Richard Chonak: February 2008 Archives

Summer events

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I'm starting to think about what events to attend during summer vacation. Of course, one is easy: the CMAA colloquium in Chicago June 16-22.

Is anything else good going on across the country? Conferences? Courses? Retreats? I'll be driving, so I can connect the dots pretty flexibly. Add your recommendations in the comments!

Co-opted

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Eric Ewanco tells me he got a message from the Family Research Council, and it's leaving me a bit unsatisfied as it does him. The message discusses the Federal gummint's "economic stimulus" bill just enacted in DC, and goes on to opine that it won't help the economy as much as a permanent tax decrease.

While the rebates may provide some instant reprieve, they will do little to bring about the long-term resilience that permanent tax relief policy would.

It's an interesting point, and I think it's probably correct.

But how does some issue of technical economic policy become an issue occupying the time of this respected pro-life, pro-family, pro-morality organization?

Deacon Keith Fournier looks at the movement that carried the standard of faithful, orthodox Christians' political activism: 20080214fournierkeith.jpg

The “religious right” movement ended up becoming a politically conservative, Republican and mostly evangelical Protestant movement. Though it claimed to include both Catholic Christians and evangelical Protestant Christians, most Catholic Christians never joined; and even those who worked with the movement on pro-life and pro-family issues did not fit in within the culture or model of the religious right movement.

Though faithful Catholics and Protestants certainly shared what has been called the “socially conservative” agenda, the “religious right" movement was built upon --and thrived within --a "persecuted minority" model of activism.

Some of the movements’ efforts were premised upon an "anti-" approach to effecting social, political and judicial change. The emphasis was placed on opposing the current problems and less on proposing alternatives and solutions.

The movement spoke almost exclusively of what was wrong with the culture and failed to articulate a better way forward. It focused on criticizing what was unjust and wrong and little on offering a compelling vision for a truly just social order.

It developed what could be called a hope deficit, failing to give a compelling vision for a better, more caring Nation. It did not often premise its positions within a framework of an integrated vision of the human person, the family, the social order and principles of authentic social justice.

It became co-opted by -- even submerged into -- the existing conservative political movement, a secular movement, and obscured by peripheral causes whose connection to Christian faith and doctrine is not obvious.
It may have been due to a lack of a cohesive social teaching in the particular Christian tradition and formation of the leaders involved in the movement. However, the sad effect was that much of the rhetoric which emerged made it sound as though all politically “conservative” ideas were somehow “Christian”.

Thus the movement lost its “religion” and became just another extension of the conservative movement. [...]

For example, I will never forget the day when I took exception to a conservative icon's claim that the Second Amendment (protecting the right to bear arms) secured what he called the “first freedom”. I insisted that the first freedom was not owning a gun but rather religious freedom and that the first right was the right to life.

Based upon the reaction of that one early leader of the religious right, you might have thought I had blasphemed [....]

In this election season, Christian social conservatives in the Republican party have been chafing at their status as a mere faction, often an ineffectual one, in the GOP, so Dcn. Fournier's arguments are timely.

(A hat-tip to The Catholic Knight who spotted the article.)

Don't do this in church

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I must have missed this bit of religious silliness when it first hit the net and generated controversy: a charismatic community in Brazil, the "Shalom" Community, engages in dance as an evangelistic art form. They did this at a conference:

It really is impressive how fast the priest takes off at the start of the dance.

There is sincere piety here, as far as I can tell, but the whole thing looks like an act from the L.A. Religious Ed Congress. What isn't clear to me is this: when people start whistling from the "audience", are they praising or protesting the spectacle?

For years, the Korean bishops have been trying to stop the activities of would-be mystic Julia Kim (now Julia Youn) at Naju, Korea. She claimed to have a weeping statue of Our Lady; she claimed to suffer the stigmata; she claimed that the Eucharist turned into visible, bloody flesh in her mouth, including in 1995 when she received the Sacred Host from Pope John Paul II.

The Archdiocese of Kwangju issued several declarations against the claims of supernatural miracles in the case, and on January 21 of this year, the confrontation reached a decisive point when the Archbishop of Kwangju declared Youn and those who participate in her activities excommunicated for grave disobedience.

Although my sympathies are with the bishop, parts of the canonical decree seem odd: e.g., I'm not sure that canon law allows for a latae sententiae excommunication for the sort of disobedience the Archbishop cites. (E.g., see the SJF's discussion of c1371.) On the other hand, the decree seems to treat adherence to Mrs. Youn's claims as a matter of schism. Perhaps Pete Vere or Ed Peters (keeper of the "Excommunication Blotter") will be able to clarify this for the good of the faithful.

A press report is on-line at Mirifica, and also follows after the jump...

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On life and living in communion with the Catholic Church.

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