“The failure of Caritas in Veritate to blend the many hands and voices evident in its composition has probably diminished its impact and encouraged selective reading. . . . Pope Benedict simply tried to do too much. . . . [In one view], what the encyclical gains in potential for further thought it loses in clutter. One legitimate and valuable point is obscured by the next. . . . The just-too-much explanation and the too-many-hands explanation are not mutually exclusive. The pope’s intellectual ambition and the multiple concerns of his Vatican aides and other consultors may well have converged. One wonders if this isn’t a case where less would have been more.”
Says George Weigel, in a piece that was pilloried by every left-leaning Catholic commentator in America?
No, actually. It’s from Peter Steinfels, in today’s New York Times.
I would wait with bated breath the loud condemnations of Steinfels by all those who excoriated Weigel, except that asphyxiation is a sad way to die.
July 18th, 2009 | 9:53 am
Maybe it’s just that I’m not from the U.S, but I think the Encyclical is excellent. The Pope managed to subsume pretty much the whole of the Church’s social teaching under theology alone, a remarkable feat.
The other thing is that it really isn’t a difficult document to read, sure it’s tougher that Deus Caritas Est and Spe Salvi but social encyclicals are always a little technical.
July 18th, 2009 | 5:53 pm
I am happy to oblige and “excoriate” Steinfels, if you will, as one who “excoriated” Weigel, except there is a major difference, at least in the excerpt cited. I think that both Weigel and Steinfels are wrong that the document is a mish-mash, only accessible to those with finely-tuned source critical skills. I have only read the encyclical once in its entirety, and it is a difficult read, but I think it is a “whole.” So, I disagree with Steinfels and Weigel and hereby excoriate them both. Weigel, though, claims to know more than that; he claims to know which parts are best, and so which parts are from Pope Benedict XVI and ought to gain full consent of the faithful, and which parts have been foisted upon this weak-willed Pope by some nefarious Peace and Justice gang, and which ought to be ignored. It is for this claim that Weigel alone should be excoriated, for presenting the man once known as God’s Rottweiler not as the German Shepherd, but as the curial lapdog.
July 18th, 2009 | 9:49 pm
“for presenting the man once known as God’s Rottweiler not as the German Shepherd, but as the curial lapdog.”
You got “curial lapdog” from that? I thought it painted more of a Machiavellian picture than anything. Give these bureaucrats a little air for their grievances, but overwhelm it all with his way of thinking anyway. If it were true what Weigel said, of course, which may not be the case.
July 19th, 2009 | 12:00 am
So does the fact that a New York Times liberal attacks the well-reasoned proclamation of the Vicar of Christ make it just fine for anyone to do so? I can hardly believe that First Things is now stooping so low.
And, no, it wasn’t only ‘left-leaning’ Catholics who thought Weigel was out of line. It was honest and charitable observers.
July 19th, 2009 | 10:38 am
Jonathan R. it was this line toward the end of the piece that made me think that Weigel had painted Pope Benedict XVI as someone who put curial concerns over the truth: “Benedict XVI, a truly gentle soul, may have thought it necessary to include in his encyclical these multiple off-notes, in order to maintain the peace within his curial household.”
July 20th, 2009 | 11:46 am
Mr. Bottum,
I’m disappointed by your suggestion that, because of people’s political biases, no one who criticized Weigel will criticize Steinfels.
My politics are conservative and Republican, but I critcized Weigel (as did many others from the right side of the spectrum) not because he was conservative but because he was picking and choosing what teaching he wanted to be magisterial. Because the encyclical was something of a textual muddle, he was trying to escape having to take seriously what it said, and particularly those parts with which he disagreed. That is what brought Weigel in for criticism. I would have had more respect for Weigel (whose work I usually like) if he had just had the honesty to say that he disagreed with Benedict on certain points. Instead, he argued (arrogantly and condescendingly) that the Pope didn’t mean what he wrote, and Weigel seems to believe that he is free to dismiss certain parts of magisterial teaching, without showing any deference or docility whatsoever to that teaching. You should see Jimmy Akin’s more extended commentary here: http://www.jimmyakin.org/2009/07/gold-red-dark-blue.html.
By contrast, I’m no fan of Steinfels, but I see nothing wrong with him simply pointing out that the encyclical is something of a textual hodgepodge. That is true. But Steinfels says it without ever suggesting that the substance of the encyclical is somehow not magisterial or deserving of respect. Imagine that — more respect for Benedict’s teaching from the left than the right.
July 21st, 2009 | 10:16 pm
Re the Weigel thesis: At the very least, it is striking that parts of the encyclical are admitted by nearly all readers to be fairly opaque, and nearly as many readers note that parts are written in prose that is clumsy. I defy anyone to find in the vast outpouring of words from “the Mozart of theology” similar opacity and infelicitous prose.
July 26th, 2009 | 3:22 am
[...] of which prompts Jody Bottum to muse: “I would wait with bated breath the loud condemnations of Steinfels by all those who [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact