File this one under the heading “defending the indefensible.”
Author and blogger John Allen, of the National Catholic Reporter (not the Register, just to avoid any misunderstanding), is a competent and insightful journalist whose pieces I enjoy reading.
Mostly.
A thing that occasionally mars them is his desire to play waggish phrasemaker, a role in which he can display a tin ear.
For instance, in today’s column he writes:
I may have inadvertently added fuel to the fire by introducing something new to fight over: My phrase “Taliban Catholicism” to capture a certain trajectory within the church. (At least I think I coined the term, though for all I know somebody else got there first.)
In my brief remarks Monday night, I applauded [Bishop Kevin] Farrell’s vision, underscoring it with a bit of rhetoric that’s become part of my standard stump speech. A defining challenge for the church these days, I said, is to craft a synthesis between entirely legitimate hunger for identity on the one hand, and engagement with the great social movements of the time on the other.
That synthesis, I said, has to involve striking a balance between two extremes. Here’s how I described them:
“On the one extreme lies what my friend and colleague George Weigel correctly terms ‘Catholicism Lite,’ meaning a watered-down, sold-out form of secularized religiosity, Catholic in name only. On the other is what I call ‘Taliban Catholicism,’ meaning a distorted, angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate, condemn, and smash the TV sets of the modern world.”
Allen then recounts how he was politely taken to task by a member of the audience he was addressing and offers two defenses of his use of the term “Taliban Catholicism.”
First, he says that he uses the terms “Catholic Lite” and “Taliban Catholicism” not to describe specific people but states of mind. Second, he says that he doesn’t use them to refer to the left or right portions of the theological/political/whatever spectrum and that both exist on both sides of the spectrum.
These are pretty weak excuses to my mind.
Unless one has the linguistic bullheadedness of Humpty Dumpty, it should be recognized that words do not just have stipulative definitions where you get to use them the way you want to, with no thought to the real-world consequences.
Words are used by communities, and when you create compound terms like “Catholic Lite” or “Taliban Catholicism,” they’re going to suggest particular things to the community. In this case, no matter what Allen might subjectively mean by these terms, they’re going to be taken by contemporary English-speaking Catholics of the type found in his audience as references to the Catholic “left” and the Catholic “right.”
That’s what the audience is going to automatically assume.
Perhaps, with a lot of explanation and exposition and disclaimers by Allen, he could overcome that initial perception, but that’s what the initial perception is going to be.
But there’s an even more fundamental problem.
There is just no parity whatsoever between Weigel’s term “Catholic Lite” (incorporating a reference to low-calorie food products) and Allen’s own “Taliban Catholicism” (incorporating a reference to murderous thugs with whom we are at war).
It is as if Allen had used the phrase “Al-Qa’eda Catholicism” or “Nazi Catholicism.”
Now matter how many Humpty Dumpty games you play with these terms, they are just going to generate more heat than light.
Allen is smart enough to know that.
I chose the picture that I did for this post to call to mind the kind of murderous thugs that the Taliban are. But this picture doesn’t tell the half of it. In searching for it, I came across far more disturbing and violent pictures of the Taliban. People they had killed. People they were about to behead. People about to be shot in the head. I don’t suggest that anyone go looking for such pictures, but they underscore the force of the word “Taliban” and just the kind of evil with which it is associated.
Allen’s “Taliban Catholicism” is said to “excoriate, condemn, and smash the TV sets of the modern world.” The real Taliban has done far, far worse acts than that, which is precisely why his use of the term to refer to people who—however much they rage against certain things in the modern world—do not actually commit Taliban-like atrocities is disgusting.
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By using the word taliban in relation to Catholicism, John Allen has acted in an irresponsible and incendiary manner. When one thinks of the acts of destruction and killings of the Taliban, one is horrified. Is that what Mr. Allen would like to see associated with those who espouse the teachings of the Church? There may be some individuals whose actions may be out of line, who may not act as ladies or gentlemen, but those are a person’s actions - not “Catholicism”. To hear the term Mr. Allen used was like a knife in my heart. How could he ever use an adjective like “taliban” in reference to his own Faith. I will pray that he somehow comes out with a sincere and strong apology to those who love Christ and His Church.
Pray for Catholics just looking to make a name for themselves. And though you are a writer and apologist and therefore have an excuse most of us don’t need to waste time on the National Catholic Reporter and any other publication, institution, OR “AUTHOR,” loosely using the term Catholic.
Mr. Akin: Half way through your article, my thoughts were the same as yours at the end. Journalists should be real careful of what ‘words’ they use. John Allen’s use of word Taliban is insulting to all ‘kinds’ Catholics. It made me cringe. I also don’t like the term ‘cafeteria’ Catholics. People who disagree on a certain law of the church are “thinking” people—-just as some priests and cardinals do. Only Gods laws are ‘in stone’ and never changes. When people stop ‘thinking’ of what is going on in their Churches, you have a Jim Jones or Taliban mentality. Again, only God’s laws are permanent.
The National Catholic REPORTER tends to pander to the “Catholic Lite” audience.
I’m sure most of us that read the NC REGISTER are among the “Taliban Catholism” point of view that he speaks of.
Where do you think St. Paul, the evangelists, any of the Saints would fall in his 2 categorys?
Sorry, doesn’t look like St. Maximillian Kolbe in the picture to me!
It’s as if they (the left) have long ago misplaced the Liturgy of the Hours and replaced it with new age slush. GOD needs to catch up—this is their message. But where ever you see much needed repair in the church today and the repair thank God, is becoming visible, it’s cause is always the restoration of prayer life which, without fail, draws them back to study, which, without fail re-forms their damaged conscience, which together with the help of God’s grace refits them to teach and preach, i.e, evangelize. Here’s a message for Mr. Allen, indeed for all of us. I read this just this morning. “The Lord needs strong and courageous souls who refuse to come to terms with mediocrity, but who will be able to enter into all kinds of environments with a sure step” and I add—in the name of Christ and for His sake. We need to pray that these new age prophets return to prayer. God answers prayer!
“Thinking” Catholics are quite often wrong, depending on how often they disagree with dogmatic fundamentals of Catholic teaching.
Obviously the charged Taliban name that Allen attaches to some Catholics that he disagrees with is meant to conflate physical violence and the immorality of their tyranny with orthodoxy. Until I see my priest wrap his head and grab a grenade launcher, I remain skeptical that Allen has anything remotely approaching a good point.
Although….
Having just watched most of the Super Bowl commercials that sell products most people don’t need by insinuating sexual deviance, marital infidelity and masturbation, I’m about ready to smash my TV also… guess I’m a Taliban Catholic! Hurr hurr hurr!
I think that Allen’s choice of words says more about him than about whom he desires to deride, because it cannot be anything else. If he wants to throw such a calumnious grenade on what he sees as the other side, the term Taliban applies more figuratively to him than to it.
Sue
There is such a thing as a Cafeteria Catholic. The Catholic Church speaks with the authority of Jesus and therefore of God. If you choose to ignore these teachings you are in fact acting out of pride and are a Cafeteria Catholic which really makes you a poor Catholic at best.
In his December 4 column, Allen uses the following terms to draw a distinction between two type of Catholics - “institutional” versus “populist” Catholicism. Others have used terms such as the “traditional” versus “questioning” Church. Others have used “faithful” versus “dissenting” Catholicism.
No matter what terms are used, I’ve found them distasteful. They seem to indicate that there are several churches, where, in fact, there is only one Catholic Church. Anything other than Catholic is outside the Church, and therefore non-Catholic.
When we try to play word games, we tend to come dangerously close to rejecting the authority of our local ordinary, the Magisterium, or the Pope. To do that is to cease to be Catholic.
At the end: Bottom line: When I talk about “Taliban Catholicism,” I know I’m playing with fire—but the point is to invite an examination of conscience across the board, myself very much included, not to slur one side or the other in Catholic debates.
This is old and wildly arrogant, “I’m just trying to get people to think” saw that shock artists use to justify work that is no better than pornography.
A label is used to quantify, qualify, and/or demean another group. Mr. Allen, re-announcing that he came up with the term as though he was expecting it to spread like a California wildfire, looks to be seeking only to slander: A sin, an injury, that will be committed every time it is used, and spread into a new heart every time it brings a chuckle by the ignorant user. Way to go dude.
Just like “teabaggers”.
Names mean so little any more. Actions dude.
To Paul C,
Just curious, what do you have against “teabaggers?”
kathy, let’s just say that “teabaggers” is a derogatory remark made about Tea Party supporters, and that the word has a very different connotation in the realm of young, immature, online speech. I’ll save you the trouble of looking for what it means by telling you that it’s not worth your time to look up.
Thanks for explaining, Chris. Guess I’m showing my age!
Mr. Allen’s use of the phrase “Taliban Catholicism” didn’t strike me as being that offensive. I knew what he was getting at. As to Jimmy’s contention that Allen’s explanation was somehow weak or disingenuous, I disagree. I’ve met “Taliban Catholics” at both ideological poles of the Church and the phrase fits. Perhaps it’s just me, but when I think of the Taliban, I don’t think of physical violence as much as religious intolerance.
Well Jim I suppose it is not offensive in the sense that vagueness is not offensive. Take for instance, “First, at least when I use them, the phrases ‘Catholicism Lite’ and ‘Taliban Catholicism’ are not intended to describe real people.” Well that’s convenient! He gets to sling mud and then can use this line to dive down the escape hatch if anyone calls him on it. Who said something Taliban-like? Why is what they said Taliban-like? You know, actual arguments and accountability. I think I read that in a manual somewhere.
If people can stray from the straight and narrow by walking too far towards either the Left or the Right, might it not be that there’s some underlying substance to Allen’s point, regardless of his poor choice of words? Or do we mean to say that any ideology that opposes “Catholic Lite” is, by definition correct, irrespective of its specific positions?
Eric, frankly no. We always get these left-right discussions and pleas for moderation but with no concrete examples. To wit: I’d love some “specific positions”. Instead, we get “somewhere, out there, someone is being a paleo-meanie.”
I think a label like “Catholic American” is a much kinder, gentler brand. We are a country hell bent on being at war with all Muslim nations. Just because we invaded a third world country that did not attack us, and created an anarchy within, that has resulted in the death of an estimated million civilians. That’s Cool?
Or our overflow war into Afghanistan, attacks into Pakistan, and threats to attack Iran, now that’s Catholic?
As mush as it is Catholic, it is Constitutional?
Why not Catholic, Constitutional, American?
Now, that sounds NICE!
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