Santorum's robust, even strident, defense of Catholic doctrine over contraception is very nice … as long as one doesn't consider all the other teachings of the Church — regarding capital punishment, war, economic and social justice — that he chooses to ignore or speaks out against.
Nice article, including some considerations of the value of the whole discussion over contraception, etc. #ddtb
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Top Ten Catholic Teachings Santorum Rejects While Obsessing About Birth Control | RH Reality Check
The right wing Republican politicians who have been denouncing the requirement that female employees have access to birth control as part of their health benefits as an attack on religious freedom com…
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Roman Catholic views definitely do not fall into any easy political categorization. I had a friend who spent the 1980s protesting against abortion one week, while protesting against nukes the next week.
This is what happens when protestants try to do catholic doctrine.
A few notes:
1) Abortion is an intrinsic, objective moral evil (please look up moral theology in a catholic dictionary, so we don't get into the game of 'clubbing baby seals' – or whatever silly thing someone feels strongly about – is an intrinsic, objective moral evil – it's not). Ditto with ABC (artificial birth control). The two have lots of cross-over (due to many forms of ABC having abortifacient properties). War is always a prudential judgment by the legitimate authority: St. Thomas clarified it 700 years ago or so. It is not a simple topic, unlike the murder of innocent human beings, which is a simple topic.
2) The USCCB as an organization has no magisterial authority and can compel no obedience. Many 'old' documents (look at the link text) – and indeed some new ones – were written by arbitrary committees, some of which have been (or are) compromised from a doctrinal point of view.
3) Capital Punishment is explicitly a matter of prudential judgment – St. Thomas Aquinas clarified the position of the Church on it. Abortion and contraception are explicitly not prudential, but to be held as a duty to objective truth. (I happen to agree with the position of the American Bishops on this one, but it's not a settled point.)
4) The USCCB can urge whatever it wants, it's basically meaningless, but see below.
5) You'd have to be stupid not to be a critic of welfare. The two contraries are not contrary.
6) The basic rights of workers are in no way protected by modern unions (which are mostly a thugocracy). Look up Rerum Novarum and Quadrigesimo Anno: they are good reads.
7) That's actually not what really happened, but the point is sufficiently complex I'll have to gloss over it. Glad the link was to the huffpo, so it's just risible.
8) This is purely in the realm of prudential judgement. Also, Mahoney is, unless I've forgotten someone, presently the looniest Bishop in the US.
9) Prudential judgement. Get over it.
10) Just silly.
In all matters of prudential judgment, items such as the opinions of Bishops and advisory positions are to be taken into account, but in no way necessarily need to be controlling.
+Jason Pascucci:
1. So war is not a "simple" topic. I'd suggest that abortion is not, either. Both involve killing (abortion, at least, involves some discussion of whether the killing is of a human, or at what point that is so). I would suggest that simply because the legitimate authority asserts that a war is justified does not make it so. That the leader of the Catholic Church opined as to a particular war's justification but that argument is simply dismissed by omission by an ostensibly Catholic politician is, in fact, worthy of consideration.
There are an array of artificial birth control methods (though specifiying them as "artificial" clouds the issue, as they are really the only significantly effective birth control methods). It's arguable that some resemble certain abortion methods, but many others do not. Since the Church, as you assert, consider both to be an "intrinsic, objective moral evil," it doesn't seem worth arguing the point.
Thanks for setting the tone by dismissing in advance certain arguments as "silly."
2. I read this as "stuff I don't like can be dismissed as controversial, obsolete, non-bnding, and or 'compromised.'"
Since the USCCB are the ones raising the most vocal stink regarding the contraception mandate, and purport to be speaking for "Catholics" in general, the specific magisterial authority they have de jure seems less important than the authority they are claiming and are being ceded de facto.
3. While I appreciate the depth of theological analysis that St Thomas Aquinas applied to a variety of topics, the fact is that the Church — as embodied by the Pope and various bishops — certainly seek to influence civil authorities regarding capital punishment, as shown in the link.
It's also not clear why you're quick to dismiss "old" documents (in #2, etc.), but accept Aquinas' conclusions as the definitive clarification of the church's position (700-odd years ago).
4. So it's meaningless for the USCCB to urge for increasing the minimum wage, but it's meaningful for them to reject church-operated institutions providing contraceptive insurance coverage.
5. So I guess the bishops in this case (calling for "a minimum national welfare benefit") are … stupid, then?
6. While acknowledging that modern unions suffer from the same flaws as any human institution, to simply dismiss them as a "thugocracy" and to assert that they "in no way" protect basic worker rights seems unwarrented to me.
7. Classy way to dismiss a point.
8. You seem to use "prudential judgment" as some sort of handwaving to "ignore it, it's not important or binding". Doing just a little bit of research into the subject shows that exercise of prudential judgment for Catholics is by no means just a matter of personal moral preference, and even in cases (poorly defined) where the bishops' opinions are not "controlling" or morally binding, they are silently dismissed or ignored only foolishly.
Even in the article cited, Mahoney is not the only bishop referenced.
9. Handwaving.
10. Ditto.
+John E. Bredehoft, agreed. While I disagree with particular Catholic positions and doctrines, I appreciate that they are usually thought through (over multiple centuries) and do not necessarily fall into easy categories.
A few overarching notes
The USCCB is a collection of committees – mostly lay people – ostensibly serving the Bishops. It has no authority on these matters by itself. In this instance, the legitimate authority – the Bishops themselves in their own Diocese – are the ones speaking out, personally, both in their Diocese with letters being read at Mass, and showing up often on such things as youtube. There is no mistaking the difference between the two. Speaking of the USCCB as you do is a little like saying my state's "Governor's Council on Fitness" has binding authority over my gym membership: they are orthogonal.
The point I guess I was trying to make here – not particularly well as it was very late last night – with splitting up prudential versus certain judgments, and missed a bit, is that holding certain positions literally make you 'not a Catholic':
* Willfully held, post-baptismal heterodoxy (including such things are rejection of 'Humanae Vitae', a Papal encyclical of one of the highest binding classes of such, containing as it does intentional definition)
* Schism (the rejection of the authentic authority of the Church to, for instance, govern faith and morals), and
* Apostasy (rejection of the grounds of faith)
So, for all the items referenced in the article, all of those things mentioned aren't that. This means, attacking his Catholicism on those points is risible, and only a mistake someone actually (or functionally) protestant could make. Indeed, it's a form of calumny, made in ignorance of the facts but not made out of ignorance, if you get the distinction.
Now – to some of your points: I take no issue, on any of these matters of prudential judgment, with the proposition that you can judge him as a Candidate, on how fit he would be to serve in office holding those positions, be you a Catholic or whatever else – prudential judgment works both ways. Some things are sillier than others, but whatever. It's firmly in the realm of your problem to grapple with, although being public knowledge, it can also be argued the opposite way.
However, a Catholic, in light of the contrary moral situations – abortion (1.28 million willful deaths of the innocent a year based on the numbers that show up on the whitehouse website from the last data published) and (to a lesser extent) contraception morally outweigh everything else you can put into the balance under any well-formed synderesis. As an example: given his positions on abortion, there could be no possibility of voting for Barak Obama, even if he were flawless on all the other things that the article abused Santorum about. You could call this 'single issue voting' if you want and pretend we're all rednecks: or look at it from the real propoertions: there is a moral heirarchy of good and their contrary evils, and intentionally killing the innocent to the tune of 40 million or so in my lifetime is pretty up there with both Stalin and Mao – atheists – in the 'greatest evils of all time' parade. At least Stalin and Mao might have accidentally killed someone guilty of a crime once in a while: abortions in US has no possibility of any such luck.
After you get those out of the way, though, plenty of considerations might take over – and stated policy doesn't even have to be the biggest one. I'll give you an example: of the candidates I can actually vote for (who have some kind of record against abortion), Santorum is the most presently Catholic in judgment (although not flawlessly so in my estimation), although Newt is the smarter and more oriented to first principles and I suspect he would catch up with Catholic doctrine better, given a few years, and also deal better with the vagueries of office in media res. Thus, if it were a toss up between the two, I might go with Newt, for instance, since I think those things are very important for a sitting President.
I may engage some other points at a later time, but a lot of them seem to be merely false dichotomies from what I actually said.
(Although I will note, #1 is precisely what I meant about the clubbing baby seals thing: really, go look it up. It's not that they are both complex, it is that they are fundamentally, radically different categories.)