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Published: July 9, 2009
Read it all
Don’t simplify encyclical, says Supreme Knight
 Denver, Colo., Jul 7, 2009 / 03:26 pm (CNA).- The head of the Knights of Columbus, Carl Anderson, has responded to Pope Benedict’s newly-released encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” (Love in Truth), by denouncing attempts to use it to further political agendas rather than viewing it from the Church’s comprehensive understanding of the human person.
In an interview with CNA on Tuesday morning, Carl Anderson, leader of the world’s largest lay Catholic organization, decried the “spin masters who will try to spin the encyclical in one direction or the other” and emphasized that “the Catholic reader should read the encyclical in its entirety” in order to understand the underlying ethical and anthropological foundations that guide it.
“What this encyclical makes very clear is that there is a consistent ethics in the Catholic Church because there is a consistent view of the human person,” Anderson told CNA, explaining that this consistency is seen in Pope Benedict’s assertion that social issues cannot be separated from life issues.
While the idea that we are “morally responsible for one another” as part of “one human family” is not new to Christianity, Anderson said that the Pope challenges us in this encyclical “to take this seriously as a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a Christian.”
Anderson also responded to some analyses of the encyclical that try to describe it as promoting either a liberal or conservative political viewpoint by saying, “I think that’s precisely the wrong way to look at the encyclical, and I think that Benedict would be very disappointed if that’s the kind of analysis we give it.”
“What we ought to be doing is reading the encyclical and seeing what we can learn from it, what we might change as a way of doing our work as a result from it, and not to see whether or not it validates one position,” he added.
Anderson explained that when we divide the encyclical or use it to justify one position over another, “we fall into an error that I think Benedict himself would be the first one to attempt to correct.”
He observed that the issues dealt with by the Pope, such as defense of marriage, protection of human life, and a call to reform the United Nations, are not really questions of the political right or left. Rather, they flow from a comprehensive and consistent understanding of the human person.
In addition, Anderson noted that many Americans may see the Pope’s call for “just redistribution” as a left-leaning proposal, but when viewed in a global perspective, the idea takes on a new light.
“When you look in Africa where you see dictators that are presidents of countries that retire from office with billions of dollars in their Swiss bank accounts while their people are living on one dollar a day, is that just redistribution? Is that a question of the left or is that a question of the right?”
Explaining that these topics are human issues rather than those belonging to any political party, Anderson said that discussions of right and left have no place in analyzing the Pope’s encyclical and putting it into practice.
“I think Christians, particularly Catholics, have to move beyond that if they want to truly see with the eyes of the Gospel,” he told CNA. “Because there was a Gospel before there was a left and a right, and there will be a Gospel after.”
Calling on Catholics to read “Caritas in Veritate” and incorporate it into their lives, Anderson highlighted the encyclical’s sense of urgency. “We really do have a moral obligation to help those in need,” he said, adding that this obligation is comprehensive, and “therefore, not only is the ethic consistent, it has to be applied consistently in all the things we do.”
“We cannot contain that responsibility to Sunday morning,” Anderson said as he invited Catholics to make the Pope’s words a reality in their everyday lives. “Let’s put it into practice! Let’s find ways to make the encyclical count,” he said, encouraging people to leave behind their divisions and unite to put Benedict’s words into action.
“Those in government have a responsibility, those in the private sector have a responsibility, and we ought to work together from a consistent ethic and a consistent attitude to try to solve these problems.”
Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 7:11 AM By Maryanne Leonard
We have such a wonderful new pope in Pope Benedict, the most underappreciated pontiff in my lifetime (though Pope Pius XII is surely the most misunderstood and wrongfully condemned). The new encyclical seems to be a "must read" for these troubling modern times.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 9:08 AM By Ken
Mr. Anderson's attempt to clairify what the the Holy Father is laudable, but the Holy Father "Said Waht He Said" and the left will have a field day. With all the problems in the Church, especally in the US, and with all due respect the Pope should put his own house in order before he attacts the only economic system that helps the poor and attacks EVIL!
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 10:12 AM By Joseph G
I would like to thanks,Mr Anderson,about his article,on:
Caritas in Veritate.I could'nt agree more with you Carl.
My prayer is: that all Catholics of the world go beyond
sunday morning responsibillity!
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 12:09 PM By John F. Maguire
Read it all? Yes -- hopefully -- but I would advise beginning by developing a taste for reading such a document as an encyclical: An encyclical is a form of papal teaching that first of all must needs be savored the better to be understood. In exercito -- that is, even as we are in the process of reading -- we must needs begin by cultivating a taste for such reading the better to savor the text and appreciate the text's import. For example, for this purpose, I'll simply quote _Caritas in Veritate_ at section 78:
"Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is. In the face of enormous problems in the development of peoples, which almost makes us yield to discouragement, we find solace in the sayings of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who teaches us: 'Apart from me you can do nothing' (Jn 15:5_) and then encourages us: 'I am with you always, to the close of the age' (Mt. 28: 20). As we contemplate the vast amount of work to be done, we are sustained by our faith that God is present alongside those who come together in his name to work for justice." To begin to understand this section -- I am still contemplating section 78 -- is always already to savor this section; inversely, to begin to savor this section is always already to begin to understand it. ~ Pars pro toto: What is true for any one section of an encyclical is true for the encyclical as a whole: Our savoring any one discrete section and our reading this same section are reciprocally related in the very act of reading. The same holds true for reading an encyclical as a whole.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 1:18 PM By John
Goes to show that Papal Encyclicals can be taken advantage of by enemies of Holy Mother the Church, and used by Her enemies as a means to create turmoil and politically for the purpose of destroying the Church.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 2:20 PM By JLS
The anti-life spin really got a kick a few years ago with the treatment by the late Pope John Paul II of the theory of evolution. Even today they deceptively claim that he said he believed in it. The media at that time went into an ecstacy of joy falsely saying PJ2 said something he didn't. They are doing the same with this new Encyclical. The devil leads the way with his temptations of Christ, where he spins Scripture and twists it in his vain attempt to overthrow God.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 2:26 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Ken: To suppose that "the left" will "have a field day" with Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical is to suppose something that is unlikely given that _Caritas in Veritate_ makes perfectly clear its rejection of both ideological and utopian politics. On this question, Pope Benedict XVI draws our attention to Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Letter of 1971. Pope Paul's Letter reaffirms the Church as the judge of all ideologies (left, right, and center) and all utopias (left, right, and center). See, for context, Karl Mannheim, _Ideology and Utopia_ (1936 [1929]). Granted, both Benedict and Paul eschew the impossibly ill-defined spectrum-phraseology (left, right, and center) that is currently and obsessively in use, but there can be no question that the Church herself is the judge of all ideologies and all utopias, wherever these constructs might be found on the spectrum. At the same time, it is not impossible that this left-right spectrum, for its own part, is an ideological construct. In any event, Benedict is clear: "In his Apostolic Letter _Octogesima Adveniens_ of 1971, Paul VI reflected on the meaning of politics, and the DANGER CONSTITUTED BY UTOPIAN AND IDEOLOGICAL VISIONS that place [the] ethical and human dimensions [of politicis] in jeopardy (emphasis Benedict's)." _Pope Benedict XVI, _Caritas in Veritate_ (2009), section 14. The clients of ideologies and utopias, wherever they are to be found in political life, are in no position, then, to exploit a papal encyclical that identifies both ideologies and utopias as obstacles to authentic human progress, understood as the integral development of the common good of persons and institutions.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 3:02 PM By Life Lady
"I say that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:8). As long as I can recall, the Church has been persecuted, and it is well that it should be. It is persecuted because it is not of this world. We in the Church who receive the sacraments, faithfully, know the consequences of sin. Without the Holy Father to pray for us, and to teach us, and to continue to stand against the world, we would all be lost. Read this and any other encyclical begining with the prayer to the Holy Spirit: "Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and enkindle in them the Fire of Thy Love. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Let us pray: Oh God, Who doest instruct the hearts of Thy faithful, by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that they may be truly wise and ever rejoice in Thy consolation, thru the same Christ, Our Lord. Amen." Read it with this prayer on your lips, and God will enlighten your thinking, and hopefully change your hearts, that we may inculcate this teaching, and live it to the end of our days.
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Posted Thursday, July 09, 2009 3:59 PM By John F. Maguire
Just as Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical Letter _Caritas in Veritate_ has called for "an attentiveness to ways of CIVILIZING THE ECONOMY" (emphasis Benedict's) (section 38), so this Encyclical calls for an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the means of social communications. The media of social communications, Benedict writes, "can have a CIVILIZING EFFECT (Benedict's emphasis) not only when, thanks to technological development, they increase the possibilities of communicating information, but above all when they are geared towards a vision of the person and the common good that reflects truly universal values." From within this perspective, the media of social communications -- not least the Internet in general and comment boards in particular -- "need to focus on promoting the dignity of persons and peoples, they need to be clearly inspired by charity and placed at the service of truth, of the good, and of natural and supernatural fraternity." (Section 73)
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 9:05 AM By Dai Yoshida
Ken: The Holy Father's house, the Vatican is in perfect order. It's the American Bishops that needs to take out the trash. As for the American economic system, it's not what it used to be. If it was, we wouldn't be funding the dictators in China and OPEC.
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 10:20 AM By John F. Maguire
In a recent article in _Il Sole 24 Ore_, a widely circulated financial newspaper in Europe, Gotti Tedeschi underscored the demographic dimensions of the present economic crisis, without however falling into the trap of single-cause explanations. Tedeschi's article emphasizes the role played by the reduction of the birth rate where, as is usual, a normal birth rate alone functions as an independent variable ensuring the necessary growth in economic production. Sandro Magister, for one, has drawn attention to such concerns as Tedeschi's, but in the context of Benedict's Encyclical, which places conjugal openness to life at the center of integral human development. "When a society moves towards the denial or suppression of life," Benedict writes, "it ends up no longer finding the necesssary motivation and energy to strive for man's true good. If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away. The acceptance of life strengthens moral fibre and makes people capable of mutual help. By cultivating opennes to life, wealthy peoples can better understand the needs of poor ones, they can avoid employing huge economic and intellectual resources to satisfy the selfish desires of their own citizens, and instead, they can promote virtuous action within the perspective of production that is morally sound and marked by solidarity, respecting the fundamental right to life of every people and every individual." Section 28.
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 10:47 AM By BettyI
to John F. Maguire about cultivating a taste for such reading - when I start reading things like that I find that my eyelids suddenly feel heavy and then heavier and a little heavier and pretty soon I decide that it must be time for bed because my eyes just won't stay open. Do you have any advice for people like me?
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 2:42 PM By JLS
Kenneth is right on, the left will indeed try to have a field day with the Pope's Encyclical, as it always has. The Encyclical is structured in its introduction to provide us with the truth that the socialists will attempt to ignore, distort, and hide.
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 5:31 PM By RIchard Flores
The basic challenge that the Pope has had to contend with a dramatic shift in the respect (Lack thereof!) that he receives from the news media as a whole. The entire news organization voted 98% anti-Catholic in the last election. They may "Claim" to respect him, but they'll do anything possible to misrepresent his writings AND the American Catholic's response. We are truly at war with evil! We MUST clean out OUR house in the US and stop allowing non-Catholics to claim to be Catholic! ALL of the leadership MUST unify and decide to follow ALL doctrine to the letter. NO MORE of the games at the universities...or they LOSE their affiliation with the church! It is time for ALL of the nonsense and disobedience that stems from arrogance, humanism, and misplaced self-righteousness that has developed within certain orders. During a time of war, NO organization can afford partial loyalty. If someone is 99% loyal, they are "by definition" 100% DISLOYAL! God demands 100% loyalty and too many of the leaders within the church have allowed it to grow and fester until is has become a destructive cancer!
God gave up His only son for us. Jesus endured the most heinous torture on our behalf. Why can so many fail to give God our total loyalty without games and distortions of the God's truth. The politically correct nonsense is destruoying our nation. Justification theologies have created false Christian doctrines that are totally corrupt! Jesus would vomit if he were to attend may churches today! Humanism is rampant in most churches. God is the ONLY answer, NOT man! It's time for the mis-informed academics to remember this truth!
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 5:57 PM By John F. Maguire
Bettyl, thank you for your excellent question! ~ Here's the thing: It often takes Catholics and non-Catholics alike many years to grasp intelligently -- and then appropriate in the practical order -- the teaching of a papal encyclical. So (1) just as one needs to be patient with respect to one's own grasp of an encyclical's truth-content (in the present case, truth-content that is taught authoritatively but not infallibly, save, in the accidental sense, for those cited truths that are indeed taught by the Church infallibly), so too one needs to be patient with respect to the grasp of an encyclical's truth-content by the common conscience. (2) Patience is also in order once we realize that an encyclical is not addressed -- anyway not immediately -- to the backbenchers in the classroom but rather to Bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful, and all people of good
will. (3) The present encyclical -- Pope Benedict's CARITAS IN VERITATE -- comprises six chapters, plus an introduction and a conclusion, all of which is divided into 79 sections. (4) Most readers cannot avail themselves of a study-group for mutual help in the work of engaging this text, so I would recommend a slow pace. The first three sections of CARITAS IN VERITATE are rich and powerful indeed -- and they inform the rest of this Encyclycal Letter's
79 sections. I would recommend dwelling at length on these thirst three sections -- and thereafter, a slow pace, which in any event is imposed upon us by the Encyclical itself. (If this post hasn't put you to sleep, Betty, CARITAS IN VERITATE remains perhaps your best hope.)
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Posted Friday, July 10, 2009 6:29 PM By JLS
Oops. I mistake Ken for Kenneth, posted a comment, and then discovered Ken's post above. But now I have read Ken's post. The Church teaches "subsidiarity", which is neither capitalism nor socialism. One has to remember that the Church provides light so that we can always strive for the greater good. There is good in all economic systems, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Today's world is pitting capitalism against socialism ... neither one is the best system. They both can yield great evils. They both offer and demand some good. The Pope is teaching us; we need to listen and learn and apply this, for it is what the Pope is for which is to teach us the will of God.
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Posted Saturday, July 11, 2009 2:50 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Richard Flores: Catholic culture and life in no way is to be identified with a totalizing mentality according to which, orthodoxy aside, "If someone is 99% loyal, they are 'by definition' 100% disloyal!" Such a formula runs contrary to the liberty of the Christian faithful to disagree where disagreement is called for -- not, to be sure, liberty to reject binding doctrine on faith and morals but rather liberty on all that is open to free discussion in keeping with the formula of St. Vincent of Lerins: IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY. IN NON-ESSENTIALS, LIBERTY. IN ALL THINGS, CHARITY.
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Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 6:17 AM By JonJ
Don't be tiresome JLS. You take every opportunity to try to claim that evolutionary theory has something to do with anti-life. As long as evolutionary theory does not claim the human soul to have a natural origin, THERE IS NO CONFLICT WITH CATHOLIC TRUTH! Just because in you have some weird antipathy toward evolution (because you don't understand it, perhaps?), you constantly try to create the myth that the Church has some official disdain for this branch of scientific study. Stop trying to mislead people. You attempt to infer the church teaches evolution is inherently against catholic faith. Only evolutionary theories which suppose that the soul originated from non divine mechanisms are contrary to catholic theology. You are no different than the agenda driven liberal journalists you despise.
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Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 1:54 PM By JLS
JonJ, you evidently have not dug into the theory of evolution very deeply. But don't go too deeply, as to not be able to get back out. Your error is in preaching it, which is not what the Church does.
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Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 8:01 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Richard Flores: You write: "Humanism is rampant in most churches. God is the only answer, not man!" My question is: Is it sound theology to stigmatize the term *humanism* tout court? Carl Anderson, the head of the Knights of Columbus, has urged us to "read [CARITAS IN VERITATE] in its entirety." If we do so, we will notice that Pope Benedict does NOT stigmatize the word *humanism* as if the only humanism were the atheist humanism that Henri de Lubac studied so astutely in his book _The Drama of Atheist Humanism_. No, in CARITAS IN VERTITATE, Benedict writes: "The different aspects of the [present] crisis, its solutions, and any new development that the future may bring, are increasingly interconnected, they imply one another, they require new efforts of holistic understanding and a NEW HUMANISTIC SYNTHESIS (emphasis Benedict's)." Section 21. Indeed, in Section 16, Pope Benedict had already quoted from Pope Paul VI's Encyclical Letter _Populorum Progressio_ (1967) to the following effect: "There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute, and is conscious of a vocation which gives human life its true meaning."
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Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 9:06 PM By John F. Maguire
In further reply to Richard Flores: Jesus of Nazareth ate food with a human stomach, he worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and love with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, Jesus has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin. In his constituted humanity, then, Christ's digestive system was perfectly normally human -- and as such, subject to cathartic vomiting. The poet Federico Garcia Lorca speaks of "el vomito del gato que se trago una rana por desquido" -- the vomit of the cat that accidentally swallowed the frog. But Mr. Flores, you speak of a different kind of cathartic vomiting. You write: "Jesus would vomit if
here were to attend many churches today." (1) There is no such thing, in all strictness, as a church where Christ's Eucharistic presence is absent in the first place. (2) It is incongruous with Christ's redemptive mission (1 Tim 1: 13: "Christ came into the world to save sinners") to imagine Christ to react cathartically -- by vomiting, either literally or figuratively -- upon witnessing sin. (3) By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ in Gethsemane had infused knowledge of all the sins of all humanity (whence Christ's great mystico-physical suffering in Gethsemane's Garden), but this suffering was visible in Christ's sweating blood -- there was nothing cathartic or expulsive about it.
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Posted Sunday, July 12, 2009 11:59 PM By JLS
JonJ, after checking on my experiment, I realize now that you evolutionists are right: Years ago I left a bicycle wheel in a corner of the garage, hidden out of sight, and moments ago for the first time since then I took a look. Amazing, that wheel had evolved into a complete bicycle! Of course, JonJ, this little ditty here is a fable, but it represents a point ... which is that there has to be some kind of immaterial power which makes things. There is no reason that these things have to stem one from another. Because, if a power can make something from nothing, then why should that power make an intermediary to make things out of the things made before the intermediary? Was man made in the image and likeness of God, and if so, then how could this have been done by some intermediary, ie by some surrogate? Now, man in union with God is smarter than all the angels, and higher, because angels are not in union with God but are separate creatures. JonJ, do you see man in union with God attempting to make new creatures? Attempting to evolve viruses? What do you see man in union with God doing, JonJ? Is he out there preaching that man is the son of a worm that came from the sea which came from the big bang? No, not at all; the Church, which is man in union with God, preaches that man in union with God is the son of God, because we are united by the Son of God, and are His mystical body. In that the Son of God was born by the Immaculate Virgin, why would we then come from a worm whose near ancestor was the first life form that sprung from the big bang? JonJ, it takes fatalism to believe that man has no dignity other than coming from a worm which came from an explosion before which nothing existed. Fatalism, JonJ, is fatal. Creation is eternal.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 12:04 AM By JLS
JonJ, I just read the second half of your post. Evidently you have a reading comprehension problem, in that you claim I advocate evolution. Try to go over my post again, JonJ, to see what I actually wrote. I'm assuming you misread it, and are not intentionally playing a spin game.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 10:14 AM By JLS
Maguire, you are rhtorically altering what Richard Flores posted. He is dealing with a particular, and you're changing it into an abstract.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 1:23 PM By John F. Maguire
The false abstraction, JLS, resides in the decision to quantify orthodoxy such that, independent of the qualitative distinction between material heresy and formal heresy -- and independent of the qualitative distinction between heresy and theological error (a theological error needn't be a heresy) -- Mr. Flores declaims: "If someone is 99% loyal, they are 'by definition' 100% disloyal." As I've shown (I hope) at CCD July 11: 2:50 PM, Flores' arithmetic formula runs contrary to St. Vincent of Lerins' maxim regarding the true and proper relationship between two ecclesial goods: namely, truth and unity.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 4:46 PM By JLS
The particular, Maguire, is in the context of Flores' post, not in the context of your interpretation. We're dealing with rhetoric here, not theology or philosophy. He's making a point that some types of loyalty can be blown by one little act. An easier to understand example is when a serial killer's only social faux pas is the serial killing, and other than that he's a good neighbor. An example from technology: The materials on the space shuttle were loyal more than 99%, but one little tile was disloyal, and it destroyed the entire craft.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 5:02 PM By JLS
Maguire, Jesus is not someone who switched from being God to being man as He saw fit. Jesus is both God and man in union. We share in this union through the Eucharist. So when you deliver the errant liberal schtueck that Jesus had a split personality, it makes no sense. Jesus is not man joined to God, but man united with God, and in His case he is total man and total God; it is not the same with us in union with God, for we are members of His mystical body. You've got it backwards when you say Jesus was made one of us ... on the contrary we are made one with Him. The way you phrase it, one would wonder which one of us He was made like, which of course is ridiculous, and leads to vanity. Again, Maguire, you need to rise above the level of technospeak. Yes, God was made man, but without sin and without the effects of sin. He wept: Did He weep because of His human nature or because of His divine nature? But you would have Him vomiting in the same sense. Now man in union with God might vomit, but such a man is not the perfect man Jesus, but only partially, and partially not in union. Would that thorn in the side of St Paul mean he was not in perfect union with God, or would it have been given him to reveal to us the limits of our capacities to be in perfect union? You're misapplying St Lerins' maxim.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 7:42 PM By John F. Maguire
JLS, you write: "[Mr.] Maguire, Jesus is not someone who switched from being God to being man as He saw fit." True. But JLS, what makes you think I would involve myself in blinking away the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon by suggesting otherwise? That Council taught: Jesus Christ is one divine Person, with two natures, divine and human.
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Posted Monday, July 13, 2009 11:12 PM By JonJ
JLS, I have taught a university course in evolution (as a graduate assistant) during my time as a Ph.D. candidate.. Evolution is not my particular expertise, but I have a sort of hobbyist interest in a closely related subject: sociobiology (sociobiology applies darwinian natural selection theory to human behavior). The basic premises of sociobiology are that 1) genes influence behavior and since 1, then 2) human behaviors are subject to natural selection. And, before you attempt to discredit sociobiology due to its reliance upon darwinian theory, all sociobiology requires is "variability WITHIN a species" driven by natural selection (which has been thoroughly established by experimental evidence). Even well-informed creationists accept that darwinian selection can cause genetic variability within a species. We can also show, by easily repeatable experiments, that natural selection increases species diversity within an ecosystem. The only truly controversial aspects of evolutionary theory are 1) natural selection as a speciation method and 2) ethical theories derived from evolutionary theory, namely: social darwinism. (Which the church correctly rejects).
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:49 AM By Sue Widemark
Great article. I have read Caritas in Veritate this morning & was deeply touched - it's not only incredibly profound but also extremely inspiring - herein holds the hope for our ailing society. Totally agree all Catholics should read it and take it to heart!
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:50 AM By lome
Bible reading is not an intellectual pursuit! But it can make you one.
Bible reading is a desire to know,to love,obey and to understand the Glory of God!
Prayer,fasting,meditations bible reading,Oh! what a good combination.
Judith 8
17 Let us ask the Lord with tears, that according to his will so he would shew his mercy to us: that as our heart is troubled by their pride, so also we may glorify in our humility.
Ecclesiasticus 13
24 And as humility is an abomination to the proud: so also the rich man abhorreth the poor.
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:48 PM By JLS
Because, Maguire, your rhetoric disunities His two natures.
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:55 PM By JLS
JonJ, I'm aware of the mantra you so eloquently put forth. "Catholic truth" is your term. Since Jesus is the truth, then it might help in this discussion if you would explain what you mean by "Catholic truth". Once done, then we can see better what you are talking about when you claim that "As long as evolutionary theory does not claim the human soul to have a natural origin, THERE IS NO CONFLICT WITH CATHOLIC TRUTH!" Your claim makes no sense, but let's see why by parsing it out.
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 6:26 PM By JonJ
JLS, if you had actually read "Truth cannot contradict Truth" and accepted its teaching, I would have nothing to explain. But, instead, you rejected its teaching and looked for ways to parse it, so you it could fit your preconceptions. Your need to treat those who disagree with your views in a condescending manner is a character flaw that you have never bothered to correct.
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 7:08 PM By JonJ
To directly quote "Truth cannot contradict Truth": "In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points." To further quote 'Truth cannot contradict Truth": " It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei"; "Humani Generis," 36). Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person." As for your request that I explain "catholic truth", it is simply your attempt to avoid accepting "Truth cannot contradict Truth" by diverting the discussion toward an attack based upon relativism. I use "catholic truth" simply as a concise way to say that evolution does not contracdict what the catholic church teaches is the truth about man. Had I simply used "truth", you would have then asked me to clarify what I meant by truth, then attempted to show that whatever I said was simply drawn from some secular or protestant conception. You seem unduly focused on winning arguments.
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Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009 11:41 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: Nothing -- certainly not rhetoric, and certainly not my own rhetoric -- has the power to "disunite" the two natures of Christ, divine and human, as per the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), which teaches that Jesus Christ is one divine Person, with two natures, divine and human.
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Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 8:56 PM By JLS
Maguire, you're evading. You certainly know that you are putting a third point of view in the discussion, and it is not mine. Your rhetoric indicates that you see two separate natures, for you gave an example of Christ with a human nature alone. That is not representative of the union of His two natures. Your rhetoric will reveal your belief, and you have never renounced your belief that Obama will reduce abortion by increasing abortion. You ascribe a two nature personality to Obama, as if he were the Godman. He is not, and thus when he sets more abortion in motion, it is who he is, a viscious abortion facilitator and instigator. The fruit of Obama is abortion. Those who dumped manure on that fruit tree and watered it with the tears of unborn babies share in his sin and guilt, which are unfathomable.
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Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 6:46 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: I've never attributed to Christ "a human nature alone" but rather affirmed the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon that Christ is one divine Person, with two natures, divine and human.
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Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 6:53 PM By John F. Maguire
In further reply to JLS: I do not need to renounce contradictory imputations that you've made up off the top of your head -- such as: "Obama will reduce abortion by increasing abortion." That sentence falls of its own weight.
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