Catholic college president: Obama protesters at ND were “religious vigilantes”

“The religious vigilantism apparent in the Notre Dame controversy arises from organizations that have no official standing with the church, but who are successful in gaining media coverage as if they were speaking for Catholicism. . . . They have established themselves as uber-guardians of a belief system we can hardly recognize. Theirs is a narrow faith devoted almost exclusively to one issue. They defend the rights of the unborn but have no charity toward the living. They mock social justice as a liberal mythology.”

Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” One thing Jesus is saying is obvious — you cannot count the taxes you give to the state as being part of your charity. So I don’t.

But Jesus was mute on one aspect of this — in a fixed income world, the amount you are required to give to Caesar certainly affects the amount you can give to charity. At the present time, the Government taxes (albeit at a lower rate) my charity, where once they did not tax it at all. Those taxes have to come from somewhere, and where they have come from are reduced contributions to those charities I would normally contribute to, all so that Government can fund, with what would have been my contributions, things I don’t agree with (like teachers’ unions and abortions).

The reason McGuire doesn’t recognize the belief system is because he is no longer Catholic — or, rather, is one of these “cafeteria Catholics” we hear so much about — the Jeffersonian ones who snip and cut from the Bible the inconvenient stuff, and ignore as well the attendant interpretations contained within the Catechism.

A call for social justice is an individual call — and the moment I satisfy that call by taxing those more fortunate than I, I have committed theft. This is a thought alien to liberals, who contribute little to charity out of their own pockets, all the while salving their consciences by voting for higher taxes.

unclesmrgol on May 18, 2009 at 1:45 PM

Addendum:

In Catholicism, some sins are venial (minor) and some are mortal (major). While gluttony (the storing up of riches) is venial, murder is mortal, and attempts to condone or support murder must be resisted.

McGuire fails in his analysis to understand this distinction. Obama is committing a mortal sin by supporting abortion. A protest on behalf of awarding honors to a person who is unrepentantly in mortal sin — and who celebrated that sin in his commencement speech — is a travesty.

What we saw at ND were a few principled people in a sea of unprincipled people. That most of these people call themselves Catholic is of no import — after all, many who wore the Swastika were Catholic too, and felt just as strongly as Obama’s followers that the end justifies the means.

I’m heartened by the picture in the LA Times today of the woman wearing the cross and babies’ feet on the top of her mortarboard.

I disagree, 100%.
AnninCA on May 18, 2009 at 2:54 PM

I taught and was trained as a Catechist. I am against the death penalty personally but the Church leaves marginal opening for use of the death penalty. This is just a fact. There is no equivocation on abortion whatsoever. There is a huge distinction between the two issues that should be glaringly obvious, innocence of life.

msmveritas on May 18, 2009 at 3:11 PM

I think AnninCA has the better argument here — you happen to be in somewhat “violent” agreement. A quick examination of the Catechism yields this:

2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.
“If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
“Today, in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’

Your argument that the prohibition is not absolute covers only those places in the world not under a firm rule of law. In places where the firm rule of law presides, AnninCA’s argument is correct.

Given the the United States of America is a place where the firm rule of law presides (we have orderly court, enforcement, and prison systems in place), the wording leaves no room for wiggling — the death penalty here becomes murder — a sin, and those who participate in it are committing a mortal sin.

Note that the “death penalty” does not include police action during “hot pursuit” or actions as a result of martial law — it implies that the person has been processed through the judicial system and that they are, indeed, restrained by the state and incapable of further aggression.

unclesmrgol on May 18, 2009 at 9:28 PM

I R A Darth Aggie on May 18, 2009 at 4:47 PM

I believe you did write “infanticide”. Of course, you are right. His reasons for doing so are even more interesting — that the awarding of human status to the aborted but viable child might chill the environment for women attempting to obtain legal abortions, due to the possibility of a murder charge against the abortion provider.

Interesting reasoning, which shows that there is no common ground other than for Obama to modify his web pages to offend us less, even as he continues policies designed to increase rather than lessen the number of abortions.

unclesmrgol on May 18, 2009 at 9:36 PM