homosexuality and the abuse of minors, he'd be kicked off the team? Or is he simply in denial?
He is siding with the LGBT lobby when it indigently denies a link between homosexuality and the abuse of minors. He is reading from the very same playbook. That's morally discrediting. For all his suavité and charm, he's collaborating with a secular totalitarian movement which currently poses an existential threat to wellbeing of children, parental rights, and the Bill of Rights.
Newman created a mess.
ReplyDeleteWithout Newman's mess would Roman Catholicism have survived? It is clear that Roman Catholicism doesn't believe in the same doctrines as the early church.
ReplyDelete