Engaging the Torturous

Liam forwarded Mark Shea’s latest essay on the pro-torture crowd. I have to confess my surprise the heat this is generating among conservative Catholics. Mark correctly identifies the cowardice inherent in abusing other human beings for one’s own ends. Even a pseudo-generous end. Torture is of a kin to child abusers, sex offenders, and playground bullies. Only that Popular Television Shows aren’t usually made on the subject.

Mark pierces to the heart of the false faith:

When you point out that he has not only the whole civilized world, but Holy Church against him, he falls back on a diabolical inversion of moral values which identifies grave sin with courage like Milton’s Satan:

“let’s say that I lose my soul to save innocent lives. Then so be it.”

This is the *real* heart of the matter. When all is said and done, the coward is saying, quite nakedly, that he will commit a sin for which God would be perfectly right to damn him to the everlasting fires of hell–and pridefully congratulating himself for it.

I can’t add much of significance to this, except to suggest that to me it reveals something of a false activism, a sort of neo-pelagianism. It’s an easy trap to fall into. There is so much wrong with the world, so much mess nobody’s bothered to call the maid about–I guess I’ll have to clean it up myself. The implication is that there is no room for patience. The implication is that there is no place for trust in the agency of God. The implication is that God has empowered me to be a Messiah, and even if it means going beyond what I can do well (like caring for my own soul’s good health) I will do it, because nobody else, including God, seems to care.

Do I have it about right?

 

Liam on Eunice Kennedy Shriver

I thought I’d take the occasion to note an almost-absence in Catholic blogdom: the near silence about the passing of one of the most extraordinary American Catholics of our time, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Vox Nova offers by far the most complete appreciation so far.

That said, I am frankly amazed at this near silence. Maybe I was hoping for too much. Are Eunice’s and Sargent’s identification with the Democratic party establishment so salient as to blind people to their authentic Catholic advocacy in the best of the seamless garment tradition? Of course, I guess I should not be surprised when too many people spit out “seamless garment” as a facile epithet meaning “cop-out” and they forget people for whom it was never a cop-out.

The lives of two Kennedy sisters who never held office – Rosemary and Eunice – should demonstrate yet again that one need not hold civil or ecclesiastical office to do the most for the least of God’s children. In Rosemary’s case, it was not voluntary as such, but I think the two of them together represent a powerful reminder of the traditional Catholic appreciation of the complementarity of the operations of grace through human lives, not merely through our actions but through our just being who we are.

Would that any of us could meet our Creator with the lives they presented back to Him at the end of their earthly pilgrimages.

Pax ex bonum

-Liam

 

Blood in the Water

Liam sent along this link, a concern that a little nick (or maybe a few of them) have those terrible, scary, liberal sharks sniffing out the weakness. Offer it up, comes the advice. Here are Liam’s musings on it:

Fr Z  seems to be trying to whip up a frenzy of anxiety that the Pope is surrounded by enemies (some of his own choosing). Reminds me very much of the kind of fevered, anxious group-think I use encounter (and even participate in) in radical hothouses. For example, the comboxers in this thread have gotten to the point of the Pope being spiritually assassinated.

Imagine if, for Lent, we had to abstain from addictive behavioral patterns of Us/Them thinking and rhetorical excess designed to show how right We are and how wrong They are. (Knowing, of course, that in writing this message I myself echo this, too.)

 

Liam on Weigel on Maciel

The Fr Maciel scandal is not one I feel particularly inclined to blog about. I’m not in LC or RC, nor do I know anyone personally who is. I did scan George Weigel’s commentary yesterday. But Liam read it, and he has his own analysis. I’ll let my friend and long-time commentarian handle it from here:

Mr Weigel has good questions about audits and transparency, but they are “backward looking” or “forensic” as we might say in the securities and compliance businesses, but they lack curiosity about forward-looking and prophylactic dimensions of this problem, as well as the all-important matter of making restitution and amends to those harmed by Fr Maciel.

Mr Weigel hints at the issue of the need for curial reform, but contained to its utility in auditing this miasma.

The basic questions anyone familiar with risk management and similar systems that are being avoided are:

1. What are the most appropriate and timely remedies to restore what can be restored to injured persons and make meaningful amendment for that which cannot be restored?

2. What must be done to significantly reduce the likelihood of recurrence anywhere in the system?

Diagnosis of went wrong specifically in this case is necessary to help answer these questions, but it is far from sufficient.

A culture in which prelates and religious superiors are effectively accountable only to the Pope and to God is a culture that indulges avoidance and non-transparency at multiple levels, and thereby virtually guarantees abuse over time. Doctrine and dogma do not require this result. After all, while the clerical state has Priest-Prophet-King dimensions, so too does that state of the baptized, and somehow we merely baptized manage to have checks and balances placed on our kingship.

Sunshine is a powerful disinfectant, but its power is limited when only old, dry laundry is hung out.