Cardinal George's Committees on Catholic Identity

affect or effect?
One is emotion; the other a result.

My affect is one of fear and trembling at these words of George; the effect is my heading deeper into this desert exile.

By the way, looking at others and saying, "That's not very Catholic" is not very Catholic. Catholic is universal and we cannot define what is Catholic anymore than we can define God to our own personal limitations and political convenience. God is Love. Love is very Catholic.

With the great guidance of the Rule for Monks of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict, I hope slowly to grow to the point I can look within, examine my own actions, my thoughts, my words, and realize that I am not very Catholic, as I limit my love, and so resolve to become more profoundly and effectively Catholic. But I cannot say that of another; we all get there together or not at all. We bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. I can only love the other, more fully, more compassionately, more sincerely, with more doughnuts. I must learn to love my enemy in a way my enemy can effectively perceive as Love, like ending war and declaring peace, and a party.

Now, that's very Catholic!
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)

I think it is important to expose Cardinal George's attempts to stifle free thought and control the minds of eduactors and students to fit his narrow views. Like Cardinal Levada and Rode, these three are up to no good. They are all acting like Grand Inquisitors on their nefarious witch hunts. I say expose them to the entire world, NOT just the Catholic world. It is time to stop these men in their tracks. They do NOT represent the gentle and loving Christ nor do their political agendas fit the teachings of Christ. Expose them and shame them.

The author's conclusion seems to be accurate. Whenever the bishops in this courntry do anything to correct abuse they are accused of being "inquisitorial"...so they should be as cautious as they can. Of course, there comes a time when the bishops to preserve the integrity of the Church's teachings must publicly denounce a certain bad idea...because they're the only one's with the authority to do it. This always seems to be the sticking point with those who lean to the left...that Catholics aren't part of a democratic, self-forming Church but are part of one whose teachings are affirmed and defined by a hiearchy.

It is worth noting that when Catholics veer to the right the tend to want to freeze a moment in time to bludgeon people with as the standard of Truth. The farther one goes to the right the less one seems likely to accept any development of doctrine. In any event, this is why the Church was given and needs a living magesterium (bishops w/pope) to allow the Church to be able to respond to the concerns of the age while holding to the deposit of faith.

Excuse my obtuseness but I'm not quite sure what you are getting at. There are a lot of
non-surprises in this, but no conclusions except the business of treading carefully. But maybe I shouldn't be looking for conclusions; maybe I'd be surprised if there were one.

You and the crew of apostates are toast pal.

Is there one Catholic identity?
There is one church comprised of multiple and emerging identities, a dynamic emergence much like we would see in the natural growth of any living organism. To wit: we all don't look alike or think alike.

The Bishops it seems to me, especially with Bishop George's assertiveness, may be emerging from their sexual abuse scandals to reposition themselves as the "princes" of the church, to reclaim their authority. Perhaps enough time and anguish has passed that they can assert their voices, such as through liturgical reform or the abortion debate, and simply ignore the past as if it were finished; "we've paid the bills, gone through the litigation, let's move on."

But as someone who remembers, I feel the "stand against our culture in understanding our own ecclesiology," and am moving closer to leaving the church. At 60-years old, after serving in my church for most of those years, as one who still loves to pray in quiet within the walls of my church, near the sanctuary, as one who still believes deeply in God's presence and the work of the Spirit, who still seeks the forgiveness of Jesus, I have asked the question of how do I explain to my children I may leave. The capes and gowns, the shrill denunciation among bishops with each other, the thinly veiled efforts to further estrange the laity, and the smug plodding to return to an ancient language and rite not because it enhances worship but rather it pleases the hierarchy... this is not the Church I was taught planted by Christ. Yes, there are many mansions, and there are many identities. But similarly to the take over of the Republican party by a vociferous extreme segment, our Church in its leadership and in several of the lay organizations seems to be walking that same path. And that extreme makeover seeks to crush dissent, thinking, and the inclusiveness that is the heartbeat of Jesus' ministry.
I have no other church to go to. I'm not actively seeking another. And I'm not sure of what I'll do.

Whenever I read anything authored by Michael Sean Winters, I think "That's not very Catholic."

Who are you to define what makes someone Catholic? Pretty arrogant of you, as usual.

Whenever I read your articles, I think "That's not Catholic."

Who appointed you the designator of what does or does not make one Catholic? I grow weary of NCR allowing your bullying tone and narcissism to persist on its webpage.

Okay, dudes, realizing I bear a severely incapacitating literary disability, of which I vaunt not, can someone please assist me with Sean's last paragraph here!

Is a distrust of inquisitorial practices another aspect of American culture? Is there an American Culture, and how is this defined and distinguished from other cultures? My anthropology professor and dissertation adviser taught us first and foremost there is no such a thing as a "culture" giving cogent reasons for his indisputable assertion. What evidence do we have therefore that an "American culture" with distinguishing "aspects" exists?

And how is a distrust of inquisitorial practices as specifically American aspect? From the time of Tail-gunner Joe through that fallen away priest on the MacLaughlin Report through our historic, hidden and explicit torture chambers operating world wide, through Jerry Springer, in fact, it would appear that anglo-America is enamored of inquisitorial practices, and that these practices are in ipse a most distinguishing aspect of American culture, if such exists.

Distrust of inquisitorial practices in fact seems a greater marker of European cultures, or anywhere else in the world, than our own. We are ready and eager to accept without question the policeman's word, the prosecutor's word, particularly when the accused stands from a race or culture or language not anglo. We accept readily without question the word of Joe Leiberman, of Lou Dobbs, of Rush, of Foxnews and the rest without wondering if they might be wrong, if they might have an ulterior motive or hidden agenda.

We forget the children and men we hold hostage on Guantanamo have never been charged with ANY crime, but accept the word of the past administration they must be held indefinitely under the most inhumane conditions, without trial, without rights, without any evidence at all of wrong-doing, without due process, with torture continual, kept far from any opportunity of rejoining their families, forever.

Cartesian distrust would be a glorious advancement for our culture, always willing to embrace the publicly declared enemy of the people where no such enemy exists. Seen any WMD's yet?

Yet Sean goes on, and here is where my severely limiting literary incapacity breaks down, as Sean writes this one sentence: "Cardinal George is a very bright man and he surely understands that the immediate affect of any kind of ecclesiastical condemnation is to vaunt the work or organization condemned to new found notoriety."

affect or effect, immediate or otherwise . . .?

How does condemnation "vaunt" the condemned to "new found notoriety?"

Could it not be "newfound" or does Sean's spellchecker not accept this hallowed adjective dating back to the fifteenth century?

And how notoriety? Certainly ill-fame is ever the "effect" of condemnation; what does Sean find notable in this, and how does this relate to a reputed American cultural skepticism?

"Vaunt" or "vault;" upon this point my incapacity proves most burdensome.

Does Sean indicate with subtlety that George's condemnaton is boastful vainglory, as in vaunting, while the sentence seems to call for the verb form of vault, which would leap the condemned to new notoriety?

Sean continues: "Our culture lionizes dissent"

Again, please define for me "our culture" especially as my professor professed "culture" does not exist.

The evidence again indicates otherwise. The greatest insult hurled against NCR and its excellent longtime columnists (Dear, McBrien, Chittister, Gumbleton, even poor Fr. Hays) is that they are on the list of dissenters, and to be torn apart and ripped to shreds by any true and faithful Catholic. Is this what is meant by lionizing them, to treat them as the lions treated pacifist Catholics in the Coliseum? I find no evidence in the USA of dissent being praised, but buried.

SEan completes this sentence with this apparent non sequitur against the logical thread of his discourse: " . . .which is why those who exercise it (dissent?) often look foolish claiming the mantle of a prophet for their stance." To whom does he refer here? Who has claimed this mantle?

The rest appears to be treading already muddied waters with some idle pontificating, and already my limited literary capacities have been taxed beyond relief, and my brain hurts, and I ask someone please to walk me carefully and patiently through what I have attempted to read with understanding.

Is anybody editing this man?
just wondering
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)

The death of NCR comes not by episcopal decree but by episcopal vicar when this Winters of our discontent foolishly claims the mantle of our prophetic Tom Fox for his stance, as Winters writes: "Our culture lionizes dissent, which is why those who exercise it often look foolish claiming the mantle of a prophet for their stance."

Winters writes: "Our culture lionizes dissent, which is why those who exercise it often look foolish claiming the mantle of a prophet for their stance."

This unfortunate phrase troubled me still at the hour of Matins early morning after midnight.

By our baptism we each receive the mantle of that most courageous and pivotal prophet Saint John the Baptist (to which our hermitage has ever and always been devoted), he who spoke truth so strongly to Power, that he lost his head for it.

Read Oscar Wilde's suggestive if wandering meditation upon this great prophet within whose mantle we all are wrapped with our baptismal waters, and then speak truth to power.

It is after all our baptismal promise, our baptismal vow, our baptismal marker.
Stop the wars.
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)