Steve B

But Katie,

Islam is NOT a religion of peace!  Those who say that are disingenuous at best, since the Koran allows (and sometimes even ecourages!) Muslims to commit violence in the name of their religion….

Don’t believe me?  Read recent books on Islam written by Robert Spencer.

Or, listen to him as a guest on Catholic Answers Live (archived MP3 recording of that show aired on Apr. 16th of this year) where he completely dispels the mistaken notion that Islam is a “religion of peace”.

Take care, and God bless,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Hi Katie,

I realize from your most recent post on TPP that you are either currently occupied with, or preparing to give, a public presentation. 

I’ve already offered prayers that all goes exceptionally well for you in your talk, and that you have safe and uneventful travels (if that is required)....

Ever since our very animated discussion on this topic of “conscience” concluded about a month ago (That long ago?  How time flies!), I’ve still been digging deeper on the subject.  Last night, I came across a VERY interesting article, which shed quite a bit of light on the matter for yours truly.

The article (link below) describes “two camps” of belief within Catholicism wrt conscience, which I think makes considerable sense of why you, Jules, and I came to such loggerheads on this topic.  When you do finally have free time again, please give the relatively brief article a read, and let me know what you think.

Anyway, here’s the link to the article:

http://ncronline.org/news/conscience-... 

Perhaps, with the enlightenment of this article, we can continue our discussion of “conscience”, albeit each from the perspective of our own “camp”, respectively?

As the authors of this article infer, perhaps there is a need within Catholicism for these “two camps” of belief to work harder toward greater harmony?  I hope that we can continue further discussions which might aid in that lofty goal….

Take care and God bless,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Thanks for the info and the link Katie!

Hi Katie,

I too look at the Legionaires now with many of the same negative emotions as you, perhaps even harsher ones.

However, when you said that their fundraisers -

“routinely send out fundraising appeals asking for money for its poor seminarians, who don’t have enough food of heat.”

- have you received and/or seen this solicitaion yourself, or only that you have heard about it 2nd or 3rd hand?

I’m not trying to challenge you in any way. 

I would merely like to get my hands on that kind of information, so that I can pass it along to my sister-in-law, since she and her family are long-time participants and supporters of the Legionaires and their lay apostolate Regnum Christi.

A few years ago, my family and I were beginning to “dabble” in the Regnum Christi apostolate.  However, their excessive focus upon the person of Fr. Maciel, as well as their questionable recruiting practices, were the two main things I recall which ultimately (and thank God!) turned us away from their movement….

Thanks for any further info or insight you can share!

Hi Jules,

Thanks for the further commentary. 

Thank goodness also for Google in helping me to track down exactly from which encyclicals you were quoting!  I’ll chalk that up to your commenting so late in the evening…. ;-)

However, when you have to refer to two OTHER encyclicals - Gaudium et Spes (paragraph 16) and Veritatis Splendor (section 63) to clarify what the Council Fathers wrote in Dignitatis Humanae about “conscience” - well, I think that too merely justifies what I’ve already said - namely, that DH was ITSELF written with a woeful lack of clarity and precision wrt traditional Catholic teaching.

And, Veritatis Splendor was written almost 28 years AFTER Digitatis Humanae, for heaven’s sake!  That was plenty of time to allow the liberals’ “seeds of dissent” to fester and grow in the way that they promoted “religious liberty”!!!

As I’ve already said, Dignitatis Humanae qualifies “conscience” not in the least - IMHO, that is its greatest shortcoming. 

And quoting more fully from Gaudium et Spes paragraph 16 (emphasis mine):

Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.

So, as I have been asserting all along, even Gaudium et Spes contrasts “right conscience” from “erroneous conscience” - all the more reason that DH should have qualified the term “conscience”! 

Thus, a more complete quote from GS 16 makes my arguments even stronger - i.e. what I was calling “enlightened conscience” is synonymous with what GS calls “right conscience”, and what I called “darkened conscience” is what GS calls “erroneous conscience”.

Having to “jump through hoops” sifting through multiple Church encyclicals to explain what Dignitatis Humanae REALLY meant - I mean, c’mon, how many Catholics have EVER heard this stuff taught, or have read enough Church encyclicals to figure it out on their own? - is proof positive that DH’s declaration on “religious liberty” needs some serious clarification and augmentation.

And, as we speak, that is precisely what the doctrinal discussions between the SSPX and the Vatican are working on doing. 

So, whether or not either of us is right about the clarity of teaching, or lack thereof, on “religious liberty” in Dignitatis Humanae, I have no doubt whatsoever that the ongoing doctrinal talks between the Vatican and the SSPX will result in some sort of document being issued to the faithful that will make it much more explicitly clear.

And that, Katie and Jules, is ALL I and other “traditionalists” are asking for for a LONG, LONG time - further official Church clarification on “religious liberty”, to close the loophole we “traditionalists” believe was left WIDE open in Dignitatis Humanae that dissenting Catholics have been exploiting to their advantage and to the detriment of the Church for nearly 45 years….

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Ah, Jules!

But that quote you have from Vertiatis Splendor is speaking ONLY about an error of conscience which is the result of invincible ignorance - not in general about about an erroneous conscience as a whole.

If I may quote the entirety of that portion of section 62 of Veritatis Splendor:

The Council reminds us that in cases where such invincible ignorance is not culpable, conscience does not lose its dignity, because even when it directs us to act in a way not in conformity with the objective moral order, it continues to speak in the name of that truth about the good which the subject is called to seek sincerely.”

 
So, despite my thorough enjoyment of the discussions on “conscience” and its corollaries (prudence, modesty, etc.), I would like to get back to the original theme from which this topic of “conscience” originated - i.e. “religious liberty” as promulgated in the Vatican II document Dignitatus Humanae.

In Dignitatus Humanae, two things are incontrovertible:

1) the Council Fathers neither clearly defined exactly what they meant by “conscience”,

2) nor did they qualify “conscience” at all (erroneous vs. correct) in a person’s pursuit of “religious liberty”

Fr. Angelo stated:

“Steve is correct in saying that an erroneous conscience, when it flies in the face of the divine law, has no objective right.”

Thus, one could readily conclude, based upon Fr. Angelo’s conclusion above, either that the Council Fathers wrongly taught that “religious liberty” is an unqualified moral right of each person, based solely upon his/her inherent human dignity, or that out of negligence & ambiguity they implied it.

Either way, there are serious problems and/or deficiencies with with what the Council Fathers taught about “religious liberty” in Dignitatus Humanae.

That is exactly what I asserted from the very beginning in my discussions with Katie, when we “traditionalists” claim that “religious liberty” as taught by the Council Fathers in DH is at the very least ambiguous, and on face value appears to be clearly inconsistent with the traditional, pre-Conciliar, teachings of the Catholic Church.

As I have already stated before, IMHO THAT has played a significant if not dominant role in the widespread dissent of religious belief currently plaguing the Catholic Church on a whole host of issues.

So, in this discussion, we’re literally right back to square one now - an incredible “ride” it has been, I must admit, but which took us virtually nowhere.

After this sometimes-head-spinning discussion, I am VERY glad that the Vatican and the SSPX are hammering out the details to, hopefully, completely clarify Catholic doctrine on this contentious matter!

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Hi Katie,

On your finding “Sunday Mass a torment”....

For all the reasons you listed, and more, a couple of years ago we initially started driving more than 45 miles EACH way to attend Mass at a parish where the liturgy was exceptionally reverent, with a Pastor who truly made an effort to teach the faith and shepherd his flock, respectfully, yet firmly.

It ended up being a spiritual oasis on our journey to eventually becoming “traditional” Catholics at the FSSP parish here in the Dallas diocese.  Sermons (not homilies) are never dumbed down, yet there is usually a message that the faithful of all ages can take home with them.

Honestly, I think what Fr. Angelo said earlier today about the abdication of fatherhood happened in a considerable way specifically with our Priesthood after Vatican II - too often, they became facilitators, rather than leaders - an abdication of their spiritual fatherhood. 

Thankfully, our young Priests today are coming out of the seminaries properly formed again to be strong spiritual leaders.  I think this is the main reason why the “traditional” seminaries are growing so rapidly (i.e. men naturally WANT to be strong leaders), why they typically have LONG waiting lists for new seminarians, and that they even have to turn away a lot of possible candidates simply because of logistical and economic limitations….

When you said “finding the right limits of our authority, and respecting it”, I automatically think - we just need to take the best of what the Church has had, both from before the Council, and after - in other words, Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity”.  “Both/and” is almost always a better solution than “either/or”....

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Katie & Fr. Angelo,

Excellent comments all around!

I would like to comment on a couple of points that you each made….

Katie, when you said:

The laity are not simply children vis a vis the priest.  My father set standards for my dress when I was a child.  He has no right to do it now.  Nor would I take it kindly if he tried.

I mildly disagree.

After all, we ARE the spiritual children of our Priests, since that is why we give them the title “Father”!  So, it IS imperative that we act as their spiritual children, and that we truly treat them with respect as our spiritual Fathers.  Sadly, that is an endemic problem in the Church today….

I do agree with you, Katie, that parents do need to mature to the point that they treat their grown children like adults, i.e. relate to them more as peers.  But, our faith compels us to humbly accept criticism which is given to us out of charity.  To respond merely out of pride to a parent in such a case is not at all proper.

Father Angelo, when you said:

As both JPII and DvH make clear, modesty is not only exterior on the part of the woman (usually) but also interior on the part of the man (usually).  The burden is not entirely on the woman.

You are absolutely right that the burden of modesty is not all placed upon the woman.  In the CW discussions last Fall on the Linde, I believe Katie made that very point - something along the lines of no matter how modest a woman dresses, a man can look at her with an immodest heart. 

Many men, like me, will almost always need to turn away from looking at an immodestly dressed woman, since that is often our best course of action to exercise what Christ instructed us in Matt. 5:30.

In general, our Priests NEED to bring up modesty for discussion periodically, and to teach from the faith on the topic.  I REALLY like the idea of having modesty “reminders” in the narthex/vestibule of the Church, so that the discussion is infrequent and doesn’t come across as nagging or “paternalism.”

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Hi Katie,

I suppose my choice of the word “impose” was a bit too strong….

What I really meant, was not “impose” per se, but something along the lines of allowing each pastor to objectively dictate for his parish minimum standards of modesty in clothing at least for attending Holy Mass - given that each local culture will play a huge factor in arriving at what those objective standards should be (e.g. Africa vs. India vs. the USA).

Maybe you do, but I don’t consider setting and enforcing objective standards of modesty as “paternalism”.  I consider that spiritual “fathering”, and I think that is the point Fr. Angelo was trying to make - just like I set objective modesty standards for my children, and through my parental discipline expect to have them followed, our spiritual Fathers need to do so also with the spiritual family under their care and direction. 

As I mentioned before in this discussion, IMHO efforts to encourage spiritual discipline have suffered greatly in the Church since Vatican II (and I’m NOT blaming the Council for this!), much to the detriment of the Catholic faithful.  Again, I look at this as a “both/and” approach - proper and reasonable amounts of objective spiritual discipline, with extensive catechesis to explain its intent, along with reasonable flexibility so as to not run the risk of real and stifling “paternalism.”

For example, for women to wear tight-fitting and provocative clothing to Holy Mass is IMHO most inappropriate - it can be, and often is HIGHLY distracting, especially for men. 

Setting an objective standard of modesty in women’s clothing to avoid that distraction from occurring during Holy Mass is quite important, especially in our culture today.  I think that this can be taught in a way that promotes it as purely an act of charity that women can exhibit toward the concupiscence that men naturally have. 

Promoting self-denial, especially in matters of modesty and sexual ethics, so as to promote greater charity toward the opposite sex, is not talked about nearly enough in the Church today (especially given our over-sexualized culture). 

Letting everyone “fend for themself” in practicing and dealing with issues of modesty has not been a good nor effective pastoral strategy since Vatican II, IMHO….

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX

Good morning Father,

I wanted to comment a bit on your ideas in point #6.

Generally speaking, I do agree with you and Katie that there is a dire need to properly catechize the faithful so that they can truly exercise prudential judgment.  As you say, the Church needs to give them “the tools by which they may learn to make better judgments.”

If I am understanding you correctly, Father, it seems that you are advocating a “both/and” approach in dealing with modesty:

A)  impose some “reasonable” and objective standards of modesty (albeit not as strict as those promoted by Pope Pius XII), and

B)  expend a concerted effort in the Church to catechize the faithful, especially in areas of modesty and sexual ethics (TOB, but not CW-style).

On my point A), I do believe that the Church needs to impose some kind of objective standards of modesty for the faithful, especially for what the faithful wear to Holy Mass. 

Now, again, I’m not pushing for Pius XII’s ultra-conservative standards, although I don’t think that they are necessarily bad - just that they seem more than a little over-the-top given our culture today. 

But, given that our primary purpose for attending Holy Mass is to focus our attention upon worshipping the Holy Trinity, then to help everyone to act out of genuine supernatural charity for our neighbor - i.e. to sacrifice of ourselves for his/her spiritual benefit - the Church needs to impose a reasonable and objective standard of modesty, so that the attire one wears does not itself cause undue distraction for others to actively participate and focus properly upon our Lord during Holy Mass.

This perspective that I have seems to also coincide with yours, Father, wrt rejecting out-of-hand CW’s complete dismissal of objective norms of modesty, and in making them purely relative/subjective.

Catechesis in the Church has a VERY LONG way to go yet in instilling Pope John Paul II’s authentic TOB teachings, which are desperately needed especially for teens and young adults in the Catholic Church today.  In the Church, we have barely started to re-instill in them a proper “conscience” wrt issues of modesty and sexual ethics, which is why my wife and I catechize our children entirely at home, especially wrt issues of modesty (which certainly must start LONG before the teenage years!).

I agree wholeheartedly with both you and Katie that we need to avoid imposing standards of modesty and sexual ethics that establish an ethos of “legalism and paternalism”.  Those objective standards need to also work toward generating a genuine and heartfelt desire for the faithful to WANT to live by those standards.

Pax et benedictiones tibi, per Christum Dominum nostrum,

Steve B
Plano, TX