In her column on Tuesday, Is the Church Suppressing God’s Will?, Elizabeth Scalia took on the latest effort by the editors of the National Catholic Reporter to argue for one of what seem to be their two favorite innovations, the ordination of women (the other being the goodness of homosexual relationships). Writing in the English weekly the Catholic Herald, William Oddie takes up one particularly egregious part of their argument: their invocation of Newman in their favor.
“Either they quote him out of context or just make it up,” he writes.
In this case, I think it’s almost certainly the latter, since Newman just didn’t think what they say he did: “Blessed John Henry Newman,” according to the NCR’s “editorial staff”, “said [just where exactly?] that there are three magisteria in the church: the bishops, the theologians and the people.” This little pseudo-Newmanian gem is called in aid for an incitement to an anti-papal political campaign: “On the issue of women’s ordination, two of the three voices have been silenced, which is why the third voice must now make itself heard. We must speak up in every forum available to us: in parish council meetings, faith-sharing groups, diocesan convocations and academic seminars. We should write letters to our bishops, to the editors of our local papers and television news channels.” And so on.
Oddie goes on to explain, with useful quotations, what Newman actually thought. It is very common for Catholic liberals to invoke Newman in support a cause not within a million miles of a cause he would have supported. Oddie thinks they’re just lying, but even if one doesn’t want to accuse them of lying, they are certainly unscrupulous in the strict meaning of the term.
December 6th, 2012 | 1:40 pm
There is a very nice, searchable website of Newman’s writings at http://www.newmanreader.org. Nothing like the NCR’s putative quotation can be found there.
December 6th, 2012 | 2:33 pm
There’s nothing surprising and everything contemptible about the NcR’s latest jeremaid on the Usual Pelvic Issues.
But Oddie is right: what was most contemptible of all was the slanderous misuse of Bl. John Henry Newman to support their dissent (using manufactured quotes, no less). And if he were alive today, no one would be as appalled as Newman to be dragooned into service for women’s ordination.
December 6th, 2012 | 2:39 pm
Googling “three magisteria” brings up an NCRep article from October 2010. Here are the three relevant paragraphs:
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It was the newly Blessed John Henry Newman himself who pointed out that there are really three magisteria in the church: the mouth of the episcopacy, the doctors (meaning the theologians) and the people in the pews. Newman valued all three equally and the wise balance and guidance they provided.
“I think I am right in saying that the tradition of the apostles, committed to the whole church in its various constituents and functions … manifests itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy, sometimes by the doctors, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and customs, by events, disputes, movements, and all those other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history. It follows that none of those channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect.”
Newman was fascinated with the interactions among these three magisteria in history when doctrine and theology were being formulated, notably in the early centuries when the laity saved the church from the Arian heresy and then in the 19th century when the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was forged by Pope Pius IX, who preferred expressions taken from the church’s lived experience, from the faith and worship of the Christian people, to scholastic definitions.
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The quote is from “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine”. The last sentence of their quote, however, is incomplete! Newman continued:
“It follows that none of these channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect; granting at the same time fully, that the gift of discerning, discriminating, defining, promulgating, and enforcing any portion of that tradition resides solely in the Ecclesia docens.”
December 6th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
Thank you, Messrs. Franck and Pinyan, for the references. The only thing to be added about the second is that there’s a big difference between three “channels” and three “magisteria.”
December 6th, 2012 | 3:15 pm
I would use a little charity here. I don’t think the NCR is lying. I just think they’re deaf (blind?) to anything that disagrees with their preconceived notions. It’s a human failing. One we all share from time to time. There’s even a name for it, “confirmation bias”.
December 6th, 2012 | 11:49 pm
Mike Melendez: No, grossly misusing a source whose words can be checked is not confirmation bias: it’s not a matter of thinking data means what you want it to mean, since the data doesn’t actually exist. The editors have simply either made up the facts (Oddie’s explanation) or assumed they must be true without bothering to check (my explanation), which in either case is a form of lying.
It’s the equivalent of a Romney operative claiming that Hilary Clinton had issued a press release telling people to vote for Romney. It’s absurd, and it can be checked.
December 7th, 2012 | 3:15 pm
“…assumed they must be true without bothering to check (my explanation)…”
I agree with your explanation, David. That’s what self-blinding, aka confirmation bias, does. Yes, they should have checked but that’s hard to do when you don’t think you need to.
I see this often on Facebook from my leftward friends. I challenge them on it from time to time. They repeat someone’s conclusion based on misinformation because they agree with the conclusion. One friend was flabbergasted when I showed him that guns were not the most efficient means for murder. Now when I challenge, the comment thread just stops, which is a blessing. I don’t like it when my friends make fools of themselves unknowingly.
But lies? I’ve read some call it “Hanlon’s Razor”: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. It took me years to accept it as useful explanation. It was mainly my own failings that finally got me there.
OTOH, the two “researchers” taking the affirmative on the video about Pius XII’s culpability, they were pure propagandists. They’d made it their job to know better.
Some (most?) of the Catholic left does not think having women priests is a big deal. We know that. A few are willing to violate their vows in secret. The bulk, though, are lost in the idea that not being a priest makes a woman second class.
I say challenge them, even loudly, but leave the condemnation to God.
December 7th, 2012 | 7:00 pm
The last thing Card. Newman would do would be to pit the laity against the Magisterium. The missing line given to us by David M. says it all. Instead Newman thought the laity and all the people of God have an ecclesial sense that verifies what is authentic Catholic teaching or respectfully and humbly indicates what is at odds with Revelation and Tradition.
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