Illegal Immigration and Morality

[MOTHBALL83]

(continued):

---

B]Future Worker Program:

A worker program to permit foreign‐born workers to enter the country safely and legally would help reduce illegal immigration and the loss of life in the American desert. Any program should include workplace protections, living wage levels, safeguards against the displacement of U.S. workers, and family unity.

Another way to reduce the loss of life in the American desert is to have a border secure enough to stop people from entering the desert. As for the workplace protections and such, legal immigrants and citizens already have those. And I am still not convinced that we need more competition for jobs, even for-low-wage ones, from foreigners when so many Americans are out of work, and if those Americans won’t take those jobs, shame them into doing so!! Beggars can’t be choosers!!

Family‐based Immigration Reform:

It currently takes years for family members to be reunited through the family‐based legal immigration system. This leads to family breakdown and, in some cases, illegal immigration. Changes in family‐based immigration should be made to increase the number of family visas available and reduce family reunification waiting times.

With possibly tens of milllions of illegals in this country already, put together with thier typical large familes, I wonder how this would affect population growth in respect to available resources, both natural (like water) and man-made (like money-as in, how de we pay for the government services they will use?). Can American communities, especially smaller ones, absorb such a possibly over-night surge in population? Especially when most of that population is poor, uneducated, and illiterate and wll need social services like welfare (even if only temporarily) and crowd already over-extended public schools?

Restoration of Due Process Rights:

Due process rights taken away by the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) should be restored. For example, the three and ten year bars to reentry should be eliminated.

Here I agree.

Addressing Root Causes:

Congress should examine the root causes of migration, such as under‐development and poverty in sending countries, and seek long‐term solutions. The antidote to the problem of illegal immigration is sustainable economic development in sending countries. In an ideal world, migration should be driven by choice, not necessity.

A noble idea, but really not our obligation and not our governmnet’s job. One of my big complaints of our government’s current policies is that we are “nation-building” other countries, while neglecting, on a large part, our own. For example: we just had a report about how out-dated and dangerous much of our own infrastructure now is:infrastructurereportcard.org/

Instead of government, let private individuals, charity groups, religious groups, philanthropers, large businesses/corporations who have hearts or just like good publicity, and NGOs help “develop” “under-developed” countries.

Enforcement:

The U.S. Catholic Bishops accept the legitimate role of the U.S. government in intercepting unauthorized migrants who attempt to travel to the United States. The Bishops also believe that by increasing lawful means for migrants to enter, live, and work in the United States, law enforcement will be better able to focus upon those who truly threaten public safety: drug and human traffickers, smugglers, and would‐be terrorists. Any enforcement measures must be targeted, proportional, and humane.

No disagreement here!!

-Chris

Im pretty sure our government already offers a worker program for foreigners to come to our country legally and work for a specified amount of time.

 

[Contarini]

Specifically, you brush aside the plain English words in Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary because those words embarrass and completely destroy your invincibly ignorant contentions that “There’s nothing at all in Leo XIII’s letter about social welfare”…; and that I “invented something which has absolutely no existence in Pope Leo’s letter whatsoever”–a condemnation of the Americanist application of social welfare and democratic equality whenever those things undermine humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority.

I repeat: Fr. Hardon actually said (correctly) that Pope Leo was condemning the exaltation of “active” virtue above “passive.”

I encourage those reading the thread to read carefully both the selection from Fr. Hardon that you cited and the actual letter by Pope Leo, and to judge who is actually misunderstanding here.

Contarini, my friend, if you sincerely are seeking the truth you should research what good Pope Leo meant when he said, . . . .

Indeed.

I know a little bit about 19th-century America. I would recommend Mark Noll’s *America’s God *for a description of the prevailing religious ethos, to which some American Catholics wished to conform. If you have other scholarly sources which you consider superior in their analysis of that cultural context, please cite them. Or if you wish to dispute my claim that the movements for social welfare in 19th-century America were overwhelmingly voluntary in nature, please do so.

You are ignoring the active/passive distinction emphasized by both Pope Leo and Fr. Hardon. You are fixing on Fr. Hardon’s use of the phrase “social welfare,” which is not found in Pope Leo’s letter, and ignoring the context.

I don’t see much practical difference between the Americanism condemned by Pope Leo and the Leftist/ Progressivism “religious” movement today.

I recognize that you don’t. However, it appears to me that your failure to recognize the difference is due to your lack of knowledge and not to mine.

I repeat: on what scholarly authorities are you relying in your understanding of 19th-century American culture? What historical reason do you have for your bland assumption that the “Americanism” criticized by Leo is to be identified with the position of “liberal” American Catholics today and not (at least equally, if not more so) with the positions maintained by you and cmforte?

The fact that Pope Leo expresses general concerns about people altering Catholic teaching to conform to American cultural norms does not tell us which contemporary ideological movement in American culture most clearly falls under that criticism.

And as you know, that “Americanism” is opposed to what I and cmforte and probably Elizabeth502 mean by American exceptionalism, which BTW Pope Leo had no problem with in his condemnation letter: “From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name.”

What Pope Leo endorses is equivalent to President Obama’s version of “American exceptionalism,” namely the recognition that all nations have particular “endowments” and should rightly take pride in them. It is precisely this fair and just version of “exceptionalism” that is routinely mocked and derided by “conservative” proponents of “exceptionalism,” including those cited by cmforte.

You persist in assuming the point at issue and then criticizing me for my “ignorance” or “misunderstanding” in not sharing your assumptions. You assume that whatever ideology contemporary Americans label as “conservative” must be “conservative” or “orthodox” in the Catholic sense, and that any criticisms of Americans who alter Catholic teaching to conform with American norms must apply only to those whom you label as “leftist.”

But you haven’t actually provided a shred of evidence to support these assumptions.

I repeat: the specific issue addressed by Pope Leo was, as Fr. Hardon said, the active/passive distinction. Insofar as that applies directly to anything anyone has maintained in this thread, it applies to cmforte’s frequently expressed contempt for premodern societies and his belief that only liberal democracies (using “liberal” in the traditional political sense to mean a society that emphasizes individual rights, not in the contemporary partisan sense) are legitimate.

It does not in any possible way apply to my support for the moral leadership provided on the immigration issue by American Catholic bishops, which is thoroughly in agreement with the teaching of the Catholic Church as a whole and refuses to alter that teaching to conform with the prejudices of American nationalists.

Edwin

 

[Ender]

It does not in any possible way apply to my support for the moral leadership provided on the immigration issue by American Catholic bishops, which is thoroughly in agreement with the teaching of the Catholic Church as a whole and refuses to alter that teaching to conform with the prejudices of American nationalists.

The bishops provide moral leadership when they focus concerns on significant problems and demand they be addressed. They merely overstep themselves when they put their moral authority behind specific political proposals they believe will achieve the goals they rightly identify.

As to whether their opinions are in agreement with Church teaching, yes I suppose they are … for the same reason that those of us who disagree with them are also in agreement with Church teaching. That is, since the Church has no teaching on what specific actions should be taken to resolve practical problems there is no moral distinction between one set of proposals and another.

Ender

 

[tomarin]

The bishops provide moral leadership when they focus concerns on significant problems and demand they be addressed. They merely overstep themselves when they put their moral authority behind specific political proposals they believe will achieve the goals they rightly identify.

What are the goals, and what are the means available to us (roughly speaking)?

 

[KSU]

QUOTE
AMERICANISM The movement propagated in the United States in the late nineteenth century which claimed that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the “active” virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the “passive” virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in an apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae (January 22, 1899), addressed to Cardinal Gibbons. END QUOTE

Per Contarini: “You are ignoring the active/passive distinction emphasized by both Pope Leo and Fr. Hardon. You are fixing on Fr. Hardon’s use of the phrase “social welfare,” which is not found in Pope Leo’s letter…”

Contarini, you say that I ignore the distinction between active and passive, but that distinction is my point. That obvious distinction is also the very point made by Pope Leo and therefor Harden. Don’t you get it? Catholic Americanists agitated for alleged “social welfare and democratic equality” to the point of smothering Catholic doctrine which stood in their way–just as today it stands in the way of Liberation Theology, Catholic Socialists, Catholics for Abortion, etc… National Americanism is one of the heresies leading to the much worse heresy of Modernism, both of which were condemned by popes. To better understand what Pope Leo meant regarding “active and passive”, please read Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. at brotherandre.stblogs.com/2007/09/10/the-relationship-of-americanism-to-modernism/ . He points out, too, that the “progressivist” i.e., Leftist] nature of both movements gives them much of a common foundation…"

Americanits, Contarini, fell prey to the modernist “heresy of good works.”; allowing the active virtues to smother the passive virtues, thus killing the raison d’être of the active virtues.( See Dom Chautard in The Soul of the Apostolate). Americanism’s error even was referred to in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, by Pope Saint Pius X.

Read Thomas Droleskey, June 21, 2011: To accept the spirit of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker’s Americanism, which was shared by many, although far from all of the American bishops of the Nineteenth Century, is to open oneself up to embracing the false belief that natural virtue alone is sufficient to build the “just society,” that men can sustain themselves in natural virtues by their power throughout the course of their lifetimes without having belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace and/or as they are being “guided” individually by God the Holy Ghost, which is the essence of Pentecostalism. Pope Leo XIII condemned this semi-Pelagian notion in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae and in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900."

 

[Contarini]

Contarini, you say that I ignore the distinction between active and passive, but that distinction is my point. That obvious distinction is also the very point made by Pope Leo and therefor Harden. Don’t you get it? Catholic Americanists agitated for alleged “social welfare and democratic equality”

You still have not shown where you and/or Fr. Hardon get the “social welfare” bit. I can guess where–from the benevolent activities of American voluntary societies, which apparently the “Americanists” were exalting at the expense of such things as contemplation and asceticism. But I think it’s misleading, given that that is not Pope Leo’s language. And you are certainly misusing it to imply that only “leftist” American Catholics today run the risk of falling into “Americanism.”

On the contrary, the rise of progressive politics in the early 20th century and the movement toward the creation of a safety net for the poor was probably in part the result of the increasing influence of Catholics, with their “un-American” emphasis on communal solidarity over individual enterprise.

to the point of smothering Catholic doctrine which stood in their way–just as today it stands in the way of Liberation Theology, Catholic Socialists, Catholics for Abortion, etc…

And the death penalty, harsh treatment of “illegal” immigrants, the removal of societal restraints on the exercise of greed by corporations, the abolition of society-wide provisions to help the poor, and the waging of unnecessary aggressive war.

You are singling out one set of political ideologies contradicting Catholic social teaching and ignoring the other set. This is the consistent strategy of right-wing American Catholics. You have a beautiful cathedral to live in, and you vandalize one wing in order to embellish the other.

Oh, and liberation theology has never been condemned by the Catholic Church in toto, only certain aspects of it. Whether anything being promoted by Catholics today actually corresponds to the “socialism” condemned by the Catholic Church is also highly dubious.

National Americanism is one of the heresies leading to the much worse heresy of Modernism, both of which were condemned by popes. To better understand what Pope Leo meant regarding “active and passive”, please read Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. at brotherandre.stblogs.com/2007/09/10/the-relationship-of-americanism-to-modernism/ . He points out, too, that the “progressivist” i.e., Leftist] nature of both movements gives them much of a common foundation…"

Actually he spends most of the article pointing out how different they were. . . .

And in this passage he makes my point very nicely:

To the Americanists, in this fusion of Americana and Catholicism, it was the Church who was the winner, since according to Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Keane, America – with its democratic, enlightened, separation of Church and state – was superior to Europe. The very contention that the “New World” had a better system than the “Old World,” and that this system is something the Church must accommodate itself to, shows the Americanist to be biased in favor of novelty and a false idea of development.

Cmforte has argued this, saying that only democracies are “legitimate” and denigrating what he calls the era of “absolute monarchs and popes.” That is why I referred to Americanism.

This article, cited by cmforte as representing his opinions, argues precisely that the New World had a better system than the old world and that the codification of a politics based on individual rights makes America special (though the article graciously recognizes that European philosophers helped shape this ideology).

Now I take cmforte’s point that (as he sees it) he doesn’t want the Church in America to be something different than it is elsewhere. I think that the implications of his American exceptionalism force the Church in America to be different in some of the ways Pope Leo was worried about. But I grant that my application is indirect. It’s a different era.

What makes absolutely no sense, however, is your repeated accusation that I “don’t understand” because I dare to suggest that right-wing Americans might be “Americanists” in something like Pope Leo’s sense. Your repeated claims that only “leftist” American Catholics are Americanists simply don’t hold up.

Note that I’m not denying that the opinions of many “liberal” American Catholics do fall into “Americanism.” In fact, one of the reasons I find right-wing American Catholicism so frustrating is precisely that I see orthodox Catholic social teaching holding together consistently, and I see ideological factions in America each grabbing onto bits of it and distorting those bits by putting them in the context of American individualism.

You will get no argument from me on the question of whether “pro-choice Catholics” are heretics.

But that does nothing to defend you and other “right-wing Americanists” from my accusation. And no matter how often you claim that I misunderstand, you cannot seem to provide any actual evidence of my misunderstanding.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

The bishops provide moral leadership when they focus concerns on significant problems and demand they be addressed. They merely overstep themselves when they put their moral authority behind specific political proposals they believe will achieve the goals they rightly identify.

Well, one could just as well apply this to abortion:

“The bishops are right to condemn abortion, but wrong to say that passing laws is the way to do it.”

I would disagree with that position (though I do wish conservative Catholics would recognize that there is a difference between people who condone abortion and people who think that legal action isn’t the best way to fight it), for exactly the same reason I disagree with you on immigration. I agree that bishops should be very slow to endorse specific political proposals, but I think that sometimes the identification of a social evil mandates that certain things be done or not done.

It is incoherent for John Kerry and other Catholic politicians to say that they believe life begins at conception but support a woman’s right to choose abortion. If life begins at conception, there cannot be a right to choose abortion, because no human being has the right to end the life of another innocent human being.

That is a moral principle which mandates certain political positions and rules out others.

Granting this, you must grant at least the possibility that the same could be true of other issues as well.

Edwin

 

[KSU]

Wow, Contarini! I must have hit a nerve.

Anyway, thanks for showing your true colors in #210. Further debate is useless.

 

[cmforte]

MOTHBALL83:

Enforcement:

The U.S. Catholic Bishops accept the legitimate role of the U.S. government in intercepting unauthorized migrants who attempt to travel to the United States. The Bishops also believe that by increasing lawful means for migrants to enter, live, and work in the United States, law enforcement will be better able to focus upon those who truly threaten public safety: drug and human traffickers, smugglers, and would‐be terrorists. Any enforcement measures must be targeted, proportional, and humane.

No disagreement here!!

-Chris

Im pretty sure our government already offers a worker program for foreigners to come to our country legally and work for a specified amount of time.

Let me re-phrase that. What I agree with is targeted enforcement-dangerous or violent illegals (I don’t call those “criminals” because they’re all criminals) should be arrested and deported first, so as to get rid of them asap, and by stopping or targeting human traffickers and smugglers, we would help cut back illegal immigration. I do not agree with letting in more “migrants” than is already lawful, given our current economic circumstance.

-Chris

 

[cmforte]

Contarini, regarding your post in #196, it is once again obvious that you lack the information required to critique traditional Catholicism and American values, and therefor to debate their intersection…

…And as you know***, that “Americanism” is opposed to what I and cmforte and probably Elizabeth502 mean by American exceptionalism,*** which BTW Pope Leo had no problem with in his condemnation letter: “From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some “Americanism.” But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name.”

Exactly. I think different people see “Americanism” in different ways.*** I don’t mean an Americanism that demands that Church dogma should “change” with the times and conform to new ways of thinking, ***which, from the looks of it, is what Pope Leo was condemning, but in American *Exceptionalism…*in the uniquness of the USA in human history. But uniqueness or “exceptional” in a political sense. I in no way think it is more “exceptional” than the Catholic Church, since the two are completely different entities. Comparing the USA (or any nation) with the Catholic Church (or any religious group), is like comparing apples to oranges. One is political-human, the other (the RCC anyways) is spiritual-divine. ***They are both Exceptional…one an Exceptional nation, the other an Exceptional Church. Its not one or ***the other, or America over Catholicism…***it is both. ***They belong with each other!!

-Chris

 

[KSU]

You are right on, Chris. And there is no sense in attempting to debate the Left on that; their “truth” is alien to our truth; because they emphasize the end over the means (e.g., social equality through Socialist means) the Church and the Constitution are in their way. Our constitutional political system (not perfect, just far better than any other since creation) together with the principals of Catholicism are invincible. The Left, therefore, hates and fears above all else what they term the Religious Right.

Speaking of which, beginning on September 26, 1956, the Blessed Virgin Mary, under a specific appearance as “Our Lady of America,” manifested Herself to Sister Mary Ephrem (Mildred Neuzil) in the Convent of the Precious Blood Sisters at Rome City, Indiana. Our Lady indicated to Sister that She had come in response to the United States having recognized Her privilege of The Immaculate Conception, especially through The Shrine of The Immaculate Conception at Washington, D.C., and Our Lady of America came with a message for the United States to focus on the virtue of purity. Our Lady spoke about the recognition of The Indwelling Most Holy Trinity in the Christian Family, with The Holy Family (Jesus, Mary & Joseph) as a model.

I’ll bet your bishop told you all about it. Right?

 

[MOTHBALL83]

You still have not shown where you and/or Fr. Hardon get the “social welfare” bit. I can guess where–from the benevolent activities of American voluntary societies, which apparently the “Americanists” were exalting at the expense of such things as contemplation and asceticism. But I think it’s misleading, given that that is not Pope Leo’s language. And you are certainly misusing it to imply that only “leftist” American Catholics today run the risk of falling into “Americanism.”

On the contrary, the rise of progressive politics in the early 20th century and the movement toward the creation of a safety net for the poor was probably in part the result of the increasing influence of Catholics, with their “un-American” emphasis on communal solidarity over individual enterprise.

And the death penalty, harsh treatment of “illegal” immigrants, the removal of societal restraints on the exercise of greed by corporations, the abolition of society-wide provisions to help the poor, and the waging of unnecessary aggressive war.

You are singling out one set of political ideologies contradicting Catholic social teaching and ignoring the other set. This is the consistent strategy of right-wing American Catholics. You have a beautiful cathedral to live in, and you vandalize one wing in order to embellish the other.

Oh, and liberation theology has never been condemned by the Catholic Church in toto, only certain aspects of it. Whether anything being promoted by Catholics today actually corresponds to the “socialism” condemned by the Catholic Church is also highly dubious.

Actually he spends most of the article pointing out how different they were. . . .

And in this passage he makes my point very nicely:

Cmforte has argued this, saying that only democracies are “legitimate” and denigrating what he calls the era of “absolute monarchs and popes.” That is why I referred to Americanism.

This article, cited by cmforte as representing his opinions, argues precisely that the New World had a better system than the old world and that the codification of a politics based on individual rights makes America special (though the article graciously recognizes that European philosophers helped shape this ideology).

Now I take cmforte’s point that (as he sees it) he doesn’t want the Church in America to be something different than it is elsewhere. I think that the implications of his American exceptionalism force the Church in America to be different in some of the ways Pope Leo was worried about. But I grant that my application is indirect. It’s a different era.

What makes absolutely no sense, however, is your repeated accusation that I “don’t understand” because I dare to suggest that right-wing Americans might be “Americanists” in something like Pope Leo’s sense. Your repeated claims that only “leftist” American Catholics are Americanists simply don’t hold up.

Note that I’m not denying that the opinions of many “liberal” American Catholics do fall into “Americanism.” In fact, one of the reasons I find right-wing American Catholicism so frustrating is precisely that I see orthodox Catholic social teaching holding together consistently, and I see ideological factions in America each grabbing onto bits of it and distorting those bits by putting them in the context of American individualism.

You will get no argument from me on the question of whether “pro-choice Catholics” are heretics.

But that does nothing to defend you and other “right-wing Americanists” from my accusation. And no matter how often you claim that I misunderstand, you cannot seem to provide any actual evidence of my misunderstanding.

Edwin

Not sure what is going on between you 2 but are you saying the conservative Americanism is a bad thing? If so, then why did Pope John Paul II tell American Catholics to vote for President Bush?

 

[KSU]

MOTHBALL83 to Contarini: "Not sure what is going on between you 2 but are you saying the conservative Americanism is a bad thing? If so, then why did Pope John Paul II tell American Catholics to vote for President Bush? "

Good point, MOTHBALL83. While JPII never said it directly, of course, here is how a writer for the Cato Institute put it on April 15, 2005: “Catholic America’s enormous political impact demonstrates both the strength of modern American pluralism and traditionalism’s continuing resonance among an important segment of the electorate, a traditionalism that Pope John Paul II both visibly embodied and assiduously nurtured.”

That nurturing must have driven the Left, and to a lesser degree, some Rockefeller Republicans, crazy.

And if I may, as to what went on between me and Contarini, is this. (And I am speaking only for myself.) Contarini absolutely refuses to admit that Pope Leo XIII condemned certain American clergy’s agitation for “social welfare and democratic equality” if it came at the expense of obedience to the Church and the ignoring of some Catholic teaching., i.e., “Americanism”. Even when I proved Contarini wrong by quoting, verbatim, Father John A. Hardon, SJ, (a Doctor of Theology among many, many other honors) and beloved pillar of the Church in America, our friend Contarini at #196 said I had misinterpreted a reference source and had been mislead by Father Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary. So much for my attempt at debate with him. Here is what Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary says:
QUOTE
AMERICANISM
The movement propagated in the United States in the late nineteenth century which claimed that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the “active” virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the “passive” virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in an apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae (January 22, 1899), addressed to Cardinal Gibbons. END QUOTE

Americanits are guilty of the modernist “heresy of good works.”; allowing the active virtues (some types of social welfare, for example) to smother the passive virtues (keeping social activism within the boundaries set by Church doctrine, for example), thus killing the raison d’être of the active virtues.( See Dom Chautard in The Soul of the Apostolate).

 

[Contarini]

Not sure what is going on between you 2 but are you saying the conservative Americanism is a bad thing? If so, then why did Pope John Paul II tell American Catholics to vote for President Bush?

I am fairly confident that he did absolutely no such thing, but perhaps you can show me wrong.

Insofar as the Catholic hierarchy supports Republicans, it’s because of issues like abortion and homosexuality.

The debate on this thread exists largely because the Catholic bishops clearly take a “liberal” position on immigration–a fact that KSU and cmforte very badly want to explain away.

There are numerous points where Catholic social teaching clashes head-on with right-wing American politics. There is a concerted movement by “conservative” Catholics these days to obscure and trivialize this conflict, making Catholics passive puppets of the Republican Party.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Good point, MOTHBALL83. While JPII never said it directly, of course

Thank you for siding with me on this.

And if I may, as to what went on between me and Contarini, is this. (And I am speaking only for myself.) Contarini absolutely refuses to admit that Pope Leo XIII condemned certain American clergy’s agitation for “social welfare and democratic equality” if it came at the expense of obedience to the Church and the ignoring of some Catholic teaching., i.e., “Americanism”.

No, that is not an accurate summary of what I said.

Of course I agree that Pope Leo condemned anything that came at the expense of obedience to the Church and ignoring Catholic teaching. I have pointed out repeatedly that Pope Leo never mentioned “social welfare.” One can understand him to be referring to 19th-century American agitation for social welfare through voluntary societies, sure. But it’s clear that he didn’t condemn this in itself, and that he certainly wasn’t talking about the “social welfare” that gets attacked by right-wing Republicans today, since such a thing did not exist in 19th-century America.

Even when I proved Contarini wrong by quoting, verbatim, Father John A. Hardon, SJ, (a Doctor of Theology among many, many other honors) and beloved pillar of the Church in America

In other words: one Catholic theologian whose views you and other conservative Catholics happen to like. He’s not infallible (I am not a beloved pillar of the Church in America, but I do have a Ph.D. in religion, if we must start throwing credentials around), and it’s truly weird to claim that you have “proven me wrong” by quoting a secondary source, especially when I have shown that you took the source out of context. Just because Hardon used the phrase “social welfare” does not mean either that

1. Leo used the phrase (he didn’t), or that
2. Hardon said that Leo condemned efforts for social welfare (Hardon said no such thing, as anyone can see by looking at the quote you yourself cited).

The disagreement between us is simply whether it is possible that some “conservative” American Catholics today might fall into Americanism. You consider this impossible and outrageous, in spite of not yet being able to mount a coherent argument to that effect. You just keep repeating over and over that it can’t be.

our friend Contarini at #196 said I had misinterpreted a reference source and had been mislead by Father Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary. So much for my attempt at debate with him.

You have a pretty weird view of debate if you think that challenging your use of a secondary source ends it.

Sometimes I’m tempted to think that you’ve never had a real debate before. You seem horrified that I would disagree either with your interpretation of Hardon or Hardon’s interpretation of Leo. I am quite free to disagree with either or both. That’s what debate means.

Here is what Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary says:
QUOTE
AMERICANISM
The movement propagated in the United States in the late nineteenth century which claimed that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the “active” virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the “passive” virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in an apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae (January 22, 1899), addressed to Cardinal Gibbons. END QUOTE

Americanits are guilty of the modernist “heresy of good works.”; allowing the active virtues (some types of social welfare, for example) to smother the passive virtues (keeping social activism within the boundaries set by Church doctrine, for example), thus killing the raison d’être of the active virtues.( See Dom Chautard in The Soul of the Apostolate).

With the exception of the bits in parentheses, I don’t dispute any of this. And even those bits aren’t wrong so much as one-sided. The problem is that you assume–again without any evidence–that “Americanism” can only refer to what you consider “leftist” distortions.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Wow, Contarini! I must have hit a nerve.

A typically bullying response. You taunt and mock me repeatedly without making substantive arguments; I respond substantively but in a tone of some annoyance; and you gloat that you “hit a nerve.”

Anyway, thanks for showing your true colors in #210. Further debate is useless.

You keep saying that, yet you keep debating

I remain baffled by the state of mind that can interpret disagreement as a signal to end debate rather than begin it. But then you never actually do end. Nor, so far, do you actually engage my arguments.

I remain hopeful that you will some day do so. Naive optimist, that’s me every time.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Exactly. I think different people see “Americanism” in different ways.*** I don’t mean an Americanism that demands that Church dogma should “change” with the times and conform to new ways of thinking, *which, from the looks of it, is what Pope Leo was condemning, but in American Exceptionalism…in the uniquness of the USA in human history. But uniqueness or “exceptional” in a political sense. I in no way think it is more “exceptional” than the Catholic Church, since the two are completely different entities. Comparing the USA (or any nation) with the Catholic Church (or any religious group), is like comparing apples to oranges. One is political-human, the other (the RCC anyways) is spiritual-divine.

Wait a minute. Both you and KSU have claimed that the Constitution was divinely inspired in some way!

***They are both Exceptional…one an Exceptional nation, the other an Exceptional Church. Its not one or ***the other, or America over Catholicism…***it is both. ***They belong with each other!!

-Chris

And that is in fact the Americanism Leo attacked, because it implies that America, as the “exceptional” nation corresponding to the “exceptional” Catholic Church, is a particularly appropriate home for the Catholic Church, and thus that American Catholicism is freer to be itself. If you actually read *Testem Benevolentiae *(it’s by no means clear that KSU has done so), I think you will see that that’s the core of what Leo was worried about. Granted, he was worried about it specifically insofar as it might lead to distorting Catholic doctrine. But he never really addresses a specific doctrinal issue. His biggest specific worry is the rather vague one that “active” virtue is being exalted over “passive.” Somehow KSU deduces from this a condemnation of everything he chooses to consider “leftist” in contemporary American Catholicism. But (to set aside the anachronism of this interpretation) Leo is speaking in more general terms than that. He’s condemning any claim that the “active” American ethos is superior to more traditional Catholic piety. I understand that you don’t want to conclude this, but given your statements about American exceptionalism (as interpreted by the two articles to which you linked), about only democratic governments being “legitimate,” and about the darkness of the era “when there were absolute monarchs and popes” (I’m with you on the evils of absolute monarchs–not so much when it comes to popes or to premodern politics generally), I suggest respectfully that you may not be thinking through the implications of your principles thoroughly enough.

You seem to think that you can separate out politics and religion entirely. I think this is precisely the kind of error that 19th-century Popes worried about in America. You can’t separate Catholicism from *anything. *Orthodox Christianity pervades every aspect of life, doesn’t it?

Your belief that America is exceptional, and your unconditional loyalty not just to the nation but to national ideology as you understand it, can’t help but shape your understanding of Catholicism. And that’s why this whole digression occurred in the first place–because you are approaching the immigration issue primarily as a nationalist rather than as a Catholic. As you yourself admitted, you are uncomfortable with the “globalism” of Catholicism (though I think you mistakenly assume that any form of “globalism” must aim to create some kind of worldwide nation-state). You very much want to think that Catholicism fits with your nationalism, but you do express a bit of uneasiness about it. I brought up Pope Leo simply to point out that when I worry about American nationalism’s effect on Christianity, I’m not saying anything new or “leftist” but am echoing the concerns of a 19th-century Pope. And I stand by that claim. I was not claiming that all the details of my concerns were the same, of course. He wrote this in the 19th century–it was a quite different cultural context.

Finally, note this passage, where Leo describes the kind of “Americanism” that is legitimate:

But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name.

Now you tell me how this is substantively different from President Obama’s version of American exceptionalism, which was rejected by one of the articles you cited earlier? Granted, Leo expresses himself more majestically, but other than that. . . .

Leo is saying, just like Obama, that it’s quite legitimate for countries to celebrate what makes them special, and that in America’s case (as Obama went on to say if you read the whole quote) that specialness has something to do with its political institutions. Therefore, since your chosen source explicitly rejected this version of “exceptionalism,” you cannot claim that Pope Leo is endorsing exceptionalism–he’s not endorsing the version you espouse.

Edwin

 

[Ender]

What are the goals, and what are the means available to us (roughly speaking)?

The goal would be ending illegal immigration in such a way as to balance the often competing needs of the poor immigrants with the rights of the communities that receive them; to balance the claims of illegals who have been in this country for a long time with the claims of others who have tried to become citizens without breaking our immigration laws…

The means available range from building an impenetrable fence along the border to having no border defense at all, from granting amnesty and citizenship to all current illegals to deporting every one we find, from stop granting citizenship to children born in this country to bringing in everyone related to an American citizen,…

It is appropriate for the bishops to raise the problems as issues to be addressed but it is not appropriate for them to suggest that the choice of solutions represent moral choices.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Well, one could just as well apply this to abortion:

“The bishops are right to condemn abortion, but wrong to say that passing laws is the way to do it.”

No, one cannot, and this is significantly different than what I said about immigration. I never suggested our immigration problems can be solved without passing laws. What I said was that the bishops were not justified in defining the specifics of the laws that should be passed (re immigration).

I would disagree with that position (though I do wish conservative Catholics would recognize that there is a difference between people who condone abortion and people who think that legal action isn’t the best way to fight it), for exactly the same reason I disagree with you on immigration.

If you believe that abortion should be legal then you have crossed the line and now support something intrinsically evil … but I’m not sure what you’re saying, except I am sure that abortion and immigration are not comparable issues as the former is a moral issue and the latter is a prudential one.

I agree that bishops should be very slow to endorse specific political proposals, but I think that sometimes the identification of a social evil mandates that certain things be done or not done.

This is an assertion with no argument to sustain it.

That is a moral principle which mandates certain political positions and rules out others.

Granting this, you must grant at least the possibility that the same could be true of other issues as well.

I unequivocally grant this for all issues relating to intrinsic evils; I pretty much reject this for all other issues.

Ender

 

[tqualey]

Hi Contarini,

In my opinion, I think you have not only made yourself clear, but have provided a valid presentation. I really have been a bit surprised by the vigor or KSU argument given there are many ways to view this entire matter.

Not to sould silly about this, but you have really been consistently making valid Catholic arguments - and, for an Episcopalian … well, that surprised me, too! Conversely, I am not sure I could make a valid ‘Episcopalian argument’ about anything!

God bless

Thank you for siding with me on this.

No, that is not an accurate summary of what I said.

Of course I agree that Pope Leo condemned anything that came at the expense of obedience to the Church and ignoring Catholic teaching. I have pointed out repeatedly that Pope Leo never mentioned “social welfare.” One can understand him to be referring to 19th-century American agitation for social welfare through voluntary societies, sure. But it’s clear that he didn’t condemn this in itself, and that he certainly wasn’t talking about the “social welfare” that gets attacked by right-wing Republicans today, since such a thing did not exist in 19th-century America.

In other words: one Catholic theologian whose views you and other conservative Catholics happen to like. He’s not infallible (I am not a beloved pillar of the Church in America, but I do have a Ph.D. in religion, if we must start throwing credentials around), and it’s truly weird to claim that you have “proven me wrong” by quoting a secondary source, especially when I have shown that you took the source out of context. Just because Hardon used the phrase “social welfare” does not mean either that

1. Leo used the phrase (he didn’t), or that
2. Hardon said that Leo condemned efforts for social welfare (Hardon said no such thing, as anyone can see by looking at the quote you yourself cited).

The disagreement between us is simply whether it is possible that some “conservative” American Catholics today might fall into Americanism. You consider this impossible and outrageous, in spite of not yet being able to mount a coherent argument to that effect. You just keep repeating over and over that it can’t be.

You have a pretty weird view of debate if you think that challenging your use of a secondary source ends it.

Sometimes I’m tempted to think that you’ve never had a real debate before. You seem horrified that I would disagree either with your interpretation of Hardon or Hardon’s interpretation of Leo. I am quite free to disagree with either or both. That’s what debate means.

With the exception of the bits in parentheses, I don’t dispute any of this. And even those bits aren’t wrong so much as one-sided. The problem is that you assume–again without any evidence–that “Americanism” can only refer to what you consider “leftist” distortions.

Edwin