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.
We continue the discussion with young theologians who participated in the Fordham Conversation Project as they discuss the contributions made by Pope Benedict. The discussion is intended to complement the publication, recently released by the USCCB, Pope Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on His Papacy. Today, we hear from Beth Haile of Boston College.
The question: What is one of Pope Benedict's contributions to the life of the Church?
Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said the President's decision to lift the moratorium on off-shore drilling was "a step in the right direction." I believe it was a step in the wrong direction both on the merits and politically.
Yesterday, while speaking at the Synod in Rome, Pope Benedict denounced the “false divinities” that litter our culture, and he listed the usual suspects of terrorism, drug abuse and violence. But, he added a new false god to the list: “anonymous capital.” Here is the key part of the text: “…let us remember the anonymous capital that enslaves man, which is no longer in man’s possession, but is an anonymous power served by men, by which men are tormented and even killed. It is a destructive power, that threatens the world.”
UPDATE (10/25): Not a lot of movement in this race. It is still rated as a Toss-up at both Real Clear Politics and Cook Political Report. Fivethirtyeight.com gives Republican Mark Kirk a 64% chance of winning the seat once held by President Obama.
Both candidates are, in a sense, running against the national type this year: the Republican Mark Kirk is an experienced member of Congress running as a moderate and Alexi Gianoullias is the former businessman with no DC resume. Charges and counter-charges dominated the debates, but there were no knockouts. The RCP poll average has Kirk up by 2.7 percent, which is within the margin of error. This race will be decided by turnout.
Earlier today, I quoted from the public discussion then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had with Jurgen Habermas.
Here is another quote from that same event. I am especially struck by his invocation of the Church Fathers.
Too often, mainstream views of religion think everything before the Enlightenment was dark and bestial, but that is a mis-characterization of history. The Enlightenment followed, and was in part spawned by, the Renaissance which, like the ressourcement theology that shaped Vatican II, involved a retrieval of wisdom from the past.
From the future pope:
PBS began its four-part documentary, “God in America,” last night and it was better than I expected. Oftentimes, the mainstream media takes on religion in a very superficial way, considering religion as “the Easter Bunny with real estate” as a journalist friend once said, but the producers of the show went beyond the surface. The rest of the series will air each of the next three nights and, hopefully, will maintain the standard established last night.
One of the best parts of last night’s show was that the experts they lined up explained how America’s individualism was not derived exclusively from the Enlightenment, but was born of the religious, and specifically Protestant, impulses of the colonial culture. They used the example of Anne Hutchinson’s challenge to the Puritan establishment of John Winthrop to demonstrate the tension that exists in American Protestantism between its devotion to the individual’s direct access to the Scripture and the conformity to established norms derived by the dominant culture from those same Scriptures. The issues may have changed, but the debate itself was at the heart of the contemporary debate about health care reform.
This week at Q & A, we continue our discussion of the contributions Pope Benedict XVI has made to the life of the Church and we are featuring young theologians who participated in the Fordham Conversation Project.
Our first interviewee is Kathryn Getek Soltis who is the Catherine of Siena Teaching Fellow in Ethics at Villinova University.
The question: What is one of Pope Benedict's contributions to the life of the Church?
Pope Benedict XVI released his motu proprio erecting the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization this morning. This phrase “New Evangelization” was coined by Pope John Paul II but it has become a central part of Pope Benedict’s agenda and he doubtlessly intends it to be part of his legacy. He has his work cut out for him because it is not yet clear, even to many bishops, what the phrase means.
(N.B. At Q & A this week, we will be continuing the discussion of Pope Benedict’s contributions to the life of the Church with comments from some of the young theologians who participated in the Fordham Conversation Project this past August. This discussion is intended – like all discussions – to be an end in itself, but also to highlight the publication of a new book about the Holy Father, published by the USCCB, Pope Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on His Papacy, which I highly commend.)
UPDATE (10/26) There have been no new polls in this race, and both Real Clear Politics and the Cook Report continue to list the race as "Lean Republican." Paul Gosar, a dentist, is the particular Republican the voters in AZ-1 are leaning to, and it looks like incumbent Anne Kirkpatrick is going to be a one-term congresswoman.
Here is a link to an article from the local press that shows the challenge for Kirkpatrick: people want a change. And, in Arizona, resentment against Washington was reinforced when the Justice Department sued the state over its anti-immigrant law. With McCain running away with his race for the Senate and Gov. Jan Brewer cruising to victory in the governor's race, the wind is at Gosar's back. Last minute ads attacking his inability to pay his taxes on time may not be enough to turn the tide for the incumbent.
This morning, protesters will gather at the foot of a statue to Christopher Columbus outside Washington D.C.'s Union Station. Some years they throw blood on the statue. They charge Columbus with bringing cruelty and slavery to the New World, and you can read, at Huffington Post this morning, a synopsis of the crimes the Columbus-haters accuse him of perpetrating.
But, Columbus also brought the Gospel with him to the New World. Yes, the good news of Jesus Christ was carried by men who shared all the prejudices, the violence, and the cruelty of late-fifteenth century Europeans. Columbus did not only bring Christ, he brought Christians, and those Christians often did unspeakably horrible things. Yet, despite this legacy of cruelty, there is another legacy, a legacy of those, especially Catholic priests, who defended the native peoples from the militaristic adventurers who made up most of Columbus's - and subsequent - crews.
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