The controversy on the Terry Schiavo case will go on for at least another three weeks.

The pope is all for keeping feeding tubes inact. The bishops are in total disagreement.

Florida. Texas, Washington and 3 o 4 other states want the tubes pulled. They claim a waste of time and money.

Pennsylvnia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York want the tubes to stay intact, as the pope does.

While most do not mention the Schiavo case specifically, they either vote for life or death.

If the pope's own bishops cannot agree with him, can you blame the traditionals when they also disagree. It is not just a privilege of bishops.

-- Pete (Chas@charles.com), February 26, 2005

Answers

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-- Pete (Chas@charles.com), February 26, 2005.

The bishops are in total disagreement

Pete,

How about posting a link to anything regarding at least one bishop making a statement that it is acceptable to pull the feeding tubes.

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), February 26, 2005.

USA today, Page 8A February 25th 2005

-- Pete (Chas@charles.com), February 26, 2005.

A waste of time and money? HOW COMPLETLY RIDICULOUS!! Why don't they give her years and years of tubing and keep her alive? How do they know she will not come out of it? A waste of time and money is when people march in protest for the RIGHTS OF CRIMINALS like child molesters and mass murderers! They are kept alive for years and years with LOTS of money being spent for them, so why not Terry? How upside down this country is becoming. Where is the ACLU? Where are all the protesters for Terry, the ones who hate the death penalty but ADORE ABORTION?????

-- Jason (enchantedfire5@yahoo.com), February 26, 2005.

"a waste of time and money...."

that stings. its a human life. i echo the other jason's remarks (above).

-- jas (jas_r_22@hotmail.com), February 26, 2005.

A new shocker for Catholics as to where many in the hierarchy are heading.

Cardinal Ratzinger made a new bishop. You know what, this bishop says that the resurrection is a myth inherrited by Christans from the early disciples,This man is named Bishop Bruno Forte.He is from Naples.

Is this where the Church is heading? Imagine if Ratzinger becomes pope.Our Lord warned us about false Shepherds. Will we heed His warning?

-- Pete (Chas@charles.com), February 26, 2005.

USA today, Page 8A February 25th 2005

Pete,

LOL -sorry I can't read your paper -how about at least a name?

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), February 26, 2005.

While a number of Catholic bishops throughout the United States have spoken out strongly in Terri's defense and against the evil that is surrounding her, the response by the Florida Catholic Conference has been minimal. "Bishop Lynch is Terri's spiritual shepherd; therefore, one would expect him to be the most outspoken defender of her spiritual and civil rights which are under direct attack," said Starrs. "The lack of clear, decisive action by Bishop Lynch and far too many of his brother bishops across Florida and across the nation has been more than disappointing

-- Pete (Chas@Charles.com), February 27, 2005.

I see, Pete, so when you say that the bishops of “Florida. Texas, Washington and 3 o 4 other states want the tubes pulled. They claim a waste of time and money.” ,

what you really mean is merely that a secular magazine has apparently (no available refence given) claimed that in the opinion of someone called Starrs, some of the bishops of Florida have failed to take “clear decisive action” to prevent the tubes being pulled (the magazine apparently gives no reason for the bishops' supposed inaction and no comment as to their opinions on the case). That’s a pretty outrageous distortion on your part.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), February 27, 2005.

I stand by the article. Go argue with them.

-- Pete (Chas@charles.com), February 28, 2005.

I stand by the article. Go argue with them.

Pete,

You do more than stand by it -you promulgate it as fact.

Your assumptions and inferences are nothing more than assumptions and inferences. If you truly wish to do more than scandalize the Church with propaganda I suggest you cease spreading rumor as fact and write the Bishops to per chance ease your assumptions with reality...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), February 28, 2005.

"The pope's bishops"... yeah, really nice mistake right there.

Just because a bishop who was appointed by the Pope says something dumb (or fails to say something smart) doesn't mean that the Pope is morally at fault and his moral authority suddenly collapses.

And the reason is... although Catholic bishops are all appointed by the Pope, their selection is through local vetting. Yes, it's not ideal, and yes, the Vatican has tried to remedy the problem to find truly quality personnel...but it'll always be a problem.

This was a major problem in the centuries before the council of Trent when the Pope HAD LITTLE OR NO influence on the selection of bishops and kings and local nobles had ALOT of influence. Naturally, back then bishops and cardinals weren't always selected for their personal morality, their intellectual acumen and their pastoral brilliance. Yet the Faith survived. But it wasn't pretty either: sure, nice Cathedrals (hated initially by those who favored the Romanesque style), but wars and rumors of wars too. And large movements of heretics and schismatics even back in the hey-day of the high middle ages.

Now, if Emerald was right and DOGMA means that the faith can only be expressed in a single way and form, then this has to include everything - including the old ways of selecting men to be bishops too right?

But what do us loyal Catholics do do when local religious authorities say something about a given moral question or controversy? WE READ WHAT THE POPE WRITES. And the Pope has already made it clear that Catholics CAN NOT remove basic food and water from a dying person because food and water ARE NOT EXTRAORDINARY MEANS OF KEEPING SOMEONE ALIVE.

And he didn't establish this teaching as a ho-hum, off the cuff remarks to glibb reporters, but in the form of an encyclical with scriptural and other papal magisterial arguments to back his up (unlike his comments with respect to the war in Iraq, which were notably absent any scriptural or magisterial supporting material and hence, allows us to distinguish between personal opinion and TEACHING).

So Catholics can't doubt that standard Catholic teaching, as recent as last month, and taken up at length in the Papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae states that people who are alive and will continue to live with food and water cannot be so deprived of these basic, normal services.

Now since the Pope has gone on record REPEATEDLY that food and water are NOT to be withheld, how can a bishop, priest, layman or anonymous scribbler like you suppose that the "modern Church" is teaching otherwise?

Only by stubbornly refusing to run a 5 second GOOGLE search could a "catholic" beg ignorance and claim to be confused by local bishop's mishandling of the case.

I follow the Pope's lead, and the lead of my local bishops INSOFAR as they teach in union with HIM. The moment the local pastor or bishop says something contradicting the Pope, is the moment I balk.

After all, the local authorities have such authority ONLY IN VIRTUE of their union with THEIR superiors, i.e. the Pope. Not in and of themselves, and the Pope has authority IN VIRTUE of his fidelity to Catholic teaching and we can be sure of this thanks to his Petrine charism.

Now I'm going to digress a bit to clear up one potential question...

If Catholics are to look to the Pope for guidance, and judge bishops and priests according to them following the Pope's lead, what about questions of prudential decisions or questions of politics where what is at stake isn't direct questions of faith and morals but their application in contingent circumstances? i.e. how best to proceed in a given situation that may have a variety of good solutions?

First, look to the principle as known and taught in the Church from scripture and all councils and popes and saints. Then to historical precedents of how each century applied those principles in various circumstances. Finally to the actual arguments of current prelates and the Pope.

If the topic is how best to take care of the poor, we ought to all agree THAT THE POOR OUGHT TO BE CARED FOR. Scripture and the earliest Councils and Popes, saints and fathers are clear on that principle... and we also have precedents in the examples of HOW various saints and popes went about helping the poor.

Almsgiving was always a part of the equation - but so was the creation of jobs via construction projects on churches and other useful buildings. Crusades involved alot of manpower outlays too - the rise of the practice of piligrimages produced countless jobs and international commerce to boot... all of which helped reduce poverty.

Anyone who proposes as solution something which implies that people don't have a right to private property would run aground with Church teaching that people do in fact have such a right.

Anyone who teaches that such a right is absolute would also run aground on Catholic teaching...

But there are an infinite variety of economic and political systems that could be cooked up and fine tuned to respect the principles at stake here while providing different solutions for different communities and cultures and situations.

Feudalism may help solve poverty in one century but give way to another system later... so long as the truth at stake in the principle is preserved, the application can change.

Emerald and Peter think though that somehow development of doctrine is bad...bad...bad... the Pope ought never reformulate, rephrase, elaborate or explain in greater depth anything. Just keep repeating what has been taught by Pius V.If people can't understand Latin, to hell with them.

Well, that's nuts.

Trent took up lots of positions and thought through others which up till then hadn't been emphasized very much because those truths of the faith hadn't been challenged as much...

IN the time of Trent the nation-state was still governed by kings who had nobles in a caste-like system which in some parts of the world equated "nobles" with having some intrinsic, almost racial superiority over commoners reflected in their civil laws and customs. Politics, economy and society all reflected the cultural presumptions of those times...presumptions largely all swept away by the time Vatican II was begun.

In Vatican I (1870) every nation-state in Europe was either an Empire or kingdom, with nobles, and centralized bureaucracies growing ever larger thanks to the industrialization of society.

But every single kingdom or empire in existence then was gone by 1960. The very culture of Europe had changed drastically in less than 100 years, especially with the rise of atheistic communism and materialism....world wars and the widespread use of contraception and rampant sexual immorality IN EUROPE in the 1950's!

To think that the Catholic Church ought to have just kept repreating the same truth IN THE SAME WAY is nuts. Not when the world showed every sign of departing en masse from the Gospel across the board...on every level.

New, more effective ways to preach and teach the same truth had to be developed... and yes, I grant you, that in many Northern European and American dioceses the same people who were apostates and heretics in the 1950s, lead the majority of Catholics post-council, astray, by being the most vociferous and loud self-appointed heralds of the council, unleashing more havoc and confusion...but it was THEIR fault, not the council's and not the Popes'.

Then, as now, those who ignore the secular media and the theologians or bishops who teach at odds with the Pope and instead pay attention to the Holy Father and those who teach in union with him, keep the faith, and discover the better, newer ways to teach the unchanged Gospel to this new generation.

Emerald and Peter seem to think that whatever they call "tradition" can't be improved and can't be developed without losing the payload of DOGMA.

Yet this idea is ahistoric. Dogma is developed when a truth is challenged. For 1800 years Catholics believed that Mary was conceived without original sin (not all Catholics to be sure because not all knew all the faith, but always somewhere Catholics held that about Mary - just as somewhere Catholics always believed the Pope to be infallible.)

But in the 1700s and 1800's the rise of atheism and protestantism threatened alot of things that Catholics believed in, so the Church officially defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

Other Dogmas, like the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the nature of Christ... all DEVELOPED when challenged by believers and non-believers.

Liturgy and discipline, architecture and arts, music and devotions...all DEVELOPED. Catholic piety from 1100 did NOT INCLUDE the Stations of the Cross, the Kreche, the Rosary, or Eucharistic adoration in MANY places. Marian devotion existed, but not the same ways as practiced in the 1500s.

But Catholics believed the truth of the Incarnation, the passion narrative, they prayed the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be... they did adore Christ in the Eucharist... just not in the ways which LATER became "tradition"!

Catholics have ALWAYS believed that the Holy Spirit gave real graces as defined in Acts that included prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues... that these gifts weren't sought for or used much for 1000 years doesn't mean that the Charismatic Catholics are creating stuff out of whole cloth! SOME MAY BE... and some may be sinners too...but to claim AS PRINCIPLE that no one could possibly receive those charisms again, would not be a Catholic position to take.

I keep coming back to the argument of fruits: I see vast change for the better in Latin and South America, in Africa, and in Asia, to say nothing of Eastern Europe. The one thing they all have in common apart from their common Catholic faith is that none of these lands sent "theologians" to the Council. They sent their own bishops instead, and afterwards it wasn't the New York Times or Jesuit magazines that led the laity in "learning what the Council teaches today" but these same participating Bishops who came home from Rome, and followed Paul VI's weekly audiences where in he provided the official interpretation of each document and gave clear marching orders....

And lo and behold those places have only experienced a boom in numbers and quality and fervor in the face of social, economic, and political repression, poverty and persecution.

So for me, that tells me that what the so-called trads are pointing to as the cause of all troubles isn't the cause! They're barking up the wrong tree and lumping together people who don't belong together.

Dogma is lacking in churches they don't like? Which dogma? Name a single dogma that is supposedly lost among people who only pay attention to the Popes' magisterium.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 28, 2005.