No--She SAYS She's Catholic

( N.B. Fonts are messed up today. My apologies.)

I don't know if anyone here knows anything about journalism, but if so, I could use some help. It involves how the media misidentifies Catholics, and in so doing misrepresents that Catholic faith. Case in point: a quotation from this article, which is headlined "Catholic Melinda Gates defies the Vatican over Birth Control Funds":

Melinda Gates, billionaire philanthropist and practising Catholic, yesterday laid down the gauntlet to the Vatican by vowing to dedicate her life to improving access to contraception for women in the developing world.

My question here is how the article simply assumes that Gates is Catholic. It seems to me in many other articles the reporters hedge. For instance, “A marksman stopped the van, driven by a man who says he is a member of the English DefenceLeague,” or “Thourot,who says he is a member of the National Rifle Association, continues his support of guns,” or “The Taliban said it seized a doctor, three nurses and their driver on March 27 in Kandahar province” (my italics in all cases).

            I will here give reporters the benefit a very serious doubt (since I don’t believe that all, or even most, reporters are consciously anti-Catholic, although some most certainly are) and assume that their constant identification of Melinda Gates, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius, etc. as Catholic is not designed to damage or scandalize the faith. In that case, why don’t they hedge about this? Do they take Gates’s (or Pelosi’s, or whoever’s) word for it? Do they call and check to see if they’re registered at a parish? Do they at least attempt to verify it?

            The point is that, intentional or not, every time one of these dissidents (probably heretics) is unequivocally described by a third and ostensibly unbiased party as Catholic, it does damage the Catholic Church. (For the definition of Catholic, I’ll refer you to an earlier post, but the short version is that you have to be baptized, and you have to accept both the Catholic Faith and the authority of the hierarchy.  As Ludwig Ott puts it in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, a reference work that should be on the shelf of every theologian and canonist, “Public heretics, even those who err in good faith (material heretics), do not belong to the body of the Church, that is to the legal commonwealth of the Church” (p. 311). Of course, this refers to membership in the Church, not the label Catholic, so there may be some wiggle room here.

            So if I’m correct and Melinda Gates isn’t Catholic, yet she’s described as a Catholic, who’s at fault? If not the reporters, the only other candidates are 1) Gates herself and 2) her pastors (i.e., her parish priest, or his bishop, or the pope), since they refuse to publicly correct the record in light of the proper, doctrinally-defined understanding of membership in the Church. Three highly suspect entities: the heretic herself, or the media that does have an anti-Catholic bias, or members of a Church hierarchy infected with modernism. Take your pick, but whoever is to blame, every time this happens the Church takes another body blow because the following truth is once again obscured: You cannot be Catholic and at the same time dissent from Catholic doctrine.

Religious Liberty vs. Religious Tolerance

I have posted this in the comments over at Southern Orders, but I want to expound a bit on the last point.

Since we have all been praying for it these past few weeks... Here is the Catholic teaching on "religious liberty":

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange:

"Liberty of religions allows us to frame an argument ad hominem, against those, that is to say, who profess liberty of religions yet harass the true Church and directly or indirectly forbid its worship. That argument ad hominem is correct, and the Catholic Church does not disdain it but rather urges it in defense of her rightful liberty. But from that it does not follow that liberty of religions, considered in itself, can be defended unconditionally by Catholics, for in itself it is absurd and wicked: truth and error cannot have the same rights."

Pope Pius XII:

"The annual celebration of this feast (of Christ the King) will remind States that magistrates and rulers are bound, just like citizens, to offer public worship to Christ and to obey Him.... For His royalty requires that the whole State be governed by the commandments of God and by Christian principles in its legislation, in the way it does justice, and also in training youth with sound doctrine and good moral discipline."

"We shall not delay here to repeat that it is a serious error to affirm that this separation [of Church and State] is licit and good in itself."

Pope St. Pius X:

"That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God..."

Pope Leo XIII:

"Justice forbids and reason itself forbids the State to be godless, or to adopt aline of action which would end in godlessness -- namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestow on them promiscuously equal rights and privileges. Since, then, the profession of one religion is necessary in the State, that religion must be professed which alone is true [that is, the Catholic religion]."

"And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all right and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty towards God. Moreover, it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the true one; or to prefer one religion to all the rest... but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal right to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.... [T]his most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice, and this in the same thing as Atheism, however it may differ from it in name."

Condemned by Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors:

CONDEMNED - Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.

CONDEMNED - The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church. 

CONDEMNED - In our day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion be acknowledged as the one State religion to the exclusion of other forms of worship.

CONDEMNED - Praise is due to certain nominally Catholic countries where the law has provided that strangers coming to live there shall enjoy the public exercise of their particular religions.

In Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council explicitly states, "[This Council] leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ." Therefore, we know that everyone I cited above, which is taken entirely from the ordinary Magisterium of the Church (except for the bit from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange) is binding upon Catholics.

Summary: Non-Catholic "religions" are merely tolerated where the civil consequences and potential difficulties of stamping out false religions might create a greater evil.  

Actually, say what you will, but Abp. Lefebvre makes an excellent point on this in his Open Letter to Confused Catholics while explaining why we should maintain this teaching in modernity: 

And yet in practice the Church does not prescribe blindly and intransigently regarding the expression of false religions in public. She has always said that they could be tolerated by the authorities in order to avoid a greater evil.  That is why Cardinal Ottaviani preferred the term 'religious tolerance.'

If we put ourselves in the position of a Catholic state where the religion of Christ is officially recognized, we see that this tolerance can avoid troubles which may be harmful to the whole. But in a secular society professing neutrality, the law of the Church will surely not be observed. Why, you will then ask, maintain it?

First of all, it is not a question of a human law that can be abrogated or altered. Secondly, abandoning that very principle has its consequences.

So, what are those consequences? Take a look at what Abp. Lefebvre says:

We cannot insist upon the freedom of all religious societies, within human society, without at the same time granting them moral liberty. Islam allows polygamy; Protestants--depending on the particular sect--have more or less lax positions on the indissolubility of marriage and on contraception. The criterion of good and evil is disappearing. Abortion is no longer illegal in Europe, except in Catholic Ireland. It is impossible for the Church of God to condone these abuses by affirming religious liberty.

Precisely! Is this not precisely what we have seen - an increase of abortion and contraception, divorce rates increased, indifferentism toward religion and a society tending toward Atheism. This is what the American Bishops are up against - they did it to themselves by promoting false religious liberty for the last 60 years and now they are trying to solve the problem by appealing to the very "liberty" they themselves have espoused!

Kyrie eleison

There is no slippery slope...?

According to this article in the Huffington Post (shared with me courtesy of my wife, who presumably likes to see me disgruntled), California (where else?) lawmakers are considering a law that would allow children to have multiple legal parents.

I can see a possible good aspect to that law for those who are divorced and remarried, who live in situations where a child might have parents and step-parents.  That seems legitimate, although we could debate whether that sort of situation requires any additional legislation than that already provided.

The more interesting and subversive element to this potential law is that it might allow people to "create" any sort of "family" design they like.  And, obviously, this is a law that tends toward polygamy.

This is the result of the slippery slope we have seen in the rapid process of redefining the meaning of terms in modern society.  It is also the product of overly active legislators who no longer see their job as creating the boundaries within which society must operate, but as setting aside all boundaries via legislation. 

As Anonymous 5 points out in reference to the Catholic Church, the Church (acting as God's lawgiver on earth) sets out the guardrails in which we must conform our conduct.  That is generally true for legislation in the civil realm as well.  You may not drive more the 70 miles per hour, you may not drive after drinking, you may not shoot at other people. 

This sort of "activist" legislation is not prescribing a boundary -- it is redefining terms that are already defined in a manner heretofore considered ridiculous.  So, you may not drive more than 70 miles per hour, but 70 does not necessarily, in all cases, mean what you think 70 means, it means what we say it means.  And the same goes for miles and hours. 

You see, this is the slippery slope of relativity... and all this has happened in our lifetimes.  Where are we headed?