Agreed. There's a point where "different viewpoint" can become a not-Catholic viewpoint, but it's really not our business as lay people to make that call.

I see by your blog that you're too young to have direct experience of the real post-VII silly season of the '70s and '80s. Although maybe you grew up in one of the places where it still thrives? Real live heresy was pretty rampant then--not subtle theological deviations but plain denial of fundamental doctrines, like the Real Presence--and it seemed that the hierarchy didn't care and sometimes even approved. That's the climate that produced the tendency you're describing, to equate "liberal" and "conservative" with "heretic" and "orthodox." I've certainly been that way. But that situation isn't nearly as bad as it was, and there is a strain of what I would call "liberal Catholicism" that's not heterodox.

Or at least not very.:-)

Anyway, I guess my point is that those of us who really value orthodoxy need to try not to be merely reactive. I've always figured that if I had been an adult Catholic pre-VII I probably would have been in the progressive party, or at least strongly sympathetic to it.

I think it would be really nice if Catholic meant orthodox Catholic and apostate/heretic/schismatic etc would simply be used to denote the other stuff.

Americanist Catholics, by and large, at least in their present incarnation, profess to be "orthodox Catholics" but the proof is in their real values, which seldom contradict American messianic nationalism.

That's a strange description of Grant Gallicho.

==

Whatever terminology you elect to use, I will wager the following will occur:

1. The Church and its apostolates will encounter petty (and sometimes crippling) harassment from institutions of the secular culture. The legal profession will be the most notable (among those who can bring any clout to bear).

2. You won't get diddly/squat out of Commonweal or America (if they continue to exist) other than passive-aggressive tripe. They understand themselves as an elect to be contrasted with the laity, not as confederates of anyone. http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Plojhar

3. The Society of Jesus will hit bottom at a census of of about 850 priests in the United States, most of them sexual deviants.

4. Formal secularization of the Catholic colleges will proceed piecemeal.

5. There will be a secular decline in the census of liberal Catholics as the children of the current generation of same fail to see the point.

6. There will be a secular decline in the census of orthodox Catholics as a large bloc of them discover that, push comes to shove, they are men without chests.

7. The hierarchy will equivocate as much as they can manage.

Speaking of Joseph Bottum, Mike Potemra at National Review provides a link to a piece Bottum has in Commonweal that Potemra says is "a fascinating and brave article making a Catholic case for same-sex marriage."

Well, I struggled through most of the meandering article, and from what I can tell Bottum thinks the Church should give up its position against same-sex civil marriage and be quiet about any other aspects of it because, well, opposition to it is just making the Church even more unpopular.

But perhaps I'm selling him short -- would love to hear other opinions on it.

If what I've read of Linker's career is accurate, he deserves considerable opprobrium.

I'm in broad agreement with your predictions. I think the Jesuits may have more life in them than you (and many) suspect. I look for a good deal of liberalizing, in all conventional senses of the term, in evangelical Protestantism, with the possible exception of the Southern Baptists. Certainly the non-denominational ones seem headed that way, toward a theological vagueness like the mainlines but with a lot more emotionalism.

I have no opinion about the IRPL. I've never read FT regularly.

I only have a moment right now, but Marianne, I have read the Bottum piece (someone linked to it on Fb) and my reaction was the same as yours. I'd call the piece the exact opposite of fascinating--it took me two determined efforts to win through to the end. Insofar as it has one central point, I think you summed it up better than he did. He's right about a lot of the specifics, of course, e.g. the desacralization of sex, but he's hardly the first to point that out.

I didn't see your comment last night. Or Louise's. I guess I didn't reload the page while reading and replying to Art.

Louise, I hope it didn't sound like I was belittling your comment. I didn't mean for it to sound that way, if it did.

More later today.

Marianne, I'm the person who put that Jody Bottum piece on facebook. I found it fascinating too. America has a culture of public, rational, 'court room style' debate that doesn't exist in the UK, for instance. I remember John Haldane commenting on it after a trip here a few years ago - about how refreshing it was to be treated on TV like someone with a rational argument, not someone who held a personal opinion. Now, in that culture, one is generally expected to give a rational argument for one's attitudes. Bottum's piece is interesting (or I thought so) because he is talking about what happens if the bottom falls out of the rational argument for marriage being between a man and a woman. He thinks it has, because for instance, arguments hanging on natural law have essentially 'religious' or poetic roots, and don't hold up without them. ('Religious' is my term - I think he used the term magical?). So how is some guy whose job it is to write for the papers and I guess sometimes to appear on TV going to defend 'traditional marriage' as being the only kind the state should recognize, if he doesn't have a rational argument to support his case?

I don't accept Bottum's conclusion, that we should give up teaching the Church's teaching on marriage. And that's because I don't accept his premises, which are really that Christian faith stands on rational evidence like icing sits on a cake. And in the end, I guess, that's why I find it so interesting. It's about the standing of faith in a culture based around rational, courtroom style argument.

The only way someone can avoid Bottum's conclusion who does not share my view that faith, and not reason, must be given priority, is to defend the notion that natural law is not based in religious insight / poetry / magic.

'nature' means something different to people who do not believe in God.

Oh, I missed the reference, Louise. Now I remember. That's funny.

My understanding of natural law - it may be quite defective - is that it is simply a reference to Reality and that the real nature of things is indeed written on our hearts, though ignorance and sin may obscure it. This is the case whether the person believes in it explicitly or not. I don't think I completely or even mostly disagree with Grumpy. I do think the natural law is based on Religion really, but since the Religion describes Reality and natural law is about Reality, well there is the connection. As I say though, my view may be defective and I'm not a philosopher.

I always gave McInerny more credit for Crisis than Novak. At any rate the former seemed the more substantial.

I have read a certain amount of McArdle, and don't think as highly as you do of her. I give her a lot of credit for truly endeavoring to think things through without ideological blinders, but she doesn't seem to have much of a foundation.

Related to Bottum's budgetary issues was his desire to move FT in a different direction. His vision was to turn it into a sort of Catholic version of 'The Atlantic,' hence the new design of the covers, artwork, etc. When Reno and D. Mills took over their immediate attention was given to saving the ship, which apparently had started taking water under Bottum's captaincy.

More even than natural law in the formal philosophic sense, I think what Maritain called "the pre-philosophy of common sense" has been rejected by same-sex marriage advocates.

Yes, that makes sense. Thanks for this idea, I find that pretty helpful. Maybe what I mean by natural law is more this "pre-philosophy of common sense." I find the whole "discussion" of so-called same sex "marriage" feels pretty degrading to me. Like people are spending a lot of time and energy debating about why the sky is green.

"...serious periodicals have either folded or departed..."

Says a lot about the culture.

I don't know where The Atlantic's money comes from, but I really doubt that subscriptions and advertising for the print edition are paying the bills for both that edition and the massive web site which charges no fees.

I forgot Ross Douthat. When I used to read him, he was (like Amy Welborn) good at sparking interesting discussions but not at contributing more than modestly to them. (He lacked her talent for policing the comboxes). Every once in a while, I see him and he has improved incrementally over the years.

I used to look at the Townhall site frequently. It occurred to me after a while that the people worth reading were largely those who had entered the world of topical commentary through conventional channels. The effect of the democratization of communications was Phil Spector's idea of the LP album: two hits and ten tracks of junk.

Should not be. And one can still say it as an individual to other individuals, or to a whole political movement. But it's not so easy to say it to the cops, which is where this thing is going.

Yeah, I was using "cops" as stand-in for "the government," which in the end comes down to guys who can put you in handcuffs and march you off to jail.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/4606022.stm

If my own experience of work and family life is any guide, there is a class of superlatively officious people in this world. They are very animated by the thought that somewhere someone is allocating their time and attention and loyalty to things they would not. Nearly all people who fit this description are female or are the sort of men who prefer the company of women but do not charm them in any way an adult male usually does. Such people are thick on the ground in the education and social work apparat.

The thing of it is, public order and civility are good things to promote and certain "consensual, private" activities have a way of fouling the common life and inducing a certain Gresham's law of culture. Also, the common life is thinner and less engaging the more drily transactional are people interactions and associations. These characters actually take little interest in those sorts of problems and trade-offs.

Re Rob's first comment: That must be true. If we are sinning, we aren't fulfilling God's purpose for us in the world, so the world is lacking something--someone--it needs.

And that Kirk quote is great, great, great.

AMDG

"... a class of superlatively officious people..."

Indeed. I've been noticing the increase in power of these people for a long time. I think of it as the schoolmarm personality, which is not a slam against against good teachers, but a reference to those who think the teacher's job is the enforcing of a rigid and detailed order. But Nurse Ratchett (sp?) is probably a better type. These people, of both sexes, like nothing better than meetings, rules, regulations, and procedures, the more complex the better. I think we all know them. The law is infested with them now. Hillary Clinton comes across as one. Nothing makes them happier than to be the one who gets to make the fine-tuned rules without which people would just do stuff aimlessly. One of the things Obamacare does is put them in charge of a great deal.

They are the Dolores Umbridge's of life.

Delores Umbridge-ha, perfect!

And I must say that homohippophobia is pretty great, too.

AMDG

Yes, Umbridge, *exactly*.

I had not seen Hillary Clinton as one such, though she may be.

Multiple sources portray her as a terror to work for, but more a diva and foul-mouthed bitch, not a schoolmarm. The buck-raking she and her husband have undertaken since leaving office is most unedifying (Bilge purportedly charges $189,000 per appearance). There is little question she lies without compunction (Benghazi, &c). I occasionally follow the blog Diplomad, which is written by a pseudonymous foreign service officer. He has some piquant opinions: 1. wretched administrator, the major manifestation of which is putting personal retainers and campaign hacks in gatekeeper positions; 2. that her function as first lady of Arkansas was to launder the bribes, something foreign service officers with a background of third world postings recognized immediately but which the press corps did not.

Schoolmarms are conscientious. Hillary! is no such thing.

"Schoolmarms are conscientious. Hillary! is no such thing." and "...school teachers do have to make an issue of certain petty things..."

Yes, that's why Umbridge is a way better illustration. If you're not familiar with the Harry Potter books and movies, here she is in action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slf08hY6pR8

But I always thought Hillarycare was a manifestation of the "supremely officious" mentality, and her tendency to signal that mentality was a factor in its defeat. Remember her snide dismissal of the concern that it would drive some small enterprises out of business? And of course Obamacare is surely at least as bad.

Oh, and btw, the Kirk quote is great. As it happens I recently read that story--finally got a copy of the Kirk ghost story collection. It's great.

Ha. You've caught me, like the person who realizes the reason you haven't said his name is that you can't remember it. The reason I didn't mention the name of the book was that it wouldn't come to me in the moment that I was making that comment, but I'm sure if I just think for a minute...Ancestral Shadows.

Not sure I'd use schoolmarm to describe Hillary. She's got much more than officious hectoring on her mind, don't you think?

I'd say she leans more toward the “soft totalitarianism” George Weigel discusses here in connection with the HHS regulations requiring Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for sterilization, abortifacient drugs, contraceptives. He describes it as “an effort to eliminate the vital role in health care, education, and social service played by the institutions of civil society, unless those institutions become extensions of the state.”

But I always thought Hillarycare was a manifestation of the "supremely officious" mentality, and her tendency to signal that mentality was a factor in its defeat.

My recollection was that the main brain behind the health care mess was Ira Magaziner, a management consultant and co-author of one of Robert Reich's books. IIRC, Magaziner and Reich, ca 1981, were perhaps the most prominent advocates (after Felix Rohatyn) of certain notions then in vogue in the Democratic Party, namely economic planning ("industrial policy"). Skeptics suggested that in the American political context that public planning and investment schemes would turn into patronage free-for-alls. Magaziner was of the opinion that people like him can make better decisions than the capital markets. Magazine had worked for a management consultancy for a number of years; Reich was a law professor; neither had any background in economics or statistics or business administration nor had worked for a productive enterprise.

I think the difficulty you get with these health care plans is that for equalitarian purposes, they cannot abide market allocation methods. OTOH, they do not wish to attempt to sell the public on command-and-control allocation, so you get all these hopeless Rube Goldberg gambits to avoid both.

Allowing unsubsidized fee-for-service for mundane medical care presumes that people are competant to make decisions when given the salient information. If Hillary is schoolmarmish, it may be because she does not believe that. Given that she has advocated that everyone who gives birth get a follow up visit from a state social worker, that thesis is believable. I have certain been in fora like this when snotty Democratic partisans ridiculed the idea of informed consent.

I keep thinking the problems with the spam catcher are over, but they keep coming back.

I didn't mean for "schoolmarm" to be a precision term.:-) Only a suggestive one: the idea of the person with a great desire to control others in relatively petty ways, and what one might expect when that sort of personality comes to dominate an extremely powerful and wide-ranging bureaucratic state. I think "soft totalitarianism" is exactly where it's heading.

Hillary's "it takes a village" always seemed to me to mask, behind a charming slogan that suggests something no one really objects to, a desire to take control of family life. That early paper you're referring to could represent an idea that she later moderated but an impulse that remained.

homohippophobia

Yeah that was very good :)

There's no way around it in one form or another, unless you assume an unlimited supply of money and other resources.

That's scripture, I guess? St. Paul?

I think the tendency for most people is to substitute "what I say" for "the progress we have made."

It's very very different in the King James. Almost unrecognizable. No doubt the newer is more accurate. http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Philippians-Chapter-3/