It's Hard Work II

Some comments below remind me that in our current political and cultural climate, Catholics tend to collapse two profoundly related but nevertheless distinct aspects of the Church's teaching that must both be attended to with equal seriousness.

1. The basic principles of Church teaching which all Bishops, pastors, and all teachers within the Church are required to pass on as faithfully as we can.

2. the actual application of these principles on the ground in a specific, historical situation.

To paint with a very broad brush, there tends to be two approaches:

Some Catholics tend to assume that the clear and faithful articulation of category 1 (Church teaching) makes application in a given historical setting (category 2) crystal clear and any Catholic who says it isn't crystal clear is really covertly attempting to reject 1. So they are prone to collapse 2 into 1.

One of the odd realities of our situation is that the sort of Catholic who is most prone to collapse category 2 into category 1 differs depending upon the issue at stake. It is often a different crowd who does so around abortion than the group who does so around other clearly named forms of intrinsic evil such as torture or unjust war.

This first group seldom distinguishes the articulation of the Church's formal teaching which obliges all the faithful from an individual's (even an individual bishop's) prudential judgement regarding the application of Church teaching in a given historical setting although they are NOT the same.


A second group of Catholics is more likely to dispute the clarity of category 1 (Church teaching) in the first place. Sometime it is because they truly do not accept the Church's teaching in a given area and sometimes they do so because it seems to be their only defense against Catholics who are determined to collapse 2 (application) into 1 (teaching). This does not make it right but I can understand the temptation to do so when you feel surrounded by fellow Catholics insisting that a given teaching can led to only one possible practical conclusion.

Often this second group of Catholics assumes that any clear articulation of Church teaching is really just an attempt to force Catholics to vote for a certain candidate or party.

Here at ID, we are attempting to hold both categories 1 and 2 together so that the fullness and integrity of the Church's teaching in both areas is accurately reflected.

So let's look at my postings of the last week in light of the above:

The numerous posts last weekend about the response of Catholic Bishops (notably Archbishop Chaput) to Nancy Pelosi's comments about Augustine and abortion fall primarily into category one - the accurate and clear articulation of Church teaching on abortion.

However, I intentionally quoted Chaput at length regarding category 2 (application) because he does carefully distinguish his personal prudential judgement about the real life implications from the Church's teaching and he acknowledges that other Catholics can come to different conclusions in good faith. Chaput is free to make his best argument for his understanding of the situation but he cannot insist, even as a bishop, that his prudential conclusion obliges other Catholics.

That is why I also posted last week about the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good's report Reducing Abortion in America: the Effect of Economic and Social Supports and another post regarding the current on-line edition of the Catholic Journal of Legal Studies which includes the complete proceedings of the symposium: Catholic Teaching, Catholic Values, And Catholic Voters: Reflections On Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship. This was to help provide data for further discernment.

The title of that second post was "It's Hard Work": Applying Catholic Social Teaching . The title says it all. Real-life application of even crystal clear definitive teaching is often anything but obvious and simple and equally faithful Catholics can and do come to different conclusions and may, therefore, end up voting (or not voting) for different candidates. Recognizing this is not dissent but true faithfulness to the fullness of the Church's teaching in this area.

Nothing could be more relevant to the formation and mission of lay Catholics.

The complexity of the application of the Church teaching on Voting and Intrinsic Evil is laid out in great detail in this post I did in May regarding my conversations on election night, 2004 with two of the foremost Catholic experts in the world on the subject. Read the whole post and the extensive comments below. i still agree with every word I wrote.

So, no, I am not attempting to tell you - covertly or overtly - how to vote. I am not collapsing the Church's teaching and the responsibility that each of us has to make a strenuous effort to come to a prayerful, prudential judgement about the application of that teaching in context of our own lives, vocations, and responsibilities.

And the last post about Sarah Palin wasn't political in nature or intent at all.

I posted about her spiritual journey because it struck me as a real life illustration of something that I have already written about many times at great length here: the huge number of US Catholics have left the Church and that fact that 4/5ths of Catholics who leave become Protestants and a simple majority become evangelicals. And because the fact that Palin was baptized Catholic as a very young child but is now a practicing evangelical was being discussed widely and vociferously around St. Blog's in the absence of any real information. It was not a not-so-subtle way to push her candidacy.

In any case I am not a member of either party and I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet so I really am not about to try and tell you how to vote. Really.