I think you just answered this question in your conversation with Bricker, but would you be interested in a cite (if I can find one) that the RCC does teach that people have a right to religious freedom and that moral action must respect such right, regardless of the positive concequences of ignoring it? I’m interested in a debate about the consistency of the RCC’s public teachings and doctrines on moral issues, but I don’t have the knowledge or interest to debate what they really think apart from those pronouncements nor what their psychological motivations may be for their positions.
FTR, I don’t believe what Bricker wrote either, that the bishops involved in the child molestation scandals honstly but mistakenly believed that moving guilty priests around was the right thing to do. But I think that - despite the moral and intellectual depravity of its real-world application - the official teaching of the church is internally consistant and rational. And that’s all I feel really competant to discuss in any sustained manner.
Despite what I just said about not addressing the motivation of the Church, I have to call you on this, Bricker. You know more about the subtlety of sinfulness than this statement belies. I doubt any bishop said “I couldn’t care less” just as I doubt any of of the guilty priests said that, even to themselves. Rather, I suspect they allowed themselves to be seduced by the idea that the harm wasn’t as great as they had reason to know it was and that the personal difficulty they might suffer if they dealt head on with the crime was actually indicative of a wider harm to the church and possibly even the victims themselves. They acted out of fear and cowardice more than stupidity or callousness. And they knew - or should have known - (even if they wouldn’t admit to themselves) that they were doing so.
A side question if I may. Does the Catholic Church really believe in religious freedom, The Syllabus of Errors says it does not. How do you square the teachings of the Syllabus with the constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion which seems to contradict Catholic doctrine.
Again not claiming to be an expert only a person who grew up in the church, I would say that freedom of religion and Catholic doctrine can absolutely not be squared.
What Captain Amazing said. The Syllabus, AFAIK, was not issued “Infallibly” so like so many other documents in Church history, it is subject to later authorities saying “this is what applied at THAT point in history” or, “in view of changes, Passage X now should be taken to mean THIS…” and so forth. I do not believe the “Syllabus of Errors” stands where it conflicts with latter Encyclicals, Catechisms, etc.
My position is that the Church has never told those millions of Catholics that they are wrong. It is not the teaching of the Church that believing in the Constitution…specifically the religious freedom it upholds…and being a believing Catholic are incompatible.
I would demonstrate a lot more patience in my reply if you hadn’t just revealed that you haven’t read a damned thing I’ve been talking about in this thread.
This is what motivated my line above: “When stupidity crosses the line into sinfulness, I cannot say.”
I agree that what you described is what happened. They simply didn’t let themselves think, as fully and dispassionately as they needed to, about what was happening, in much the same sort of exercise of self-denial that the wife will ignore her husband’s late nights “at the office,” phone calls taken in private, and similar evidence of an affair.
I don’t think they knew, in other words. But I agree they should have known, and that their failure to confront the issue squarely is something fairly imputed to their own ledger of sin.
And what information are you relying on in your citation that supports the idea that Law said, in effect, “I know this priest is gonna keep abusing kids, but frankly I couldn’t care less?”
I suspect strongly that at least some of them did know what they were doing and still acted out of cowardice, but again, it’s not something I really want to debate. I certainly don’t have any evidence that they knew what they were doing and acted out of turpitude rather than just self-deception.
Jsgoddess, it will take me a while to research the RCC’s position on religious freedom, but I’ll try to post something tonight.
The Syallabus of Errors was not a stand-alone document, nor was it an infallible teaching of the Church.
It was a list of errors culled from earlier sources. The Syllabus does not, then, condemn the broad principle of freedom of religion; it condemns the narrow, fact-based example taught by Allocution “Acerbissimum,” of Sept. 27, 1852.
Unfortunately, very few people who read the Syllabus of Errors then follow up by referring to the specific documents which the Syllabus addresses. It’s as though I issued a “Statement of Liberal Errors,” and announced that one liberal error is the claim that police should not have the power to arrest criminals, in the context of ACLU v. Smith… and ACLU v. Smith is a lawsuit referring to warrentless arrest of protesters.
And the Syallbus is not infallible. Teachings of an ecumenical council are, however, and Vatican II expressly contradicts portions of the Syllabus.
In short, it is error to offer the Syllabus of Errors as some kind of authority on Catholic law or theology.
I should add that it’s already been explained to you why Catholic doctrine can be squared with freedom of religion, and also why it’s not the same thing as abortion. I know you’re dying for the Church to be hypocritical in that regard, but it’s really not.
I know this isn’t GD, so I suppose it’s perfectly reasonable of you to toss out inchoate claims rather than fully-formed arguments.
Unfortunately, this means you rely upon your opponents to place these sorts of half-claims in some sort of context. You make an accusation about Law, and provide a link to his Wikipedia page as though it’s some sort of cite that supports your position. You don’t quote any particular language or identify any particular section that supports your view, so in a sense, all you’ve done is verify that a man named Bernard Law was once Archbishop of Boston – a point not in any serious dispute.
I could guess at what you mean to say with this new claim, but I’d probably get it wrong. So why don’t you tell me. Specifically - which of his actions or coverups show definitively that he knew priests were going to abuse again and simply didn’t care?