I didn't get from that piece an assertion that Francis was influenced by Berry. I would be surprised if Francis has even heard of Berry. The writer is only saying there are noticeable points of similarity in their thinking.

I've not read any of Wendell Berry's books, but the essay of his linked to in that First Things article, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”, has, I think, a tone different from that in Francis's writing. An excerpt:

Modern Christianity has become, then, in its organizations, as specialized as other modern organizations, wholly concentrated upon the industrial shibboleths of "growth," counting its success in numbers, and upon the very strange enterprise of "saving" the individual, isolated, and disembodied soul. Having witnessed and abetted the dismemberment of the households, both human and natural, by which we have our being as creatures of God, as living souls, and having made light of the great feast and festival of Creation to which we were bidden as living souls, the modern church presumes to be able to save the soul as an eternal piece of private property. It presumes moreover to save the souls of people in other countries and religious traditions, who are often saner and more religious than we are. And always the emphasis is on the individual soul. Some Christian spokesmen give the impression that the highest Christian bliss would be to get to Heaven and find that you are the only one there -- that you were right, and all the others wrong. Whatever its twentieth-century dress, modern Christianity as I know it is still at bottom the religion of Miss Watson, intent upon a dull and superstitious rigmarole by which supposedly we can avoid going to "the bad place" and instead go to "the good place." One can hardly help sympathizing with Huck Finn when he says, "I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it."(n13)

Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has, by a kind of ignorance, been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by, while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that "economic forces" automatically work for good, and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that "progress" is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For, in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradictor of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?

No clue what he means. Some of his writing is engaging, but that's two long paragraphs of crank nonsense.

I was going to say more or less what Paul said, except that I don't think "contemptuous" is an unfair description of the tone. It certainly seems to be the voice of someone who doesn't know much about the Christian tradition apart from American Protestantism, and as Paul says within that mainly evangelicalism.

I can imagine that would have been pretty startling.

I've been thinking about the last part of the last paragraph and I think what Paul and Maclin have said it right; however, there are very visible Catholics in the government who do connive with Caesar, and Berry or anybody else who isn't really informed about Catholicism could be forgiven for thinking that we are part of it all.

And then there are Catholics who seem to be more Republican than they are Catholic, too.

AMDG

And then there are Catholics who seem to be more Republican than they are Catholic, too.

Who have you got in mind? Donald McClarey is a committed Republican and regards Francis with asperity. I can imagine there are Remnant contributors who would fault his political theory (and that of Paul Zummo, his sidekick). Some of his remarks on political economy I'd regard as overly catagorical, but I cannot see how liberal Catholics code him as a 'dissenter' without sacralizing very particular institutional arragements and programs. (To be fair, he's somewhat vague on certain particulars). Our host here was a regular participant at Amy Welborn's Open Book and Donald McClarey was the most committed Republican regularly contributing to discussions. He's two standard deviations off to the right end of the distribution and it still is not clear to me you could code him as a dissenter, so I cannot figure out to whom you could be referring. You could mean Deal Hudson, I suppose, who actually had connections to politicians advocate McClarey lacks, but Crisis is far too astringent to be considered to be in anyone's pocket. Our host's friend in Ohio huffs and puffs a great deal about Michael Novak, but there you have the same problem: is Catholic social teaching clear and prescriptive enough to rule out anything he's ever advocated (and I mean anything ever advocated, not caricatures of what he's advocated). The same might apply to critics of the Acton Institute, who fancy it's impermissible to be an advocate of 'capitalism' but are commonly loath to specify what that means brass tacks (aside from complaints about Monsanto).

I was just talking about folks.

AMDG

I certainly know Catholics who react to what Pope Francis says from what appears to be the Republican playbook, or at least from the "conservative" press. Environmental issues, capital punishment, criticism of capitalism, immigration, etc. are all LIBERAL.

And all indicative of the priorities of a certain type of professional-managerial bourgeois interested in public life. People are bothered by Francis because his 'concerns' are on the axis which runs from second-rate school administrators to Mary Robinson. Meanwhile, the Catholic faithful of Chicago get stuck with Blaise Cupich.

What's more, there's no indication that Francis is at all familiar with the intellectual scaffolding which would make a criticism of 'capitalism' or the condition of the environment something other than the inchoate complaining of a man who tends to be accusatory. As for the discussions of 'capital punishment', it's another contemporary novelty promoted by the gatekeepers of an institution that is supposed to be timeless. And, no, the Church has contributed nothing in recent years at all illuminating on the subject of immigration in the realm of positive understandings or moral understandings.

But the phenomenon Janet and Robert refer to is pretty hard to miss.

I'd be happy if one of you would tell me where you'd seen it. Names, dates.

If it helps any, "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" was more particularly meant in the context of Southern Protestant Christianity; if I remember correctly, it was first given as a speech to a Southern Baptist gathering. Implicit for anyone who has also read Berry's early book on race, The Hidden Wound, is commentary on the Southern church's complicity in slavery and segregation, as well as environmental abuse. In that book he uses almost the same language regarding the church's concern for nothing but the disembodied soul--but about racial issues. I think this history is closely connected to his positions on Christianity's relation to Creation.

That said, I agree with you all that Berry is rather confused about the the words "Christianity" and "the Church": he doesn't seem to realize that they refer to more than American Christianity. This seems to me like a huge failure of imagination on his part.

"Names, dates."

I don't think readily observable facts require that kind of documentation. Surely you wouldn't ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.

Surely you wouldn't ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.

Well, the first part of what I said WAS about liberal politicians, so.....

I guess I didn't make that clear, though.

AMDG

. Surely you wouldn't ask for similar documentation of similar statements about liberal Catholics and the liberal politics.

I do not have any trouble thinking of an example of problematic characters among liberal Catholics. Ecclesiastics, church-o-crats, academics, opinion journalists, &c. - you trip over them.

As for what you're talking about, I would not deny you can find an example of it. I cannot think of one in any parish of which I've been associated, so it seems to me that the people who fit your description are not vociferous. I've been wasting my life in comboxes for about a dozen years, and the combox denizen who comes the closest to your description is, again, Donald McClarey, and if you're familiar with the body of his views, he's a pretty ambiguous example.

Now that I think about it, perhaps Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly might qualify as examples. Perhaps Susan Collins among politicians. Keep in mind that Susan Collins is the most troublesome member of the Senate Republican caucus from the perspective of party whips. Now ask yourself where you find people who resemble these characters in the apparatus of foundationally Catholic institutions. Are the people who run Notre Dame Chamber of Commerce shills, or are they the sort of people who hand out honorary degrees to the likes of Barack Obama?

Yes, and it's these people I'm talking about. I think that the reason that so many people get trapped here is that Limbaugh, et al. are the ones who are the only ones in the media speaking out against abortion, for example, and so they end up aligning themselves with the rest of the agenda.

AMDG

I was replying to your 6:23 comment, Janet.

Just trying to straighten out the cross-post confusion.

Since I know AD is just trying to pick a fight, I'm a fool for responding to this, but I will anyway.

As for the discussions of 'capital punishment', it's another contemporary novelty promoted by the gatekeepers of an institution that is supposed to be timeless. And, no, the Church has contributed nothing in recent years at all illuminating on the subject of immigration in the realm of positive understandings or moral understandings.

JPII on CP? The moral principle he contributed is that the attempt to deliver justice that is not informed by mercy will lead to injustice. Here is an article by a friend of mine about CP.

As for immigration, the moral principle that the Church continues to contribute is that all policy must keep in mind the dignity of the immigrant and that family matters. And that ordered freedom of movement should be available to all, except those who have forfeited their freedom by some criminal act or are a health risk. That's not saying the Church has come up with any great policy proposals.

The idea that the Pope is not an economist, or that he only needs listening to when he speaks on faith and morals (not economics), is fairly widespread there, apparently. He was at a dinner party recently with a number of faculty and students and he found himself the sole defender of Laudato Si.

Except that the Pope is not an economist and has a habit of speaking in the sort of tropes you find in a certain sort of opinion journalism. Catholic social teaching needs to be in conversation with positive social research, but the Pope hasn't a clue who to ask. It's not as if Catholic social teaching does not need elaboration and clarification. It's just that Francis is about the last one you'd expect to be able to manage that.

It isn't reasonable to assume that these Catholics are immune to the pro-GOP rhetoric of these sources.

No one 'assumed' that bar in your imagination. The question at hand would be to what extent Limbaugh or Hannity are at loggerheads with the Church in any systematic way. That question is difficult to answer definitively because common and garden starboard discourse tends to concern the speaker's aversions and its rather rum to suggest someone's a dissenter for complaining about a particular tax proposal or some new regulatory initiative from HUD or the EPA.

I agree that CST requires elaboration, clarification, and to be attentive to hard data. I think a lot of Catholics I know take their cue on these things from the popular conservative media, which isn't always careful about nuances, distinctions, or data.

I'm not defending the pope's competence, by the way. I have no idea whether he is competent or not. I don't know whether AD is competent either, since I don't know who he is or what his credentials are. I'm a theologian, so I look at things from that perspective, trying to be as precise about other sciences as I can. And open to correction, which I need fairly frequently. :)

I seem to recall reading that Hannity, who I believe is Catholic, has denounced the teaching on contraception in the same sort of terms as progressives. As for Limbaugh, who's definitely not Catholic, I think he's fairly typical of a sort of libertarian-ish secular conservative who's simply not that interested in religion as such, and evaluates religious views mostly in terms of their fit with his political-cultural views. Or such was my impression years ago when I used to listen to him. At any rate Catholics ought to listen to them at least as skeptically as they (H & L) listen to the Church.

I don't think it's the encyclical's purpose to provide this, however, and to expect it to be in any way exhaustive is to be unrealistic. Whether Francis is "able to manage that" is neither here nor there, if the point of the encyclical was not so much elaboration and clarification, but introduction and presentation.
Well, yes. Any pope should also be circumspect when writing an encyclical not to sound like he is endorsing a particular economic policy or analysis. That was the problem with that USCCB pastoral letters on the economy in the 1980s. Having not read any of Pope Francis's encyclicals, I can't comment on whether he does that kind of thing.

I profess to having an allergy to the long-winded enclycicals of the past few years.

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2015/08/laudato-si-and-the-feverish-summer/

This is pretty good, and echoes a Montgomery quote I used the other day, the one about the self either "recognizing its own existence in the recognition of God or rejecting its own existence in the refusal of God – and thus lapsing into absurdity."

Either you see the self and the Creation as gifts, or you end up with the violent and pernicious absurdity of Obergefell and P.P.

Whoops. Wrong place.

AMDG

Yes, that's one of my favourites for sure!

Yes, I thought so too. I like that Snell fellow. His FPR pieces are generally quite good.

I've got the Guardini sitting out, ready to read. But I want to read Laudato Si again, as the first time I pretty much just skimmed through it, stopping here and there when something caught my attention.