Pope's meeting with Kim Davis not an endorsement, Vatican says

[JimmyG88]

The title of this thread is that the Church is NOT endorsing Kim Davis.
She is acting on behalf of her own conscience, and not on the authority of the Church.

Americans do value separation of church and state, I think. I think Americans do not want the government to be run by any church.
But what Americans also value is that individuals be afforded the freedom to not be separated from their own consciences.

It’s really hard for everyone to come out of this whole thing with any degree of satisfaction

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The title of this thread is that the Church is NOT endorsing Kim Davis. She is acting on behalf of her own conscience, and not on the authority of the Church.

Would the Church endorse an individual in any circumstance? I doubt it. But according to Kim Davis the pope did encourage her privately and that is entirely plausible given the Church’s position on the matter.

Americans do value separation of church and state, I think. I think Americans do not want the government to be run by any church.
But what Americans also value is that individuals be afforded the freedom to not be separated from their own consciences.

Well put. The so-called " separation of church and state" (more accurately, non establishment), is one value among many. The original meaning intent was much more in line with the importance that the founders placed upon individual conscience but also their suspicion against the power of the state.

Those who advocate for “separation of church and state” care for neither of these. They just want to advance the state over civil society and push the Church into a very small corner of our lives.

 

[adrift]

I don’t think anyone doubts her lawyer arranged.with Archbishop Vigano for her to go to the meet-and-greet for the pope. I believe she was in the Vatican Embassy. I believe she received a rosary. I believe she may have shaken the pope’s hand. I don’t however, believe the pope (or anyone in the Vatican) invited her, and I don’t believe the pope knew who she was (how divisive she is) before he went back to Rome. I don’t believe she had a private audience with the pope. I choose to believe the Vatican. If there were photos of a private audience, they would be splashed all over every tabloid due to Davis’ notoriety (and her attorney). There are plenty of photos of the pope and Mr. Grassi, with whom he did have a private audience.

I don’t see anything to be concerned about. The Vatican has cleared it all up days ago. It’s not even a topic of news any longer.

yep

You’re right. When I get really busy, I might make a few posts, or even more than a few, then when I get back to work, I lose all track of time. Sometimes a week can seem like a month! I don’t want my life to speed up any faster than it’s already whizzing by! Okay, today can whiz by because tonight the weekend begins!

I have done this so many times. I am glad to find someone else who sometimes find time is the twilight zone.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I do need to correct you. I don’t have an homosexual agenda. As a servant of the state one has to accept that the job changes that is the nature of civil service any public servant will tell you that the job they start isn’t the one it morphs into. That is the nature of government employment. I genuinely believed that the separation of church and state was a principle that Americans valued. Clearly I’m mistaken

The separation of Church and State does not mean citizens must forfeit their conscience rights. Nor does it mean that secular, atheistic or areligious ideologists are permitted full rein as far as dictating these beliefs on the culture through its laws.

 

[Thomas_White]

No, they don’t. As I pointed out to Lily the notion that one is honor bound to follow orders no matter their nature was thoroughly refuted at the Nurenburg Trials.

And it is in the UCMJ. Disobeying a direct order is subject to legal review.

Yes, I am calling the “MSM” decision a judicial coup. See, Kim Davis is not the only “worker” with a “job”. The SC justices also are sworn to a particularl duty which they shirked, hence the injustice that Kim Davis seeks to avoid.

Unjust law is not law.

If we are going to decide what is a just or unjust law, the rule of law will fail and with it democracy.

The inventors are the five SC justices. That others elect to be their instruments is beside the point.

In fact, she has many legal options and she selected one among them.

For instance?

I do not mean by “step aside” to resign.

Here is the military coup analogy that nobody seems able to answer:

Suppose the army occupied the white house and demanded that the president order the extermination of the amish or resign so that a puppet could be installed who would give the order. The president refuses both to give the order or to resign. The order is then made on the authority of the army occupied white house. Nobody would be so foolish to later blame the president for the order simply because he did not resign because resigning would not have stopped the order.

It is the sworn duty of the president to support, defend and protect the Constitution. The Constitution provides that the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In the example, the president absolutely could refuse to give the order. Simple as that. It would be in full accordance with his duty.

 

[sallybutler]

The separation of Church and State does not mean citizens must forfeit their conscience rights. Nor does it mean that secular, atheistic or areligious ideologists are permitted full rein as far as dictating these beliefs on the culture through its laws.

So what does it mean?

 

[JimmyG88]

The separation of Church and State does not mean citizens must forfeit their conscience rights. Nor does it mean that secular, atheistic or areligious ideologists are permitted full rein as far as dictating these beliefs on the culture through its laws.

The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
~Founding Father James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion”

 

[Peter_Plato]

So what does it mean?

Probably the best expression of what it means is expressed by Os Guinness in several of his talks. This one on the Veritas Forum at Stanford is an older expression which has since been refined in his new book, The Free People’s Suicide.

youtu.be/NW2iw9M71g4 (Begin at about 53:12 for this specific point.)

Basically, his point is that the framers of the Constitution founded the nation of the United States upon a “triangle of first principles.” True freedom in any nation requires virtue on the part of its citizens which requires faith as a basic starting point. Faith, in turn, requires freedom, etc.

He further points out that “the republic” requires ultimate beliefs in order for the rights it grants its citizens to have any roots or grounds in public life.
However, paradoxically, the founders of “the republic” rejected any overt statement of what those ultimate beliefs should be. There can be no orthodoxy, no heresy, no “state religion” in the republic, as founded by the framers of the constitution.

So how are those inherently contradictory requirements brought together without threatening the entire enterprise?

Guinness suggests that the founding fathers made a kind of open wager leaving the reconciliation of those requirements the hands of “the people,” through free and open democratic debate in order for the MOST true, the MOST just, the MOST human, the MOST moral beliefs to win out in the end.

What is absolutely necessary, for the republic to succeed, is to permit that free and open debate, i.e., conscience rights MUST be expressed by all and ensured for all in order for the best beliefs to be expressed and seen for what they are. That, again, is the role of freedom of expression, which should not be stifled, although true freedom requires virtue, otherwise this expression will simply amount to babble.

What Guinness calls the “wager” of the framers of the Constitution can be lost in two ways:

1. That the society becomes so pluralistic that everyone simply gives up and apathy reigns. Tolerance becomes indifference.
2. Someone or group plays the game to gain power to silence all other voices and simply remove the possibility of democratic debate.

I would suggest this is precisely the game currently being played by those on the left – to silence by bulllying and threat of law the right to freely express differences of beliefs. The arguments for “most just,” “most true,” “most human,” etc., are not being won in a free and open forum, but by threat of law held by left-leaning elitists who seek to cajole (and by much worse means) others into agreement by power through held office; not by persuasion, but by “persuasion.”

Guinness has a more recent talk here:

youtu.be/LlHFR3dxuIg

It is based on his book A Free People’s Suicide where he develops the idea further.

 

[PRmerger]

The separation of Church and State does not mean citizens must forfeit their conscience rights. Nor does it mean that secular, atheistic or areligious ideologists are permitted full rein as far as dictating these beliefs on the culture through its laws.

Indeed.

I am simply astonished at what is being proposed here.

“She must do whatever she is told to do by the state, no matter what. Period!”

No morally sane person believes that a clerk in Nazi Germany would have been* obligated* to do something horrific, if the German govt told her to do so.

So not sure why people think that because this is the USA that this is different, and no matter what, she must follow what the state tells her.

And let me preempt any “How dare you say Nazi Germany is the same thing as the US!” with: chill, folks. No one is saying that Nazi Germany is the same thing as the US.

They are alike as analogs only.

So they are alike in that they are both govts which have workers/clerks.

Where they differ, well…they are different.

 

[sallybutler]

To Peter Plato

What does it mean to you? No quoting of others, just you, in your own words.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

And it is in the UCMJ. Disobeying a direct order is subject to legal review.

Note that even in the military, the institution where hierarchical order is most revered, there is no such thing as “follow orders without thinking”. Whatever lattitude is afforded a soldier to disobey an unjust order is an order of magnitude greater in the case of civilian elected officials.

If we are going to decide what is a just or unjust law, the rule of law will fail and with it democracy.

This, of course, is utter rubbish.

First of all, we don’t have democracy, we have a constitutional republic. Second of all, it is, thereby, a limited government. It is a federal government. And no matter, even in the army it is incumbent upon every person to be judicious.

The SC judges are not special people with unique judgement; we are not all their servants.

It is the sworn duty of the president to support, defend and protect the Constitution. The Constitution provides that the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In the example, the president absolutely could refuse to give the order. Simple as that. It would be in full accordance with his duty.

Well, yes, he could. And one would hope that he would. But the men with guns would be the ones in control and issuing commands in the name of the office and it would be prudent of him not to stand in their way. That does not mean that he must resign to make way for someone who would follow the miliatary orders. And no reasonable person would hold him accountable for orders given in his name (in the name of the office that he holds) but without his agreement.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I am simply astonished at what is being proposed here.

More astonished than at the redefinition of marriage as any two persons?

“She must do whatever she is told to do by the state, no matter what. Period!”

No morally sane person believes that a clerk in Nazi Germany would have been* obligated* to do something horrific, if the German govt told her to do so.

So not sure why people think that because this is the USA that this is different, and no matter what, she must follow what the state tells her.

Yes, I have repeatedly pointed to the Nuremburg Trials to counter this absurdity.

 

[sallybutler]

Note that even in the military, the institution where hierarchical order is most revered, there is no such thing as “follow orders without thinking”. Whatever lattitude is afforded a soldier to disobey an unjust order is an order of magnitude greater in the case of civilian elected officials

True. But the soldier is required to go to court, to present why he thinks his behavior was justified in spite of his orders. He has to justify it based on law, not on personal belief or feelings.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

True. But the soldier is required to go to court, to present why he thinks his behavior was justified in spite of his orders. He has to justify it based on law, not on personal belief or feelings.

Is anyone suggesting that Kim Davis doesn’t need to defend her position in court? No.

But if, in either case, it were merely a matter of legal authority there would be no point in the exercise.

And, yes, personal belief, i.e. conscience, is very much involved. Or, to put it another way, the objector is not limited to making appeals only to formal law but also to higher law.

If formal law were dispositive then those Nazis who followed Nazi law would have been acquitted at the Nuremberg Trials. Instead many were hanged and others sent to jail.

 

[Melvin]

Or else it sounds like somewhere in the Vatican a rooster is crowing.

 

[Melvin]

Exactly. What is wrong with Christ’s Vicar on Earth meeting with a martyr for the faith (i.e. Christianity, in the broad sense)? Indeed, it’s properly expected.

Ahhhh…but see, a martyr is only a martyr if martyred for the Truth…

 

[sallybutler]

Is anyone suggesting that Kim Davis doesn’t need to defend her position in court? No.

But if, in either case, it were merely a matter of legal authority there would be no point in the exercise.

And, yes, personal belief, i.e. conscience, is very much involved. Or, to put it another way, the objector is not limited to making appeals only to formal law but also to higher law.

If formal law were dispositive then those Nazis who followed Nazi law would have been acquitted at the Nuremberg Trials. Instead many were hanged and others sent to jail.

The United States is not the same as Nazi Germany. Ms. Davis has many more options than anyone in pre WWII had. To suggest otherwise is an insult to America

 

[Melvin]

cnn.com/2015/10/02/us/pope-gay-washington/index.html

Uh-huh…so, if what you quote is accurate, or rather, if Grassi is being honest, then the Vicar of Christ, the visible Head and Pastor of the whole Church, has never corrected Grassi for living in a mortally sinful relationship…so much for open rebuke being better than secret love…

 

[Thorolfr]

Is Kim Davis even making any difference? There doesn’t seem to be mass resistance in any state to the Supreme Court decision. Same-sex couples can now get married in every state in the Union and will probably continue to have this right for the foreseeable future even if there are a few small pockets of resistance in some out of the way places.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The United States is not the same as Nazi Germany. Ms. Davis has many more options than anyone in pre WWII had. To suggest otherwise is an insult to America

Indeed, she availed herself of her options.

To suggest that she must follow orders is an insult to America.