www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall USCCB review of "The Passion of Christ"

There may be situations in which their actions have been the cause for heads hung in shame. But the the charge of gutlessly siding with those who were making accusations of Anti-Semitism is not justified in the Times article, in the Limbaugh transcripts, or in any of the posts here. Those making unsubstantiated charges could join in on the head hanging.

Dear All,

I understand that this site is not a Catholic site. That not withstanding, I understand that it is a site guided by rules of fair play.

I'd like to explain what I think I've learned from a reading of the thread. The occassion for this thread is the opening of a movie and the comments of a famous radio commentator/entertainer, Rush Limbaugh, who self-admittedly has an agenda to push.

He commented concerning a warning from the a committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops about possible harm that could be associated with its release and about the retraction of the warning by other elements of the Conference.

The original alert was, if I understand correctly, the outcome of addressing the concern by members of an ecumenical committee established by the USCCB who had been told about the worry of some Jewish persons and groups that from their view there was could be a potential for anti-semitism connected with the movie soon-to-be-released.

The committee's statement, right or wrong in hindsight, was issued in that context.

The commentator critiqued a statement from the bishop's conference retracting the warning that the movie might contribute to an antisemitic climate and stir anti-semitic behavior. He critiqued the original warning too.

The object of his critique was the Catholic Bishops. As I understand it he:

Questioned their loyalty to Jesus calling them gutless and stating that gutless people couldn't stand up for Jesus;

Suggested that they are, God forbid, "liberal" and by definition wrong unclear thinkers whose opinions are not to be trusted and whose teachings are suspect ; and

Asked by what right they issued a warning because he saw no need for it.

I listen to Rush quite regularly. Based on my understanding, Rush did a number of things:

* He exhibited no understanding of how the Conference works or the authority by which it teaches. What gives them the right to teach, those liberals?

* He labeled the bishops with perjoritive terms.
Who wants to follow gutless leaders?

* He did not give evidence that he had even talked with the USCCB, the group that he attacked.

* He tarred them as, again God forbid, liberals.

Frankly, sounds like a way of trying to separate us from our bishops. After all they're gutless and not right thinking people who do not speak about moral behavior often enough. The liberal bishops have no right to call things as they see them at any given time.

I find it fascinating that some posters who are members of Catholic Churches join in on such behavior or support it. Based on what I've read, I'd like to make a comment or two and then ask a question or two.

The problem, as I read it in this thread, takes the form of an over generalizing from particular to general. Because some posters are upset with the bishops "misbehavior" or non-feasance on one issue or another, the bishops' behavior in general is tarred with a broad brush.

Let me give a couple of examples to illustrate what I am talking about.

In the first example, Dan expresses a concern. He said this:

"I think the Bishop's report is a bit gutless."

This concern is apparently about the bishops's warning from the bishops' subcommittee on ecumenicism about the possibility of anti-semitism resulting from the release of the movie. The concern might also be about the retraction of the warning, though.

In any case, from expressing that concern, Dan continues, "But that's true of most of the things they've done at least as long as I've been a Catholic."

Here's the second example. The administrator explained his perception that the famous radio commentator/entertainer, Rush Limbaugh, called for Catholic Bishops to be moral leaders. The administrator concludes that there there is a general need for "the Catholic bishops to speak forcefully and with authority to address the ills of our society. They are too often silent."

These appear to me to be inappropriate generalizations.

So, here are a couple of questions about the assertions:

What are the "things that they've done and what is the evidence the "most things they've done since" Dan's been Catholic that merit the word gutless?

In what cases are our Catholic Bishops not teaching against immorality?

Are our bishops not speaking more clearly about sexual abuse by priests when their actions were judged anachronistically?

Have they not openly addressed the issue and admitted their failure as we understand it today?

In what situations have they been too often silent?

The overgeneralizations create, in my estimation a caricature of the behavior of our bishops that borders on defamation of their individual characters.

I am not claiming that our bishops or their conference is perfect or that they or the conference always behave(s) as they or it should. I am not suggesting that concerns should not be raised and addressed.

There are many specific issues concering the Conference and individual bishops that may be raised and addressed with facts and discussion here and elsewhere.

Shouldn't they be raised and addressed one at a time, without moving from specific issues or incidents to general swipe at the person or body? Shouldn't examples and data be presented especially when an individual group is accused of being gutless and not doing their job or when they're being silent when they have a responsibility to speak out?

What good results from by jumping on a bandwagon pushed by someone who has given no evidence of actually addressing the group in question about what he perceives them to have done or not done?

I don't think that I'm asking for any special treatment for Catholics, even Catholic bishops here. It's a matter of common fairness or so it appears to me.

Forgive me, it's late and I'm tired.

Perhaps the posters who believe that our bishops' behaviors are gutless and who agree that they are not doing a good job of speaking out know something about which I know nothing.

If that's so, I'd like to learn about it one thing at a time.

But, till then, the caricaturization of the collective reputation of the Bishops that appears to be underway here bothers me as a fellow human.

It bothers me even more as a Catholic because they're our bishops, yours and mine, if you are a member of one of the Churches which make up the Catholic Communion.

Not that I'm asking for special treatment because of that!

Thanks for hearing me out.

Steve

Dan,

Before I answer, I pose a question for you. Why should any bishop (or anyone for that matter) make a comment about a movie he has not seen?

This brings up another point, why to find necessary to make attacks ad hominem against those who may hold a different opinion than the one you do?

Father Deacon,

Since you aren't my confessor I doubt that I need to respond to you at all, but since you ask, I deny the charge.

Now, I have no idea whether or not the bishops have made any official comment on the movie. Whether they saw an early version of it or not, I do not know.

Are you prejudging my motives for asking? That's not an ad hominem attack. I really think you need to ask yourself and perhaps your confessor if you have done that against me.

What I ask I ask straightforwardly. Perhaps it's because I'm too lazy to do it myself. Perhaps it's because I wouldn't know where to look. Perhaps it's because I saw in you a friendly person who might know the answer. Perhaps I really would like to know before making any decision on the bishop's comments or upon Limbaugh's.

You have, I gather, determined that I am a hateful ogre.

Be that as it may, your opinions of me are not my business. Though I am a bit troubled that you would assume the worst of me since I wouldn't know you, nor would you know me, from Adam's off ox.

So, if your schedule allows it and if you are so inclined and if you would answer the question without malice toward me, would you offer an answer. Did the bishops or did any American bishop offer an official (you decide what that means) evaluation of the movie before it was released or not?

I think I need to go to confession, not because of my judging of your motives which I have not done. But because I am allowed myself to be offended by someone I don't even know.

Dan Lauffer

Steve,

I am in agreement with much of what you said, but the egregiousness of conduct of the cited media is worse that your relate. The actual facts are a bit murky, but the statements of the ad hoc committee members, and the various quoted representatives of the USCCB agree that the initial report was not authorized or endorsed by the USCCB. In making that point clear, the representatives of the USCCB noted that when the movie was released it would be reviewed. It was.
And the reviewed included appropriate statements on the problem of Anti-Semitism.

These facts are then subtly twisted to suggest that the Bishops criticized the movie for Anti-semitism, then retracted, hence waffled. Limbaugh is worse as he conjures a motivation: first they ran with the accusers; then when the movie was successful waffled their way over to Gibson.

In the absence of probative facts, twists of fact were introduced, base motives were assumed, and logically-diconnected prejudicial facts were introduced here (they were gutless on X, therefore they are gutless, therefore they are gutless on Y). Overall this is a hatchet job on our Bishops.

Strike the shepherd and scatter the flock. Frankly I am amazed that there is support for an evidently unfair attack. One might not like our Bishops for other reasons, but this attack, with the evidence at hand, appears to be a false smear. Why are posters joining the detractors?

Dan,

this is a personal attack against djs and Don.

No, I don't think you are an ogre. I just think you may be careless in some of your posts toward others.

You term termed the bishops' report (review) "gutless". You also said, "But that's true of most of the things they've done at least as long as I've been a Catholic." That's quite a generalization. What is more important is what are respective Bishops are doing to teach us. If you want to know what your bishop thinks about the movie, why not ask him?

Dan,

You might also consider that Father Deacon John was referring to the whole thread - including, on the first page, the aptly termed horrific persecution/self-delusion post, and the elitist-secular-academy-tainted-forum-poster remark. I will ask once again for some clarification on the latter.

I thank djs for his post and for finding a reference that the original critical remarks were not actually made by the Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, nor any other committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as reported by the news media last April. I admit that I formed my conclusions based upon the original articles in the media, of which even the Zenit article noted that the original condemnation of the movie came from the USCCB subcommittee (I read the Zenit website daily so this is probably where I saw it first). I retract my criticism of the USCCB on this issue in light of this new evidence that djs has posted. I have also printed the article linked by djs and faxed it to Rush�s show fax number.

I continue to disagree with djs on a number of points. He accuses me of not reading his post and the links. Since he goes on to identify that the comments were originally attribute to a subcommittee as if to inform me of something I missed, and given that I had made a specific reference to that subcommittee in my original post, I wonder if he actually bothered to read my post before responding?

This leaves me with a question that I think might not have an answer. Given that the USCCB issued a press release last June that stated that the Zenit and other media reports last year were incorrect and that there was no official statement issued by any USCCB organization, why was there no reporting of this in the media? Many people have been taking the USCCB bishops to task for their condemnation of the movie (which djs has now shown not to actually have happened). In the numerous interviews with Gibson in recent months the interviewers kept hitting him with the charge that his own Catholic bishops believed the movie to be anti-Semitic. Why? Did the media not know or report the clarification issued by the USCCB? Or did the USCCB not refer the media to its earlier clarification? At the very least the USCCB should have issued additional statements indicating that they had, at that time, no official opinions on the issue.

I am sorry to find that djs believes considering examining the actions of the bishops in light of their previous behavioral pattern to be a logical fallacy. I disagree with him strongly on this point.

This post is to respond to Steve�s questions:

What are the "things that they've done and what is the evidence the "most things they've done since" Dan's been Catholic that merit the word gutless?

This question is direct directly to Dan so Dan can respond.

In what cases are our Catholic Bishops not teaching against immorality?

The bishops are not teaching people about the need to be moral whenever they fail to condemn blatant immorality. I am not suggesting that they must respond to every occurrence, that would be too overwhelming. But they do fail to repeatedly respond to many of the more egregious and purposeful acts of both immorality and support for immoral positions on issues.

Whenever a pro-abortion Catholic politician is allowed to receive the Eucharist the bishops teach that one can have one�s own opinions regarding abortion and still be a good Catholic.

Whenever a pro-abortion Catholic (like Chris Matthews of CNBC) is allowed to speak as a faithful Catholic at a Catholic university graduation (or similar gathering) they are teaching that one can have one�s own opinions regarding abortion and still be a good Catholic. [Please note that there is a difference between personal behavior that is sinful and championing legal protection for such immoral behavior.]

Whenever Catholic bishops compromise Catholic teaching, like when the Archdiocese of San Francisco caved in and started offering health benefits to the homosexual partners of archdiocesan employees (to avoid a lawsuit), they teach acceptance of immorality.

Whenever Catholic bishops remain silent, like in the recent denial of confirmation of judges by some in Congress because the candidates were believing Catholics and might be �anti-choice�, they teach acceptance of immorality.

There are numerous examples. Even if one disagrees with denying the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who champion abortion rights, homosexual marriages and etc., one cannot but note their failure to privately call them to account and to publicly teach that one cannot hold these positions and be a faithful Catholic.

Are our bishops not speaking more clearly about sexual abuse by priests when their actions were judged anachronistically?

Yes, but it is too little too late. They have only begun to speak more clearly about sexual abuse by clergy because the media made an issue of it which caused the average lay Catholic to speak out and demand accountability. Does anyone seriously believe that the bishops would have done all this if there had been no media reports? Yes, it is clear that the media hate believing Christians and have and have enjoyed trumpeting the failings of our Church. But without them absolutely nothing would have happened. If the bishops had addressed this back in the early 1990�s when the victims first started to speak the media would not have had anything to report. They have lost much credibility and need to work to re-earn our trust.

I do give great credit to them in responding to at least some of the issues. The article on page 1 of yesterday�s Washington Times indicated that 81% of the abuse was homosexual in nature. One of the archbishops interviewed on Nightline on Friday night indicated that the bishops are not sure what to make of this but that it is definitely something that needs to be addressed (and he suggested in passing something I agree with, that homosexual individuals who can live a celibate lifestyle can make good priests, that all candidates need to be psychologically and sexually mature, but that those who cannot remain celibate should not be ordained).

Have they not openly addressed the issue and admitted their failure as we understand it today?

In what situations have they been too often silent?

See what I have written above. The bishops should have taken action BEFORE they were forced to by bad publicity.

Shouldn't they be raised and addressed one at a time, without moving from specific issues or incidents to general swipe at the person or body? Shouldn't examples and data be presented especially when an individual group is accused of being gutless and not doing their job or when they're being silent when they have a responsibility to speak out?

Limbaugh did present data. In this past year he has quoted from the news accounts telling of the bishops jumping on the bandwagon of possible anti-Semitism in this movie (which djs has now demonstrated was not accurate). He has spoken at great length complaining why certain politicians in both political parties are allowed to claim that they are practicing Catholics in good standing while voting to destroy Christian morality in our society on the issues of abortion, and etc. If you tar Limbaugh for being too general you must also tar our entire news media. If he is guilty of anything here he is guilty of wrongly believing the media reports and not seeking a clarification from the bishops.

What good results from by jumping on a bandwagon pushed by someone who has given no evidence of actually addressing the group in question about what he perceives them to have done or not done?

Huh? Are you suggesting that people should never offer a critical opinion until they have contacted the person privately? That�s just not the way it works in our society. The USCCB is fair game for commentary, on both the things they do and those they don�t do. Do you seriously believe that, regarding the current sexual abuse crisis, if individuals had spoken to their parish priest or bishop about the need to do something that something would actually have been done? No, it took the media stirring up ordinary Catholics in order to get them to be angry enough to call their bishops to account. Only then did something happen. In this case many priests who are abusers have been removed from positions of trust. In my book those are good results, even if there is still much work for the bishops to do.

Yes, the bishops are ours and I find it very embarrassing that it took people outside the Church (the media) to call them to account for their lack of action regarding sexual abuse. I disagree with those who believe that we should give the bishops a pass for not doing the correct thing merely because we are Catholic and they are our bishops.

Dear Admin:

Sorry if I gave offence by questioning your reading of my post. Most of the new information was there already apart from the quotes from the Catholic league site. I had alluded to this information in the posts to Joe; he and I had been around the block on this point a couple of times before on the forum. But I am glad this information helped.

I hadn't seen interviews with Gibson, and am surprised he didn't simply set the record straight. On the other hand, the Catholic league site has a lot of material from interviews with various members of the ad hoc committee, who were highly critical of some things they saw in the early script and continued to speak out about it. While I don't think that the anyone confuses the ADL with the USCCB, other members of the ad hoc committee might spawn some confusion on this point.

The Times (which I called in another post the Star, showing my age) should not have made this error. Then again, if there is some other, smoking document they may have a point. Too bad they didn't give an explicit reference.

On the logic:
I am speaking strictly of logical validity. It may be a correct assessment, as you argue in your reply to Steve, that a characterization as gutless is deserved in various cases. It may therefore be a good hunch that the Bishops were acting gutlessly in the case under discussion. It may even be true. But the ad hominem argument gives no valid support to the conclusion. This is not opinion. I would further argue that in the absense of a compelling, valid affirmative case, charity demands that we suspend judgement. This is opinion, and reasonably arguable.

djs,

I still don't know what you are saying. I checked again what I wrote on the first page. I do think the report is rather gutless but most things politicians say are gutless. How about this, in order to give a clear clarion call to the faithful I would hope for a stronger statement by our leaders. Look to the example of our courageous martyrs of the past for examples of the kind of leadership I'm longing to see.

It appears that one Orthodox Metropolitan from Boston has given a more courageous evaluation. Do we have any from the Catholic side? Would you share it?

dan l

djs,

The Administrator has pointed to the examples of flaccid leadership given by our bishops when firm courageous leadership was called for.

Again, courage is what is needed. Managers may be called for at a lower level of the heirarchy, but when we need clear calls for moral decisions we need leaders not managers.

I don't see how that is difficult to understand.

Dan L

Deacon John,

"You term termed the bishops' report (review) "gutless". You also said, "But that's true of most of the things they've done at least as long as I've been a Catholic." That's quite a generalization. What is more important is what are respective Bishops are doing to teach us. If you want to know what your bishop thinks about the movie, why not ask him?"

I shall. I gather this is a formal brush off of my request of you to clarify whether or not the bishops or any bishop did or did not make any comment on the movie before it was released. If this is so, it's a free country, but I wonder why you suggested that there were such comments in the first place.

Dan Lauffer

Dan,

It is not diificult to understand at all.

But let's be clear, the specific attack by the Times and by Limbaugh was unjust. Endorsing such an attack on the grounds that the Bishops are deservedly termed gutless on other issues is the essence of predjudice and bigotry - something that I am sure we all wish to avoid.

Or maybe not.

(PS The attacks fropm page one are not your attacks on the bishops but on forum members.)

djs,

Just for clarification: My comments were original from another thread entirely and were about my frustrations with three faculty members on a panel convened following the University of St. Francis' viewing of the movie. The first 3 of 6 respondents spoke of anti-semitism that affected the film without reference to the film. The Joliet Herald reported on the forum and were fairly accurate in their comments that these responders thought the movie might enflame anti-Semitic passions. Their comments really had nothing to do with what happened with Jesus or what happened in the film.

One has grown to expect this kind of performance from secular faculty. It is not objective, though they pretend to be objective or perhaps think they are objective.

It appears that based upon our discussion in that other thread, not this one, that some of that "objectivity" has rubbed off on you and Don.

If I'm completely wrong I apologize for my mistake. But I still hold that opinion.

Dan L