George Weigel writes: “Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will concentrate their attention, in reading Caritas in Veritate, on those parts of the encyclical that are clearly Benedictine, including the Pope’s trademark defense of the necessary conjunction of faith and reason and his extension of John Paul II’s signature theme — that all social issues, including political and economic questions, are ultimately questions of the nature of the human person.”
Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 12:59 PM
July 7th, 2009 | 6:10 pm
This essay by Mr Weigel is unworthy of him. It’s embarrassing.
July 7th, 2009 | 7:43 pm
Perhaps Liam could expound on what is unworthy and embarrassing about Mr Weigel’s opinion.
July 7th, 2009 | 9:08 pm
I was glad to see my own concerns over the faith placed in the UN by the encyclical expressed so well in Mr Weigel’s article. I can’t imagine what you found embarrassing about his opinion.
July 7th, 2009 | 9:59 pm
The fact that Weigel The Sophist burst immediately out of the gate, as soon as the encyclical was released, to depreciate it, is a clear indication that there is something VERY RIGHT about this encyclical.
July 8th, 2009 | 9:19 am
Steve
First and foremost: Mr Weigel is engaged in a facile form of cherry picking. He greets the encyclical virtually instantaneously not with the expected initial attitude of faithful Catholics – namely, reception – but with deconstruction. And deconstruction of the hoary Catholic type, namely, See The Pope Really Agrees With ME! He relies on his readership to make a logical leap: that is, he knows they know he’s played the role of Vatican insider before, and he’s hoping his credibility on that score will provide the logical leap to make his argument credible. But while he alludes and implies with great flair, he actually does not demonstrate his thesis that the reason the text has taken so long due to an internal Curial battle. He does not even address the explanation the Vatican had already given for the delay: the building towards and release of the global financial panic that started in summer 2007 and ripened last fall.
This essay is being justly lampooned elsewhere, and not just by the usual suspects.
I fear that Mr Weigel has gotten too deeply embedded in the talking-points culture that NRO and similar organs have devolved to. He and Mr Novak and members of the Acton Institute tried to prepare their audiences in advance for a spin on the encyclical, and then immediately jumped into action. It’s very American. It’s just not a very Catholic way to receive an encyclical.
I will just offer that perspective by now, and avoid a fisking of the essay.
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