Kathy Saile appointed as USCCB Director of Domestic Policy

[estesbob]

RD you are quite the apologists for this fiasco. Setting up straw man arguments and knocking them down, then maintaining the higher calling to the “corporate sin of kindness” as CS Lewis calls it. The Church is one body not a playground for the political aparatchiks. I will await for the USCCB’s explanation as to where the “progressive” cause is to eventually take us, or where that utopian kingdom exists here on earth, (afterall RD one can never “progress” enough when it comes to invoking more and more govenrment control) and how and why “progressives” are more aligned with the Faith than the poor dolts like me who might simply disagree on policy as opposed to moral imperatives. If you and Kathy (I assume you are on a first name basis) and the USCCB are so anxious for your “progressive” causes and need to gain power to advance them, then you must compromise on the issues of protecting the innocent (the unborn and the vulnerably ill) for there are only a few “progressives” who would agree with the moral imperative but all would agree with you and Kathy on the policy issues. Give my best to them.

What exactly are your objections to her?

 

[KathleenElsie]

Now that we know that Kathy Saile is, indeed, ProLife, then it would appear the OP should make retribution for the calumny of stating in the title of this thread “Pro Choicer Kathy Saile appointed…”

We don’t know that for sure. Actions in her position will show where she stands on the issues. I look at Robert Casey in PA as an example of the non-pro-life pro-lifer. When in public positions the person needs to know they are being watched. So again I mention that I for one will watch those in authority or places of authority to see where they truly stand on issues.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I don’t see the Bishops dissociating themselves from her statement on the Latin mass. Good to see how well they support the pope. They need to heed the lesson of the centurion - He had authority because he was obedient to authority. The Bishops will get about half as much obedience as they give.

 

[rdprolife]

I knew this discussion would get to the Latin.

In 2001, U.S. Catholic magazine (which I don’t recommend, by the way) went out surveying Catholics on whether they liked or did not like recent changes in how the Mass was celebrated in their parishes. Apparently Kathy Saile said her parish had again begun singing responses in Latin, and she did not enjoy the change because she doesn’t understand what she’s singing.

Actually she said they were “regressing” to doing this, and this may not have been the most diplomatic language as some take it as having a pejorative connotation. Aside from that, what is there to dissociate from, regarding a statement of personal taste by a parishioner, made six years before any association with the USCCB (and years before the Holy Father’s new allowance – allowance, mind you, not mandate – for those who WANT to celebrate the Tridentine rite in Latin to do so, which by the way is not what she was talking about anyway)? Some are really grasping at straws now.

Mind you, requiring every USCCB employee to understand Latin is an intriguing idea. But it is not currently on the mandatory list.

 

[cthemfly25]

RD-- You should have disclosed you are a USCCB employee. Here’s the nub (and we will never reach agreement) With all due deference and apologies to Rudyard Kipling:

“IF” you believe that “profoundly to celebrate our efforts to build the Kingdom here on earth” Sailes words, then …

IF you believe that according to Saile “we should march together for peace the next time our government is considering waging an unjust war” (as opposed to disagreement over the war or strategy, etc), then…

IF you believe in “sacramental justice” not in a biblical or Eucharistic sense but as some indescribable morphism, then …

IF you believe in this: “My first thoughts were of celebratory moments - a victory at the legislature, a liturgy to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, breaking bread with a new friend during a worthy campaign” [sounds nice but not theological given her belief that the celebration of legislative victories is her center of worship --a Catholic might “choose’” rather to believe that the Eucharist is THE sacrifice and offering], then…

IF you believe in “MY OWN quintessential moments of sacramental justice” [frightening] then…

IF you believe in “I llike our Church have long been opposed to capital punishment” [then you have not even read the catechism or anything on Church history]…

IF you believe “And I have felt the sacredness of life at those moments, those sacred moments, when the political was transcended into the spiritual” then *…

IF you believe that illegal immigration is perfectly OK, then [most assuredly you will like Ms. Sailes appointment…simply too much to include here]…

If you believe that the USCCB chronically, reflexively, almost organically chooses statist solutions to any social or political problem then …

If you believe that the USCCB should be involved with democrats to actually formulate withdrawal policy in Iraq (again actually working on policy without any expertise in intelligence, geopollitics, terror, military, etc)
firstthings.com/

IF you believe that “the Left continues to be a party of people of faith” [WIN announcement about Sailes], then…

IF you believe that “We’ve begun to REGRESS to some pre-Vatican II activities, like singing Latin responses. I don’t understand any of it!” then *…

my son you are in favor of what the USCCB advocates and in favor of Ms. Sailes representing the Catholic Church in America on Domestic Policy; then you maintain that the gospel message is a political or economic or class or partisan message owned by the “progressives” and you confuse Faith with politics, and moral imperatives (abortion and euthanasia) with policy arguments over politics, ideologies, economics (eg health care, welfare, tax breaks, statism, capitalism); you confuse confiscation with charity.

On the other hand, IF you disagree that “our efforts to build the Kingdom here on earth” as Saile put and the sacrifice of the Mass is to “celebrate legislative victories” then…

IF you ascribe to the following: that because of the religion of politics “God has disappeared; man is the only actor left on the stage…only the organization of the world counts. Religion matters only insofar as it can serve that objective. The post-Christian vision of faith and religion is disturbingly close to Jesus’ third temptation” [Pope Benedict XVI]…then

IF you believe that the Mass unifies us and the focus is only Him…not a liturgy to celebrate “legislative” victories or other earthly victories, then…

IF you believe that as one author wrote “Our liturgy is older than us and our parents, older than even the world itself. The worship of God is not invented but rather discovered and won, gained: what always has been, that is more or less the nature of prudential prayer” then…

IF you believe again that (instead of “legislative victories” and the “regressive” Latin Mass) “[Liturgy] is not the result of a fortunate coincidence, of personal charisma, nobody can claim credit for it. In it, time is suspended - the time within liturgy is different from that elapsing outside the church walls . It is the time of Golgotha, the time of the one, the unique sacrifice - ‘hapax’ - and this time contains all times and none” then…

IF you understand the moral imperatives wrought by abortion and euthanasia, the good, the evil as opposed to the disputations of men over politics, economics, sociology, freedom, liberty, statism, then…

You will be OK. Pray for our bishops that their wisdom be manifest in their pastoral mission, that they discern Faith from the disputations of men, and that the Lord bestow on us Bishops and Cardinals like your humble servants Sheen, O’Hara, Cook et al.**

 

[Brendan]

I
Mind you, requiring every USCCB employee to understand Latin is an intriguing idea. But it is not currently on the mandatory list.

Requiring every USCCB employee to understand Latin enough to say the responses at Mass would be a minimal thing. Vatican II said that every Catholic should be able to do so.

My 9 year old and 7 year olds can do it. If an employee has less mental competence that a 7 year old, they probably shouldn’t be hired into such a postition in the first place.

 

[cthemfly25]

Brendan, it’s actually much worse than that. RD is dissembling. Saile said we are “regressing to pre-Vatican II activities.” She said this in the context of attending an ordinary Mass, not an extraordinary rite. She considered some prayers in Latin to be regressive (which is simply unbelievable) but this was symbolic to her for she considers much more to be regressive. She is a socialist/progressive/democrat (I can’t keep track of their self proclaimed titles) like much of the political leaning of the USCCB.

She believes in the socialist utopia of the kingdom of earth as if it were a place or a existential condition won through “legislative victories”. You can find her writings when she worked for the Phoenix diocese. Yet, as the Pope notes the 120 plus references to the Kingdom (99 in the synoptic gospels) is not a goal to be obtained in time and place or legislative victories, but rather the Kingdom is Him and it transcends beyond socialism, capitalism, individualism or the liturgical high Saile achieves from “legislative victories.” Again as the Pope teaches, to adopt the meaning of Kingdom used by Saile means that “Faith and religions are now directed toward political goals…religion matters only insofar as it can serve that objective.”

Once the political goals are served the need for religion no longer exists except as ceremony or sanctimony or custom. If you doubt that, look at the Pope’s efforts to re-evangelize Europe which through the Screwtape like seduction of socialism and materialism now has set aside religion. That is where this type of USCCB and Saile theology will lead and already has lead.

Thus, Saile’s remark is much more profound. Her disdain isn’t just because of a few prayers having been said in Latin during an ordinary right Mass, it is born of the disdain she has for the Traditions which transcend time, place, and political ideology.

This is not an issue of whether the USCCB should have hired a socialist or a capitalist or a democrat or a republican. The USCCB needs to reestablish its pastoral mission and recognize that its political goals are seductions even though they sound sentimentally utopian. This is an important moment for the American Church and yet …the USCCB continues as it has been since it became politically radicalized in the 60s.

Throughout the Church’s history, bishops and even popes (and of course all of us) have been so seduced thinking that the compromise of Truth for political influence and power was righteous, but it was always wrong. Ask RD or perhaps he’ll volunteer but the USCCB refuses, except in the most bland admonishments, to excommunicate avowed and profesing Catholics who have supported abortion, the federal subsidy of abortion, and partial birth abortion. It is because, acting as a politica organ, the USCCB must accommodate or compromise in order to work with democrats to push the Saile/USCCB social program agenda, or its immigration agenda, or its health care agenda, or its many other political aspirations. Thus, the moral imperative takes a back seat to the temporal and the political.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Maybe we should require a detailed study of the Catechism by all USCCB employees.

 

[cthemfly25]

Agreed Joe. And perhaps Acquinas, More, Sheen, Rerrum Novarum, and heaven forbid the writings of Pope Benedict. Now that’s a novel idea.

 

[paladinan]

KatieD wrote, on 9-20-07 (4:56 PM):

Would it have been that difficult for the USCCB to find
a definitely pro-life Catholic for this position?

That’s precisely my question, as well. I appreciate the efforts by forum members to give Ms. Saile the benefit of every doubt, but the issues are rather serious:

Ms. Saile claims that, despite her self-proclaimed “progressive” political leanings–and her apparently official lobbying efforts to that effect–these do not reflect badly on her self-proclaimed “pro-life” stance. Note: it is NOT AT ALL NECESSARY to impugn Ms. Saile’s sincerity in order to question her judgment and views; I know of several Catholics who call themselves “pro-life” (and stridently so) solely because they support the “great promise of embryonic stem cell research” (and not despite that view), or because they’re anti-Bush (re: the Iraq war, where “thousands of fetuses [sic] are killed by American troops”). I’m afraid we simply can’t accept any self-proclaimed label of “pro-life” in this day and age at its face value… at least, not while suggestive evidence to the contrary exists (and I certainly think it does, here).

rdprolife writes, on 9-20-07 (12:16 PM):

[Kathy Saile] was speaking as an individual, and organizational
affiliations were listed as identification. She herself is
Catholic, previously worked for Catholic organizations and
is most happy to work again for her own Church where she
feels truly at home.

I appreciate the fact that this data answers the question, “Is Kathy Saile Catholic?” However, in this era of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Rudy Giuliani, and other self-proclaimed “faithful catholics” (of whatever political party), “membership” in the Catholic Church isn’t sufficient to prove qualification for being the director of Public Policy for an entire nation’s Catholics (which, I imagine, includes pro-life issues, contraception issues, etc.) and their bishops.

If it is unacceptable for Catholics to be employed by Protestant
organizations, a large segment of the Family Research Council
and a number of other organizations in Washington DC would have
to close down. Presumably it would be even more unacceptable for
any Catholic to work for a secular organization.

I’m afraid the FRC is a very bad comparison, since the FRC is one of the most heroically, vocally, and unapologetically pro-life organizations in our nation, in stark contrast to LSA; I doubt, for example, that a great many “pro-life alarms” would be raised if Dr. Tony Perkins were to be employed by the USCCB Public Policy department. That’s rather my point: Ms. Saile is being put in a position of needing to be one of the foremost and proactive proponents of Catholic Social teaching, IN ITS ENTIRETY, and I’m not at all sure she’s in any strong position to do that, given her background and activities. There’s no reason to doubt Ms. Saile’s sincerity; doubts about her qualifications are more than worrisome enough.

For example: as much as I love Dr. James Dobson, I wouldn’t consider him for “Public Policy Director of the USCCB” for an instant… simply because he’s completely unqualified to advance the teachings of the CATHOLIC Church (not being a Catholic himself). The fact that Dr. Dobson is far more vocal and courageous in his pro-life efforts than are the vast majority of Catholics–USCCB operatives, or otherwise–simply wouldn’t factor into the equation at all. It seems very much as if the USCCB looked at Ms. Saile’s “secular and corporate” skills first, and were content to try to “shoehorn” her worldview and positions, as needed.

This hearkens back to KatieD’s original question: “Could the Bishops not find anyone else, that they needed to tap an operative from the Lutheran Services of America, and a self-styled progressive, at that?” Is the number of faithful Catholics whose “Catholic curricula vitarum” are unambiguous so impoverished? (I, for one, would prefer someone whose proven dedication to Catholicism and whose pro-life credentials were extraordinary–even if he/she was a novice at the “slick, P.R.-savvy” ins-and-outs of corporate management.)

As it stands, I’m left feeling not only unconvinced, but dismayed. It really should strike a note of discord in one’s common sense, when the USCCB chooses a candidate whose pro-life priorities are so ambiguous that substantial media efforts (dare I say “spin”?) are required to try to placate the troubled masses (myself included); wouldn’t that, by itself, say something about her supposed effectiveness in being able to “move the USCCB pro-life message * from the Conference to the pew?”, no matter what her views truly are?

In Christ,
Brian*