“More blood pressure a risin’?” No, my dear aCatholics, but thanks for the link!

http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=36993

I was delighted to see that Catholica Australia’s ever-rumbling bowels, the Forum, are (if you’ll permit me to mix metaphors) abuzz with discussion about my recent blog post Unreconstructed Modernism at Catholica: Fr. Dresser and Dr. Elmer on (or rather, against) Original Sin and the Redemption. Unfortunately I cannot respond to the comments there at the Forum but I am happy to do so here at my own blog.

It was the aCatholic “TonySee”—who, interestingly, thinks that the “notion of 'intrinsic' evil, independent of context, gets to the nub of what [he] see[s] as the church's biggest problem since the publication of HV” (source, and see also here in order to shed further light on his thinking on matters of morals)—was the fellow who was kind enough to post a link to this humble blog, and I thank him for it.

Now to address some of the confusion which I found among the comments there. A couple of the readers indicated that they were unfamiliar with the historical background to Modernism:

I never did see what the "heresy of Modernism" actually entailed, since most of its features, especially the subvariant "Americanism", seemed to be existing only in the Roman Curial imagination. It certainly wasn't related to any overwhelming trends or developments in ny country's history that I could recognize.
[kaythegardener, USA, Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 19:42]

I have no longer access to research "Modernism" but my recollection is that it was not modernism that was condemned by PiusX, but what he thought it might develop into.

I came across the same thing in Veritatis splendor
in which JPII condemned the "errors" of the theory of Fundamental Option. The late Josef Fuchs retorted that the views in the encyclical were not supported by any reputable moral theolgian in the world.

This modern Cardinal Pole may be doing a lot of similar "reading between the lines".
[PatrickW , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 15:54]

But anyone with the faintest outline of late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century Church history would know that Modernism was no ‘figment of the imagination’ in the Vatican, but, in fact, a very real threat to the Faith then and, as I have shown, now. And there is no “reading between the lines” going on here on my part: I show clearly how the letter of the text of Dr. Elmer’s ravings supports my thesis. But of course, none of the commenters at the forum thread in question makes any serious attempt (or, for all but one of them, any attempt at all) to engage with any of my arguments, reminding us that the most pathetic thing about the aCatholics is that they reject what they never understood to begin with.

Turning to another commenter now:

For those who can't be bothered doing the research, there are now two (2) Cardinals Pole. The new young claimant is a local lad - geographically challenged, as he claims both the Wollongong diocese and Sydney as his home.

However, he seems to be unaware of Cardinal Pole the Elder's near run-in with the Italian Inquisition, due to his palling around with the Spirituali, in Rome, Viterbo and probably elsewhere. The Spirituali wanted (among other things) to reverse the separation between Catholics and Proddies - in fact to reverse the Reformation. Pole thought that would be a great move (and who can disagree with him), as it would require a restructuring of the entire Catholic Church. He missed being elected Pope by one miserable vote, otherwise we would probably be singing from the same hymn-sheet as the Presbyterians et al.

Either by good luck or God's blessing, he avoided the Inquisition's tender ministrations, and returned to England. There is a book available from Amazon called "Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy. Cardinal Pole and the Counter-Reformation".

I think we must count Reginald Cardinal Pole (the genuine) among the Spirituali, and wanna-be Cardinal Pole, among the Intransigenti.
[gemstones , Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 13:14]

In fact it is “gemstones” who is “geographically challenged”, unaware that the Diocese of Wollongong encompasses a number of the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney, where I happily reside. He or she is also historically challenged: The real Cardinal Pole never wanted any “restructuring of the entire Catholic Church”; see his opus De Unitate, to whose vision he ever remained faithful. And the only way he would have wanted “to reverse the separation between Catholics and Proddies” would have been by the latter renouncing their heresies and returning to the bosom of the true Church of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. The commenter “gemstones” is also wrong to write that had Pole been elevated to the Throne of St. Peter “we would probably be singing from the same hymn-sheet as the Presbyterians et al.”, since the Tridentine decree on justification was promulgated on January 13, 1547 (source), whereas the relevant conclave took place some three years later (1549-1550)(source), and given that it is well-known that Pole had renounced whatever unorthodox views he might have held on the matter even before the decree was promulgated, it is clear that, had he become Pope, there would have been no ‘Protestantisation’ of the Church under him.

And “gemstones” says that “we must count Reginald Cardinal Pole (the genuine) among the Spirituali, and wanna-be Cardinal Pole, among the Intransigenti”; intransigent means uncompromising, and since, as my blog’s tagline makes clear, I intend that quality to be a hallmark of my blog, if I am to be ‘counted among the Intransigenti’, then so be it!

We turn now to the comments of Dr. Ian Elmer: Firstly, this one:

Is This Guy a Catholic? (Main Forum)
by Ian Elmer, 'Brisbane, Australia', Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 10:45 (8 days ago) @ TonySee

Hmmm! So basically the dear old Cardinal has a problem with anything other than a literal reading of the scriptures and Church doctrine. Adam and Eve sinned; God had to sacrifice his son to pay the debt! Oh, and I noticed the reference to the falsity of Darwinianism. I suspect that the adoption of the name of a medieval prelate is appropriate; this blogger seems to have missed the boat to the modern world.

I find it interesting that he seems to have a problem with idea of a “symbolic” appreciation of our traditions. But isn’t the concept of “symbol” inherent to the entire sacramental character of Catholic theology? Is not the Church the “sign” or “sacrament” that points to the presence of God in the world? Are not our sacraments “visible signs of invisible grace”? Is this guy even a Catholic? He seems to completely misunderstand Catholic theology, not to mention fundamental human communication.

Concrete signs and symbols are necessary if we are to indicate and/or express hidden realities or complex ideas. The Scripture are not historical or scientific textbooks and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are far more than mere historical events. Both point to realities beyond normal sense-experience. They express realities that underpin all existence, but are not available to the senses per se - they depend on faith.

P.S. (Added later) I just noticed this additional comment from the dear od Cardinal:

[quotation, taken from me]Sadly, Dr. Elmer's theology is entirely consonant with the theology of the New Mass.[/quotation]

So, does that mean that I am not a "modernist" after all, but just a good old post-Vatican II Catholic theologian? And does it also mean that Cardinal Pole sees the Church Fathers at Vatican II as "Modernists"? I guess we are all in good company People, since this site is dismissed as thoroughly "Modernist". Well done! Take a bow!

'Ian J. Elmer

Now in his second sentence he describes my “problem” as being “with anything other than a literal reading of the scriptures and Church doctrine”. But notice how he has lumped together two different genres: The books of the Holy Bible and the teaching documents of the Church. So here we have the logical fallacy of the category mistake, because not all of Scripture is to be taken literally (e.g. the Sun does not literally ‘rejoice’ in its course, as we read in, if I recall correctly, the Psalms), but how else is one to understand the post-Apostolic doctrinal pronouncements of the Magisterium if not in their literal and grammatical sense? Conventionally, whenever a Pope speaks non-literally he will show this explicitly by using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’, or adding the words ‘as it were’ afterwards. But if the Magisterium is not to be taken literally then what is the hidden ‘key’ in which to understand its statements? Is the real meaning kept hidden away in the hands of some kind of Gnostic élite?

He then writes with apparent amusement “Adam and Eve sinned; God had to sacrifice his son to pay the debt!” So as if his opinions weren’t clear enough already, we see Dr. Elmer clearly writing off the sacrificial and satisfactory aspects of the Passion of Our Lord, leaving us with a purely symbolic Redemption—which is to say, no Redemption at all, so we are left with the Passion as nothing but a sort of example or lesson.

Dr. Elmer writes that he “suspect[s] that the adoption of the name of a medieval prelate is appropriate; this blogger seems to have missed the boat to the modern world.” This sheds further light on Dr. Elmer’s understanding of the famous Spirit of Vatican II, which he recognises (rightly, and he’s not the only one) as a spirit of conformity to the anti-Catholic tenets of Revolution and Enlightenment, a miasma in which Dr. Elmer is deeply, and apparently uncritically, immersed.

Dr. Elmer’s comment takes a bizarre turn in his second paragraph: He writes that he

find[s] it interesting that [I seem] to have a problem with idea of a “symbolic” appreciation of our traditions. But isn’t the concept of “symbol” inherent to the entire sacramental character of Catholic theology?

He goes on to illustrate this observation by reference to the Sacraments, which are, of course, efficacious and sensible signs of grace. But a Sacrament, by its very nature, has both a symbolic aspect and an efficacious aspect, and to reduce any of the seven Sacraments to only its symbolic aspect would be to err gravely. Here, then, we can see some hint of how gravely Dr. Elmer errs in reducing the Passion of Our Lord to something whose only effect worth mentioning (for Dr. Elmer) is that it offers a lesson for His disciples. Nevertheless, I describe Dr. Elmer as taking a bizarre turn here, because Original Sin is to be taken either literally or figuratively; one cannot speak of there being both literal and figurative aspects to it. For two thousand years of Catholic Tradition it was (and, truly, is) a literal, historical event, namely Adam’s sin of pride and grave disobedience, by which he forfeited Original Justice, and passed this deprivation on to his descendents. But for Dr. Elmer it is purely figurative, a mere fable, a sort of poetic explanation for the disorder in the human condition for which Adam was not the cause, but which is just a product of Darwinian evolution. So having set up his straw man—or rather, his red herring, since my objection to his ravings had nothing to do with the efficacy and symbolism of the Sacraments, but to his denigration of Original Sin and the Redemption (as the post makes pretty clear in its headline!)—he asserts, laughably, that I seem to him to have “completely misunderst[ood] Catholic theology, not to mention fundamental human communication.” But this would be the pot calling the black: It’s a bit rich for him to imply that my thinking is incompatible with Catholic Sacramental theology, when the purpose of the Sacraments is to apply the fruits of the Redemption to the successive generations, yet Dr. Elmer denies that there was a Redemption in the first place!

Predictably enough for one of his ilk, Dr. Elmer goes on to wheel out those two reliable clichés of the Modernist-as-exegete: “[1.] The Scripture are not historical or scientific textbooks and [2.] the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are far more than mere historical events.” Regarding 1., I did not say that the Bible was a science textbook, but I certainly maintain that it relates true history in both the Old and New Testaments, whereas Dr. Elmer even questions the historicity of important parts of the New Testament (source) (and of course we are already aware of what scant regard he has for the Old Testament). As for cliché/straw man 2.: The mysteries of Our Lord’s life are certainly “more than mere historical events”—that’s more than, not less than! And Dr. Elmer clearly thinks that the sin of Adam was less than a true historical event (for Dr. Elmer it was, of course, no real historical event at all), so I’m not even sure why he’s bringing this up, though it does serve to distract the reader from the matters at hand, which are the historicity of Original Sin and the Redemption.

What Dr. Elmer writes next is rather suspect: “Both [Scripture and some major events in the life of Christ] point to realities beyond normal sense-experience. They express realities that underpin all existence, but are not available to the senses per se - they depend on faith.” Are we to infer from this that Dr. Elmer thinks that St. Thomas did not truly touch and feel—that is, have “sense-experience” of—the risen Body of Christ?

Finally, Dr. Elmer asks, regarding where I say that “[s]adly, Dr. Elmer's theology is entirely consonant with the theology of the New Mass”, “does that mean that [he is] not a "modernist" after all, but just a good old post-Vatican II Catholic theologian?” No, it means that both he and the New Mass are dangers to the Faith. As to which is the greater danger: As to scale, I would say the New Mass, since it is heard by a far greater audience than Dr. Elmer could ever hope for, but as to the severity of their respective dangers considered without respect to audience size, I would say Dr. Elmer, since his ravings are explicitly heretical, whereas the New Mass contains nothing which is heretical of itself.

Now what Dr. Elmer says is interesting, but all the more interesting is what he does not say. One might have expected that if my charges of Modernism against him are baseless, then he would have made some effort to refute them, just as any faithful Catholic would want to exonerate himself from false charges against his or her Faith. (Unless, of course, those charges were so preposterous as not to be worth addressing: So for instance, when Dr. Elmer asks, regarding me, “Is This Guy a Catholic?”, all I want to do is laugh and point out that I’m not the one who thinks that the Church is just “a human institution established by the followers of Jesus as a place of communion and companionship” (source—it doesn’t come much more non-Catholic than denying the Dominical establishment of the Church. And my charges against Dr. Elmer can hardly be dismissed as preposterous when they are supported by the text, as I showed). Yet Dr. Elmer makes no attempt to refute my charges (which would be quite difficult, given that his Modernism is conveniently encapsulated in a single sentence of his: —“[t]he concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience …”, he wrote); there is little more from him here than facetious posturing. All one can do then is apply the legal maxim of 'silence implies consent', and rest one’s case.

Let us conclude by considering Dr. Elmer’s last comment in this thread:

Vatican II Essential to Catholicismby Ian Elmer, 'Brisbane, Australia',
Thursday, November 19, 2009, 12:45 (8 days ago) @ PatrickW

Actually, Patrick, my problem was even more fundamental. Clearly, this latter-day Cardinal Pole rejects Vatican II and the reforms, especially liturgical, that flowed from it. It must be remembered that despite Benedict's overtures to the separated SSPX any of these wishing to return to the fold must accept Vatican II. The acceptance of Vatican II is essential. In many ways, Vatican II is as foundational as Nicea or Constantinople.

'Ian J. Elmer

Beginning with his last sentence, one must ask: How can a Council which, of itself, did not teach a single proposition definitively be regarded as being “as foundational as Nicea or Constantinople”? Going back a sentence, Dr. Elmer writes that the “acceptance of Vatican II is essential”. But Vatican II can be regarded as “essential” neither in the sense of at least implicit adherence to its documents being absolutely necessary for right Faith, nor in the sense that Vatican II belongs to the essence of the Church, as though without Vatican II the Church would be corrupted. So I ask of Dr. Elmer: Given that “[he] wish[es] we could quietly step away from the doctrine of [Papal] infallibility” (source), yet the doctrine of Papal Infallibility was the object of an irreformable definition of an Ecumenical Council, why is it so wrong to wish that we could “quietly step away” from Vatican II, which only produced a collection of pastoral essays?

Reginaldvs Cantvar

27.XI.2009

Two comments by me at CathNews: One on so-called gay marriage, the other on voodoo-Catholic syncretism

My comment on so-called gay marriage:

***

Response to some of the things said here:

1. “The answer is simple and so clear: Love transcends all (including the current in vogue concept of monogamous marriage) AND gender.”

Love means willing the highest good for another, and the good is that which suits the nature of the thing desiring it. The physical things which same-sex ‘spouses’ do to each suit no-one’s nature, and hence cannot be considered loving (and a marriage isn’t just a Platonic union—it is a physical union, or at least, it is accomplished by a physical union). Indeed, these things are intrinsically evil, since they are abuses of the respective faculties from which they proceed. Furthermore, monogamy in marriage isn’t just a “vogue concept”—it is of the essence of marriage.

2. “As an example, where do people with ambiguous gender stand, who are they allowed to marry?”

2.1 That should be “… who*m* are they allowed to marry?”

2.2 Marriage is a conjugal contract, and is consummated by the conjugal union of the two spouses. Hence I understand that if the two prospective spouses’ respective private parts (the parts with which they were born—artificial ‘sex change’ ones don’t count) are complementary and neither spouse is absolutely or relatively impotent then there can be a valid marriage. In other words, if the marriage can be properly consummated, then there can be a marriage. See a canon lawyer for more details. The example is irrelevant, though, because two persons of the same sex have no bodily complementarity.

3. “the Church is doing what the Pharisees did in Jesus day”

Comparing someone to a Pharisee in a religious discussion is like comparing someone to Hitler in a political discussion—it just suggests the laziness of the person making the comparison and the weakness of his or her argument.

4. “How can gays destroy God's blessing? They represent 5-10% of the community; I have never understood how they could possibly undermine the other marriages of the other 90-95% of the community who are heterosexual.”

4.1 According to La Trobe Uni’s 2003 “Sex In Australia” report, the figures are more like 0.8% of Australians are lesbian and 1.6% are gay.

4.2 If 5-10% (or even just 1% or 2%) of Australia’s currency in circulation were counterfeit I imagine that the Reserve Bank would be very worried indeed, and so should we worry about so-called same-sex marriage: Counterfeit currency devalues true currency, and counterfeit marriage devalues true marriage.

5. “But even if there were no new understanding of St Paul on homosexuality (and there is, for examination) there is still the matter of the Church's teaching on invincible ignorance which states "there is error but no sin".”

Why do you assume that practising homosexuals are invincibly ignorant? Anyone with a shred of decency left cannot fail to understand how wrong same-sex pseudo-sexual acts are.

6. “So, yes, I am calling into question the responses of those posters (usually Catholic) who:
1. think all they have to do is quote Church teaching (or the bits that reinforce the way they see it) and
2.then dismiss those not following it and
3. judge them to be in bad faith (dishonest)-all in God's name, of course.”

6.1 Well, of course “those posters” are usually Catholic: This is the comments form of a Catholic news service.
6.2 Given that this is a Catholic forum, it seems quite reasonable to appeal to Magisterial authority. Nevertheless, in matters of natural ethics, the Church merely confirms what can be deduced by the light of unaided natural reason. Same-sex pseudo-sexual acts are intrinsically evil (see my point 1.), and since marriage is founded on the sexual union of the spouses, so-called same-sex marriage is founded on evil and is hence to be discouraged, or at least never encouraged, and encouragement is what State sanction for same-sex unions provides.
6.3 I’m not sure that any commenters have judged anyone else to be “in bad faith (dishonest)”, but it’s a tempting thought, given that even someone immersed in a culture as debauched as the so-called gay culture cannot extinguish that last faint spark of goodness in him or her, by whose light he or she sees that what he or she is doing is very, very wrong. Perhaps that is why we have this drive for social celebration—not just tolerance—of the so-called gay culture: The voice of conscience can never be completely silenced, so they try to drown it out with the blandishments of others, like a person trying to ignore bad news on the radio by having reassuring music blaring from another radio in order to drown it out.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Thankyou for your comments.
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=17741

***

My comment on voodoo-Catholic syncretism:

***

"... Werner Jaegerhuber, a Haitian born composer of German extraction, selected elements of Haitian vodou, or voodoo, and blended them with music inspired by Gregorian chant to achieve an unprecedented coupling of two opposing faith traditions."

Sickening. This is syncretism at its diabolical worst. What fellowship can there be between Christ and Belial?

"Gotta love that Vatican II. Even satanically inspired voodoo is welcome. But if you want the Traditional Mass, you are out on your ear!"

Insane, isn't it?

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Thankyou for your comments.
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=17740

***

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Dedications of the Basilicas of SS. Peter and Paul, A.D. 2009

Msgr. Migliore on freedom of conscience and religious liberty

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28885

At the Angelqueen forum I found this:

After discussing the Holy See’s track record in the area of interreligious dialogue, Archbishop Migliore pointedly reminded those assembled that it is far more important for the UN to promote religious freedom than to discuss the role of religion in international conflicts. “Having in mind the spirit and the word of the UN Charter as well as core juridical instruments,” he said, “it is safe to say that the United Nations' specific and primary responsibility vis-à-vis religion is to debate, elucidate and help States to fully ensure, at all levels, the implementation of the right to religious freedom as affirmed in the relevant UN documents which include full respect for and promotion not only of the fundamental freedom of conscience but also of the expression and practice of everybody's religion, without restriction.

Here are some other quotations: Condemned ex Cathedra:

the best plan for public society, and civil progress absolutely requires that human society be established and governed with no regard to religion, as if it did not exist, or at least, without making distinction between the true and the false religions.
[Quanta cura, Encyclical of Bl. Pius IX,
http://www.catecheticsonline.com/SourcesofDogma17.php]

Condemned ex Cathedra:

the best condition of society is the one in which there is no acknowledgment by the government of the duty of restraining, by established penalties, offenders of the Catholic religion, except insofar as the public peace demands.
[Ibid.]

Condemned ex Cathedra:

liberty of conscience and of worship is the proper right of every man, and should be proclaimed and asserted by law in every correctly established society; that the right to all manner of liberty rests in the citizens, not to be restrained by either ecclesiastical or civil authority; and that by this right they can manifest openly and publicly and declare their own concepts, whatever they be, by voice, by print, or in any other way.
[Ibid.]

Continuity or rupture?

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of the Dedications of the Basilicas of SS. Peter and Paul, A.D. 2009

On Biblical illiteracy, natural law, positive law, the Old Law and the New Testament

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/earth-experts-are-not-exactly-on-the-same-page-20091111-i9uv.html?skin=text-only

Recently Mr. Bill Muehlenberg published at his blog a post entitled Biblical Illiteracy in Public Life. Here is perhaps some more evidence of such illiteracy, from the letters page of last Thursday’s Sydney Morning Herald (November 12, 2009):

Hockey uses the logic he condemns

[…]

At last, we are told we don't have to take the Old Testament literally. So, as the Reverend Con Campbell tells us (Letters, November 11), we can now ignore Leviticus and don't have to stone people to death for working on the Sabbath, or sacrifice goats and sheep. Presumably, we can also ignore the bit where it says homosexuality is an abomination. Thank God for that.

Ian Matthews Bondi

Con Campbell says that although the Hebrew Bible pointed to Jesus and was fulfilled in Him, Jesus gave his followers a ''new law, which is why we don't stone people … or sacrifice goats and sheep''. Yet Matthew 15.4 says: ''For instance, God's law is 'honour your father and mother; anyone who reviles his parents must die.'''

This is hardly new. It repeats Exodus 21.17 and Leviticus 20.9. When I read Matthew, it points straight back to the Old Testament.

John Lees Castlecrag

If Old Testament law was superseded by the ''new'' law of the New Testament, I wonder if Con Campbell can explain the words of Jesus in Matthew 5.18: ''I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.''

How then can any Christian so lightly dismiss the laws Jesus himself unequivocally proclaimed as remaining in full force to this very day, and beyond?

Damien Leer Goulburn

I submitted a letter to the editor (under my real name, of course!), providing Mr. Leer’s desired explanation, but neither it nor such an explanation from any other correspondent has been published. I find this disappointing; one would expect that if the topic were, say, the climate change debate, then if a supposedly pluralist newspaper published a letter whose author posited a certain piece of data as a ‘killer fact’ against the case for climate change then that newspaper would publish a letter refuting this ‘killer fact’ if such a letter were received and met the newspaper’s criteria for publication of correspondence. The same reasoning is clearly valid here too: Given that Mr. Leer adduces Matthew 5:18 as a ‘killer fact’ against the argument for the abolition of the Old Law, one might have hoped that, if for no other reason than balance, the Herald would have published a rejoinder to it if it received one (which, of course, it did)—especially given that Mr. Leer all but demands such a rejoinder. Disappointing though this is, there is an upside: I now have the opportunity to elaborate on these matters without revealing my identity! (And there's another upside, which I only noticed as I re-read this post after publishing it: One of my Scriptural citations was incorrect—as you will see shortly, I wrote "Jn. 5:28", but it should be Jn. 19:28.)

So here is the letter which I submitted for publication—as you will see it is perfectly polite and tranquil in tone and, with a word count of eighty, is comfortably beneath the Herald’s limit for letter length:

Damien Leer wonders how to explain Matthew 5:18 if the Old Law was abolished (Letters, November 12). The explanation is to be found in St. John’s Gospel: Mr. Leer’s quotation says that the Law will not pass “until everything is accomplished”, and as His Passion drew to its end Our Lord knew “that all things were now accomplished” (Jn. 5:28), so that by His death the New Testament replaced the Old Law. Thus the Old Law died on the Cross.

Let’s begin by having a closer look at the Scriptural citations: In the Douay-Rheims version, Matthew 5:18 says

For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled.
[http://www.newadvent.org/bible/mat005.htm—see the accompanying gloss at this web page for an explanation of the meaning of “amen” in this context]

Turning now to St. John’s Gospel, Chapter Nineteen, we find the following:

28 Afterwards, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. 29 Now there was a vessel set there, full of vinegar. And they, putting a sponge full of vinegar about hyssop, put it to his mouth. 30 Jesus therefore, when he had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost.
[http://www.newadvent.org/bible/joh019.htm]

So the Old Law was to last till, in Mr. Leer’s version, “everything [was] accomplished”. And by the time Christ’s Passion was consummated, everything was indeed accomplished, so that the Old Law passed.

Readers knowledgeable in these things might have recognised the references in my letter to Pius XII’s Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, §§29, 30:

29. And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area - He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the House of Israel [30] - the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race.[34] "To such an extent, then," says St.Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from the many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as Our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head of His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles";[38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members; it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been untied to this Mystical Body through the waters of Baptism except by the salutary virtue of the Cross, by which they had been already brought under the complete sway of Christ.

[Footnotes:]

30. Cf. Matth., XV, 24.
31. Cf. St. Thos., I-II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 2.
32. Cf. Eph., II, 15.
33. Cf. Col., II, 14.
34. Cf. Matth., XXVI, 28; I Cor., XI, 25.
35. Leo the Great, Serm., LXVIII, 3: Migne, P.L. LIV, 374.
36. Jerome and Augustine, Epist. CXII, 14 and CXVI, 16: Migne, P.L., XXII, 924 and 943; St. Thos., I-II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 2; a. 4; ad 1; Council of Flor. pro Jacob.: Mansi, XXXI, 1738.
37. Cf. II Cor., III, 6.
38. Cf. St. Thos. III, q. 42, a. 1.
[my bold-type emphasis]

So Mr. Leer’s dilemma is a false one. (I would like to bring this to his attention, but although he has an eponymous Blogspot blog, it is inaccessible to me. Perhaps if there are any Facebook users here they could let him know via his Facebook account, or page, or whatever the right word is.) Now to consider Mr. Lees’s letter: He says that

Yet Matthew 15.4 says: ''For instance, God's law is 'honour your father and mother; anyone who reviles his parents must die.'''

This is hardly new. It repeats Exodus 21.17 and Leviticus 20.9. When I read Matthew, it points straight back to the Old Testament

But this is precisely what one would expect, since, as Pius XII taught, “while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area … the Law and the Gospel were together in force”. So execution for reviling one parents was obligatory for Jews before Our Lord’s death, but afterwards, the punishment to be applied is left to the discretion of families (which obviously do not have the authority to impose the death penalty), the Church and the State. Nevertheless, the wages of sin is death, and if cursing one’s parents no longer incurs death of the body, it certainly continues to incur death of the soul (assuming, of course, that the usual criteria are met—grave matter, full advertence, free choice). For the Commandment to honour one’s parents—and the corresponding prohibition against reviling them—is a matter of natural law; and although positive law (such as the Mosaic Code) enacted by a competent legislator can, among other things, state the natural law explicitly and impose in this life sanctions proportionate to those which transgressors would expect to face in the next life, the absence of such positive law by no means extinguishes the binding force of the natural law of which it was an expression. With this in mind we turn, finally, to Mr. Matthews’s letter, in which he says that

At last, we are told we don't have to take the Old Testament literally. So, as the Reverend Con Campbell tells us (Letters, November 11), we can now ignore Leviticus and don't have to stone people to death for working on the Sabbath, or sacrifice goats and sheep. Presumably, we can also ignore the bit where it says homosexuality is an abomination.

Let’s look at each of his points in turn: Now as a matter of natural law one must set aside a certain portion of one’s week for rest from unnecessary servile work in order to elevate one’s thoughts to the higher things. In the absence of positive law, the particular day of the week to set aside is one’s own choice. In the positive law of the Old Law, that day was from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. But this positive law no longer applies, so Mr. Matthews is right on this count. (Though for those under the spiritual authority of the Church, of course, we are bound by the positive law of abstaining from unnecessary servile work from 12:00 A.M. Sunday till 12:00 A.M. Monday, under pain of grave sin.) Also as a matter of natural law, the virtue of religion requires that one offer up sacrifices of some sort to God. In the absence of positive law, the particular thing(s) to be sacrificed is (are) left to one’s own decision. The positive law of the Old Law prescribed a number of different offerings and the manner in which to be offered, but these prescriptions are no longer in force, so Mr. Matthews is also right on this count. (Though for those under the spiritual authority of the Church, we must offer up sacrifices such as the various fasts and abstinences.) But Mr. Matthews fails on the last count: as a matter of natural law, homosexuality is intrinsically disordered (since ‘order’ is, by definition, a principle of direction towards some end, and human sexuality, like all animal sexuality, is ordered towards procreation) and buggery (‘laying with a man as with a woman’, as the Old Law puts it) is intrinsically evil, since it is an abuse of the faculties from which it proceeds (which is of the definition of intrinsic evil). Whereas a competent legislator can revoke or replace a positive law if that law ceases to conduce to the good of those whom it binds, natural law can never cease to conduce to the good of those whom it binds, since the good is, by definition, that which suits the nature of the being which desires it, and so it (the natural law) is irrevocable, applying as long as a thing’s nature is its nature, as long as a thing is what it is—which is to say, forever. Buggery suits the nature of neither the sodomite nor the catamite in any respect, and so the natural law can never cease to proscribe it.

Feast of St. Gregory the Wonder Worker, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2009.

Unreconstructed Modernism at Catholica: Fr. Dresser and Dr. Elmer on (or rather, against) Original Sin and the Redemption

http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=36347

The notorious The Rev. Fr. Peter Dresser had the following things to say in a thread-starter at the similarly-notorious Catholica Australia forum (quoted in full, italics in the original, with emphasis added (bold type) by me to the most salient parts):

***

Original Sin (Main Forum)
by Peter Dresser , Kandos, Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 11:58 (7 days ago)

Tom Lee's manuscript once again raises the question of Original Sin...and so just a couple of my own thoughts on the subject.

The initiates in the early Church were adults and Baptism was the end result of long preparation and planning. Later on the children of the initiates began to be baptised with them and later on infants by themselves. My own readings suggest that Augustine and others struggled to make some kind of theological sense regarding the baptism of infans who obviously had not be instructed or discipled in any way...because the injunction of Jesus was that his followers should firstly be disciples before being baptised (see Matthew 28:19).It was during this time that the idea arose that Baptism made infants children of God by somehow removing a barrier to this relationship, viz. some kind of sin. And so we had the doctrine of Original Sin and Chapters one and two of Genesis were revisited to give some kind of scriptural basis to this doctrine.

The Doctrine of Original Sin as stated in the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church and as expressed in doctrinal documents makes absolutely no sense scientifically. We are led to believe that in some way Adam and Eve once lived in some kind of preternatural existence and did something wrong and were cut off from God's friendship. And in one of the greatest tantrums of all time God drove them from the garden of Eden. And in a strangelyconvoluted way God then devised that having closed the gates of paradise to men and women, he would then sacrifice his Son to reopen them! This gave rise to the fall and redemption theology that saw Jesus as the only perfect sacrifice to atone for violence done against a perfect God. So Calvary was seen as the price of atonement and, certainly to anyone searching for meaning, such thinking unfortunately raises the question of a rather strange God, a rather bizarre God who seeks the painful death of his Son to expiate some injury cause him. A rather small and petty God who thinks like the most miserable of any miserable human being. A revengeful God in complete contradiction to the liberating, healing, forgiving and freeing God that Jesus himself spoke about.

I made the point that Original Sin makes no sense in the scientific world we live in. By suggesting that it was because of a disdemeanour committed by Adam and Eve that death came into the world ignores the fact that our world has been evolving for millions of years and our universe for something like 16 billion years with all the death and all the chaos that goes with this evolutionary process. Men and women did not fall from any kind of preternatural existence. They are the result of an evolutionary process! And so it seems to me that it is not possible for the Doctrine of Original Sin and our cosmologiclall world outlook to coexist.

So in what way is Jesus our saviour? Many today would readily accept that Jesus is our saviour but not so much that he died on the cross; it was more how he died on the cross that was a saving moment for us. It was his darkest hour and in that darkest hour he placed himself in the hands of his God with great hope and trust. His cry from the cross "My God , My God, Why have you forsaken me?" are in fact the opening words of Psalm 22, a Psalm which talks about faith and hope and trust in God. He died freely and humanly. He died with hope. He was teaching us a saving lesson. Indeed the whole life of Jesus was salvific. He showwed us in his own life the freeing, forgiving, healing and liberating spirit of God. He saved us by embracing life with all its joys, hopes, griefs and anxieties. He saved us by his great example of living with faith and hope in God and that the various quarries and valleys and pits of life can be filled with the good soil of a freeing and healing God. He saved us by telling us about tis good and gracious God. He saved us by fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour" (Luke 4: 18-19).

Nowhere in his dealings with people is there the slightest hint of the original sin mentality. Just the opposite I would have imagined.

It is pleasing to note that the Sacrament of Baptism once again is taking its place preeminently as a Sacrament of Christian Initiation and that any reference to Original Sin has been relegated to a passing mention in an optional prayer. Limbo was only ever a theological opinion. As I understand, it is no longer even that!

Let me turn to that beautiful statement at the opening of the Letter to the Ephesians:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love." (Ephesians 1:3-4)

This entire opening passage could have as its theme Original Blessing and one tries in vain to find any substantiation for an Original Sin. Indeed if one considers the question of God's dealingsa with the human race, the notion of an inherited sin seems very difficult to reconcile with any convincing view of God's goodness, mercy and justice. The concept of original sin is not only alien to Jewish tradition; it is not found in any of the writings of the Old Testament and is certainly not in chapters one to three of Genesis. Briefly, the idea of original blessing is far more ancient and more biblical a doctrine than original sin; the Council of Trent never said what original sin means' Augustine mixed his doctrine of original sin up with his peculiar notions about sexuality; whatever is said of original sin, it is far less hallowed and original than are love and desire, the Creator's love for creation and our parents' love, and doctrine is not the basis of faith or its starting point. Creation is the basis of trust which is the biblical meaning of Faith. In any case, doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine, and much pain and sin have come about because of an exaggerated emphasis on the doctrine of original sin. Jesus does not redeem us from original sin. Rather he enhances our lives, lives so richly blessed before the foundation of the world.

Just a couple of thoughts...

Peter

***

Just a couple of thoughts indeed! With this ‘couple of thoughts’ Fr. Dresser is attacking the very foundations of salvation history, and hence of the Catholic Faith itself. The Roman Catechism teaches that the Passion of Our Lord was four things: a redemption, a satisfaction, a sacrifice, and an example. But from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagian/Modernist perspective, it is really only an example: “He was teaching us a saving lesson”. For Fr. Dresser, it clearly wasn’t a redemption—“Jesus does not redeem us from original sin”—and with the following sentence he seeks to expunge from the Deposit of Faith the satisfactory and sacrificial aspects of the Passion: “[The teaching that mankind was excluded from Paradise, a teaching which Fr. Dresser rejects] gave rise to the fall and redemption theology that saw Jesus as the only perfect sacrifice to atone for violence done against a perfect God.” (It’s interesting that Fr. Dresser rejects even the sacrificial aspect of the Passion, because sometimes one finds that Modernists will at least say that the Passion was a sacrifice of some sort, an offering ‘in solidarity with the suffering of mankind’, or some such. Apparently that doesn’t go far enough for Fr. Dresser.)

Presumably, then, since Christ simply “enhances our lives”, it is not absolutely necessary for salvation that we be united to Him and His Passion; rather (so Fr. Dresser’s reasoning would go), Christ’s example is just a helpful—but not indispensable—demonstration of “faith and hope and trust in God”. Hence I described Fr. Dresser’s thinking as Pelagian, and it is obviously Modernist too—as Fr. Dresser says, “doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine”, which is a statement of one of the fundamental principles of Modernism, the principle that doctrine is valuable only insofar as it expresses the religious experience (arising internally from ‘religious sentiment’) of the believer (to the extent that a Modernist can even be called a believer); the corollary of this principle, of course, is that other important Modernist tenet, the tenet of the evolution—not development—of doctrine, since doctrine (which is, according to Modernists like Fr. Dresser, “for people, not people for doctrine”) must constantly change with the changing religious experience of the passing generations in order always to be well-adapted to expressing that religious experience. So presumably Fr. Dresser wouldn’t begrudge people in more ‘primitive’ times adhering to the ‘fall and redemption myth’, but naturally this is unsuitable for the prevailing ‘scientific’ and ‘evolutionary’ perspective, and so must be replaced. (And in the future, when a new perspective predominates, the doctrine will have to evolve again.)

I remember a commenter at the Cath Pews discussion board last year describing St. Pius X’s brilliant encyclical Pascendi Domenici Gregis as a ‘line-up of straw men’, yet more than a century after its promulgation, it remains as relevant as ever, exposing all the errors—not ‘straw men’ at all—of the Peter Dressers and Ian Elmers (we’ll see what Dr. Elmer has to say in a moment) which (the errors, that is) make up ‘the synthesis of all heresies’, Modernism.

Now Fr. Dresser’s ravings were predictable enough, both as to their content and the frankness with which they were stated. But I expected more subtlety from Australian Catholic University ‘teacher of the teachers’ Dr. Ian Elmer. And so I was surprised initially at the tone—though not the content—of his comment, which began with almost slavish agreement with Fr. Dresser (no added emphasis; the whole thing is worth reading):

***

Re-imagining Original Sin
by Ian Elmer, 'Brisbane, Australia', Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 14:34 (6 days ago) @ Peter Dresser

Hi Peter,

Thanks for a great post; and one with which I heartily agree. One other issue that I feel is often forgotten when we focus on Jesus’ death as saving us from sin is the actual message of Jesus. All-too-often Jesus’ moral and ethical principles are seen simply as an “add on” to the salvific events of Easter. I believe that you have hit the nail on the head with your reflections here; and I would say further. We should probably reverse the normal understanding of the relationship between Christ’s death and Christ’s ministry and see Christ’s death as the result of his revolutionary program and Christ’s resurrection as a vindication of his teachings.

Jesus did not die for our sins, or because we had to be ransomed back from Satan, he died because sinful people could not or would not accept his teachings. God raised Jesus from the dead as a divine vindication, or we might call it an imprimatur, on the Jesus message.

I think that we might similarly return to the story of the man and woman in the garden and rediscover its true meaning...and even find that there still is a place for original sin.

The story of the Man and Woman in the Garden is a very ancient story that is meant to “explain” human suffering and limitation. It is not meant to be read literally – that God punished our first parents for their sin. Rather, this story “explains” that when relationships break down (i.e. relationships between god and humans, men and women, humans and nature) things go awry. Humans try to be “like gods”, men dominate women, humans misuse and destroy the earth; and, as a result, we have societies that are beset by crime, immorality, and manmade disasters (like global warming).

In this view, the doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation – inadequacies and limitations that can, if unchecked by recourse to God, lead to sin, depravity and tragedy. The concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience of being limited humans as well as our shared experience of being totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from those limitations. As such, I think that the doctrine of Original Sin is far too valuable to simply discard; but we do need to reimage it – which brings us back to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Surely the life, death and resurrection of Jesus were not simply a “fix-it”, a last-minute attempt by God to rectify what we humans had stuffed up. Even Thomists understand that, since God knows everything within the divine being, God knows the whole of creation; every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God) and is, therefore, an emanation of the divine will. God makes provision for our needs in advance.

Following this line of thought, we may return to the original issue of Jesus’ death on the cross. Given the Divine omniscience and omnipotence, God must have already factored in the death of Jesus and shaped all of human history in advance to bring it to a climax in the resurrection of the Christ. As noted above, through the resurrection, God places a divine imprimatur on the message of love and self-sacrifice taught and, ultimately, lived by Jesus – “even unto death on a cross” (as Paul puts it so eloquently in Carmen Christi in Philippians). The death becomes a symbolic illustration of the message, and the resurrection acts as divine confirmation.

In this sense all of creation and human history have been woven into a tapestry awaiting the final defining thread found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. To that tapestry we add our own meagre colours as we conform our lives to the pattern traced by Jesus and are accordingly liberated from the fundamental limitations of human sinfulness (in the broad sense explained above).

Thanks again, Peter, for your thought-provoking post.

Godspeed,

Ian

***

So Dr. Elmer begins with all but unqualified agreement—“one with which I heartily agree”, “I believe that you have hit the nail on the head with your reflections here”. Clearly he agrees that the Passion was no true redemption—“Jesus did not die for our sins, or because we had to be ransomed back from Satan”—and, remarkably, he goes even further than Fr. Dresser: whereas Fr. Dresser sees the Passion as a lesson in itself, Dr. Elmer “reverse[s] the normal understanding of the relationship between Christ’s death and Christ’s ministry” so that the Crucifixion is just the sort of ‘unintended consequence’ of Christ’s other lessons.

So Dr. Elmer begins boldly, but then that ol’ Elmer subtlety resurfaces: “I think that we might […] even find that there still is a place for original sin.” So this is the Modernist tactic of retaining the terms of a doctrine but completely and blatantly abandoning its substance: no longer is original sin concerned with how “God punished our first parents for their sin. Rather, this story “explains” that when relationships break down (i.e. relationships between god and humans, men and women, humans and nature) things go awry.” There is no place for Divine retribution in his perspective, but he can make room to accommodate global warming!

Earlier I described Fr. Dresser’s views as Pelagian and Modernist; Dr. Elmer’s theology here is just as Modernist—or perhaps even more so—but he takes a step back from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagianism:

In this view [the one which Dr. Elmer is proposing], the doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation – inadequacies and limitations that can, if unchecked by recourse to God, lead to sin, depravity and tragedy. The concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience of being limited humans as well as our shared experience of being totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from those limitations.

So we have an explicit statement of the Modernist principles of the primacy of experience and the evolution of doctrine—“[t]he concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience …”—and an implicit re-statement of Fr. Dresser’s Modernist notion that “doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine”—Dr. Elmer says that “[his heretical] doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation”, as, of course, it must if it is to have any value for a Modernist. But I say that Dr. Elmer distances himself from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagianism insofar as he acknowledges that humans are “totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from [their] limitations”.

Dr. Elmer’s invocation of Thomism is also rather strange. He says that “Even Thomists understand that, since God knows everything within the divine being, God knows the whole of creation; every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God)”. But we must be clear that, since evil is a deprivation, it is caused by good things (each efficient cause has existence and is therefore, at least inasmuch as it has existence, a good thing), but indirectly. Furthermore, when Dr. Elmer says that “every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God) and is, therefore, an emanation of the divine will” (my emphasis), that sounds more like Pantheism—the heresy according to which everything is supposed to be an emanation of the Divine Essence—than Thomism.

And towards the end of his comment, as though we weren’t already clear enough as to where Dr. Elmer stands, he says that “[t]he death [of Christ] becomes a symbolic illustration of the message, and the resurrection acts as divine confirmation.” So there we have it: symbolic original sin, symbolic atonement, … and, therefore, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass just a symbolic sacrifice? This brings me to my penultimate point: what does the Dresser/Elmer doctrine of (symbolic) original sin and Christ’s (symbolic) Sacrifice imply for the theology of the Mass? The implications are spelled out succinctly in the Society of St. Pius X’s excellent The Problem of the Liturgical Reform, and though that work is brief, I cannot hope to do it justice here. Suffice to say that the Novus Ordo Missæ is the liturgical accommodation of this warped theology; it would be impossible to accommodate it in the Traditional Latin Mass, but in the New Mass, the Mass becomes a memorial banquet from whose texts are expunged all but the faintest trace of the doctrine of the Mass as a true propitiatory sacrifice offered in satisfaction of the debt of justice acquired by sin. For the Mass is either one and the same Sacrifice as the Sacrifice of Calvary, differing only in the manner of offering, or it is not. If it is not substantially the same Sacrifice, then it is just symbolic. But even if it is the same Sacrifice, but the Cross-Sacrifice was symbolic, then the Mass-Sacrifice is symbolic too, and will have no propitiatory value, so either way, in the Elmer/Dresser view, we can only end up with the Mass as a symbolic, non-propitiatory sacrifice. Msgr. Lefebvre was right to say that, though the New Mass is not heretical in itself, it comes from heresy and it leads to heresy.

My last point is this: muddled and heretical though the Dresser/Elmer theology is, Fr. Dresser’s ravings at least have the virtue (typographical errors notwithstanding) of showing why Catholics should have nothing to do with Darwinism:

I made the point that Original Sin makes no sense in the scientific world we live in. By suggesting that it was because of a disdemeanour committed by Adam and Eve that death came into the world ignores the fact that our world has been evolving for millions of years and our universe for something like 16 billion years with all the death and all the chaos that goes with this evolutionary process. Men and women did not fall from any kind of preternatural existence. They are the result of an evolutionary process! And so it seems to me that it is not possible for the Doctrine of Original Sin and our cosmologiclall world outlook to coexist.

It seems that way to me too, Father. It’s just that I reject that man is the product of Darwinian evolution and retain the true doctrine of original sin, whereas you do the converse, privileging speculative theory over Divinely-revealed and -protected truth.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2009

Mr. Pearson and Ms Zukerman, separately, on euthanasia

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/embroiled-in-a-lethal-argument/story-e6frg7ko-1225795218619
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/states-debate-euthanasia/story-e6frg8y6-1225795713197

Two interesting articles appeared in last weekend’s The Weekend Australian, one by Mr. Christopher Pearson in the Inquirer section, the other by Ms Wendy Zukerman in the Health section. Both the articles shed a bit more light on the staggering finding, mentioned by me in a recent comment at this blog, that something like 85% of Australians support euthanasia. Ms Zukerman writes that

Euthanasia isn't legal under Australian law but is supported by most Australians. Last week, for instance, a Newspoll of 1201 Australians found 85 per cent approved of a doctor providing a lethal dose to a suffering patient with no chance of recovering, after the patient requested the dose.

Mr. Pearson provides more detail, quoting the text of the question put to survey respondents:

The South Australian bill's advocates often cite in its defence what they call overwhelming popular support. They point to a Newspoll that asked respondents: "Thinking now about voluntary euthanasia, if a hopelessly ill patient experiencing unrelievable suffering with absolutely no chance of recovery asks for a lethal dose, should a doctor be allowed to provide a dose or not?" Given the loaded way the question was framed it comes as no surprise that statewide 87 per cent said yes and only 6 per cent said no.

But loaded or not, the question asks the respondent whether or not he or she support the formal, rather than merely material, killing of innocent persons, so the survey’s finding can only excite deep pessimism in euthanasia opponents, myself among them. Nevertheless, there is value in Mr. Pearson’s subsequent suggestions for probing more deeply into Australian attitudes towards euthanasia:

It would be timely for one of the churches or pro-life groups to commission a more sophisticated opinion survey on the subject. Respondents should be informed in non-emotive language about the law and practice in various jurisdictions and invited to specify the range of circumstances in which they'd support lethal interventions, voluntary and involuntary; whether it should be restricted to the aged or the dying, or to any adult; whether it should be available for young people under 18 and, if so, with or without parental consent.

Euthanasia may not lose majority support in such an exercise but I doubt that the results would amount to a ringing endorsement.

Ms Zukerman goes on to report in her article on recent developments in South Australia, to which Mr. Pearson referred:

Meanwhile, South Australian independent MP Bob Such has introducted a similar [euthanasia] bill into the lower house that's yets to have its second reading, but a bill introduced by his Greens counterpart in the upper house, Mark Parnell, last week narrowly passed its second reading and is scheduled for a third reading on November 18. However, the Bill may not be read in the Lower House until the aafter the SA elections next March.

"This bill is bringing into light that things are happening in the dark," says Parnell. According to him, each week four elderly Australians kill themselves by violent and undignified means.

Under the bill, SA doctors would be allowed to administer drugs to end the life of an eligible individual. "The person must be an adult in the terminal phase of a terminal illness or have an illness that results in permanent deprivation of consciousness or irreversibly impairs the person's quality of life so that life has become intolerable," explains Parnell.

Interesting word, ‘intolerable’. Mr. Pearson has more on this:

As Bernard Finnigan, a Labor MLC, put it : "Under this legislation you do not have to have a terminal illness to obtain active voluntary euthanasia or a prescription for a lethal dose. Clause 19 provides `(1) This section applies to the following persons, (b) an adult person who has an injury, illness or medical condition that (ii) irreversibly impairs the person's quality of life so that life becomes intolerable to that person.' That is not a definition that provides a tight restriction on who can access voluntary euthanasia. That definition could apply to someone suffering from chronic depression or rheumatoid arthritis or the early stages of multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer's."

It’s hard to see how a more subjective formulation than “intolerable to that person” could possibly be conceivable. At least it’s good to see euthanasia advocates (not Mr. Finnigan I’ll point out, just so that there’s no confusion) being perfectly explicit about what they stand for, though.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Andrew Avelino, Confessor, A.D. 2009

Facts and figures: a couple of the strange requirements of Australian anti-discrimination laws

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/marconi-club-orders-staff-only-talk-english-in-secret-memo/story-e6freuy9-1225795538680

A story in today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph mentioned a couple of anti-discrimination rules, neither of which seem terribly conducive to workplace harmony:

The memo [the subject of the story] also drew opposition from NSW Anti-Discrimination Board president Stepan Kerkyasharian, who described it as "very shortsighted".

One anti-discrimination law guideline issued by the ADB states it is "against the law to stop you speaking in your own language at work unless it stops the work or study being done properly". Another states it is "against the law for an employer to insist that you speak English fluently unless it is reasonable for the particular job".
[my emphasis]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Andrew Avelino, Confessor, A.D. 2009

On the preparatory work for the Second Vatican Council

Here’s an interesting item from the “Out of the Past” column (a selection of brief articles from 100, fifty and twenty-five years ago) in yesterday’s Sydney Catholic Weekly (apparently not yet available on-line):

50 Years Ago – Nobember 5, 1959

THE Vatican Secretary of State, His Eminence, Cardinal Tardini, tonight (October 30) told an unprecedented full-fledged press conference that at least three years’ preparatory work is needed for the forthcoming Ecumenical Council. He said the Council, the first “Summit” meeting of Catholic Church leaders from all over the world since 1870, will be held in St Peter’s Basilica in 1963 or 1964. More than 1000 bishops and religious are expected to attend. Observers from other religions including the Russian Orthodox Church may also be present. The press conference, an innovation of Pope John XXIII’s surprise-filled reign, was packed with more than 300 Italian and foreign correspondents, including at least two Russians.
[The Catholic Weekly, Vol. 68, No. 4492, November 1, 2009, p. 21]

Three years’ preparatory work, indeed. As we know, the Council discarded, in highly irregular circumstances, the meticulously-produced preparatory schemata shortly after its opening. The late Msgr. Lefebvre, who was involved in the production of those schemata (His late Grace worked in the Central Preparatory Commission, if I recall correctly), described them in glowing terms—impeccably Traditional documents in which the formulation of doctrine was updated for the needs of the time but without compromising its Catholic spirit, and copies of which he kept into late in his holy life. (I myself have read the preparatory schema on religious tolerance—a copy is contained as an appendix in the late Mr. Michael Davies’s fine The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty—and I can attest that it is an excellent statement of the Traditional doctrine in those matters). Instead, we got, well, the documents of Vatican II—the French Revolution in the Church: Religious Liberty, Collegial Equality, Ecumenical Fraternity, as Msgr. Lefebvre entitles a chapter in his Open Letter to Confused Catholics (and even Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged that the atmosphere at the Council was marked by a mood for absorbing into Catholic teaching the ‘best elements’ of the Enlightenment in, if I recall correctly, The Ratzinger Report—as though there can be anything in common between Christ and Belial, between the Deposit of Faith and the tenets of the French Revolution).

So despite having discarded many months of painstaking doctrinal work, the Council had gone on regardless! As Msgr. Lefebvre observed trenchantly in his Open Letter to Confused Catholics, what small business owner would carry on a meeting of his staff if the meeting’s agenda had to be discarded at the outset?! And so a fortiori one can only wonder at what the Pope and Council Fathers must have been thinking in deciding to continue, ad lib, with the Council. Indeed, it was a case of putting God to the test, and on an unprecedented scale. But God did not fail His Church; His protection of the Deposit of Faith consisted precisely in refusing to permit the teachings of Vatican II to be promulgated irreformably. Instead, we await—as the product, one hopes, of the S.S.P.X.-Vatican doctrinal discussions—the clarification of those parts of the documents which can be reconciled with Tradition, and the reform, in the manner of Pius XII correcting the teaching of the Council of Florence in his Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis, of those parts which cannot.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
All Souls Day, A.D. 2009

Some (tentative) good news: pro-sodomite Administrative Decisions Tribunal ruling overturned, case to be re-examined

Today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph carried the following report (to which today’s CathNews also links), billed as an exclusive in the print edition:

Churches welcome gay bans

By Joe Hildebrand

The Daily Telegraph

November 02, 2009 12:01am

CHARITIES and religious groups could discriminate against gay people or anyone else who might offend their values after a landmark decision quashed a finding in favour of a gay couple who wanted to become foster parents.

[…] The couple were refused access to the Wesley Mission's foster care agency because they are homosexual.

They took their case to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal and were awarded $10,000 and the Wesley Mission told to change its practices so it didn't discriminate.

The charity appealed and a highly critical appeal panel overturned the decision and ordered the original tribunal to hear the case again.

The panel headed by Magistrate Nancy Hennessy even instructed the tribunal to this time take into consideration whether monogamous heterosexual couples are the norm for "Wesleyanism" and whether they might have had to reject the couple in order to preserve their beliefs and not offend people in their religion.
[…]
[http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26292177-421,00.html]

I describe this as “tentative” good news in my headline because of course we must now await the new verdict of the Administrative Decisions Tribunal (A.D.T.), but given what a strong rebuff the appeal panel’s decision poses to the original judgment one can only expect that the A.D.T. will have to rule in favour of Wesley Mission this time. This is good of itself, but there are a couple of other connections which Mr. Hildebrand failed to make, and which I will consider here:

1. Earlier in the year I reported, in several posts, on the N.S.W. Upper House Inquiry into same-sex adoption, and the appeal panel decision might have implications for its findings. In its Final Report, the Inquiry Committee “determined that the Adoption Act 2000 should be amended to allow same-sex couples to adopt, but that an exemption from the application of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 be created for faith-based adoption agencies” (Final Report, p. 10). Unfortunately, some “inquiry participants, however, informed the Committee that a recent 2008 decision of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal put the matter into doubt” (Final Report, p. 124). (The “recent 2008 decision” is the one which, as Mr. Hildebrand reports, the appeal panel has now overturned.) This uncertainty induced the Committee to recommend

That included in any legislative amendment to allow same-sex couples to adopt should be an exemption for faith-based adoption agencies from the application of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 in relation to providing same-sex couples with adoption services.
[This is Recommendation 3.
Final Report, p. 130]

(I note, however, that the Committee decided that “[t]he exemption should not extend, directly or indirectly, to matters outside the Committee’s terms of reference, such as foster care services”, ibid.) Now that the motive inducing the Committee to make this recommendation is likely to cease to exist, I wonder whether the latest developments will influence Parliament’s response to the Committee’s recommendations, and if so then how. (I should point out, though, that Recommendation 4 advises

That, if an exemption from the application of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 is created for faith-based accredited adoption agencies in the provision of services to same-sex couples, the exemption should be linked to a statutory requirement that the agencies refer any same-sex couples who seek their services to another accredited adoption agency that will assist them.
[ibid.]

which, as the Committee notes, arguably “totally compromises the position upon which [adoption agencies opposed to same-sex adoption] relied upon the exemption in the first place” (ibid.), so the Sodomites’ League may well still come out of this the winner.)

2. Mr. Hildebrand reported that

The panel headed by Magistrate Nancy Hennessy even instructed the tribunal to this time take into consideration whether monogamous heterosexual couples are the norm for "Wesleyanism" and whether they might have had to reject the couple in order to preserve their beliefs and not offend people in their religion.

This is highly significant because, according to the same-sex adoption Inquiry Final Report,

The [Administrative Decisions] Tribunal rejected the argument put by Wesley Mission that the exemption in section 56 of the Anti-Discrimination Act applied to this situation. In making its determination, the Tribunal considered (among other matters) the meaning of the terms ‘religion’ and ‘doctrine’ and concluded that the belief that ‘monogamous heterosexual partnership within marriage is both the norm and ideal’ was not a ‘doctrine’ of Christianity so as to attract the exemption in section 56(d).
[p. 124]

So in the original decision we had a State judicial authority ruling what are or are not to be regarded as a given religion’s doctrines of faith and morals! This quasi-Caesaropapism was also evident in the recent Victorian ‘options paper’ which examined ways to curtail the freedom of religious bodies to hire employees based on prospective employees’ compatibility with the religious bodies’ respective beliefs, and was evident in a recent proposed European Union (E.U.) directive against discrimination and harassment (for more on both the Victorian and E.U. anti-discrimination moves , see here). The appeal panel’s decision to rebuke, at least implicitly (but nonetheless strongly, it would seem), the A.D.T. for the reasoning—the notion that the secular(ist) State is a better judge of a religion’s doctrines than the religion itself—underpinning its original judgment is a welcome (though only temporary, I fear) set-back for the secularist agenda.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
All Souls Day, A.D. 2009