Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

But, at least they oppose contraception under all circumstances and abortion to save a mother’s life.  Hmmm.  Maybe Dick Cheney would be the Right’s best ambassador to the Vatican - he’s so catholic in his views [sarcasm and small c intended].

Fiercely Conservative and Catholic Feddie of Southern Appeal denounced torture

So did Blackadder and Vox Nova. 

I am pretty sure the Anchoress did. 

We could go on.

"I am pretty sure the Anchoress did.”

Hmmm. Are you sure?

Joseph Marshall Says:
June 16th, 2005 at 5:31 pm

Torture is as torture does. What Durbin quotes as being done in Gitmo is torture. Period.

TheAnchoress Says:
June 16th, 2005 at 5:52 pm

Air conditioner is too high? Too low? Rap music?

Come on, Joe.

Giving these folks excellent food, Korans, prayer rugs and the opportunity for medical help, dentistry and prayer 5 x a day hasn’t made them tell us anything. What should we do next to try to get information from them?

Massage? Art Therapy?

There is a difference between pulling someone’s fingernails out and making them sweat, or stand for a few hours, or making them listen to rap. We DO need to be able to make fine distinctions, or we might as well just let everyone at Gitmo go back, reassemble and attack us again.

[Source: http://theanchoressonline.com/2005/06/16/sundries-shack-is-rip-roaring/}

I have terribly mixed feelings about Mark Shea.  On the one hand, he does occasionally produce postings like this one, penetrating and faithfully orthodox take-downs of arguments that desperately need to be challenged today.  He sometimes channels Orwell.

On the other hand, he is prone to fits of Limbaugh-esque bombast, arrogant dismissal of reasonable arguments that challenge his own assumptions, and a tendency to label anyone who disagrees with him on any subject as “unfaithful” or “liberal” depending on the context.  He sometimes channels Michelle Malkin.

Basically a decent guy, but too frustrating for me to read on a regular basis.  Thank you, Professor, for doing the work for me and delivering his good postings here.

There is a apresumption in the Missal that we are all, unarguably, ‘Cafeteria Catholics’. That is why we all call to mind our unworthiness at the beginning of Mass, and pronounce our unworthiness together when the Celebrant presents us with the miracle of transubstantiation.

The very concept that we can create groupings of particularly worthy and particularly unworthy Catholics is, in of itself, a distinctly non-Catholic point of view. That is, after all, precisely the sort of thinking that the Pharisee’s employed in distinguishing themselves from other Jews. We have heard the readings so many times that we tend to think of the Pharisee’s as obviously bad, but Jesus’ disciples would have overwhelmingly viewed them as ultra religious. They also happened to be overtly nationalistic xenophobes, widely viewed as war heros who had saved the nation.

As Pope Benedict points out, the parables are often viewed quite differently if you, for example, substitute ‘Ultra devout conservative Catholic’ for Pharisee and ‘homosexual pedophile’ for Publican. The problem, says Benedict, is that we no longer see ‘Pharisee’ as something that we, ourselves, aspire to be. That is why he likes the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke (which he says should be referred to as a parable of two sons). We cannot see ourselves as a nasty Pharisee, but we still would like to see ourselves as a dutiful son, who is admonished for the same sort of thinking as the Pharisee.

It is, of course, human nature to presume ourselves to be at the perfect fulcrum of correctness. As George Carlin noted, everyone who drives faster than us is ‘reckless’, everyone slower is an ‘idiot’. But we should try to keep that aspect of ourselves in mind.

For example, Stephen frequently uses the phrase ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ as a group separate from himself. But look at his post on the possible assignment of Kmiec as ambassador to the Holy See. Stephen quotes a tiny fragment from a Doctrinal Note from Rome to justify the elevation of Abortion to special, singular importance.

But if we look at the proceeding paragraph in the same document, it expressly rejects this type of thinking. Further, the very paragraph quoted goes on to list 9 broad issues that are not negotiable in voting.

To justify his opposite interpretation, Stephen proceeds to use a snippet of a never officially released letter from then Cardinal Ratzinger. However, the portion quoted has to do with application of CIC 915, not lay voting. That is discussed in a different portion of the same letter (excluded from Stephen’s link), where the example given is a Catholic licitly voting for a pro-abortion candidate.

Rather he meant to or not, Stephen has essentially cut sentence fragments for Church provided/related documents the way one might assemble a ransom note from a newspaper. Like such a note, he has arrived at a conclussion that is very much at odds with the originals. If that is *not* “cafateria Catholicism”, what is?

This is the problem with trying to translate the us/them mentality of right wing US politics, which is very strongly Evangelical Protestant in its basis to a religion where the last prayer we offer before receiving the Eucharist is one for unity and peace in our borderless Church.