Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts has a look at two Zeitgeist-R-Us Catholics:
A tale of two apologists.
First, the Shea. Naturally Mark waded into this one as we all could guess. He wasn’t alone. Many I saw on the more radical leftwing segment of the Church swung into action. A couple openly condemned it, but most did what Mark appears to be doing here, and that’s stating variations on ‘next year and then Jerusalem.’ That is Development of Doctrine, the key teaching upon which the whole of liberal Protestant denominations came to be founded, is the capstone.
With development of doctrine you have a real thing – just read the Bible. And ostensibly this real thing is alive and well and forever teaching us what parts of old doctrines need discarded or rewritten. It was such a powerful force in mainline Protestantism that I remember debating issues with leaders from those denominations who had no problem saying that they didn’t know how to square, say, gay marriage with Jesus’ claim God made marriage around man and woman, but they could assume development of doctrine and discover Jesus never actually said such a thing after all. It became a ‘get out of jail free’ card when it comes to changing things around to keep with the times.
For Mark, he doesn’t give an actual, definitive answer to where the Church will go from here. Thankfully the Church has embraced the post-Freudian idea that we are defined by our sexual desires, and that those are likely as much a part of God’s plan for us as any other charism. Therefore as long as no penetration is involved, all is blessing and glory where our sexual inclinations are concerned. It’s just that pesky no physical sex part that’s the tricky point. To this, Mark appears to argue that it’s about the sex and the sacraments. The sex is about the person, and the sacraments are for the person not the other way around, and since someday the sacraments will pass but the dignity of the person will not, well, you do the math.
The second piece is from Dawn Eden, who has openly apologized for the harm she caused by standing up to modern, liberal values and beliefs. In this piece, she makes it about love. God is love and love is love, and all you need is love, and I am the walrus and a hard day’s night and all. It’s about the love and the chastity. Once again, the gift of same sex desires can be gloriously lived out in love because that’s what it’s all about. Exactly why this desire leads to a sinful act if fulfilled and yet we insist God doesn’t tempt us to sin, I’m not sure. But it’s about the love, and that’s good enough. Naturally her piece tends toward that approach in which we insist same sex attraction shouldn’t be treated any differently than any other sinful inclination all while treating it differently than we treat any other sinful inclination.
Now, I will not wade into the meat and potatoes of this. Others far more versed and schooled in the nitty-gritty can do the heavy lifting. I will note that much of what they are saying is merely what the Church teaches, and has been teaching for many years now. There is development of doctrine. There is modifying in light of new discoveries. There is, for want of a better phrase, keeping up with the Jonses. When the world zigs, the Church had best zig with it lest it zag in the wrong direction and be laughed at, or worse. I’m at a loss to figure how someone could say that hasn’t been the Church’s approach for quite some time. And it isn’t alone. That’s where many religions have been since it appeared humanity entered into a new age of finally discovering how things really work.
But what struck me in both of these was something I’ve noticed that is common when debating various topics driven by the modern Left. Notice that in both, there is no question as to the motives of the LGBTQ community, openly gay believers, gay activists, or anything. They are pure as the wind driven (but not white) snow. There is no dealing with the seedier sides, or possibility that it is all part of a much larger revolution aiming at the very heart of the Faith. There is not even the possibility that anything but the pure quest for love and God is at the heart of everything to do with this call to challenge the Church’s teachings regarding one of the most fundamental beliefs in the Christian stockpile: the very definition of humanity, its relations with itself and subsequently with God.
Nope. Dawn doesn’t go into much regarding detractors or those troubled by the Church’s direction. Mark, of course, makes it clear where the bad motives are. Echoing my former ethics professor David Gushee, he assumes it’s always been about the kindly liberals pushing forward against the ever clinging conservatives fighting the Left’s true revelations due to their wicked ways. And in a way not at all foreign to Pope Francis, he can assume the motives for not jumping on the good ship Leftism are the most reprehensible, while the inner intentions of those individuals indulging in even full out gay sex (or abortion, or any ‘sin of the left’) should never be questioned or judged.
That is, IMHO, one of the most powerful weapons in the Left’s arsenal, that every debate begins with the assumption of the Left’s infallibility and blameless motives. So true is what the Left proposes, so clear the evils the Left is attempting to fix, so blameless the Left’s designs, that any resistance can only be attributed to the most questionable, if not the most evil, of reasons. Just pick a topic: immigration, socialism, gay rights, transgender rights, Covid lockdowns, gun control – the list is endless.
After all, it’s how Pope Francis could so easily accept the decidedly progressive spin on Global Warming. Are there scientists who question the mainline narrative regarding climate change? Sure. But if you recall, Pope Francis had no problem dismissing them as a wretched brood likely on the fossil fuel industry dole, and therefore not as purely motivated as those who march to the MMGW beat. Same here. Same anywhere in which we approach issues driven by the modern Left. And that, kiddies, is a powerful attack that those who would resist the directions in which we are going have yet to overcome.
One more thing. During my sojourn with the Orthodox, I will say it has done a better job resisting the ‘times changes, churches change’ approach to the world. Better, but not solid. Now, after about two generations of post-Soviet believers, the up and coming wee ones are itching to join the West in at least this regard, and shuffle off some old, antiquated notions about genders, sex and ‘reproductive health’ if nothing else. How long the Orthodox can hold out is anyone’s guess. If they are smart, they’ll look long and hard and see where too much of that has gotten the West. But then, if Catholics were smart, they would look at where too much of that got all of those dying Protestant denominations.
Go here to comment. The contemporary Left is like the Borg in the Star Trek universe: You either fight them or you are assimilated by them. If they assimilate the Church, humanity is in for a period of darkness more dire than anything in our history where humanity, or great swathes of it, will cease to be humanity as the term has been understood.
Looking at the odyssey of Eden and Shea over the last 15 years, I find both quite puzzling figures. Long ago, Bobby Jones wrote an article with the title ‘Golf is Not My Business’. He quit tour play at age 28 and made his living as a lawyer. I’d be pleased if the only laymen making a living off the Church were tradesmen and professionals who could work in a half-dozen different venues.
It’s horrible. I hoped Mr. Shea would keep his admittedly unhinged rants to politics, which are after all a prudential matter, but he has finally gone full-blown liberal in morals and doctrine. He is the living proof that the poison of modernism, if left unchecked, can destroy your mind and your faith. And the equivocal behavior of most bishops hasn’t helped. We should pray for him and for the Church.
From Shea’s post, ” I have known confessors, very good confessors, who have told me that they have counseled people in gay relationships to remain in those relationships because to turn their back on their partner would be a grave evil and an unjustice.”
Who wants to bet this little anecdote never took place? And if it did, there is a big difference between “don’t throw this other party to the curb” and “for the sake of justice please keep sodomizing your boyfriend”.
Ken:
Unfortunately, he doesn’t have to invent it. It’s the same thing the Pope said in Amoris Laetitia regarding divorced people who have a new partner. As you point out, it is just a transparent excuse to keep sinning, but it is sadly widespread among liberal clergy.
Another straw man from Shea, follow the law or leave the Church. I don’t want anyone to leave the Church. I accept that my sins are sins. I cannot accept people thinking their sins are not sins.
The funny thing is that the less you emphasize sin, the quicker people leave the Church. My parish that has priests in the confessional 7 days a week is full and hundreds go to confession each week. neighboring parishes where the line for confession is never more than a person or two are populated with the elderly and a few younger families. You can smell the decay.
When it comes to religion belief inspires belief. Priests just going through the motions drive people away. Religion is all important, and treating it as merely a social gathering with smells and bells could not be farther from what Christ teaches us.
Mark’s second essay is all over the place–far from uniformly-bad, actually. There’s stuff to chew on. But his Labelmaker Never. Turns. Off.
It’s always a battle between 50s comic book heroes and villains: the Thoughtful Loving Catholics vs Kruel Katholik Krusaders.
I mean really–dismissing the orthodox critics of St. Thomas as “Augustinian Reactionaries”?
So much for Saint Bonaventure and the Franciscan tradition….And then there’s this guy named Ratzinger who said “you know, the Franciscans had a point.”
But that’s what happens when your pastoral approach is the anti-matter version of the strawman dogmatism you inveigh against.
Honestly, I’m not seeing the problem with Dawn Eden’s essay at all. Her new scold-y persona in the age of Francis is unpleasant, but what she wrote is orthodox, and a reasonable argument. Start with an emphasis on the sacrament of marriage, instruct that chastity is for every state of life, clergy or lay, and go from there.
I’m sure it happened. Mark is too impulsive, but he is honest.
However, I agree that there’s a gulf between non-abandonment and keep-on-keeping-on. There’s no doubt that a good spiritual director can give the former recommendation–but it has to be in the context of spiritual direction.
That’s where, from my read, the pastoral approach breaks down. In the absence of continuing direction, it simply becomes an affirmation of where you are, and reduction of moral teaching to consequentialism. That’s where Amoris crashes and burns–it is content to mention the “ideal” (which it is not–it’s the Gospel) but affirm people where they are, even if entirely out of joint with its rightful expectations.
Whereas, relationship-related moral problems require a steady direction and constant temperature-taking. Easier to just affirm conscience, especially if you’re a harried priest with two or more parishes to shepherd.
Dale, my problem was that it seems to rest on the modern ‘mention love and done’ approach. It reminds me more of the world’s use of the idea of love, even if wrapped in theological dressing. Plus, as I said, notice that at no point does anyone question anything about LGBTQ activists, gay Catholics or anything. Those who question accepting the modern spin on sexuality are immediately scrutinized for their bigoted, hateful motives. But those advocating for gay whatever are taken at their word, motives pure, now look to love. As I said, this isn’t the only topic the ‘assume bad motives on one side of the debate only’ is employed, and from my spot in the bleachers, it’s employed to devastating effect..
Dale Price:
From Eden’s article: “In that sense, gay people have every right to feel singled out by the Church as though their conduct were uniquely sinful”.
That’s doubly false and panders to the victimization of certain sinners that the modern world considers secular saints. The Church clearly proclaims alls extra-marital sex is sinful, as well as stealing, not going to Mass on Sunday, murdering, contracepting, and many more things. It is false that the Church gives the impression that homosexual sex is the only gravely sinful thing. On top of that, it is Catholic doctrine that homosexual sin is, in itself and ceteris paribus, more serious than extramarital sin, because it is contra natura and one of the sins that cry to heaven (see the Catechism).
On top of that, there are many more objectionable things in her essay. Her evident use of “love” as a vague category that would allow the church to not mention those annoying doctrines about sin until some point in the distant future, that may never come, when we will tell people the “hard teachings” (as if these teachings were something secondary and only for almost-perfect Catholics and not the essential minimum for everybody). The using of the most confusing and off-the-cuff remarks by Popes as moral principles, instead of, you know, the actual moral principles. The praising of Amoris Laetitia, a deeply-flawed text. And many more things.
Of course, she also says good things. There are always good things in any text, because absolute evil does not exist. But IMO the flaws are so serious that the whole article is harmful and eventually leads to Mr. Shea’s clear errors.
The thing that strikes me about Dawn Eden’s post is this: The central thesis is that we must first teach what love is and only when that is understood can we discuss the “hard teachings” regarding homosexuality and conception. But nowhere in the post does she even discuss what love is!
I understand that she’s talked about it elsewhere, but it’s bizarre that she again and again says that the problem is that no one understands love, but then she never elaborates on it.
Mark is too impulsive, but he is honest.
No, one of the big hints I got that he’d headed into full-on manufacturing his own evidence when he couldn’t find it was when someone jumped into my comment section with claims that waterboarding was identical to a technique from, IIRC, the Philippines called ‘the water torture.’
I did enough digging to find primary sources.
That was forcing enough water into someone’s stomach that it visibly distended, then beating them until they puked. And repeating it until they died, generally.
The only connection was that it involved water and the rhetorical flourish of being able to say ‘water torture’ was too tempting.
Looking back, there had been several times he made claims I could get no evidence for, either way, and I had assumed it was either third-hand information or an interpretation issue at some point in the chain of information.
I no longer reflexively make that assumption, because I have caught him bearing false witness, because he values winning more than he values truth.
Hard disagree there. I’ve seen him recount back to people the “meaning” of the words they post. I’ve also seen him say and post several things that just aren’t true and absolutely block and ban any possible correction. (Just look at how often he repeats lies about Trump.)
Mark gave up honesty when he joined himself to the movement of lies.
Often, the only ‘exits’ available entail cynicism and irony.
Did your confessor make you read that a$$hole Shea’s malodorous detritus for a penance?
If so, you want to find another confessor.
Yeah, I’d have to throw a yellow flag on the ‘Mark is honest’ part, too. He simply writes too many things that are false, and accuses people wrongly far too often, for the term ‘honest’ to be applied to him.
A key paragraph from Mark’s post:
Likewise, the Church of the 16th century had one paradigm when it came to religious liberty: Error Has No Rights. It was true as far as it went–and you believe it too. That’s why you don’t shout “Hear them out!” when some flat earther or anti-vax weirdo starts spouting conspiracy theories about Bill Gates’ 5G mind control nanobots or a KKK nut starts demanding to know why Twitter won’t platform his yammering about exterminating inferior races. We all believe error has no rights when the error really matters to us.
By his own standards, political differences really matter to him but Church teaching not so much.
That’s not to say that Mark doesn’t think that he is following Church teaching and arguing for it. He probably does, but since it is of secondary importance to him he is willing to hear it attacked in all sorts of ways and walk away with the idea that some compromise might be possible.
But when it comes to someone attacking the progressive agenda? No room for discussion there because those errors are the ones that really matter.
Yes I know that in the next paragraph he talks about how “while errors have no rights, people do.” But if he meant that about all errors it would be bizarre to bring up his political strawman punching bag. Even people believing in those things would have rights too. But Mark only applies that reasoning to people advocating for homosexuality and other progressive causes since their theological errors don’t really matter to him.
Breaking it down to the basics- Love is telling someone the truth about right and wrong. Maybe how you deliver it makes the difference whether the recipient will actually hear it, but at the end of the day it must be delivered. Homosexuality is one of those sins which if a person is caught up in to the point they have a a live-in partner where their lives are so intertwined it’s almost difficult to get out of. It wouldn’t matter if that person stole, or lied because they could essentially stop stealing and lying but they will still be bound to sin by their lifestyle and changing it essentially means destroying their life. The Church (used to) place emphasis on homosexuality because it’s one of those sins that can bind a person to a fate which is detrimental to their soul. So, a priest telling a Parishioner the truth about his/her sinful lifestyle is the most loving thing that priest could do. The story of Adam and Eves fall is the Serpent telling them the fruit was good, when in fact it caused the entire downfall of mankind. Sometimes I think we need to ignore the noise and chatter of someone’s “opinion” and come back to the simple truth. This usually identifies any BS that someone is spinning in order to paint the truth a grey colour, when in actual fact it is as black as night.
I do love how Mark lives rent free in your heads. All these articles seem a bit obsessive? Does he really pose that great of a threat? He must…
He mislabels himself as a Catholic Apologist and is hired by Catholic groups, parishes and dioceses to speak. In the interest of truth it is necessary to periodically remind people that Mark has degenerated into a particularly nasty Leftist Apologist.
Does he really pose that great of a threat?
Well, the very first example I offered that he is not honest was of him causing people to go out and spread lies that were easily debunked for nothing more than an internet connected computer and some free time.
While claiming to be speaking with authority, for the Church.
This should be a pretty obvious issue, even if you are totally fine with lying.
In all honestly both Mark and Dawn are faithful Orthodox Catholics who are not dissenting from church teaching or OKing sinful behavior. They are looking for a way to be pastorally sensitive to Catholics with same-sex attraction and using their brains to figure it out intellectually.
They are looking for a way to be pastorally sensitive to Catholics with same-sex attraction and using their brains to figure it out intellectually.
Rather I suspect they are engaging in a slow motion surrender to the Lavender Mafia.
“ In all honestly both Mark and Dawn are faithful Orthodox Catholics who are not dissenting from church teaching or OKing sinful behavior. They are looking for a way to be pastorally sensitive to Catholics with same-sex attraction and using their brains to figure it out intellectually.”
This is sarcasm, right?
To bad they never use their brains to figure out how to be sensitive to anybody else.
M. Wilson, I wouldn’t comment on Dawn at this point, but to say Mark is orthodox is like saying ham is kosher. If that is orthodox, orthodox no longer has meaning. The problem is that he continues to be supported and promoted by those who should no better.
“They are looking for a way to be pastorally sensitive to Catholics with same-sex attraction and using their brains to figure it out intellectually.”
They are in no position to be pastoral carers of anyone. It’s very dangerous for Mark to be giving spiritual guidance on homosexuality from his blog or from a book he wrote. Particularly when his advice is murky. We have Priests do this. He is not a Priest.
They are looking for a way to be pastorally sensitive to Catholics with same-sex attraction and using their brains to figure it out intellectually.
I’m going to throw out a hypothesis that people addled by homosexual impulses benefit from neglect – i.e. from a businesslike refusal to call attention to the matter above and beyond restating general moral teachings about the sexual life and insisting on certain penances in the confessional