Two comments: First, Dorothy Day was as radical in her politics as anyone, but she never wavered in her opposition to abortion. Nor have Dan or Phil Berrigan. I mention this only to point out that one can be quite far on the left politically, as Net Hentoff is, and still adhere to traditional morality.
Second, the really interesting thing about liberal Protestantism is the extent to which it is a repudiation of ... Protestantism. The latter began with the proposition that faith alone justified one, that good works played no part (Catholic doctrine has always held that one is justified by both). Liberal Protestantism has systematically abandoned the content of faith and replaced it almost entirely by a commitment to good works (though now it is fashionable good works that are preferred).
Second, the really interesting thing about liberal Protestantism is the extent to which it is a repudiation of ... Protestantism. The latter began with the proposition that faith alone justified one, that good works played no part (Catholic doctrine has always held that one is justified by both). Liberal Protestantism has systematically abandoned the content of faith and replaced it almost entirely by a commitment to good works (though now it is fashionable good works that are preferred).
I think the premises he bases his discussion on are a priori prejudicial and skewed. This strikes me as a classic case of inductive reasoning: finding a way to rationalize a foregone conclusion. I don't think it even has a particularly good grasp of "liberal Catholicism," although it does seem to give him dyspepsia from the beginning. Is this perhaps a conservative apologia in disguise? It really does seem to me, regardless, that his biases show in the very way he phrases his initial assumptions. There are plenty of even conservative Protestant theologians who would disagree with his premises. For one thing, Protestantism runs the whole gamut from conservative to liberal. It seems he wants to blame liberal Protestants for the sins of their conservative cousins, the fundamentalists, for one. That's why I don't buy this: bad premise, and logic all over the map. That's why it feels like thinly-disguised anti-liberal rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteHow is this not just another "let's roll back Vaticann II!" call from the Catholic right wing? That's exactly what it is, it seems to me.
Whoa, Art. You nailed that one. I was gonna say, Logical Fallacy; but, your vivisection of the argurant's much more spot-on.
ReplyDeleteWow! Think you just earned a new nick: Thanks, MrViv :).
Love, MzViv, a moniker given yours truly when I argued in a review that a certain fellow's biography of the great Milton Acorn (and not-so-greatly behaving ex-husband of Gwen MacEwen), called Natural History, ought to have been called Natural Gas; some columnist for The Victoria Times-Colonist called me Judith Vivisection or, yep, MzViv, for short (which is kinda kewl 'cause I am only five feet)
Well, I can't say I'm a fan of Vatican II myself, though my objections tend to be different from most. The so-called liberal wing of the Church, after spending years complaining about top-down imposition from Rome, employed top-down imposition from to put in place a perfectly dreadful liturgy. I also have little patience with cafeteria Catholics. That said, I tend to agree that he does blur the line between liberal and conservative as political concepts with the same terms used theologically. I am myself traditionalist on doctrine and liturgy, but I would guess I would be thought of as liberal on morality (because I'm Jesuit trained and think that casuistry - taking thing on a per case basis is sound). An examp,e would be that I think the Church has been too preoccupied with the mechanics of sex and has not paid enough attention to its essentially personal dimension. I don't feel comfortable speaking for Protestantism much beyond what I've said, but it does seem (I base this on my years of writing for the religion page) that its doctrinal flimsiness has resulted in emptier churches than those of its so-called conservative counterparts. The point I was trying to make was that there are plenty of example of Catholics who quite liberal - even radical - politically, who are quite traditional doctrinally, and who would argue - with some cogency - that their liberalism derives from their traditionalism.
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