Typhus 2

Just two words more on the same theme of last time.

Being Italian, I follow with interest the performance of my country's team at the world cup.

We do feel represented when a team wearing the name of our country plays, and identify with it: so, according to the case we say "we won" or "we lost".

No qualms about that, and about the fact that the result of four year ago was a satisfaction.

It's a natural process of identification: "natural", I mean, according to man's nature, which is of being a social animal.

The question is to what extent it can be carried.

"They" tell us, in many ways, that we shouldn't indulge in social and cultural belonging, because it creates discrimination. The worse would be if our socio-cultural belonging came from a religious narrative: like the one telling the story of God's word made flesh.

If that story makes you happy, again "they" tell us, good for you. But don't dare advance any claim in the name of it, your belief is your belief, and that's it. To travesty one's need of belonging with God's name is purely and simply wrong.

This way "they" overlook the fact that identification doesn't come from a need of belonging, but is a natural process; and that God's name is not there to close, but to open the scope of belonging, to embrace potentially the whole of mankind. Useless to say so: "they" know better, and don't listen.

"They" can't but marvel, therefore, when "they" look at what happens around them, like the fact that interest in a soccer team becomes a fever: not just the mild feeling I spoke about, but typhus.

Identification, thrown out of the door, comes back from the window. And for many people a soccer team is the only thing left to represent them. It takes religious overtone: it becomes idolatry.

HP

Just a question

I wonder: is it an ideological prejudice to say that the present incumbent of the presidency is an incompetent, unable to face a crisis?

I mean: it is I don't remember how many days that the collapsed platform in the Gulf is spilling oil, determining what is perhaps the worse ecological disaster ever. And POTUS is waiting for BP to take care of it, while blaming it and threatening to make it pay.

So I ask: isn't the American army a most powerful technological apparatus? Wouldn't have been possible to mobilize this apparatus to face the problem?

Wasn't in the POTUS' power to say to BP, now you get out of the way; then call all his military engineers and ask them for the possible solutions? Listen to the options, and implement whichever appears to him the best? So taking his responsibility, and only later, in a second moment, asking BP to pay the expenses?

What is this man capable to do? Beyond blaming others for everything that doesn't work?

These are meant as bipartisan questions.

HP

The American Papist had this item last week, regarding the L.A. Catholic Bishops' pastoral letter to homosexuals. AmP calls it a case of "unteaching" and files it under the category "stupidity". I frankly do not see how it is either. I am no fan of Cardinal Mahoney, and I think the LA bishops' letter is problematic: its use, e.g., of the UN Declaration on Human Rights is unnecessary and distracting, at best.

Below is the excerpt the AmP gives of the CNA story:

The bishops of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, led by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, issued a letter to homosexual Catholics on Friday seeking to ensure them that the Church’s support for Proposition 8 was not meant to diminish their dignity or their membership in the Church. The true aim of the Church’s support, the bishops write, was to “preserve the ordered relationship between man and woman created by God.”

The pastoral letter, which was printed in the archdiocesan paper The Tidings, is written to all homosexual members of the Church as well as the rest of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. According to the bishops, its purpose is to offer reassurance to gays amidst the fallout surrounding Prop. 8’s success that they are “cherished members of the Catholic Church, and that we value you as equal and active members of the Body of Christ.” (CNA)

Peters' further labeling of this blog post under "Mahoney" and "homosexual lobby" is an exercise in poor judgment. The bishops successfully supported Prop 8 in California, and moved to rebuild bridges with the Catholics who belong to the group arguably most interested in seeing 8 defeated. This is laudable.

I do not think Mr. Peters hates homosexuals, and I am certain he would not see the poor souls who suffer serious perversions of their sexual inclination expelled from the Church. I do think he acted hastily, and failed to operate a basic and practically crucial distinction, namely, the distinction between a homosexual inclination and a gay lifestyle. The LA bishops' attempt to reach out to Catholics in the former does not suggest, let alone imply or otherwise provide grounds for inference that they approve or applaud of the latter.

Any effort to help people struggle with the Church against their perversions - whatever they are - is a good thing. In fact, failure to do so often drives people to struggle with their perversions against the Church.

Further laudable in the LA Bishops' letter is their avoidance of the silly semantics of "values" (except in its unexceptionable acception under which it is a synonym of "worth"), in favor of a semantics of order. In their letter, the LA bishops also clarify that their support for 8 was rooted in their concern that, "[T]he ordered relationship between man and woman created by God," to quote the letter, be protected in law. Law expresses and preserves order in society - the wisdom of many laws is proved by the disorder that attends their repeal or reversal.

In sum, the American Papist is a good blogger (I voted for him in the recent scholarship contest) who exercised poor judgment in the present case.