Catholics used to the general identification of political conservatism with respect for their Faith should take a look at this little thread from a site dedicated to debunking Global Warming.
What’s striking is how all the same old mindless anti-catholic tropes found among fundamentalists just keep turning up like a bad penny among the new Paladins of Godless Conservativism under the sway of people like Ayn Rand and others just as they have long turned up among the Godless Left. These are basically conservatives of a libertarian stripe who like the whole “Let the government leave me alone and let me be selfish” message of the Randroids, but who have nothing but contempt for the notion that human dignity comes from being made in the image and likeness of God. For these guys, human dignity comes from being the winner of a Darwinian struggle, and Christians are purveyors of a slave morality that needs to be crushed. They hate the Faith every bit as much as some abortion-besotted bigot from Planned Parenthood.
So there is a natural hostility to “the Vatican” since it is the capital of the religion that threatens Objectivists the most with all that talk about the Common Good, care for creation, humility before God and a Divine Judge for the pride of men. Lickety split, every hiss of contempt and every irrelevancy that can be brought to bear against Rome’s little expression of civic mindedness is trotted out, not merely to register disagreement about the science of global warming, but to smear Rome with everything from the persecution of Galileo to the molestations of John Geoghan. We get psychological histories of comboxers who hate nuns, strange rants about sex, and 50 other tangents from people who suddenly don’t seem interested in talking about science, but in spewing exactly that sort of bile one finds at, well, the most virulently anti-Catholic left-wing site.
Ye Olde Statistician, who has forgotten more Church (and science) history than most of these people will ever learn, provides useful instruction in the comboxes to the bigots as they reel off their litany of Horribles against the Church without bothering to check their facts (since all civilized people are agreed that the Church is owed no justice or accuracy):
It is astonishing how quickly a band of self-proclaimed skeptics can turn into credulous true believers when the topic switches to history and their own preconceptions. Any old legend or tendentious fundy propaganda—will be swallowed wholesale, with no effort made to ascertain the historical facts.
We find once more the hoary old chestnut about Constantine founding the Church. Or the Church spreading by [somehow or other] taking over native customs in Ireland, Russia, Kerala, et al. loc. A bit of ahistorical silliness about the origin of “feudal” serfdom (as if feudalism and manorialism were the same thing). The Inquisition was “an autonomous organization that did whatever it wanted”? Really? Which inquisition? Someone mentions the idiocy of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Who ever pondered this? Where is it recorded, or is it just something “everyone knows”? You could be burned at the stake for “calculating”? Really? Who was so burned? Bruno, the Hermetic mystic, is somehow dubbed a “scientist.”
As always, Galileo is trotted out for his lonely turn across the stage. He is credited with “inventing” the scientific method, as if Grosseteste or his Arabic and Greek predecessors had never lived—let alone Paul Vallius, whose class notes Galileo copied. Or for that matter, as if Fabricius, Harriot, Scheiner, Kepler, and a host of contemporaries had vanished down the memory hole.
There was a reason why Huxley once declared that the Church had the better case. Bellarmine had told Galileo that heliocentrism could be taught as a mathematical theory—back then astronomy was a branch of mathematics, not of physics—but not as physical fact unless he had empirical proof. He had none. In 20 years of further thought, he came up only with the tides as “sloshing” caused by the spinning earth, which was wrong. He answered the Objection of the Parallax by simply hypothesizing that the stars were much farther off than currently thought; but you can’t save one unproven hypothesis by tossing in a second unproven hypothesis. Parallax among the fixed stars was described in 1803 (and later, more definitely, by Bessel) and the second unresolved problem—the predicted eastward deflection of falling bodies—was finally measured by Gugliemini in the 1790s. Consequently, when Settele prepared his new astronomy text in 1820, he included these two results, showed them to the Holy Office, and said here’s the empirical proof Bellarmine wanted. The committee mulled it over and said, Yup, that’s it. And lifted the ban on presenting heliocentrism as physical fact.
IOW, Galileo demanded he be taken on faith and the Church had asked for empirical proof.
History requires every bit as much attention to facts as does
global cooling/global warming/climate change/——. Instead, too many here have relied on “models” of history.
+ + +PS. Galileo did not use Kepler’s work (correct) elliptical model. He never even read Kepler’s book (which, admittedly, is not easy reading). Nor did he make predictions from it or from Copernicus’ (incorrect) circular model. Nothing in Copernicus predicted sunspots or Jovian moons. The phases of Venus definitely drove a stake through the heart of Ptolemy; but Aristotelian physicists had always doubted Ptolemaic astronomy and the Tychonic and Ursine models also accounted for the phases of Venus.
Kepler’s elliptical model gets no mention in the Dialogues because Galileo was committed to circular motion and still had 20 epicycles in his Copernican model. (Nor does he mention Tychonic/Ursine model, which by then had replaced the defunct Ptolemaic model.) When Kepler wrote to Galileo asking for a telescope—(because Galileo had a rep as a lens-grinder)—Galileo simply never answered him. One suspects professional jealousy. Kepler was by far the better scientist.
The telescopic history is nicely summarized in Toby Huff’s book Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution.
+ + +As regards the topic of the original post, the Pontifical Academy is tasked with providing scientific background advice to the Vatican. (I know one member, an astronomer.) It is not controlled by the Vatican, and its membership includes all sorts. Its reports are just that, and are not Church policy, let alone doctrine. Whether the top scientists in the field of glaciers are grinding their own agenda is another matter entirely, and you mustn’t suppose that the Curia is entirely naive about such matters. They got burned once before when they asked a panel of top physicists about the validity of the Copernican system and the “settled science” and “consensus of scientists” was that it was “absurd in philosophy.” Perhaps the lesson ought to have been that the Church should be less accepting of secular science.
PPS. “Social justice” is a term coined by Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio, SJ, back in the early 1800s. Justice is a virtue and as such applies to individuals respecting that which is due unto others. The “social” part refers to the societies which men are wont to form, some of which are more natural and intimate than others: We come together not only in cities and states, “but first and most importantly in families, neighborhoods, religious bodies, clubs (guilds) and a variety of informal organizations.” Taparelli believed that “people have the right to form different levels of association and to interact through them to fulfill needs and accomplish necessary tasks. Each of these social spheres, institutions, or consortia has its own proper identity and purpose.” Each of these societies maintains its own unity so as not to lose its identity to the larger whole, nor lose the unity of the larger whole. That means the state, for example, should not usurp the prerogatives of the family. The term has been co-opted by the novelty of insisting that collectives rather than individuals practice virtue, and so is applied to vague abstractions like “high unemployment” or “world hunger.” Consequently, the term has been used by secular forces to mean “implementing the social programs I favor and which I declare must benefit people.” This absolves the individual of the obligation to practice justice himself and ironically opens to the door both to socialist collectivization and Nietzschean/Randian egoism.
Indeed, he understood that a just society depends on these different forms of association each being able to do what they do best. He not only insisted on freedom for these various spheres, but especially for those closest to the ground: the associations that because people are most directly involved in them, encourage personal relationships and local responsibility.
His vision of social justice, then, emphasized freedom and respect for human beings and the small institutions through which they pursue basic needs.
Meanwhile, the Ecumenical Patriarch has been far more into the Green agenda; but no one seems to remember that the Orthodox Church even exists.
One luckless zealot tries to defend this farrago of half-baked pseudo-history promulgated by his fellow anti-Catholic bigots and Ye Olde Statistician quickly and efficiently has his guts for garters:
The Catholic church sponsors a ‘scientific’ study that embraces CAGW mantra. Why should that be above criticism?
Oh, that explains all the hoo-hah about Galileo, inquisitions, Constantine, indulgences and sundry other irrelevant and (since they are based on models of history, not historical facts) inaccurate asides.
The Church did not “sponsor” the study. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences did. The Curia is always asking for secular advice on secular matters, such as science. The problem is that a great many scientists, experts in their field, believe in the models of climate, not climatic facts.
I find the history of religion and the history of science to be the key in highlighting the two major protagonists in Western Civilization. The struggle continues.
Oh, no! Not that hoary old chestnut of model-based history! A hundred years after professional historians shook loose from Draper’s bit of tendentious propaganda. Oh, well. The model says this must be happening; therefore, it must be happening.
Paradoxes abound. The critics of Climate Change latch on to their own reality-defying models of history in just the way they complain of many climate change zealots preferring models to reality when it comes to climate science. They even, hilariously enough, seek to indict Ye Olde Statistician as a stooge of their number one enemy: Climate Change zealots when, in fact, YOS is himself quite skeptical of the hype (because he is a trained statistician who recognizes when numbers are being jiggered). However, when you want to shut down a voice of reason when it is pointing out that you are a bigot, it’s what you do.
Ye Olde Statistician’s real point is not to make a case for global warming, but to make the perfectly sensible case that what Rome generally does is try to pay attention to what the consensus of experts in a given field say and then act accordingly. This is called prudence. It’s why we hire electricians instead of just praying and sticking a fork in the fusebox to try to repair a power outage. It’s why we call an expert to repair our computer or tell us if it’s going to rain tomorrow. Bishops ain’t climate experts. So they defer to those who are and make a judgment call about the prudent thing to do in light of what appears to be the current consensus.
For some reason, both climate change believers *and* skeptics treat all this as though it is dogma. But as Ye Olde Statistician points out to a terminally thick interlocutor, that’s rubbish:
If the Catholic Church (which claims to be a religious organisation in the service of God), were to promote the theory of AGW (which has nothing to do with their religion) as part of church policy, then their status is no longer purely religious.
That’s what some folks were saying when the Church preached against segregation in the US south back in the 50s.
No mention of AGW in the Bible.
Fundies are always upset that the Church derives so much of her message through reason. It ain’t in the book! they cry. But the traditional churches (Orthodox, Roman, Coptic, Assyrian) use revelation as a starting point for reasoning about the world, not as a collection of proof-texts, geasa, and tabus.
Further, the Church does not draw scientific conclusions, but simply accepts the scientific consensus. If that consensus is wrong, as it was in Galileo’s case and possibly in the AGW case, you cannot fault the Church for deferring to the scientists over matters of science. What matters is the moral actions informed by the science. It might be wise to wait until the Church does speak on the matter before getting your shorts in a knot because your model-based history already “proves” what “should” be happening.
Ok guys, fine, you win. Anthropogenic Global Warming is part of the Christian faith and the teachings of the churches, I believe you.
No, it isn’t and no one has said it is. Don’t you get straw on your knuckles flailing away like that?
The Church has always navigated according to the best science of the time, while recognizing that the nature of science is provisional, not certain and complete, knowledge. Four centuries ago, a responsible priest would have been advised by the best medical authorities to bleed a sick man and would have been reproached for his neglect of Science had he failed to do so. If he believed that science to be sound, he would have violated his conscience not to find a physician and do so. It turned out that the Best Minds in Science were wrong about that. But that doesn’t make the priest a fool for listening to them. In the same way, the Vatican is quite at liberty to choose to be carbon-neutral if they want. It doesn’t make Anthropogenic Climate Change a dogma. Nor does it mean that these nasty bigots of the Godless Right are somehow confirmed in their bogus anti-Catholic models of Church history or theology.
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Yes, there are people like this, but frankly, this is a small proportion of conservatives/republicans. Most of us who see through the global warming fraud recognize that this environmentalist religion not only denies the God-imaged dignity of man but even dispute man’s right to exist among animals, and we oppose it largely for that reason.
Environmentalist republicans tend to line up with pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, etc. If a libertarian believes in the freedom of the unborn he lines up Conservative, not “Godless Right.” Even Nat Hentoff arrives here (a libertarian atheist). If a libertarian believes in “abortion choice,” he lines up with Liberal.
In other words you’re criticizing a group that barely exists.
Mark
You lost me by your 2nd paragraph. Your comments were every bit as inane as the people you’re commenting on. I am insulted as I am a conservative with a libertarian stripe. You paint with a very broad brush.
Mark,
I am a devout Roman Catholic, a conservative and a proud member of the tea party. Yes, you paint with a very broad brush and your headline is not only misleading it is highly insulting. I come to NC Registar for spiritual nourishment, not political bomb throwing or someone acting like an apologist for the left. I can read tripe like this at the Daily Kos for that kind of nonsense. Shame on you! Go over to Media Matters and peddle this garbage there.
Come on, Mark, you are usually so much better than this. Most conservative Christians I know are in no why typified by the extremist ‘straw man’ you are berating here. We can learn a lot from good, Evangelical Christians, many of whom put some of us Catholics to shame when it comes to a personal commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ. In my opinion, the root cause of the Reformation was the failure of many Catholics, especially those in the higher clergy, to live a holy life. Without the various abuses that paved the way, I don’t think the Catholic Church would ever have experienced such a split. The doctrinal controversies came later. May our Lord Jesus, whom we worship in common, help us to learn from each other, so again there can be one fold and one Shepherd.
Mark, please return to writing on some of the more meaningful topics you have in the past. Some of what you wrote, about the Galileo case for example, I found to be interesting, but it was sort of incidental to the main point you were making. We need your column to be relevant to God’s people in danger of being poisoned by a toxic culture. Believe me, the ‘left’ is far more godless than the ‘right’, at least in the present time. Take care Mark, and God bless ~!
Mark, The ONLY reason I was upset with the vatican was because they used the very scientist who were debunked because they used false data. The church should leave science to the scientist, but not to scientist pushing propaganda. They Have a choice in the matter. They can set standards for the science they wish to sort of align themselves with. Science is NOT a consencus, it is based on facts.
The classical Conservatives, from the Catholic William F. Buckley Jr. to the Atheist Libertarian Murray Rothbard, valued the role that churches and synagogues played in upholding the country. They also rejected the Atheist goddess of greed Ayn Rand and her “Virtue of Selfishness.”
These days the Godless Right—and even some religious believers—worships Ayn Rand and insists that anyone who doesn’t follow her is a “RINO,” a Republican In Name Only.”
I rather enjoyed reading it, and I think Mark was dead on. I don’t always share Mark’s opinions, and I’m not sure I share his extremism, but Ye Olde Statistician’s work was a delight. :-)
Great article.
I am still amazed that people can supposedly read an article and totally miss the point(s).
Faith -to- Scripture -to- Facts -to- Reason -to- Informed Mind. Welcome to the ideal as taught by God and the Church. As opposed to most ‘thinking’: What I want -to- ignore the facts -to- ignore what someone actually writes/says -to- put my own words in their mouth(straw man) -to- ‘reality’ (conventual wisdom) for all time(or until I change my wants).
Thank you Lord for a mind and the grace to desire to use it.
Mark, I will not be as dismissive as some but I do think there is a good take home point here for you.
Obviously what you talk about here does happen and should be condemned. But I have to agree that the perspective here is lacking and share the concerns others have of the appearance of too broad a brush. This same issue appears to also have been the point of contention with your recent piece about Joe Carter’s gen-X commentary; while I personally found the criticism in that case somewhat more credulous, I can see the pattern.
So I encourage you to take seriously the advice/message here, even if I have to apologize for any occasional disconnects from charity. You have been given great gifts in your Faith and your full recognition of the false dichotomy in the secular Left/Right spectrum, so it would pain me to see your messages getting hindered or even lost by what are really style flaws.
Take heart, Mr. Shea. The Church needs to be defended on all sides. That it must also be defended from what is traditionally the political inside should be made known.
Mark,
I totally belive this post is consistent with your individual ministry.
As a Catholic conservative with a libertarian bent who finally took God out of his little box on my shelf, I heartily agree with your observations, and am grateful for your post. By grace, I finally started to recognize I myself was part of the “Godless” right faction, though I faithfully went to mass and have been a Christian my whole life. I just wasn’t really living it.
I’ll tell you that your positions had always bothered me in the past - I dismissed you as a “lefty catholic”. At the time, I was unable to discern the inconsistency of my own traditional conservative positions, particularly regarding dignity of life issues: abortion (I was against), euthanasia (against), death penalty (for) harsh interrogation (for).
It was only after I truly got serious about living the life God wants me to live and seeking to be the person He wanted me to be, that I started to see glimpses under the mask of the “Godless right” and turned away from it.
I recognized I was worshipping ‘our’ ideas…and with the same resultant lack of charity/love similar to the same evil poison coming from the rabid collectivists, AGW proponents, etc.
I still retain a strong affinity to conservative/libertarian principles, but no longer to an extent that exclipses God’s teaching. To be honest, it was no one’s blog post, article, or radio rant that brought me to the light, but the work and help that *I asked* God to start doing for me (in other areas of my life, I might add) that dropped the scales from my eyes, so to speak. He is definitely making me a new person in all areas of my life.
Pray for us all, and especially our elected officials and those in the public squre…that we all might open ourselves to let God do his good work in us!
May God continue to bless you, your family, and your pen.
Sophie
I would point out that Mark is not advocating for the left (at least he doesn’t appear to be and it would be quite uncharacteristic of him to do so). He’s merely revealing the horrors of those on the right who are less concerned with the facts than their own political ideologies. As he points out, Ye Olde Statistician (YOS) is not sympathetic in any way to the scientists who claim the existence of AGW. However, he is fighting against the carrying out of the old tired cliches, which have been perpetuated by the atheistic thought of the Enlightenment (which, unfortunately, is the thought that underlies much of American politics on either side of the aisle) and the Fundamentalist Protestants. He is also pointing out that the Pontifical Academy does NOT represent the view of the the Church. In fact, they have been in opposition in the past. The Academy as advisor (as pointed by YOS).
I might add, to the person who thinks that science is “based on facts” and is “not a consensus,” that you have very little idea as to how the scientific method works itself out. Certainly the natural sciences are based on facts (except for possibly in the case of some branches of physics that are more concerned with whether the math works than whether the math reflects the reality - and I say this as a mathematician) in the sense that the scientific method begins with observation. However, the inductive (rather than deductive) nature of the scientific method necessitates a less than mathematical certainty in the conclusions of science. Scientists (at least in theory) know this - although some forget. That’s why scientific hypotheses and theories are revised. Newton’s mechanics have been largely rejected by modern physicists (for an example) - even though the math is nice, a lot nicer than the math that goes with Quantum mechanics; although physicists remark that Newtonian mechanics is a good approximation for what happens in most circumstances. However, since there is less than mathematical certainty (although still a certain level of certainty) when it comes to the empirical sciences, a certain degree of consensus does come to play.
I would add to your list, the godless on the right that have made corporate America their ‘god.’ I know that it is not really your point, but the problem I have with the Republican party is that the needs of industry always have first place in any agenda. While those on the right rail against socialism in one instance, in the very next they are pushing the cause of the international corporate system that is pushing the cause of world wide socialism much faster than any crony Democrat!
Awesome article! Clearly explains the many points. Thank you!
Cover yourself, Mark! Those knees are a’ jerkin!
The accusations about a broad brush are, in my reading, groundless. Who is Mark criticizing here? “The Godless Right”, “nothing but contempt for the notion that human dignity comes from…God.” If you’re a Republican, or a libertarian, who feels, for instance, that your Catholic and Christian faith is best preserver, practiced, and lived under governmental ideologies of those political spectra, then he’s not talking about you. There may, however, be a warning to you, not to assume that everyone who shares your political affiliation shares your values.
But why is he picking on the Godless Right? Is he a secret Democrat plant, here to lead us away from the Promised Land of Republican Majorities? No. Because most Catholics and other Christians have realized over the past few decades that the Democratic Party, and the “Left” in general, are virulently opposed to the morality of the Church. Many of them hold positions that make it untenable for me to vote for them.
What Mark is guilty of is exposing that, these days, many Republicans also are unacceptable, morally. He talks about voting for third party candidates who don’t push for grave, absolute moral evils as if that were anything but code for “I’m really a Democrat, and I eat butter-fried babies to support my Jolly lifestyle.” (As an aside, we Jollies know that the letter I is just a temperanormative, “slim” verbal propaganda for the letter J. Possibly Y as well. So, really, we’re talking about the Jollj ljfestjle!)
But while that will result in Democrats being elected sometimes, the point is for it to force Republicans (and Democrats) to say, “This guy couldn’t get elected. We need someone different.” The real point is that if you vote for D, in that situation, you get someone who supports grave moral evil. If you vote R, you get someone who supports grave moral evil. Let’s be honest. Ours is a society that is just drenched in corruption and evil. We don’t need tepid politicians phoning it in so we stick around til November. We need principled servants of the public good and natural law.
I am not—OBVIOUSLY—saying that all conservatives are godless. I am saying that it is a fact that Ayn Rand’s baleful influence is being felt more and more on the conservative right and an increasing number of conservatives are groping their way toward a conservatism of selfishness and hostility to God rather than a conservatism rooted in God and the preservation of the natural law, the common good, and the dignity of the human person. The thread I link illustrates this in spades. The conversation between YOS and the God haters at that site is a conversation between a healthy Catholic conservatism rooted in a traditional conservatism that is humble before God, natural law, the common good and the dignity of the human person and a new vision of “conservatism” founded on contempt for the masses, hatred of God and the Church, loathing of the common good, and rejection of all natural law except for a perverted vision of subsidiarity which exalts the Randian individual and severs his ties with herd. If you don’t see that this vision is growing in popularity among certain percentage on the right, I think you need to have your eyes examined.
Our tribe is not exempt from original sin.
Hi Mark,
Great—and kind of humorous—article. As a faithful Catholic I find myself having to avoid politics as a “near occasion of sin,” which is too bad since I have studied Jacques Maritain and love both political philosophy, and care deeply about my country.
But until we have something like a Christian Democratic Party, I will not fit in with either party.
And I think as Catholics we should be careful to not put our political parties before the Universal Church, and recognize that sometimes what seems good for America (this is the selfish Rand-ish mentality) is not always good for the Universal Church.
I am a proud, devout, practicing Catholic. I am also a proud, practicing conservative capitalist. Many conservatives hold Rand up as a breath of fresh air in terms of celebrating deserved personal success through hard work. They also applaud her view that ineffecient beaurocracy hinders (and accurately loots from) those who wish to excell. Many of those same conservatives (I would venture all conservatives that I know) part ways with her when it comes to her athieism and her distaste for charity.
Contrary to the insistance of a growing Marxist movement within our beloved Church, it is possible to be a faithful Catholic and conservative capitalist. We must always remember Jesus’ words in Luke: “To whom much is given, much is expected.” He did not say “To the collective which much is given, much should be taken and redistributed.”
Hi Mark,
You know we have butted heads repeatedly on our mutual positions regarding AGW… I honestly think that you and a lot of other people who oppose it have never made a serious effort to come to terms with the actual science. That being said, I want to applaud your article here.
—
Over the last several years, it became increasingly clear to me that I could no longer identify with the Democrats; that whatever good their economic policies might do (and we can debate that another time), I could not ignore their increasing disrespect for life and anything resembling traditional values.
—
That being said, I haven’t been able to embrace the Republican party either. Don’t get me wrong, there are some great people in the Republican party, but there are definitely aspects of the party I find to be at odds with my faith. You are absolutely right that there is a Randian component to the party that embraces selfishness as a virtue. Yes, it doesn’t describe all Republicans or Libertarians, but it is definitely there.
—
I long for the days when guys like George Will and William Buckley were the voices of the movement in the media, not Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.
Mark, a followup. I just checked over at CaEI! and your linktext to this page does a fine job of contexting the point. I originally came from thePulpit which had only the title (while at CaEI! too, the link tempers my concern immediately).
In case I wasn’t clear earlier, I totally get your underlying point. I never had even heard of Ayn Rand before a few months ago. The first I heard of her was when I ran into some of her apostles gaurding her turf on Wikipedia. At the time I hoped it would be my last.
I find the backlash interesting, considering Mark clearly defined which group of conservatives he was speaking against—the Randian libertarian-conservatives who tend towards the rejection of authority… and how they seem perfectly willing to make use of whatever anti-Catholic claims they are aware of as an ad hominem against the Church.
It seems to me that Mark was writing about that mindset, and not “all conservatives are evil” which some commentors seem to attribute to him.
It seems to me that Catholics need to be aware that other members of political movements may have hostility to what we as Catholics believe and we should not accept whatever they may claim without discernment.
I do not want to dfend Ayn Rand or Libertarians. Those of us who are conservative Catholics are more influenced by Fredrick Hayek than Rand, and Rands atheism would make her repulsive to us in any case.
I think that there is a larger more important point that is missed by all this.
For a long time the Vatican, and even more so organizations like the USCCB, have made recommendations on policy that are “matters of prudential judgement”. This is foolhardy and harmful.
In the Case of “global warming” a lot of the policy judgements depend on scientific matters that are complicated, so for example:
IS there Global warming? How much? What are the likely effects? How much of this is man made? How effective are the proposed solutions? What are the downsides of the proposed solutions? Do the solutions do harm to the economy? If so how much harm, who will be hurt, Will the poor be especially hard hit?
Are the benefits of the solution proportional to the potential harm? How certain are we of the answers to these questions? What and how reliable is the evidence? ( As an aside how many folks commenting on climate change could fully answer one of these questions let alone all of them. How many people in the Vatican could?
All of the above are empirical questions, that depend on assessing data from multiple different sources and using the methods of different sciences. Not only is their no consensus, there is not even a single group of experts to consult. ( So climatologists may be able to say something about climate change, but know next to nothing about the economic tradeoffs and possible harm the proposed solution would entail.) We also know that some of the scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the UEA distorted thier data. We know that thier is political and ideological factors that bias the interpretation of data on both sides.
So given all this it make no sense for the Vatican to comment. There is no policy proposal in this situation that the Church could possibly endorse one way or another because the morally “right” decision depend on how you evaluate the answer to each of the above questions. They are all technical questions,that the Church has no Charism to answer. It would be like the Church trying to tell a group of cardiologists whether it makes more sense to use coronary artery bypass, medication or angioplasty to treat coronary artery disease.. Well the Church could say you have a moral duty to do your best to take care of the patient, be a conscientious doctor etc.. but in terms of the specific question they can not answer. Like a complicated medical issue, the issue of Climare change is complex and admits of multiple policy choices.
Beyond the classic admonition that those in political power have a grave moral duty to the common good there is not much to say. Frankly the only moral issue involved would be the sin involved in distoring the data for ideological reasons that may very well have gone on at the CRU. Obviously this makes it possible that the whole issue of global climate change is a fraud. It seems the most basic moral admonition the Vatican could have made would have been “Do not lie about your data or suppress the work of those you do not agree with, but rather seek the truth” ) They neglected to comment on this. Given thier neglect of the most self evident moral issue How does one take anything else they say re Climate change seriously?
By making less than thoughtful comments on climate change, the Vatican diminshes its witness in other areas when the issue is not “prudential judgement” but violation of some basic aspect of the natural law. So many of the political proponents of “Climate Change” are pushing for unlimited abortion, gay marriage, erosion of conscience rights/protections for Catholics etc.. In fact some of the more radical enviormentalists push for more contraception and abortion on the basis of these improving overpopulation and thus the enviorment. These things are intrinsically evil, and must always be opposed.
The Vatican then allows those who promote these things to hide behind the lie that they are with the Church on other issues, like protecting the Earth. Similar things are said about other left wing proposals that are supposed to promote social justice or imigrant protection or whatever. If you think carefully a faithful Catholic would be within their rights to think that these kind of policy statements of the Vatican, or even worse the more specific ones generated by the USCCB are absurd when it comes to the “prudential judgement issues” . I could easily argue based on my assessment of the evidence all of the prosed solutions will not work and they may hurt the poor by depressing the economy resulting in more unemployement. Thus if I take the “preferential option for the poor” seriously, I have a moral duty to oppose laws designed to limit climate change like “cap and trade” proposals. In contrast all of the teachings of the Church that bear on “non negotiable” matters that concern fundamental principles of the natural law must be accepted and acted on. It is pretty clear where a Catholic should stand on the right to life and abortion.
The fact that this elementary and often discussed distinction continues to be lost on the folks in the Vatican and the USCCB leads to the obvious conclusion that there are those within these institutions who really wish to give politicans on the left political cover for their willingness to ignore the Church on issues like abortion.
Perhaps there are those at the USCCB and the Vatican who fundamentally are left wing themselves and for the sake of getting some liberals elected are ok with tolerating a few million dead unborn children a year. Perhaps they like to curry favor with the left because the left controls the organs of cultural expression, like the media and the universities. These intstitutions ordinarily bash the Church, so maybe it is an attempt to get a little love..
In any case it is this kind of thing that makes A discussion of climate change from the Vatican less then helpful.
michael, whether or not you agree with the Vatican or the USCCB’s pronouncements on prudential matters (whether or not this or that war is justified, what particular policy we should pursue in such-and-such a case), you should acknowledge that both bodies have the right and, indeed, the duty to teach on morals. And included in that umbrella is politics. Granted a bishop can be wrong on the application of a principle, but the bishops are quite right to advocate and keep before the public eye the principles that are to govern the Catholic in making educated decisions.
Jay, you presume that someone must be Marxist for him to be against American corporatism (the specific form of capitalism that dominates our society). I can guarantee you that my Distributism is not Marxist under any reasonable interpretation of that word. It is, in fact, more conservative than the American corporatism which dominates our economic sphere, the roots of which are found in Enlightenment philosophy (or more accurately, Endarkenment sophistry). I’m not saying that you, in your capitalism, are contrary to the principles the Church has given us - because I don’t know enough about what you mean by “capitalist”, but I vehemently deny that to be anti-capitalist is equivalent to being Marxist.
I liked the article, especially the contributions of Ye Olde Statistician. I think that “godless” is not quite right; “anti-Catholic” would come closer to the mark, though even that makes it sound as though their chief motivation is the downfall of the Church, rather than the elevation of Mammon, the Self, Uncle Sam, the Party, or (insert favorite idol here).
It’s pretty simple; these folks are not conservative. Conservatives of all stripes believe in the three F’s; Faith, Family, and Freedom. These ones only appear to believe in the last one.
Thanks for posting to an article featuring comments by Ye Olde Statistician. He’s always a delight to read. As I commented on the exchange, I wonder if someone could come up with a link-list featuring all of his combox exchanges, so people could read more of his writing.
I do find it somewhat humourous when people on the internet (which is primarily for storing, sharing, and retrieving information) criticize the Holy Catholic Church for asking a body of scientists for information on science. Somehow they think that the church was ignorant of science during the Galileo fiasco, and therefore the church is wrong when it decides that it doesn’t want to be ignorant of the state of our climate. I am not so sure that this is a case of god-less conservatism attacking the church as it is frustrated people simply blaming the church for anything they can to feel better about dissapearing glaciers.
I always find it amazing that so many people are sure they are right, and the Church must be wrong when it teaches on matters of prudential judgement. I will grant the Church could be wrong, but a Catholic should be very careful before parting from the Church’s teaching in matters of prudential judgement.
—
The Church is rarely going to endorse the platform of any political party uncritically because rarely is any political party (And I use this term informally, not necessarily meaning Democratic or Republican) going to make efforts to embrace the positions of the Church. Nor should the church ultimately fail to speak about certain positions for fear that people will associate them with others who agree with them on those positions but not on other positions. People will always find ways, and excuses to try to reduce the authority of the Church sometimes even as they pretend to defend that very authority.
@michael depietro
But as was pointed out, it is not a discussion of climate change from the Vatican. It was a report from a panel of scientists under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. It was a report =to= the Vatican, not =from= the Vatican. In principle, it is no different from the scientific report made by the physicists regarding the upstart mathematician, Galileo. Certainly, the Vatican has not gone as green as the Ecumenical Patriarch, regarding whom no one sees fit to comment, but prudent stewardship and conservation are surely not a bizarre position to take for one entrusted by the master with many talents.
+ + +
The first time YOS encountered anti-Catholic prejudice to his face was when he was working out West and met conservatives for the first time.* They wore Masonic rings the size of small boulders and made frequent reference to priest-ridden believers in myths. It was not until much later that the socialist wing of liberalism destroyed it. One finds, for example, Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson even in the 1970s denouncing abortion. The collapse of liberalism came sometime after that, as the “new left” gained control of the discourse.
(*) YOS had grown up in a purely Catholic milieu, meeting his first Protestant at age 20, and Catholicism is inherently liberal. But note the lower-case ‘l’. The term is from L. liberalis: lit. “pertaining to a free man.” Meanings “befitting free men, noble, generous,” “free in bestowing,” “free from prejudice, tolerant,” from c.1801 as a pejorative: “tending in favor of freedom and democracy.” Technically, all Americans are liberal. Some are conservative liberals, others are liberal liberals. In Europe, our conservatives are called “liberals.”
We really ought to be good stewards of the talents that the master has left in our care, for one day we must give an accounting of our stewardship. But it is not necessarily the case that any political program with a feel-good title constitutes good stewardship. The Law of Unintended Consequences if nothing else will complicate matters. Carbon credit trading had the look and feel of good market-based practices; but was little more than a get-rich scheme for a set of entrepreneurs wearing green make-up.
But the rise of the omnicompetent State was at least facilitated by the abdication of the individual and his retreat into a personal, Nietzscho-Randian atomic consumerism. The call to justice was a call to each and every one of us personally; but we couldn’t be bothered and let the government handle it.
But one of the markers of the Modern Ages was the increasing power of the totalizing State. From the 16th cent. onward, kings became monarchs became divine-right absolute monarchs; then were replaced by parliaments who collectively continued the totalizing trend, finally telling folks how to flush their toilets, or that they cannot teach their child phonics at home. Libertarians are simply absolute monarchs of very small kingdoms, and are thus the other extreme example of this totalizing trend. Lost between the totalizing State and the totalizing Individual is the Community: all those local and particular societies, clubs, guilds, parishes, and (most of all) families to whom we collectively owe our good fortunes and well-being; those whom Tocqueville characterized as the small battalions of everyday life.
PHEW!!! Thank you, Mark!!
“They hate the Faith every bit as much as some abortion-besotted bigot from Planned Parenthood.”
What a joke. Is this what EWTN owned NCR is peddling these days?
jasper
What a joke.
YOS
Why? Do you think they hate the faith =more= than do abortion-besotted bigots from Planned Parenthood? Or did you not read the comments in the thread that was referenced?
The devil sends his lies into the world in opposing pairs. Liberal-conservative, capitalist/ socialist, right/ left. I have noticed the same endless rants (although far more vulgar) on most yahoo news items relating to the church. It’s like listening to a hoard of demons grousing to each other in hell.
Jasper:
I’d be interested to hear your answer to YOS. You seem to think it self-evident that what I said was contrary to the Faith. Could you explain how this is so and why what I wrote somehow undermines EWTN’s or NCR’s mission of providing Catholic media? I always sort of thought that standing up for Holy Mother Church against historically and theologically illiterate bigots was part of EWTN’s and NCR’s mission. You seem to think that it’s their mission to stand with the bigots as long as they are *conservative* historically and theologically illiterate bigots. Thanks for illustrating my point about the inroads this mentality is making with some Catholics.
YOS writes
“But as was pointed out, it is not a discussion of climate change from the Vatican. It was a report from a panel of scientists under the auspices of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. It was a report =to= the Vatican, not =from= the Vatican. In principle, it is no different from the scientific report made by the physicists regarding the upstart mathematician, Galileo.”
This is really irrelevant. It is a distinction without a difference. If a Pontifical Academy makes a statement it will be interpreted in the media as having some degree of Vatican Approval, as indeed it probably does. After all the Vatican decides whose opinion to ask, if one looks at what the invited individuals have said in the past, what they have published etc, you already know what opinion they will have. In fact on some level this this kind of behavior is even worse. I would wonder who, using what criteria, decided whose opinion to seek out…. Because one could predict the opinion by looking at the guest list.
Well actually no need to wonder, the info is on the Vatican Web site, In fact the whole statement of the working group is. The first thing one notices is that some of the participants are not climate scientists at all. for example Carlo Rubbia is a particle physicist. The next thing one notes is the statement cites as evidence the now discredited report from the IPCC on Glacier melting. (For those interested see this link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 ) The report did not include any global warming skeptics nor did it cite any evidence. It has about the same reliability as the scientists who were probably giving the Vatican advice in the Galileo case.
BTW I am not sure why YOS brings up Galileo at all. This tends to prove the point that when the Church involves itself in issues, the crux of which depend on the assessment of scientific data, the Church tends to do badly. The Holy Spirit does not get involved in such cases, save to limit the damage foolish and ill prepared clerics do to the Church. The very fact that the Church can survive such nonsense is proof of its devine origin, but I digress.
In fact one would think that the Church has its hands pretty full right now with some things that actually fall within its purview. We have a complete collapse of Christian Culture in the West. ( What percentage of Europeans belive in God? About 5% are reported to have a formal tie to a Church, or Christian religion. We have the March of Jihadist Islam, with its wide spread associated persecution, even torture and murder of Christians. ( Just recently a Coptic Christian had his eyes gouged out and was beheaded.) Loss of vocations, Wide spread acceptance of things the Church defines as serious sins, abortion, contraception, fornication, gay marriage. Not to mention the ubiquitous sexual abuse crisis, which is bad enough in itself, but has served as useful club with which the enemies of the Church can bash her. And what are some in the Vatican doing these days… Oh yes we are worrying about Climate Change…
Frankly this should embarass someone over there. I think someone in the Curia must think by releasing these kind of reports they prove they “with it” and in spite of all that medieval stuff they have to preach about sex and what not.. they are really pretty cool after all. So they invite a set of liberal scientists ( one of them had the late science populist and mocker of religion Carl Sagan as his mentor!) over to the Vatican and give them a platform. There they can promote the Global warming bunk that most of the European Union Governments have started to dismiss anyway. The Vatican is apparently naive to the fact that some of the claims may be out and out scientific fraud. All for what? Maybe this will get some of the elite opinon over in Europe to like them a little. Good grief!
Mark,
My wife and I have been married for nearly 56 years, attend and participate in Mass nearly every day, have five children (one of whom was ordained to the priesthood 24 years ago, and still serves in that capacity) and 12 grandkids.
My objection to AGW (man-caused global warming) is based on the Viking occupation of Greenland from about 1000 A.D. for about 400 years (approx 1420 A.D.), WHEN THE WEATHER IN GREENLAND HAD BECOME TOO COLD FOR THE SETTLERS TO GROW CROPS FOR A SUCCESSION OF OVERLY COLD SUMMERS.
The AGW proponents fail to offer any explanation for the succession of cold years that led to the Vikings abandoning their Greenland colony.
Time/Life Science series published this information about 1970, long before the AGW proponents began to blame objectors on the oil companies.
The AGW scientists are mostly in govt employ, whether US govt or European govts. Their employers have a stake in increasing their power over the rest of us. They cherry pick the data to support their case, and ignore facts such as the Greenland Viking data above, when it fails to fit their thesis.
In the last week you have published a couple of columns showing bias against catholics who don’t “buy” the theories of persons who want to expand govt control over the rest of us. How do you think that will help those of us who object to the abortion industry? How about other pro-life positions, that the current US executive branch is trying to outlaw?
Social Justice is NOT aided by policies that destroy human life, pre-born or other.
TeaPot562
@Mary Petnel. With apologies to Lincoln when talking about Gen’l Grant’s ability to defeat the Confederates, allow me to inquire on this commentary thread what size of brush and color of paint Mark is using because I want to see more work like this. We can’t spare good writers like Mark in the Church. He gets results.
Sure looks like he turned the heat up around the edge of your high collar.
I’m considered by many in my very liberal county in rural New England to be a few steps to the right of Attila, Kaiser Wilhelm II (and who cares, as far as I’m concerned.) Boy, do I feel like I’ve been reborn as some PC’out flaming rad-lib compared to some of the Righties commenting in the Register. Sometimes I wonder that perhaps I should’ve stopped at the local Episcopal Church when I left an evangelical church my family wandered to for some time because I’m obviously not up to snuff for today’s new lean n’ mean bunch of Catholic Righties.
Something tells me I’m not cut out for this circular firing squad activity the newer and pullin’-no-punches-PROUDLY-conservative-American-catholics of today. (The “sequentials” and mixed use of upper and lower case lettering for the previous sentence are hardly coincidentially mixed together.)
Mark, keep on painting, brother. Maybe you can permanently cover the lingering stains of McCarthyism and all the other interesting facets of the Right’s not-so-right Dark Side.
By the way, wasn’t it that ever “bold and courageous” congressman with the boyish Eddie Munster haircut who strongly (LOL) advised (more LOL) his staff to read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”?
Teapot:
I have no idea how what you are saying relates to the point of this blog entry. If I may hazard a guess, it appears to mean, “Why are you criticizing any conservatives anywhere when the only issue in the entire world that matters is abortion?” But that’s just a guess since I really couldn’t decode your point.
Steven: Yep. Rand is one of the new “leading thinkers” for the Thing that Used to be Conservatism. She’s as big a God hater as they come, but so long as she tickles our ears with a little rhetoric against the Collective we’ll let that slide.
Mark,
Apologies if I misread your blog; but I somehow understood you to say, among other things, that the Vatican supports the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) concept. I am interjecting the idea that some practicing Catholics strongly reject the AGW idea, and that a scientific basis exists for that rejection.
TeaPot562
No, Mark was simply noting that the commentators on WUWT reacted to the Pontifical Academy report by spewing all sorts of anti-Catholic bias rather than simply say (as some did in fact say) that the scientists were wrong and the report was ill-advised. It was the Church butting into Science (again!) and never mind that it was the scientists who were telling this to the Church rather than vice versa.
To put it another way: they may be fellow travelers on the anti-AGW road, but they are fiercely anti-Catholic and check their skepticism at the door when it comes to history.
“BTW I am not sure why YOS brings up Galileo at all.”
Because the Catholic-bashers on the original GW thread brought it up - along with Constantine, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the chicken-hawking, and all the other Usual Stuff. The contention regarding Galileo was that the Church was “as usual” against Really Truly Science, when in fact the Church was relying on the advice of the then-scientists.
One thing I suppose the Curia is not is “naive.” I would take care in applying a model of the Curia’s subconscious yearning for acceptance.
Yep. You misread me. The entry is not about AGW, but about the emergence of a species conservatism every bit as hostile to God and the Church as anything on the left. The entry happened to be occasioned by a bunch of critics of global warming, but it’s not about global warming.
Msrk,
my bad, you do make a good point.
@YOS — Are you planning to write a book? If you do, let me know when it comes out and I’ll buy it!
Jasper:
Thank you.
Anthony: You are in luck. YOS is a very accomplished author and you can get a bunch of his books here. I would recommend Eifelheim as personal favorite. His The January Dancer is very good too. I hope I’m not embarrassing him, but I’m a big fan and love pointing people to his work.
@YOS,
I think your short posts successfully teach more than whole books sometimes. I remember reading your comments about “no aristotle, no science” a few weeks back. Have you ever considered writing a column?
Facts and truth are not the same thing. Great article!
Accuracy in media.
Report: authors met at the Vatican from April 2 to April 4, 2011 under the invitation of Chancellor Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo of the pontifical academy. The report was issued by the Vatican today and will be presented to Pope Benedict XVI.
There’s more
Vatican Backs Obama’s Global Agenda
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/vatican-backs-obamas-global-agenda/
Catholic Church Goes Green To Counter Global Warming
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/may/10/catholic-church-goes-green-counter-global-warming/
Vatican Backs Obama’s Global Agenda
http://endrtimes.blogspot.com/2009/11/vatican-backs-obamas-global-agenda.html
There are seemingly endless articles of the Vatican and the Obama administration agreeing on too many things. On the site you link to there are no doubt alot of conservative athiest which are no better for society than liberal christians. Liberal christians mostly voted for the President of death, Barach Obama. But they are still christians. And they rip catholics any time they get on blogs. And Ayn Rand has nothing to do with christians disagreeing with the vatican. I still believe there are more christians than athiest. It was a huge mistake for the vatican to release that report. Defending that report is no different than defending your right to smoke in a room filled with non smokers. sorry
FYI TIME: Accuracy in Media (AIM) is, and has long been, an integral part of the HARD Christian Right Wing. Sometimes I’ve applauded its stories and sometimes I’ve wondered where they’re coming from insofar as the Church is directly concerned. A few years ago when reports like this first surfaced from AIM, my first reaction was, “Some ‘never-say-die’ Protestants who’ll jump at any morsel to bite the Vatican on. Turns out that their leader. Actually it’s rather ecumenical, (theologically speaking, only.) It’s Director, Cliff Kincaid is an early alum of the National Journalism Center which I also attended in 1983.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I tangled with Mr. Kincaid about several of his tough pieces about the Vatican’s listing to port on environmental issues. In one of his replies he urged me to get in with the conservative Catholics on this side of the pond to protest the Vatican’s policies. He’s firm, some might say tough (but people might think that of my style, if not the equal to low-number-grade sandpaper, it can be close LOL) and he’s obviously biased.
It seems odd, however, for most Catholics to read from purported conservative “loyalists” articles and books instructing Catholics that we’re supposed to demonstrate respectful loyalty to the Holy Father and Magisterium, and that the liberals have messed things up for the past 40+plus years with all their open dissent against whatever any Pope and the Magisterium have had to say on X, Y, or Z issue—only to find AIM taking pot shots at the Holy See.
Makes me wonder sometimes if our holier-than-thou, and more-Catholic-than-the-Pope-“conservative-loyalists” on this side of the Atlantic are a bit paranoid of the prospect that non-Catholics will take their (purported and loudly proclaimed devotedness to the Catholic Faith) could still leave them open to whispering within the America Uber Alles element that still controls the agenda for much of the churning out of the latest groupthink talking points. “Psssst, you know, even though they proclaim to be loyalist Americans, some of those conservative Catholics also have this ‘divided loyalty’ issue to ‘settle’ to our pleasure.”
Wm. Buckley, Jr. Russell Kirk and other notable Catholic giants within the Conservative Movement never had problems dealing with this issue. Unlike so many of today’s conservative pundits, the old timers were more interested in finding ways to build America and keep her strong without having to also sacrifice a millionth of a millimeter’s worth of their loyalty to their Catholic Faith. Today’s conservative pundit pack is more interested in sniping at liberals and finding ways to encourage Congress to help make sure Pres. Obama fails; even going so far as to remain silent when high level Republican Congressmen have shown their willingness to let the nation’s good credit be deliberately tarred from within for the sole purpose of causing more job losses, thus further greasing the President’s skids.
Mull on that: job losses, rising interest rates, thus increasing the likelihood of more home foreclosures, etc. This is a nightmare that won’t end when the alarm clocks ring. They’re willing to bet the good name of the U.S., and the “house” of our domestic and the entire international economy just to get Barack Obama out of office.
Buckley and Kirk must be gyrating in their graves at what’s become of the movement they carefully shaped and nurtured; only for it to be hijacked by economic traitors whose only goal is to bet everything so they can play Brutus and rewrite the script of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” to their liking.
No matter how much one dislikes Barack Obama and his administration, nobody has the right to play political games with the common good of our economic well-being ... especially so they can obtain all the levers of power that’ll enable them to generate more tax breaks for the wealthy, denude Wall Street and even Main Street of all fiscal and good business rules of conduct and consumer protection, labor and safety laws, child labor laws, public education, and of course, environmental protection laws, etc. Want more examples? Ask Kincaid and AIM’s ideal conservative Catholics, Paul Ryan and John Boehner. (Remember, Ryan pushed his staff to read “Atlas Shrugged.” Too bad he acts like he’s never heard of Dorothy Day.
Never mind the handy bogeyman of the past that the Catholic Right loves to point to when disloyalty to the Magisterium comes up for discussion: Hans Kung. We have plenty of our own home-grown cafeteria catholic conservatives who preach loyalty to the Holy See from rooftops and display their love of the nation and wear Old Glory as a toga. But ask yourself who’s really the disloyal ones we should all be concerned about.
It’s not the “godless right” we need to worry about. They’ve never been terribly successful when it comes to weaving their message into the fabric of mainstream American reading. It’s not the old-line religious conservative “religious right” we need to watch out for. Keep your eye peeled on the money trail and connect the dots between today’s smiley faces and mindless dolts who’ve thrown their hats into the ring for the GOP presidential nomination (and future lucrative book contracts and television network contracts, of which the latter is most likely to come their way…and THEY KNOW IT.)
I’d be more concerned about our present-day preachy know-it-alls who don’t understand the beautiful simplicity of the First Amendment and the common sense of the Church’s (official) Tradition when it comes to Social & Economic Justice.
BTW, does anybody think the chattering crowd leading the avante garde elite of what’s become of the so-called “Catholic Right” could even come close to passing a routine loyalty test if administered by the Magisterium? We’d sure be discovering that a lot of these Catholics are still pretty Protestant and very American-ist when their m.o. has more light focused on it.
@Larry
One more try. Mark was not commenting on whether there is global warming, nor whether it is man-made, nor even whether the Church was wise to ask for such a report or to rely on top scientists in the field to prepare it. His point was that it occasioned an outburst of virulent anti-Catholic vitriol.
.
.
Nor is it always wise to rely on PBS for factual reporting regarding the Church. Even so, we only find KPBS reporting in the link provided that the Vatican said:
“We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us.”
This would be true advice whether global warming is a fact or not, whether it is man-made or not, even whether it is harmful or not.
@ Ye Oldie
I understand what Mark was talking about.
And I never watch kpbs.
Tha point is that the Vatican aligned themselves with some phonies who were busted releasing bad data concerning global warming and used it in their report. The Vatican would state that “we are committed to ensuring” etc…...whether they used a bad report or not. Releasing the report and the statement at the same time was simply a bad idea in my humble opinion.
This only made the situation worse. My question is Now What? Do they stick with a bad report? Certainely they will get grief either way.
Just a note: The Church was right in its behavior in the Galileo affair. Besides the fact that Galileo was WRONG (the sun is not the center of the universe, but merely the solar system), he did not have the empirical evidence to back up his point. He had merely a mathematical theory. And “the math works” is not sufficient to prove a point when it comes to physics, because physics has to take into account more than just the quantitative aspects of physical reality. So to say “the Galileo affair proves the Church shouldn’t speak on science” is ridiculous.
Furthermore, as St. Thomas says, theology is the queen of the sciences. The queen has to keep an eye on what the subjects are doing. Hence, the Church needs an advisory committee.
“Just a note: The Church was right in its behavior in the Galileo affair.”
That’s what Huxley said.
“Besides the fact that Galileo was WRONG (the sun is not the center of the
universe, but merely the solar system),”
But that makes everyone else wrong, too.
“he did not have the empirical evidence to back up his point.”
That is correct, and the reason why Huxley said “The Church had the better case.” Where she was wrong was in hounding an old and respected man over a matter of personal pride and (as some have seen it) as a political distraction from a major scandal.
no, nobody thinks the sun is the center of the universe (certainly no modern physicist). They think the sun is the center of the solar system.
Oh, and I should note that that response was not intended for you, YOS, but for those who think that in some way it proves that the Church should have no court with science. Whether or not they are right (and I firmly contend that they aren’t), their example does not prove what they think it does.
When it comes to prudential judgements, George Weigel’s biography of Pope John Paul II mentions that John Paul II admired and worked with President Reagan to defeat communism, while the mid-level bureaucrats in the Church issued manifestoes against him that were supposed to represent the teachngs of the Church…
The fundamental fact of the relationship between the Catholic and English speaking world is that almost everything that modern Americans think that they know about Church and medieval history was handed to us by Victorian era British Protestants. The arrogance, ignorance and bigotry of that legacy has poisoned the relationship.
A lesser, but still important fact is that far too much of the Church is hopelessly, shamefully gullible to the claims of the modern left. The Church preaches stewardship and so accepts whole the power and money driven claims of the environmental left and their corporate sponsors. As if the one demanded the other. Is it too much to ask that one look behind the slogans and claims. Apparently.
The last time I checked, there’s only one Magisterium and it’s name isn’t the Acton Institute.
Look, it’s one thing to be devoted to your religion and respectful of its history, but this darn post (and many of the attached comments) and dangerously close to revisionism. The issue with the Church’s treatment of Galileo isn’t whether or not its treatment of his thinking was scientifically proper, it’s that he was placed under house arrest. Can’t we agree that, perhaps, such a move was a step too far?
The Church has had flaws, has flaws, and will have flaws — it isn’t bigotry to say so. And the history provided in this article is as cherry-picked as any I might expect to find on any so-called “bigoted” source.
He moved twice while under “house arrest” was one of the Pope’s scientific advisers, was assigned a servant so that the house arrest would not be onerous, and had the authority to summon any colleagues and research materials he wanted. It was “house arrest” in name only, especially for a guy his age. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe he was being sentenced to death in absentia.
Now, should he have been made exempt from the law of his day? Whole other discussion. But the fact is he was guilty as charged.
Note that the most immovable object in Italy was Galileo in his villa. In his old age, he seldom left it and then only under cajoling. So he was sentenced to what he had been inclined to do before the trial. It’s what we would call a fave-saving plea bargain. The trial was an embarrassment to all concerned, and should never have gotten as far as it did.
Mark’s original point was the way supposed conservatives latched on to anti-Catholic propaganda at the drop of a hat. They cited the trial as an example (and note that it is the only examples ever cited) of the supposedly age-old war against science. They did not cite it as a personal vendetta by an old friend offended at the way he had been treated in print, or of bureaucratic overreach, or any of the things it really was.
While perusing my mail for interesting things, I came across this story about the Right that might prove illuminating for some folks who might not otherwise be prone to examining what the Right is pretty much up to these days.
While I couldn’t exactly call the activities and people described as “godless,” their agendas betray a diabolical streak when it comes to the Far Right’s overall plans for the nation’s future. My “link source” definitely leans to port, but by and large, the writer did a terrific job of capturing much of what passes for Right Wing politics these days.
http://www.alternet.org/story/151213/devos,_koch,_scaife,_walton,_alec,_afc:_the_corporate_royalists_and_right-wing_groups_propelling_the_gop’s_assault_on_the_middle_class?page=1
A little revelation. Back in the 90s when I was more conservative, my wife and I joined Amway. Oh boyyyyyyyyyyy. Need I say more? The DeVos and Yager famiglias converted me out of contemporary non-intellectual conservatism and back into the mainstream of American thought. For that I can thank them. That much. But their new agenda and their links with other outfits that truly want to turn the clocks back to the days of gas-lit street lights, or more crazily, back to the days of the “Originalists” and Constitution’s founding. However, does anybody suppose they want to return to anti-Catholic laws, slavery, debtors prisons and poor farms? Well, Catholics seem to be off the hook legally, but be careful not to get arrested in any states where the privatized penal systems have set up sweetheart in-sourcing deals where to keep the prisoners occupied, they’re hired at the grand total of a buck or so an hour to make what minimum or union-wage workers used to make parts for Microsoft, lingerie for Victoria’s Secret, etc. If they’re reintroducing semi-slavery, some privatized poor farm will be opening and bare-bones half-way workhouses for old folks who can’t afford to live in nursing homes because Medicaid has been chucked to pay down the national debt (and reward wealthy contributors to pols who made this change possible).
That’s not all, if you’re a public school teacher, you’ll find Mitch Daniels and Mrs. DeVos’ ideas about public school teachers and private education most revealing, if not disgustingly frightening.
It’ll take a helluvalot of soap to wash what these people will leave upon the public scene after they’ve left the scene.
Maybe we should ask THEM, “Hey, have YOU ever thought of other ways of making money besides sponsoring union busting firms, trash-talking public educators down, privatizing this, that and God-knows-what-else so the wealthy can continue living comfortably in their gated communities?” When you do this, make sure you give ‘em an “ad-pack” containing one tape each from the AFL-CIO, and Catholic Bishops about social/economic justice.
Take a look at what the godlessness of today’s Right hath wrought and pay close attention to the story about Paul Ryan’s peculiar ideas about the debt ceiling.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/07/237560/10-years-bush-tax-cuts/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/02/234878/gop-nutrition-cuts-one-week/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/09/240638/paul-ryan-calls-for-default/
Hmmmmm, weren’t conservatives the ones always harking at the rest of society to make sure its debts were paid because it was the proper thing to do in order ot make sure we have an orderly run economy, etc.? (Ho ho, and I haven’t even dug into the Bible to find nuggets of wisdom to counter Ryan’s madness.
While it’s true that the main backers of GOP groups tend to be millioaires, the backers of Democratic groups tend to be billionaires (Gorge Soros, et al.)
For instance, look at the group who demanded that the government of Alaska turn over all of Sarah Palin’s private e-mails.
@Steven,
Please tell me you are not quoting George Soros’ “thinkprogress.org” as legitimate fodder to support your arguments.
And please do not try to use Catholic tradition and Sacred Scripture to prop up organized labor as it currently exists. Unions are the modern day proponents (both financially and in rhetoric) of such hard-left causes as abortion on demand, forced Marxism and same-sex marriage.
Growing up in Michigan, I, too, have experience with both the DeVos’ and labor unions. You will not find a bigger supporter of Catholic education than the DeVos’ (even though they are not Catholic) and you will not find a more savagely anti-Catholic education entity than labor unions.
I think I’ll trust my own eyes rather than your annecdotal, Amway-selling, Soros quoting version of the truth. Nice try, though.
@Jay: Let’s see, you’d rather put your trust in the writings of Dexter Yager and Rich DeVos than Leo XIII and John Paul II about Labor. Well, if that’s you’re tradition, I can see you make a nice fan for the lupine economics of the DeVos, Amway and Yager’s empire. (And boy, does that last guy have his yachts and power speed boats always listing hard right.). BTW, did I ever come out in favor of Communism, abortion and same sex-marriage?
Your post made for interesting reading. Now I think I’ll check my daily update from Thom Hartmann’s radio show.
Hey, how much LOC do they need to clean up those Blackwater choppers?
I very much agree with “Ronsonic"s comment that Catholics in the English speaking world have derived much of their historical “knowledge” from British Protestants of the 19th century. Because of the growth of newer militant forms of left-wing anti-Christianity in recent decades and also because of the emergence of left-liberalism in the Church, Catholics tend to forget that old school Liberal Protestant anti-Catholicism is very much alive and kicking. Often indeed the “new atheists” are difficult to distinguish from the old anti-papists. For instance Richard Dawkins has stated that he is quite fond of the Anglican Church as have other leading atheist propagandists in Britain and Ireland. Contrast this with their crazed vitriol towards all things Catholic. This strong preference of the secular Liberal establishment for Protestantism over Catholicism explains why Protestant clerical sex abuse scandals never make the headlines and why anti-Catholic films such as the Elizabeth and Pirates of the Carribeans are churned out regularly by Hollywood.In recent years I’ve been increasingly struck by how anti-Catholicism crops up in subtle and not so subtle ways in films, sit-coms, soap-operas, novels, documentaries etc. Often too there is a strong undercurrent of racial hostility in the media towards ethnic groups traditionally associated with Catholicism e.g. Irish, Spanish, Latin Americans.
As for Catholics getting no respect in fiction, I once read about a movie about the late Playmate Dorothy Stratten that her husband/murderer Eric Stratten actually wore a Star of David around his neck, but the producers changed it to an “S” because they didn’t want to offend anyone. And look at all the fictional terrorists and murderers who are Europeans rather than Muslims or members of minorities.
And then look at all the completely fictional low-lifes who wear huge crucifixes around their necks.
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