The Infallibility Complex
Ross Douthat has a wonderful piece in this Sunday’s New York
Times, The Pope and the Precipice, in
which he discusses, at some length, the struggle going on in the Catholic
Church today impelled by Pope Francis’ apparent desire to, in Douthat’s words,
“rethink issues where Catholic teaching is in clear tension with Western social
life—sex and marriage, divorce and homosexuality.”
Douthat is a conservative, and a traditionalist, and is
clearly unhappy with the less censorious direction that Francis seems to be
indicating. He is not alone in
this. A majority of the hierarchy seems
to agree with Douthat, and they have apparently won an important skirmish at
the recently concluded synod, where an early draft document seemed to reflect Francis’
more open views, but was materially toned down prior to release.
I am not a Catholic and don’t pretend to understand the
theological issues. They do appear to me to be strikingly similar to some of
the “culture wars” going on here, with some groups hoping to be more inclusive
as a way of expanding and making more relevant the faith to those who are being
raised in a more permissive environment, while others see strict adherence to
what Douthat calls the Church’s “historic teaching.”
Douthat wants to suppress this more liberal urge in the
Church, the same way he wants to express state power to enforce his moral
beliefs in the secular world. Douthat
has never suggested that the barriers between Church and State be
dissolved. Rather, he sees his religious
code, at least with regard to social issues, as the correct way to govern
people, regardless of their religious affiliation. It is a position that appears to be grounded
in his faith, and not mere political expediency. To put it a different way, Douthat couldn't
be a Democrat, regardless of how many tax cuts they might offer.
He writes with great precision, but there is one bit of his
logic I find fascinating: How to deal with Papal Infallibility? If the Pope is indeed Infallible, and this is
the direction Francis wants to lead in, why do Douthat and the conservative
hierarchy resist? Or, more accurately, how do they resist?
Douthat reconciles this apparent contradiction by reaching
the conclusion that Papal Infallibility derives from strict adherence to a
Traditionalist point of view. And, in an interesting echo of modern, even Tea
Party politics, he warns that unless the Traditionalist prevails, Francis will
provoke a schism, presumably of the type that split the Western and Eastern Churches
in 1054. He concludes that if Francis
does not move towards the conservative point of view “this Pope may be
preserved from error only if the Church itself resists him.”
It would be easy for me to jump to the conclusion that
Douthat was merely engaging in a solipsism, that his certainty about his faith
was so great that he assumed Francis must be wrong, but the piece is so well
written and so tightly reasoned it is worth reading twice, if for no other
reason as to give you a glimpse into the way he would govern in the secular
world, if given the opportunity.
For a different way of thinking about the centrality of
traditional orthodoxy and the presumption that deviation from a conservative
faith is anathema, I would also suggest you read Carly Fiorina’s Washington
Post op-ed, “Companies shouldn’t cave in to the demands of climate change activists.”
Ms. Fiorina, if you recall, was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from
1999-2005, until she was forced out after the stock of the company had fallen
by half after her highly contentious and dubious merger strategy with Compaq. In
2010 she ran against California Senator Barbara Boxer (she lost) and presently
is toying with either a run for California Governor, or President.
Her piece has less to do about climate change than it is a
prolonged rant against the evils of activists daring to challenge ALEC, the
American Legislative Exchange Council, a group she defines as “an alliance of
state legislators who advocate limited government, free markets, and individual
liberty…”
The article is a masterpiece of disingenuous garbage,
wrapped up in a mock concern about “professional activists intent
on chilling speech and marginalizing the voice of business and job creators in
U.S. society.”
I
know, it’s torture to even think about the chilled speech of the job
creators. They have been so silent in
this election cycle.
Here
is what ALEC does, and you can agree with it or not. It isn’t just the alliance of state
legislators that Ms. Fiorina says it is—it is an alliance of state legislators
with corporate lobbyists who draft business-favorable legislation for those
legislators, while offering additional support to them. ALEC has drafted literally thousands of
bills, some of which have been adopted whole, without any debate. And, it isn’t
just for those who “advocate limited government, free markets, and
individual liberty…” ALEC has also been funding conservative social causes,
including banning gay marriage, and abortion, and it has provided model voter
ID laws for 30-odd state Legislatures.
ALEC also supported the effort to expand “Stand Your Ground” after
Florida’s “success” with it, and “ag-gag” bills that criminalize investigations
into large-scale livestock farming and slaughter houses and classify them as “terrorism.”
As some of ALEC’s role in more controversial issues has
become public, some companies (including Pepsi, Coke, McDonald’s, GE, GM,
Microsoft, Google, Facebook and even HP and Wal-Mart) have withdrawn their
support, and this is what seems to enrage Ms. Fiorina. She blames climate
change activists, but in fact, only Google gave ALEC’s position on climate
change as a reason. The real motivation
that these huge companies have been distancing themselves is pure and
simple. It’s bad for business. They know that the public expects them to
lobby for greater profits and more favorable legislation. But they also know that their customers might
be much less willing to purchase their products if they found out that those
companies were backing legislation that was personally anathema to them.
Money has talked, and bigger money has walked, and Ms.
Fiorina can’t stand it.
Both Douthat and Fiorina share an appreciation for implacable
certainty, and leave little doubt of where they would go if they were King (or
Pope.) But read the two pieces, and you
can see the difference between two approaches.
Ms. Fiorina oozes angered contempt, Mr. Douthat is the velvet glove of
reasoned explanation (albeit shielding the closed fist of schism.)
The GOP is going to romp next Tuesday, and might very well
take it all in 2016. Fiorina and Douthat
are faces of a coalition of conservatives who could rule, a merger of
anything-goes-capitalism with an ascetic social vision. The question for the country will be one both of
policy, and temperament.
Or, maybe it’s just a question of infallibility? I am a person who is suspicious of the
concept. How about you?
October 26th, 2014
Michael Liss (Moderate Moderator)
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