"How Ross Douthat is calling Catholic conservatives to humility"

[blackforest]

I’ve been willing and able to read countless links from Crisis and conservative bloggers, as well as sources that I find more inflammatory and less credible. So please either read this link from America or kindly refrain from participating in this thread. How Ross Douthat is calling Catholic conservatives to humility | America Magazine

Also note the article’s disclaimer:

It is America ’seditorial policy to refrain from describing fellow Catholic Christians as “conservative” or “liberal” in a ecclesiastical context, since these terms can prioritize political factionalism over ecclesial communion. However, since they are the terms of Mr. Douthat’s analysis, this piece uses them as a starting point for discussion.

While a strong critic of Pope Francis, Douthat criticizes the “triumphalism” of “conservative” Catholics and:

As Mr. Douthat says, conservatives are in the difficult position of “a Catholicism that is orthodox against the pope.” This apparent conflict between tradition and papal authority, he argues, forces conservatives to choose between tradition at the cost of calling the pope schismatic and support of the pope at the cost of an unprincipled ultramontanism.

Before you’re tempted to use any keystrokes on tu quoque, the article also addresses the role of “liberal” Catholics in these phenomena. I’m just curious to hear some thoughtful responses to this piece. Any impressions?

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I read it and liked it.

Humility is a difficult virtue to cultivate, because we have a tendency to conflate our opinions with our very selves, and can easily feel threatened when challenged.
But when a person can make themself little, they become less threatening to the other person, who can then let down their guard and communication can start.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

It seems like a better word for what he’s describing is traditionalism. The term conservative Catholic seems a little general in its scope.

Two trademarks that he mentioned of “conservative Catholics” are them having a problem with authority and them having a problem with a dynamic Church. It was no surprise to find out that Mr. Douthat is a convert. Most traditionalists who have a problem with Pope Francis, and who think the Church never changes are converts.

 

[PetraG]

What really interests me is how little Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis differ in what they say. Also, I’ve noticed that if you investigate the things that send the blood pressures up in the actual context in which it is said, it is either a single comment aimed at answering a narrow question or else it is a comment made out of a willingness to do a thought experiment. I think we remember the comment that Pope Benedict made about male prostitutes using condoms. In the context in which it was made, it was a theologically correct comment. It wasn’t outlandish or outrageous. It is the kind of comment that academics make. Likewise, Pope Francis isn’t afraid of discussing anything or allowing anybody to discuss anything. Having said that, he often reminds his listeners that he is “a son of the Church.” He’s not going to go against dogma.

The other thing that I think is sometimes forgotten in these conversations is that you may think someone else is a “dingbat,” if you will, but even if they literally are that far out in left field they are still someone for whom Our Lord died. This is a soul for whom Our Lord thirsts. If He would leave the ninety-nine not in the sheepfold but in the wilderness to look for the one who is lost, who are we to say, “'don’t let the door hit you on the way out” to someone who is lost or angry or misguided?

That’s not so much humility as being realistic about how difficult this vale of tears can be. No one ever said it was going to be easy. No one ever said, “find this way of prayer, do everything right, and all you will get is consolations.” That’s never the way any of the saints got it. That’s not the way it works. I guess that humility is, in a large part, merely being realistic about accepting the way things are in a way that pleases God instead of a way that we think seems more “fair” to us?

 

[Annie]

I guess part of the problem with those upset with Pope Francis is his lack of clarification. It seems like he throws something out there and says we can figure it out, and that does not seem like leadership, and since some of the things he says seem to go against long-standing ways of doing things in the Church, or at least the Western Church, people who want unity and clarity in the Church are upset by what seems to them to be needless upheaval.

The result is that he seems to be someone who is not building up unity in the Church but bringing chaos.

As a result, I disagree with this statement in the America article:

Many Catholics, Mr. Douthat argues, believe that Catholic history inevitably has to bend their way.

I don’t think everyone who has a problem with something Pope Francis writes expects the result to “bend their way;” they just want clarity and direction.

I believe that those devoted to the Church and to Church teaching would be able to accept a clearly delineated change, but that they are resistant to what has been tossed out there.

ETA: I refer above to those called conservative Catholics.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Really good article.

“The past has to be a resource, yes, but only if we recognize that it includes failures as well as success.”

This is a good observation. I think that has been a problem since way back when VII authorised the new reforms. Some people went full ‘preservationist’ and isolated themselves from the reforms resulting in a carte blanch reform. If the invested Catholic parties had been synodal and entered into a forward looking dialogue together, so much could have been achieved for the future generations preparing for eschatological theology.

Catholicism is so limited by the lack of communion in so many ways.

 

[Emeraldlady]

I believe that those devoted to the Church and to Church teaching would be able to accept a clearly delineated change, but that they are resistant to what has been tossed out there.

But don’t you think that Jesus was like that to in so many ways? He didn’t act like a dictator but He was a ‘seed planter’. The Church recognises the importance of the sensus fidelium and our consciences as “the aboriginal Vicar of Christ”. The Pope guided by the Holy Spirit planting the seeds that will bear the fruit of holy reform over time. It’s been like that in the whole formation of the Church.

 

[Adamek]

Having read the opening paragraph of the said articles which starts with “Less noted, however, has been his criticism of **Catholicism as practiced and understood by people aligned with U.S. conservatism.**” I am unable to take anything that follows seriously.

Any article that starts with such gross generalization provides more that enough evidence of the bias of its author.

BTW. This same America magazine recently asked us to seriously consider socialism.
No thank you.

 

[Adamek]

What really interests me is how little Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis differ in what they say.

This is a direct contradiction of what the author of the article writes here: Mr. Douthat writes, “believed that John Paul II had permanently settled debates over celibacy, divorce, intercommunion and female ordination.” Pope Francis has opened up many of those debates.

Pope Francis is doing all he can to undermine if not destroy the legacy of John Paul II.

 

[Annie]

But don’t you think that Jesus was like that to in so many ways? He didn’t act like a dictator but He was a ‘seed planter’.

First, there is a wide spectrum between a dictator and a “seed planter,” so this is a strawman argument.

Second, no, I don’t know how Jesus was because not everything He did was written, much less everything He said.

Third, confusion in the Church generally arose from below and was settled by the Pope, not the other way around.