tobias
Junior Member
Posts: 77
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Post by tobias on Oct 23, 2012 17:26:16 GMT
Wow, it looks like I've rattled someones cage! As far as I can tell, the Irish Times has nothing to do with Mary McAleese apart from publishing the article and as we all know journals of all kinds publish articles with which they may not agree or which do not express views that they hold. ( you will see this in the small print in most publications) I'm not sure it is a good thing to get too paranoid about views expressed in newspapers generally as journalists have points of view and sometimes can be controversial in order to stimulate debate. Regarding the article in question, if I agree with all the views put forward, it seems to me that it would be pointless rehashing it all here? On the other hand, if I disagreed with some or all of it then I think it would be important that I set out my reasons why. The reason I referred to my status as a non-academic is that I regard Mary McAleese as an extremely accomplished academic and one on whose views I would rely, particularly when she comments on matters related to church affairs. As regards taunting people that oppose her views on this site, I have not seen any opposing views on this article expressed here. Sincere apologies if I have wasted anyones time!
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Post by maolsheachlann on Oct 23, 2012 19:23:36 GMT
"Regarding the article in question, if I agree with all the views put forward, it seems to me that it would be pointless rehashing it all here?"
Pointless, perhaps, but rather more like a forum.
What do you do when extremely accomplished academics differ, as they do? You have as much a right to put forward your ideas as any academic.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 23, 2012 20:54:45 GMT
Let's get Mary McAleese out of the way first before I reply to Tobias: (1) She makes some very dubious assumptions without articulating them fully. She talks about democratic governance and the democratisation of states in the twentieth century in such a way as to imply that the equation of church/state is unproblematic, and that the Pope should be reduced to a constitutional monarch with no real power, like the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Anglican Communion. The trouble is that the church is not the same as a state; it's a voluntary association based on shared beliefs which claim to be true and derive from divine revelation. The role of the clergy is not just supposed to be about power, it is supposed to be about function; they are specialists who give their full atention to such matters because most people will be too busy to study them in depth. (Talk to a journalist or political scientist about contemporary politics and you will find they know much more than you do, because they concentrate on studying it in depth in a way non-professionals don't). Let us make an analogy. Let us suppose that there is a College of Physics located in [fictional] Dogpatch, Arkansas, where the majority of the inhabitants are young-earth creationists. Let us suppose that a former Mayor of Dogpatch, who happens to have distinguished but specialised credentials (as a pure mathematician) combined with the religious beliefs of the majority of the citizens, makes a speech as follows: "There is no forum in the Academy of Physics for the citizens of Dogpatch - who fund it - to make their views known. Discussion within the Academy is heavily controlled and circumscribed to avoid dissent about whether the earth was created 6000 years ago in seven days of twenty-four hours. Many of its proceedings are opaque except to a small elite trained in advanced mathematics and physics. This is no longer acceptable in a democratic age when the citizens are better educated than ever before, thanks to the recently-opened local campus of Bob Jones University. The views of the Institute of Physics do not represent those of the citizens of Dogpatch. They have not been accepted by the majority of the citizens, which calls their validity into question. There have been tragic instances of young people committing suicide when their belief in the literal truth of Scripture is traumatically undermined by being taught these views. Furthermore, some of the members of the Institute have been discovered to be cheating on their wives and fiddling expenses, which casts further doubt on their claims to tell the rest of us what we should think about the age of rocks. In this very divisive situation we need to set up institutions which will make the Institute accountable in a manner compatible with modern democratic principles" etc. It will be seen that the Mayor of Dogpatch is first of all assuming that the truth of certain matters can be decided by democratic vote when this is clearly not the case; if the earth was not in fact created in 4004 BC this remains the case whatever the majority think, and if the majority do not accept it so much the worse for them. Secondly, the Mayor is presenting what is really a debate on principles as a debate about procedures (he is saying it's about making the Institute more democratic, what he means is that it should be taken over by young-earth creationists). In the same way, Mary McAleese is essentially calling for the Church's teaching authority to be abolished and for it to adopt various questionable positions, but she presents this as if she is talking about matters of church governance. (2) A striking example of this is her view that EXTRACT The heterocentricity of Catholic teaching, and indeed the teaching of other faiths, is now being looked at critically in the light of the deadly consequences of homophobic bullying, with research, mainly in the US, showing a tragic link between male youth suicide and homosexuality. The future impact on Catholic schools is a question already being pondered. Could church teaching on homosexuality be the new psychological child-abuse issue of the coming decade? The church, which is still in the process of adapting to the Vatican council after 50 years, exists in a world that has shown an amazing capacity to adapt much more rapidly to things infinitely more complex than collegiality. END What she is saying here is that the traditional teaching of the Church on homosexual acts, which has clear Biblical warranty as well as consistent church tradition behind it and which is in accord with overall church teaching on the nature and purpose of sexuality, is not merely wrong, but criminal (note the comparison to child abuse, which is clearly criminal). This seems to me both to demonise those who uphold the traditional teaching, and implicitly to invite criminal sanctions against them. BTW MAry Kenny has a piece here pointing out that McAleese is distorting the attitude and teaching practices of Catholic schools when she implies they are driving pupils to suicide: www.irishcatholic.ie/content/why-mary-mcaleese-attacking-catholic-education(3) To judge from this article and from reports of her interview with Gay Byrne, when she talks about democratic governance within the church, what she has in mind is something like the synodical government Anglicans have - in which bishops, clergy and lay representatives vote separately on matters of doctrine and church governance. Here are some of the problems this raises: (a) As with the Mayor of Dogpatch above, this model of church governance ends by putting everything up for grabs, including central doctrines of the faith. It is not possible to teach anything convincingly at all if it is subjected to this sort of arbitrary decision-making process. (b) It doesn't resolve disputes as McAleese suggests - it makes them worse because the losers know they will eventually be driven out of the church altogether. (Cf the Anglican debates on women's ordination, and the way in which professions of tolerance for its opponents have turned out to be increasingly hollow). McAleese, like many other liberal Catholics, doesn't confront this because she tacitly assumes everyone agrees with her; note the bletherumskite about launching the boat with Jesus, by which she means everyone should accept her views and reject those of the Magisterium where the Pope has the temerity to disagree with her. Given that the apocryphal "Quo Vadis" story ends up with Peter being crucified, her book title may be more appropriate than she thinks. (3) It's not really possible to govern an international body effectively using the Anglican model - what you wind up with is a network of national churches who have less and less in common (see again the divides in the Anglican Communion). What her model would produce would be an oligarchy something like the European governing body, and equally "democratic". She seems to see the Church in terms of who has power within it rather than as channelling grace to the world around it through Word and Sacraments. Her church would be made up of bureaucrats more concerned with who's in charge of the apparatus than with evangelising a world which would ignore them as they can tell it nothing it doesn't believe already. (4) What really irritates me is not just what McAleese is doing, but the way she is going about it. In his radio &TV column in the IRISH CATHOLIC this week, Brendan Conroy reviews her interview with Gay Byrne and noted that it was marked by a remarkable smugness and cosiness, an assumption that interviewer and interviewee both regarded the views expressed as too obvious to need arguing and a failure to challenge her on the full implications of her views. She is embarking on a PR campaign with the aim of getting the general public to accept what is basically the agenda of the Association of Catholic Priests and similar groups as being not only right but self-evident and dismissing other views as unthinkable. BTW anyone who is familiar with the IRISH TIMES and its editorial policies knows that it does very definitely have an agenda of its own and is using McAleese and similar liberal-catholic types to weaken the church. This is not just "consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine" as collegiality has been defined - it's consulting the unfaithful, and calling in the secular power to overawe the church authorities like those early heretics who appealed to the emperor against the bishops.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 23, 2012 21:08:59 GMT
Tobias; if you think that everything an eminent academic says must be true because an eminent academic says it, you will soon find yourself in very hot water. (I'm an academic - I know the breed.) That's exactly like saying that everything a bishop says must be true because he is a bishop. Do you really never think for yourself at all? When academics disagree, do you change your mind depending which of them you happen to be reading at the moment? The point of spelling out arguments you have heard elsewhere is precisely to show that you understand them and can explain them convincingly. For all anyone knows, you may have completely misunderstood what McAleese is saying, or you may agree with it for some reason which is completely irrelevant to the point at issue (e.g. a Fianna Fail supporter and a Sinn Fein supporter might agree that Fianna Fail should adopt a certain policy, but on closer inquiry it might be found that the Fianna Failer did so because they thought the policy would be successful and help Fianna Fail, while the Sinn Feiner thought it would be disastrous and destroy Fianna Fail). Your attitude might just be acceptable if you had said the article was interesting, but you said you agreed with all of it. Once you take that view in a discussion, you are obliged to explain WHY you agree with it.
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Post by veritas on Oct 24, 2012 10:31:58 GMT
I agree. I think Tobias needs to think for himself rather than accepting McAleese's puerile, feminist waffle. The only sane response to her " Quo Vadis " , is, certainly not in your direction sister. As an antidote, can I suggest that he read - " Why Catholics Are Right ", by Michael Coren. Now there's some intellectual meat for you to chew on.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 24, 2012 20:25:41 GMT
The problem is not so much that it's feminist - in this context that's only a secondary issue. It's that it puts forward an ecclesiology which might variously be described as neo-Anglican, conciliarist or congregationalist, and which is really incompatible with the existence of the deposit of faith (since it makes a majority vote here and now the only criterion of doctrine). James Mackey was quite right to point out in the IRISH TIMES a few days ago that McAleese's view is really incompatible with papal infallibility, or even with the idea that the existence of a church (a body of believers preserved in the true faith by divine guidance) is part of God's will, because if there is a church there is a magisterium relying on something other than contemporary majorities. Of course Mackey's view is that McAleese shoud embrace formal heresy as he has done.
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tobias
Junior Member
Posts: 77
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Post by tobias on Oct 25, 2012 21:20:04 GMT
I'm devastated! I seems I can't even trust academics, I'm adrift in this weary world without even the safe harbor of academia to comfort me, woe is me! Anyway, onwards and upwards. The main reason for not putting forwards my reasons for agreement with the article was that I was more interested in the forums views on same which were forthcoming after a struggle and some strong reprimands as to my ability to think for myself. I can indeed think for myself but I enjoy listening as well, which may be an art that could well be cultivated by some contributors here. The majority of the article as far as I can see deals with the incomprehensible nature of the governance of the Church, which I think , is a mystery to most Catholics. It also deals with the fact that the laity feel that their views on decisions made by those within the Church are not sought or even considered. She refers to Church teaching on celibacy, the ordination of women,gay marriage, birth control and so on as being not necessarily the views of Catholics generally with which I would agree. Someone said a long time ago that "There is nothing wrong with democracy as long as there are not too many people involved" I think that would sit well with Hibernicus. But I see democracy every Sunday at Mass because people are voting with their feet. I see people getting their babies baptized and then I never see them again. I don't infer that the Church should just go with the flow but Jesus chose very simple men as his disciples and He rebuked them when they tried to decide who was the leader among them and charged them to be servants to one another. How does that square with what we have now. I would caution that one should not be too dismissive of the people and their views- they know more than you think and they can figure things out, the present scandals are proof of that and the Church made a bags of it for the reasons outlined by Mary McAleese.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 25, 2012 22:15:44 GMT
Tobias, if you had made these statements earlier it would have been more productive as they would have shown where you were coming from. How are we supposed to listen if you don't say anything? This forum has been plagued in the past by people who demanded that others explain their views without saying what sort of explanation they wanted. Jesus rebuked His disciples for arguing over who was GREATEST among them, not over who was to be leader. He himself appointed Peter as leader; the point about being servants to one another is about how leadership ought to be exercised - it doesn't mean there ought to be no leadership at all. There are different views among "the laity" and in different parts of the world. It's simplistic to suggest the Vatican is on one side and "the laity" are all on the other. The fact that a teaching is unpopular, and that many leave because of it, does not mean it is false. The question is whether it is true or not, and if it is true the answer is more and better evangelisation.
(John 6:60-68) On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
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Post by maolsheachlann on Oct 26, 2012 8:30:31 GMT
I hope you will stick around on this forum Tobias-- there is always a danger that every discussion group becomes little more than an echo chamber of people with the same views. While I disagree with your arguments in this case, and I fully agree with Hibernicus's critique of McAleese's arguments, you are very right that the Church is in trouble in Ireland and that Catholics are "voting with their feet".
I suspect we would disagree on the reasons for that malaise, but it can only be good to debate that and other points, and put all of our arguments to the test.
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Post by veritas on Oct 26, 2012 10:22:20 GMT
The structure of governance of the Church is as it was established by Our Lord. If Hans Kung & Mary McAlesse ( or me ) don't like it, tough. There are other Church's/denominations ( literally thousands of them ) all too willing to accommodate their preferences. It's called diversity. As the issue of homosexuality was of particular concern to Mary McAleese ( & as she used it to berate the church's teaching ), lets briefly consider it. The Irish State ( in the guise of the Blood Transfusion Service ) actively discriminates ( with good reason, as the science supports it ) against practicing homosexuals ; refusing to take blood donations from that source. Yet we don't hear a peep from Mary McAleese against this source of discriminatoion. Given her very lucrative pension, could it be a case of not biting the hand that feeds her. Not very principled. Analyse that, as they say. By the way, people in my parish are voting with their feet by actively attending Mass. Our Priests, thank God, are young & orthodox. definitely not in the Mary McAleese camp.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 26, 2012 22:02:06 GMT
I agree with Maolseachlainn - I hope Tobias sticks around and argues his corner. There is a certain amount of flexibility in church governance. My big problem with Mary McAleese is that she talks big but doesn't get down to details (BTW Tobias accuses me of being opposed to democracy - I'm not opposed to democracy but there are different forms of democracy and they have to be qualified in order to work; for example, it can be argued that direct election of judges, making all civil service posts political appointments, and transferring the powers held by city and county managers to elected local councillors would all be more "democratic" and all have been advocated on precisely that ground, but it is usually thought that this would be unwise) and that while McAleese talks in terms of procedural reform she is smuggling in her favoured disciplinary/doctrinal changes as if the two were synonymous. (In terms of numbers the Church is increasingly made up of Africans and Latin Americans who very strongly disapprove of homosexuality, but I doubt very much if McAleese would like to see a "democratic" church which reflected the views of these church members. There are legitimate prudential and other arguments against their views, but these arguments are not necessarily founded on democracy.)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2012 13:34:16 GMT
I was embarrassed when I read her piece. It was a bit vague and not very factual. My problem with it is that she is a law professor so she should know better. A few years ago there was a lot of anger in the States when they cited EU law as a precedent for a court case. It wasn't international law that they had signed up to but EU law and the EU should have no nose in America. It's a different jurisdiction. I think that's the word.
Anyway, Mrs McAleese is a smart lady. She is speaking of democracy, Irish law, governance from a popular vote point of view. The problem with the Church being so entwined in Ireland with the government, apart from the heinous scandals, is that nature abhors a vacuum. So now that the clergy have lost so much influence here some powerful or power-hungry lay people think it's their job to step in and tell the clergy and the lay people what to do. Jesus came to serve and He did. Priests never know whether they'll end up in an outhouse in the outback serving the poorest of the poor or ruling from the Vatican. They don't go into it for power and influence, certainly not today. She's just looking to boss people about, like a lot of other people she likes using power. If the majority of people were against what she is for would she pipe down? I doubt it.
What angered me about her piece, apart from the Canadian style hint of criminal prosecution for Church teaching is that she must know she is being disingenuous here. She is doing what the Yanks did, using another jurisdiction's law to justify their own decision. She is using Irish law to try to tell another jurisdiction what to do. That's out of line. She knows well enough why the Church teach what it teaches, I wish she'd have the academic integrity to come out and say that she knows why the Vatican states it holds certains positions and these are the list of reasons why, scripturally, morally, based on faith and reason they are wrong. If we're arguing from the same written works then let's debate on those written works and why the Vatican's interpretation is wrong. To bring Irish law to a Vatican matter is just rude, underhanded and cheating. Since she's a TCD law lecturer she gets away with it though, and I've spent enough years in that college to be ashamed of the dodging she did in that piece using her credentials.
In addition, the people you mentioned who have their children baptised and never returned are liars when they do it. Either they are going to rear their children in the faith or they're not. The fact they choose to have the baptism and lie about their intentions reflects badly on them, not the Church, for they can't say they feel social pressure or don't understand what the Church is about these days. My own young parish priest refused to marry a couple when the groom admitted he had no intention of remaining Catholic, he just wanted the pretty church.
Tobias, I do feel for you in terms of arguing your point here. Hibernicus is a powerhouse of brain matter, equally the other lads know their stuff and Maolsheachlann who replied to you here is also as smart if less blunt than some. However they are all always reasonable and tease things out. I walked away from the Berhardt/Coulter line of argument on the mysogyny thread because I realised it's a man/woman thing and I understand that men don't necessarily like the tack women like them take. I, and other Irish and British women I know who have been on the receiving end of atheist Coulters think they rock! But it's a woman thing. Despite the disagreement it's polite and even though it can be difficult to state your point and think things out I encourage you to continue to do so and post them here.
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tobias
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Posts: 77
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Post by tobias on Nov 1, 2012 23:53:20 GMT
Looking back on this thread I have noticed that there are several references to articles without any supporting reasons why the poster either agrees or disagrees with the sentiments expressed therein and there is no admonishment forthcoming. I can only conclude that the author of this particular article is not well liked or regarded hereabouts. On the other hand I quite like the woman and I think she is quite well grounded. As regards her article I don't see any ambition to take over the Church or any demand for it to do as she says. But she makes interesting observations. The structure of Church governance is somewhat mysterious and an introduction of a form of democracy however limited might help demystify things and help the laity understand whats going on and why. Regarding the ordination of women, would the sky fall and the gates of heaven be barred if the other half of the population of the world be permitted to minister if they so wished? I doubt it. On this issue the Church reminds me of the current popular series, Downton Abbey when, after dinner the ladies are dismissed to the drawing room and the men break out the brandy and cigars and discuss how best to continue to make a mess of things without the input of those pesky females, even when some of their decisions would impact on those very women. As regards homosexuality, I have close personal experience of this and I'm not sure that it is understood the sadness and grief that follows when a person, generally quite young and not quite equipped to deal with the realization of what is happening, discovers that they are gay. It is an incredibly difficult and traumatic time especially as young people do not want to be different but finally have to admit that they are. The way I see it, homosexuals are Gods creation just like you and me and if their orientation, created by God, leads them to choose a partner of the same sex and seek to marry then so be it. If, as has been suggested elsewhere that sex should only be engaged in by married couples then there should not be a problem. I know I'm going to get the stuffing intellectually kicked out of me but I'm kinda getting used to that by now. I know I don't really fit in here but maybe I'll stick around. We'll see. "I think I may be wrong but I know I could be right"
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Post by veritas on Nov 2, 2012 17:36:44 GMT
Tobias, it's good that you are getting involved and asking questions. To deal with some of the issues you raise ( & indeed that Mary McAleese raises ), can I suggest you read the book I referred to by Michael Coren ( " Why Catholics Are Right " ) & also by Scott Hahn ( " Many Are Called " ). Regarding a male Priesthood. Catholics view the Church as the bride of Christ, and the Priest in his sacramental role is alter Christus ( another Christ ) ; he is in effect the bridegroom of the Church in this context. Hence the male only Priesthood. Hope that helps somewhat. But I would really recommend the two books, for a more comprehensive overview.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2012 20:23:08 GMT
As the only lady posting on this board I'll let you all in on a little secret about the Downton Abbey exodus after dinner; a lot of women would be delighted to have the old dismissal from the men for a few hours in one another's company can be quite exhausting. I'm with Germaine Greer on boys-only clubs. www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/8640690/If-men-want-to-play-men-only-games-let-them.html#"Before women start demanding equal opportunity in sport, we have to consider whether a sufficient number of women actually want such a thing and whether they will take advantage of it. Otherwise, we are simply removing facilities from the men who are already motivated to use them. " Before anyone states the dismissal is a bad thing, perhaps taking advantage of the separation yourselves once in a while would show the benefits. I know one woman who literally takes herself and her girlfriends off to the drawing room after a party to let the men chat and give the women a break from the tipsy and merry men. Believe me, it's a good thing and the men wander in after a while for what's rare is wonderful. As you said Tobias, men are naturally attracted to women so why wouldn't ye seek us out? Yup, if I had a drawing room I'd potter along with my friends too, for as lovely as merry men are, we ladies like a rest too. Just thought I'd throw that in as a thought from the other side! ;D
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