Welcome to Distinctly Catholic, a blog by Michael Sean Winters that examines politics, religion and the estuary where the two meet, all from a distinctively Catholic point of view. The blog is small "c" catholic as well as big "C" Catholic, examining a wide range of issues but always from the perspective of Catholic history and theology.
The President of the Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, issued a statement yesterday expressing his “disappointment” at the USCCB’s document on religious liberty. I do not know the Rev. Dr. Gaddy, and now I am glad that I don’t. Here is the text of his statement and my comments will follow:
UPDATE/CORRECTION: Below I related the story of Cardinal Wuerl's discussions with the government of the District of Columbia regarding same sex marriage. I was mistaken in suggesting that Cardinal Wuerl had proposed a variation on the "Levada solution" because the Levada solution dealt with domestic partnerships, not same sex marriage, and so that solution was not available to Cardinal Wuerl. I regret the error.
The USCCB this morning released the text of a new document from its ad hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. The document, entitled, “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” takes the recent debate over the HHS mandates and brings the discussion to the 35,000 foot level, surveying the landscape more broadly and making the case that the issue of religious liberty is urgent and warrants the attention of both the Church and the nation.
Over at America, the always readable Kevin Clarke takes on the Ryan budget and Ryan's claims about how that budget coheres with traditional Catholic social teaching. Masterfully done!
This morning, The New Republic has published my review of Notre Dame professor Timothy Matovina's extraordinarily wonderful book on Latino Catholicism.
This past Easter weekend, more Christians in Nigeria were killed when they went to worship the Risen Lord. Today, at Catholic University, there will be a symposium about Boko Haram, the Muslim group that has claimed responsibility for the violence. I wrote about the conference here, and you can go to this site for more information.
I admit it - I have a crush on Melinda Henneberger. This essay greeted me this morning in the Washington Post and it is so well written, so balanced in its assessments, and says something that so desperately needs to be said, I found myself feeling profoundly grateful.
Our friends at Sussidiario have published a fine essay by Notre Dame law professor Rick Garnett, a scholar whose name will be quite familiar to regular readers of this blog. The essay is well worth the read and can be found here.
Heresy has been defined as “a truth run amok.” That definition came to mind when I heard Cong. Paul Ryan argue during a Christian Broadcasting Network interview that his budget proposals are consonant with Catholic social teaching. Ryan has happened upon the traditional Catholic notion of subsidiarity to justify his position and, for good measure, he also invokes the Church’s preferential option for the poor, but gives that teaching a peculiarly laissez-faire slant. Here is the full quote:
Yesterday, I looked at some of the themes in Joseph Bergin’s wonderful history of the French Church in the long seventeenth century, Church, Society and Religious Change in France, 1580-1730. Today, I would like to conclude this short “review” of this important book.
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