The moral voter: Bishop offers guidance to faithful Catholic voters

[Ender]

I don’t recall the Bishop pointing out Trump’s move as “sin”, but I see that you do not agree with the Bishop.

From the article referenced in the OP:

Abandoning the Paris Climate Accords, the bishop said, “is a far greater moral evil” than federal health centers providing contraceptive devices

Yes, I disagree with the bishop that this was even a mistake, let alone a sin.

I pray that you have come to understand how the Magisterium has reviewed the science, and how we have faith in the Spirit working in the gathering of knowledge and the reasoning behind their teachings.

I have no reason at all to believe the Magisterium has reviewed the science, or even that they are capable of doing it. It is possible that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has done work in that area, but they are not part of the Magisterium.

As for the Spirit “working in the gathering of knowledge”, this is just more vagueness which evades the allegation you made that the Spirit guides the church in matters of science, about which the Catholic Encyclopedia stated that the experimental sciences (viz. the science of global warming) “have no contact whatever with faith”.

The science behind AGW stands on its own without any direction from the Holy Spirit, nor are those who take one position or the other on its validity in any way guided to that opinion.

 

[OneSheep]

I have no reason at all to believe the Magisterium has reviewed the science, or even that they are capable of doing it. It is possible that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has done work in that area, but they are not part of the Magisterium.

They advise the Magisterium. If you believed this, then would you have reason to believe their moral teachings on this topic?

Encyclopedia stated that the experimental sciences (viz. the science of global warming) “ have no contact whatever with faith ”.

This means that faith is not a scientific matter. Moral teachings, however, involve reason and knowing what is going on in the world.

The science behind AGW stands on its own without any direction from the Holy Spirit, nor are those who take one position or the other on its validity in any way guided to that opinion.

Again, the Magisterium takes a prayerful approach concerning moral statements that involve reviewing the science. Now do you get it?

 

[Ender]

If you believed this, then would you have reason to believe their moral teachings on this topic?

There are no moral teachings possible on the scientific question of whether the theory of AGW is accurate.

This means that faith is not a scientific matter.

This is exactly backwards. It means science is not connected in any way to faith.

Again, the Magisterium takes a prayerful approach concerning moral statements that involve reviewing the science.

I doubt that the Magisterium prays for revelation in matters of science, and since the hard sciences “have no contact whatever with faith” that is entirely understandable.

 

[Motherwit]

I doubt that the Magisterium prays for revelation in matters of science, and since the hard sciences “ have no contact whatever with faith ” that is entirely understandable.

That’s just made up. My old spiritual director was an ethicist at the National Catholic bioethics center whose whole purpose is oversight, instructing and influencing scientific development for ethical outcomes.

 

[upant]

It needs more work, but it was a step in the right direction.

its goal is not being met and co2 emissions are increasing.

The futility of the agreement is evident in the continued destruction of our planet. In the years since the agreement was signed, global carbon emissions have risen by approximately 4 percent. And over the past year, emissions from all fossil fuel sources increased: coal emissions increased 1 percent, oil by 1.7 percent and gas by 3 percent. We haven’t even reached the peak in carbon emissions. (Sasja Beslik

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Image from Global Carbon Project

yet the wealth was redistributed, so what was the real goal?

 

[Ender]

That’s just made up.

Then again, maybe not. Read here:

Natural sciences

In natural sciences, especially natural philosophy, the points of contact are: — the creation of the world and of man (materialistic doctrines, eternity of matter, absolute necessity of natural laws impossibility of miracles, Darwinian origin of man); the Deluge its existence and ethnographical universality. The mathematical and experimental sciences, also known as exact sciences, have no contact whatever with faith…

My old spiritual director was an ethicist at the National Catholic bioethics center whose whole purpose is oversight, instructing and influencing scientific development for ethical outcomes.

That there is no faith involved in discovering scientific truths doesn’t mean that those truths can’t be applied unethically. That there is no faith is discovery doesn’t mean there is no place in application.

 

[Motherwit]

That there is no faith involved in discovering scientific truths doesn’t mean that those truths can’t be applied unethically. That there is no faith is discovery doesn’t mean there is no place in application.

Which is what OneSheep was talking about.

Again, the Magisterium takes a prayerful approach concerning moral statements that involve reviewing the science.

 

[Motherwit]

There are no moral teachings possible on the scientific question of whether the theory of AGW is accurate.

You see, people that believe that no science can definitively confirm that an embryo is a person with rights, also reject the Church’s moral teaching as relevant. The Church is here on this earth established with the very mission to consider these huge moral dilemmas assured of the Holy Spirit. We can’t use her authority to promote what we like and then just reject her authority when it doesn’t suit our own political opinion.

 

[pnewton]

You see, people that believe that no science can definitively confirm that an embryo is a person with rights,

What an apt comparison.

One reason abortion needs to be illegal is that without knowing when a person is a person with human rights, then it is a matter of law that we err on the side of behavior that will not kill another human being. Global warming skepticism should work the same way, in a consistent pro-life philosophy. Skepticism is an argument for caution against actions that could result in world-wide death. Seldom when mankind has engaged in polluting the environment have all the results been known. It is only later when body counts rise that pass laws prohibiting certain practices.

 

[Ender]

You see, people that believe that no science can definitively confirm that an embryo is a person with rights, also reject the Church’s moral teaching as relevant.

Science can confirm that a human embryo is a distinct human life, and that’s all it can do. Whether it is a person with rights is a legal question, and a moral question. It is not a scientific one.

The Church is here on this earth established with the very mission to consider these huge moral dilemmas assured of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, the church, with the guidance of the Spirit, can teach about moral issues; it’s just that scientific unknowns are not moral questions.

We can’t use her authority to promote what we like and then just reject her authority when it doesn’t suit our own political opinion.

Nor can we invent the concept that the Spirit guides bishops in the search for scientific truth. For example, if the Spirit did guide the church on matters of science one would hardly expect the church to have been so notably wrong on Galileo, which the Catholic Encyclopedia expresses this way:

*The error involved in the condemnation of Galilei is used as an argument against the right of the tribunals to exist. This is illogical and partial. The error was purely accidental, just as the miscarriages of justice in criminal courts is often the unfortunate result of similar accidental errors. If the argument does not hold in the latter case, it holds much less in the former. The error was a universal opinion tenaciously defended by the Reformers of the sixteenth century. *

With the Spirit there can be no error, so it is clear that the Spirit was not guiding the church on this matter of science, and if not then, then not now.

 

[stpurl]

You did remember this all wrong.
There is no ‘truth part’ of a heresy. That’s a modern distortion. A heresy is a belief which is contrary to the accepted or established belief.. Contrary to, not “it has some truth and some not”. Contrary. Against.

A heresy is not clarified until it ‘comes into line’ or until ‘some of it gets morphed into accepted belief’. A heresy is rejected because it is NOT Truth.

Suppose somebody said to you that your child was an alien, and then when you rejected that, claimed that “well part of that statement is true because your child IS your child, isn’t he?” Can you not see that the statement is a whole statement, not two parts, “your child” and “an alien’? That ‘Your child is an alien’ is completely and utterly untrue? That taking out ‘is an alien’ is distortion and that leaving ‘your child’ is just giving a sentence fragment that means nothing?

Even if you had a clause statement, thus: Your child is a male, and he is an alien”. . . (We are just assuming you have a male child here), claiming that there is truth in the statement because the ‘your child is a male’ part is ridiculous, because it likewise makes the ‘sentence’ into a fragment. The connector ‘and’ is totally necessary and the ‘is an alien’ part renders the entire sentence a lie.

 

[OneSheep]

Good Morning Ender,

There are no moral teachings possible on the scientific question of whether the theory of AGW is accurate.

I have already addressed this extensively. You don’t believe what the Church teaches about this, let’s leave it at that.

This is exactly backwards. It means science is not connected in any way to faith.

Actually, both Augustine and Aquinas asserted that revelation comes from both tradition and nature. Augustine saw that Manichaeism was contrary to science, and that was part of what turned his faith to Christianity. @Motherwit also provided an excellent example. Again, you don’t want to believe in this, let leave it at that. You are not speaking for the Church, but something else.

I doubt that the Magisterium prays for revelation in matters of science, and since the hard sciences “ have no contact whatever with faith ” that is entirely understandable.

Your interpretation of those words is contrary to the Catechism. For the reasons I stated above, faith has long been informed by science because God’s presence, his fingerprint, is found in creation itself. The Church today is using the best science to guide its moral actions in terms of Covid 19; it would be immoral to have people gather in churches today as we would 12 months ago. This is all based on the best science available, as discerned by the Magisterium.

Would you accept what science the Church is relying on for Covid 19 but deny the science the Church is relying on for Global Climate change being worsened by humanity? Again, you do not speak for the Church, you have some unknown source of bias.

its goal is not being met and co2 emissions are increasing.

Agreed, and it is in part because of our lack of leadership.

Then again, maybe not. Read

Your link proved my point. The meaning of the words concerning faith and science have to do with that science including “materialistic doctrines, eternity of matter, absolute necessity of natural laws impossibility of miracles, Darwinian origin of man); the Deluge its existence and ethnographical universality” does not disprove faith. Elements of faith can be informed by science, but science does not disprove faith.

Nor can we invent the concept that the Spirit guides bishops in the search for scientific truth

The “concept” was not “invented” by any single person, it is a matter of centuries of discernment on the part of the Church. Like I said, the Church made statements about the immorality of not dealing with Global climate change. The science of Galileo was not applicable to teachings of morality, so your example does not apply.

I’m done with this discussion. Your source of truth remains unknown, and you do not believe the Church. So be it.

 

[OneSheep]

There is no ‘truth part’ of a heresy. That’s a modern distortion.

Fair enough. What I am saying is that there was some truth in Arianism, just as there was some truth in Gnosticism. There were also specific heresies in both, that is, beliefs that were untrue. The emphases of “Jesus is man” and “Jesus is God” found in the belief systems were true, but it was the exclusion of the entire concept of God incarnate that was false, it was against the developed teachings of incarnation that ended up in the creed…

Today, the assertion that the Magisterium is not guided by the Spirit when making statements of morality, including her use of the best science to do so, is against the teachings of the Church. People need to ask themselves, really discern, the source of climate change denial. If they are valuing that source over the teachings of the Church, it would be valuable for them to discover the motives of those sources.

The motives behind climate change denial are economic, just as the motives behind upholding slavery were economic.

 

[stpurl]

Yikes. So now the charge has shifted to a claim that since the Spirit ‘guides’ the Magisterium that any questioning of climate change as presented in current encyclicals is going against the Spirit?

Not only that, but also denials of specific ‘science’ in these encyclicals are either predominantly or only based on ‘economics’ and that the economics are specifically likened to that of slavery, IOW that they are evil and aimed in treating others like chattel?

 

[OneSheep]

So now the charge has shifted to a claim that since the Spirit ‘guides’ the Magisterium that any questioning of climate change as presented in current encyclicals is going against the Spirit?

Well, I suppose that is possible, but it is not for me to say. I think it more accurate to say that the faithful can rely on the Spirit guiding the Church rather than guiding other sources concerning moral matters. Do you have a source that says the Church is wrong on these moral matters?

Not only that, but also denials of specific ‘science’ in these encyclicals are either predominantly or only based on ‘economics’ and that the economics are specifically likened to that of slavery, IOW that they are evil and aimed in treating others like chattel?

I don’t know what you are saying. Would you like to clarify?

 

[Motherwit]

Well, I suppose that is possible, but it is not for me to say. I think it more accurate to say that the faithful can rely on the Spirit guiding the Church rather than guiding other sources concerning moral matters. Do you have a source that says the Church is wrong on these moral matters?

These are valid questions that need to be answered by deniers if they are to have real credibility to fellow believers. If the authority of the Church is in question on morality, what is the point of the Church at all?

 

[Ender]

I have already addressed this extensively. You don’t believe what the Church teaches about this, let’s leave it at that.

No, I don’t believe you. The church has no doctrines on matters of science. Some of the clergy have expressed an opinion on global warming. They have their opinions on the science of the matter, I have mine.

Augustine saw that Manichaeism was contrary to science, and that was part of what turned his faith to Christianity.

This is irrelevant to the question of whether the Spirit reveals the mysteries of science to the church.

@Motherwit also provided an excellent example.

Which does nothing to counter the historical fact regarding the error the church made with respect to Galileo, and if a scientific error was made then then there can be no question that the Spirit was not involved - not involved then and not involved now.

Your interpretation of those words is contrary to the Catechism. For the reasons I stated above, faith has long been informed by science because God’s presence, his fingerprint, is found in creation itself.

That faith is informed by science in no way suggests that the Spirit guides the church to scientific truths. The Galileo incident completely disproves that notion. Nor is there anything in the catechism to suggest otherwise, your interpretation notwithstanding.

Would you accept what science the Church is relying on for Covid 19 but deny the science the Church is relying on for Global Climate change being worsened by humanity?

Not necessarily. Again, the church has no special insight into matters of science.

Elements of faith can be informed by science, but science does not disprove faith.

I agree, however neither of these statements was (a) ever contested, or (b) relevant to the question of whether the Spirit safeguards the church in matters of scientific fact.

The science of Galileo was not applicable to teachings of morality, so your example does not apply.

I see. So the Spirit only guides the church sometimes. What’s the case with COVID? Should we assume this is one where the church is not guided since no bishop (I assume) has said we have a moral obligation to act one way or the other? It’s complicated thinking the Spirit is only sometimes involved.

you do not believe the Church.

I believe you do not understand what the church does and does not teach in this regard.

 

[OneSheep]

I see. So the Spirit only guides the church sometimes. What’s the case with COVID? Should we assume this is one where the church is not guided since no bishop (I assume) has said we have a moral obligation to act one way or the other? It’s complicated thinking the Spirit is only sometimes involved.

Of course the Spirit has guided the Church in terms of how to deal with Covid. Do you think they have to actually use the word “moral” in order for them to act morally? All of the rules about social distancing and masks and number of people gathering, being outdoors, etc. are moral standings.

I believe you do not understand what the church does and does not teach in this regard.

I’m done with this discussion. I have presented all the Church’s teachings. Your source of truth remains unknown, and you do not believe the Church. So be it.

You can present your own source, and we can discuss that.

 

[stpurl]

But is it the ‘authority of the Church’ or is it merely an opinion held by some churchmen?

There is a very big difference between offering a scientific opinion, which may or may not be correct and which may or may not be germane to laity or priests, and giving authoritative teaching from the Magisterium on faith and morals.

As an example, a Catholic in many areas of the world may not even HAVE air conditioning. Other Catholics may live and work in places where it is available not as a luxury but in order to preserve the health of the people. Talking about “the West’ needing to cut off AC may lead readers to assume that every person who plugs in the AC at any time is committing a moral wrong.

People who make a living in the coal mines or doing fracking or harvesting pearl oysters may be doing so in order to feed their families and have no other option. Further, suddenly stopping some ‘not green’ practice cold could have ripple effects that far outweigh the ‘damage’ done. It seems that when it comes to ‘climate change’ everybody wants to stop ‘bad’ stuff this SECOND, and start ‘good stuff’ without having any kinds of plans for the transitions that are needed.

Again, while stewardship of the world is important, it seems we have forgotten that the reason to care for the earth is to make it a better place for PEOPLE. It’s not supposed to be for people to starve themselves or focus so much on the latest science theory —which in many cases will be completely reversed soon—remember in the 1980s how eggs were so BAD for you? Remember when coffee was so BAD for you? Remember when kids sleeping on their stomachs caused SIDS, until 5 years later when suddenly it was sleeping on their BACKS that caused it? We are supposed to care for people so they have the basic necessities and instead of stopping there or trying to get more material good we’re supposed to focus on leading people to GOD. That’s what it’s all about.

 

[Ender]

These are valid questions that need to be answered by deniers if they are to have real credibility to fellow believers. If the authority of the Church is in question on morality, what is the point of the Church at all?

What is being denied here are your interpretations of what the church teaches. It is not the church’s authority to teach on morality that is questioned; it is your understanding of it.

You can present your own source, and we can discuss that.

I am prepared to discuss the science of things. I am not prepared to accept that the church is guided by the Spirit on matters of science, or, even worse, that she is only sometimes guided by the Spirit on such issues.