The Hyperventilating Begins
The QandO Blog
Posted by: Dale Franks
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
The hyperventilating over the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger has already begun. The New York Times couldn’t even get past the fourth paragraph in their story on his election without saying:
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As the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he has been the church's doctrinal watchdog since 1981.
He has been described as a conservative, intellectual clone of the late pontiff, and, as the dean of the College of Cardinals, he was widely respected for his uncompromising - if ultraconservative - principles and his ability to be critical.
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Well, that’s an interesting way of putting things. The new pope was “been the church's doctrinal watchdog”. You know, the narrow-minded inquisitor, always sniffing out heresy. He was “a conservative, intellectual clone of the late pontiff”, not a man with his own deeply felt convictions, just a shallow copy of his boss. And, of course, he wasn’t just a defender of traditional orthodoxy, he was “ultraconservative”, which is usally a code word for "whacko", and is hardly ever thought of as a good thing. At least not in Manhattan.
One notes that the Times was gracious enough to point out that he was a highly respected whack job, though. That was nice of them.
Notice how the Washington Post puts it, though:
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As a cardinal, Ratzinger, a close associate of John Paul and dean of the College of Cardinals, was known for his strict support of church doctrine...
Since 1981, Ratzinger was head of the Vatican's influential Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he played a leading role disciplining dissidents and resisting liberal proposals for change.
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Huh. Evidently it is possible to convey exactly the same information without editorializing, or slinging around terms that are laden with negative implications. Who knew?
Apparently, this is something called “reporting”.
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For the ultimate in hyperventilation, though, there’s Andrew Sullivan. It’s not just a conservative papacy, it’s the end of Western Civilization:
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He raised the stakes even further by his extraordinarily bold homily at the beginning of the conclave, where he all but declared a war on modernity, liberalism (meaning modern liberal democracy of all stripes) and freedom of thought and conscience.
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<sarcasm>You know, that’s exactly what I thought. I couldn’t help but think that, within days, inquisitors from the Holy Office would be giving me a midnight knock on the door. Oh, sure, they say that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but the smart ones, they do. </sarcasm>
And that’s not the half of it, according to Mr. Sullivan.
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And what is the creed of the Church? That is for the Grand Inquisitor to decide. Everything else - especially faithful attempts to question and understand the faith itself - is "human trickery." It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It's not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It's a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism.
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See, I knew there was an inquisitor in there somewhere.
Now, some of you may uncharitably think that Mr. Sullivan’s distemper arises from the fact that he he has some doctrinal differences with the Church that arise from his personal lifestyle as an openly gay man. But you couldn’t be more wrong.
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And, please, no one is asking or expecting the Church to revise or reverse over night its peripheral doctrines on human sexuality or even how to run the church (celibacy, women priests, etc.). What some of us were hoping for was more openness to discussion of the real problems facing the church, some attempt to square teachings with the actual experience of lay Catholics (the sensus fidelium, as the Second Council put it), and a spirit able to reach out to the poor, the marginalized and the faithless.
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Because, if you know anything about how Mr. Sullivan comes to an opinion, you know it’s always about how it will affect others. He’s just a disinterested third party, really. And he’s very reasonable. Why, he’s not even asking the church to change its doctrine on sexuality. I mean, not overnight. He’s willing to give it some time, and make the change gradually. Because he’s a uniter, not a divider.
Besides, Mr. Sullivan argues, Ratzinger isn’t even qualified.
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This new Pope has no pastoral experience as such. He is a creature of theological discourse, a man of books and treatises and arguments. He proclaims his version of the truth as God-given and therefore unalterable and undebatable. His theology is indeed distinguished, if somewhat esoteric and at times a little odd. But his response to dialogue within the church is to silence those who disagree with him. He has no experience dealing with people en masse, no hands-on experience of the challenges of the church in the developing world, and complete contempt for dissent in the West.
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Yes. Clearly an unqualified candidate. And his theology? Oh my goodness. Why, after 40 years of studying and teaching catholic theology at the university level, and 20 years of serving as the Church’s chief theological authority, he acts like he has some greater insight to theology than Mr. Sullivan! Even worse, he acts as if the Catholic understanding of the Bible is the received truth revealed by Almighty God. I mean, how old-fashioned is that! This is the 21st century. We can tailor our faith to our own, personal beliefs now. That’s the new, hip religion deal.
I mean, if all this religion stuff comes from God, then how can so many people disagree about it, huh? I ask you!
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