Regular readers know that I’m an advocate and practitioner of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue and cooperation. I believe that persons, including leaders, of different traditions of faith should treat each other, and each other’s faiths, with respect and look for opportunities to work together to uphold and advance values they hold in common. This does not require pretending that there are not important differences between faiths. A fruitful ecumenism cannot be founded on religious relativism or indifferentism. Nor need ecumenical and interfaith partners refrain from criticizing teachings of each other’s faiths with which they strongly disagree. There are respectful, civil, and entirely appropriate ways to do this.
I raise these points in light of the goings on in San Francisco regarding the appointment and installation of Salvatore Cordileone as Archbishop. The city’s Episcopalian bishop “welcomed” the new Archbishop with (how shall we describe it?) a rather pointed open letter implicitly, but very clearly, characterizing Catholic teaching on sexual morality and marriage (and, perhaps, on abortion as well, though that is a little less clear) as “repression,” and implicitly characterizing the Archbishop himself, who is a strong defender of marriage, chastity, and the sanctity of human life, as an oppressor.
Well, it is San Francisco.
And we are talking about an Episcopalian bishop. It’s not exactly news that some bishops of the Episcopal Church (remember John Shelby Spong?) long ago traded classical (biblical, natural law) Christian moral ideas for the timeless doctrines of the Summer of Love. In response, many faithful Episcopalians have jumped ship to become Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, or Evangelicals, or formed breakaway churches within the Anglican communion, sometimes under the authority of bishops in Africa and other places where traditional Christian moral beliefs remain intact.
Evidently, the San Francisco Episcopalian bishop believes that “turn-about is fair play.” In his open letter, he invites left-wing Catholics who reject the Church’s moral teachings to join the Episcopal Church.
Some Catholics seem to have been offended by this invitation. I’m not one of them. Quite the opposite. I don’t much care for the Bishop’s manners; and I certainly don’t share his moral views; but I think it is entirely natural and reasonable for someone who strongly believes something to invite others to believe it. And it is even more natural and reasonable for someone in religious community A to invite people in religious community B who do not believe the teachings of B but do believe the teachings of A to leave B and join A. That, it seems to me, is precisely what Pope Benedict did in establishing the ordinariate for Anglicans who wish to join the Catholic Church while retaining certain aspects of their Anglican heritage.
Perhaps the San Francisco bishop could create a special community for Catholics in the city who wish to become Episcopalians, but who want to hang on to, I don’t know, folk masses and Teilhard de Chardin reading groups.
Just a suggestion.
October 10th, 2012 | 10:31 am
Offensive or not, it still has all the sincerity of boxers shaking hands before the bell rings and may become an exhibit in the passive aggression museum some day.
October 10th, 2012 | 10:37 am
Awesome!
October 10th, 2012 | 10:54 am
An excellent article. But I like Fr. Teilhard de Chardin. And so did Fr. Henri de Lubac!
October 10th, 2012 | 11:32 am
I am relieved to see that Robert George doesn’t insist on carrying religious tolerance too far. We have to respect Islam and Mormonism, but apparently not the Episcopal Church.
October 10th, 2012 | 11:53 am
It’s one thing never to believe in something, quite another to abandon it.
October 10th, 2012 | 12:08 pm
Maybe it has something to do with King Henry’s six wives David.
October 10th, 2012 | 12:31 pm
Tolerance has become a cancer on American morality. When the Left started treating Tolerance as the principal theological Virtue, they overstepped the bounds of proper toleration.
We are called to Love others, and that requires that sin be exposed to the light of day and fraternal correction offered. Doesn’t mean there is a lack of respect. Look it up, correction is an eminently Biblical practice.
October 10th, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Artaban,
I could possibly be reading Robert George incorrectly, but as I interpret his post, it contains a slam (or two) at the Episcopalian religion. That seems to me to be inconsistent with his previous messages condemning alleged anti-Islamic and anti-Mormon remarks.
The idea of “fraternal correction” is fine if you think you are the one true church and the guardian of Truth. So it is fine for Catholics to “fraternally correct” Episcopalians. But should Episcopalians attempt to “fraternally correct” Catholics (say, by criticizing Catholic teachings on sexuality), that’s not taken to be “fraternal correction,” but impudence.
October 10th, 2012 | 2:22 pm
David N.
I think you are twisting (or perhaps misreading) a bit here in taking a shot at Dr. George. What you call “slams” are simply statements of fact. The Episcopal Church in the United States is in it’s theology and commitments quite far on the “Liberal” or “Progressive” (if you wish) end of Mainstream Protestantism in the US. And quite proudly so…. So much so, in fact, that more theologically conservative Episcopalians have done just as George describes — joined other communions — included other Anglican and special Catholic communions. Thus he is not “correcting” fraternal or otherwise but “describing”.
His invitation that “left-wing” Catholics who reject the Church’s moral teaching might want to seriously consider aligning with the ECUSA in some way seems quite sincere. His citation of Pope Benedict’s establishing an “ordinariate for Anglicans ” bears witness to that sincerity.
So what exactly do you read as “anti-Episcopalian” in this? How is it intolerant? I’m quite confused by your assertion that Dr. George suggesting a haven for disaffected Catholics in the ECUSA is demonstrating the limits of his religious tolerance?
Unless your definition of religious tolerance must include (within the particular religion) a place for those who disbelieve said faith’s fundamental doctrines?
October 10th, 2012 | 2:53 pm
Our open-minded friends in the ECA remind me of the quip; “Being open-minded is a wonderful thing, but if you become too open minded there is a danger your brains will fall out.” Can’t recall the source…Mark Twain?
October 10th, 2012 | 3:26 pm
David Nickol wrote:
“But should Episcopalians attempt to “fraternally correct” Catholics (say, by criticizing Catholic teachings on sexuality), that’s not taken to be “fraternal correction,” but impudence.”
No contradiction here, since (1) Episcopalians have never claimed to be “the one true church and guardian of Truth” (even if they have often acted as though they were the only “respectable” church) as does the Catholic Church, and (2) the Episcopalians have manifestly and palpably in recent decades abandoned those things which Anglicans have generally regarded as authoritative (Scripture and, for some, the Early Church, cf. the “Vincentian Canon”), withough having the honesty to admit it (as though one could endorse sodomitic pseudogamy or abortion based on any of these “authorities”). Yet, despite all this, they present themselves as a “Catholic alternative” to Rome — which is as classic an instance of “impudence” as one can find. Give me the honesty of the Unitarian-Universalists any day over such dissembling!
October 10th, 2012 | 3:45 pm
The bishop’s letter talked about repression in civil law, which is exactly what Cordileone sought and achieved. Guess you missed that nuance…
October 10th, 2012 | 4:02 pm
I think there are already folk Masses at Grace Cathedral.
October 10th, 2012 | 5:19 pm
It would have been more impressive if he used this occasion—”welcoming” the new Catholic bishop to the city—to just say “welcome to San Francisco”. He could have given the rest of his message at another time. What a small man he is.
October 10th, 2012 | 10:49 pm
Ceding territory seems to be what we do. The left owns Hollywood; the left owns the publishing houses; the left owns the Episcopal Church; the lefts owns the universities; the left owns the high schools, the left owns the middle schools; the left owns the elementary schools; the left owns the daycare centers… Big Bird is not a completely trivial issue. And of course the left owns virtually all the big cities or what’s left of them. When a parade in NYC annually stops in front of St. Patricks Cathedral and acts out certain behaviors once considered private — in one case while a dying cardinal was saying Mass — the police are ordered to do nothing.
All of this asks a question. In this Year of Faith and with the New Evangelization what are our obligations to the souls of all the men, women, and children who live in that ceded territory?
October 11th, 2012 | 12:46 am
[...] Well, it is San Francisco. [more] [...]
October 11th, 2012 | 2:14 am
david c.,
It seems to me George is basically dismissive of the Episcopal Church itself and his tone throughout is sardonic. I certainly don’t think Bishop Marc Andrus—whom, oddly, George never mentions by name—is beyond criticism. But George says: “Well, it is San Francisco. And we are talking about an Episcopalian bishop.” The second sentence turns a criticism of one Episcopalian bishop into a criticism of all Episcopalian bishops. Why wouldn’t we expect the guy to be some kind of crackpot? He is an Episcopalian bishop, after all.
Then George’s last paragraph, to me, implies that the Episcopal Church has only trivialities to offer Catholics who choose to convert.
It really quite suspect that Robert George wouldn’t be pleased if someone spoke of the Catholic Church (or Mormons, or Muslims) using the same tone he employs here. I don’t know that it’s so much a matter of “tolerance” as respect or charity.
October 11th, 2012 | 9:00 am
And the drama continues!
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/10/05/california-bishop-andrus-denied-seating-at-rc-archbishops-installation/
October 11th, 2012 | 11:34 am
David N.
You seem to have a bee in your bonnet when it comes to Dr. George and therefore extend the least charitable reading possible. Fine. ‘Different strokes’ and all that. But the fact that he speaks quite accurately in describing both the political tenor of San Francisco and the theological tenor of the ECUSA (including the vast majority of her bishops) should offer ample evidence (and does) of his genuine intent for less suspicious minds.
But let me ask again — aside from your inference with respect to tone, where is ~any~ evidence of intolerance or hypocrisy in this post? As for your notion that Dr. George would be displeased if someone spoke similarly of Catholics (or others) isn’t his response to Bishop Andrus a direct contradiction to your supposition? Andrus (after all) does exactly what you claim is “intolerant” in George — he extends an invitation to disaffected Catholics….
October 11th, 2012 | 12:22 pm
The recurring statement that Pope Benedict “invited” disaffected Anglicans to join the Catholic Church by his establishment of the Anglican Ordinariates is simply false. Anglicanorum Coetibus would never have come about were it not that disaffected Anglicans asked for it. Benedict has never said anything parallel to Bishop Andrus’ incitement to Catholics to leave the Church.
October 11th, 2012 | 4:40 pm
david c.,
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I apprehend the tone of Robert George’s post as sardonic and dismissive, but if that’s not the way you read it, then I suppose that demonstrates that there are at least two possible ways to read the post. I see George as more concerned that we should be respectful of conservatism and conservative religious belief than that we should be respectful of all religious belief. In many ways, it seems to me that a liberal Episcopalian has more in common with a Catholic than a (politically) conservative Mormon or Muslim. But George, it seems to me, would have us speak much more delicately when dealing with Mormonism or Islam than when dealing with liberal Episcopalians.
I think Jonathan Haidt makes a lot of sense in seeing religious and political disagreements as matters that people have intuitive positions on that only subsequent to holding the position do they arrive at justifying by reason. (I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it is a human thing.) So there is a limit to what may be possible in one side making a rational argument trying to change the mind of the other side.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says of conscience, “”Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” The problem is that my “inner voice” may not be telling me the same thing as Robert George’s tells him. Of course, things are much, much more complicated than that, but it’s the best I can do in this little box.
October 11th, 2012 | 7:17 pm
Catholic San Francisco newspaper this week [10-12 ]has no mention. remark, apology about the Cathedral basement snub. Henry the Eighth has been mentioned above. I guess if the Vatican ignored his snub we would all be co-religionists now.
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