Maureen Dowd was a good reporter who was turned into a lousy columnist. She doesn't appear to have any discernible principles, only bitchy opinions. Here she is today working as hard as she can to deploy as many lazy liberal cliches in an attack on Pope Benedict and the Vatican's investigation of American nuns. Excerpt:
Nuns need to be even more sepia-toned for the über-conservative pope, who was christened "God's Rottweiler" for his enforcement of orthodoxy. Once a conscripted member of the Hitler Youth, Benedict pardoned a schismatic bishop who claimed that there was no Nazi gas chamber. He also argued on a trip to Africa that distributing condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse.The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the "quality of life" of American nuns, a dwindling group with an average age of about 70, hoping to herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence.
Dowd evidences not the slightest idea what this investigation is about, or why it might be necessary. Benedict was as a child put into the Hitler Youth, and that's all she needs to know. The Times ought to be embarrassed to publish this crap. It's not that she's a liberal in this matter; I am sure that it's possible to be a liberal Catholic opposed to the Vatican investigation without falling into the nasty cliches she spouts here. It's that she's lazy, and has no idea what she's talking about.
It's generally a bad idea when secular journalists venture strong, confident opinions about theological matters. See, for example, the Los Angeles Times editorial about Benedict's overture to Anglicans. Of all the things the Times could have said about this move, the lesson its editorial board drew was that "this religious realignment is also a reminder to supporters of equality for women and gays and lesbians that they must literally preach to the converted if they are to win believers to their cause."
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"I understand that Catholics are allowed freedom of conscience on issues of church teaching with which they disagree."
dcs is correct to reject this formulation.
It is true that Catholic moral theology declares everyone absolutely bound by the final demand of his or her conscience, that is, his or her last best judgment of what is right and wrong.
In that sense, if a person were actually convinced in conscience that it was morally necessary on pain of grave sin to publicly support abortion, or that it was morally necessary to plot to murder the pope, then to go against his or her conscience, not for moral reasons, but e.g., out of fear, would be sinful.
However, it is also morally untenable to act on a badly informed conscience, since it leads one into material sin and spiritual harm. "Freedom of conscience" can never mean that it's okay to go going against Church teaching (and, e.g., murder the pope) as long as your conscience tells you to.
If your conscience contradicts Church teaching, then your conscience is wrong, and you are in a morally untenable situation -- particularly if you are culpable for the malformation of your conscience (which seems almost certainly the case in the extreme examples mentioned above).
The only safe path is to better form and inform your conscience, and get your conscience in line with the truth, which also means in line with Church teaching.
The Church teaches that conscience must be fully informed by what the Church teaches, as well as the rationale behind the teaching, as well as the ordinary duty to obey that teaching. That never gets mentioned by most Catholics when they claim the right to conscience.
Siarlys,
"I have found the kind of loose name-calling passing for reason, which Rod lances here, to be typical of Maureen Dowd's columns"
Of course, many of us would say the exact same thing about Rod's loose name-calling passing for reason, eg. calling a raped lesbian a "twit", young girls "sluts", the balloon boy a "brat" (note, NOT his father!), and, in this very column, Ms Dowd a "catty know-nothing".
Frankly, I'd rather spend my time with a "catty know-nothing" than a catty, uncharitable know-it-all 'passing' as a "Christian".
"The Church teaches that conscience must be fully informed by what the Church teaches"
could someone tell me why this sounds exactly like circular 'reasoning'?
She works really, really hard, and she mines the territory that she's writing about with great skill and great effort. Like when the often painful-to-read she wanted to take the temperature of race relations in the nation's capitol following Obama's election.
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