Eres muy ingenuo. Por supuesto, que el resto sí que les obliga a ellos a no serlo. En un país sólo puede haber una ley y esta no es neutral: responde a algunos valores. Los que no comulgan con esos valores, están obligados.

Pongamos un ejemplo. Supongamos que USA gana la guerra en Afganistán y pone un gobierno títere, que intenta implantar los valores americanos: democracia, igualdad, etc.

En las escuelas se enseñará, por ejemplo, educación sexual a las hijas de los talibanes. Así, la escuela obligará a las familias de los talibanes a no serlo. Las leyes darán la misma igualdad a hombres y mujeres, lo que está contra el estilo de vida talibán. También formarán una democracia de ciudadanos iguales, lo que está en contra de la forma de gobierno tribal de los talibanes, por no decir de la sharía, etc.

Por supuesto, ahora tú te estás rasgando las vestiduras. Por supuesto, que la ley debe imponer eso: es justicia básica. Bien, para los talibanes, la ley islámica es justicia básica. Sin saberlo, tú eres un talibán de la democracia, los derechos, la igualdad, etc. Eres tan fanático como los talibanes: sólo tienes una religión diferente.

Pero los talibanes te superan en algo: ellos saben que tienen una religión y que son parciales. Tú eres igual de parcial y también tienes tu «religión», pero te crees que eres neutral. Los talibanes son fanáticos pero conscientes de serlo. Tú eres fanático pero no eres consciente de serlo.

Un país sólo puede tener una ley y la ley está basada en unos valores. La ley prohíbe lo que considera malo y autoriza lo que considera bueno, según su escala de valores. La ley impone estos valores sobre la sociedad. Esto es verdad en la España actual, en la Unión Soviética, en Arabia Saudita y en todo régimen político. Lo único que varía son los valores impuestos.

Quine tiene los mismos valores que la ley impone se siente en libertad y, de hecho, cree que la ley es neutral. Son los que no comulgan con él, los que ven la imposición.

Cristina Losada.

[Tomado de aquí]

La autodeterminación de género, facilitada por la nueva ley del Gobierno, abre un abanico de posibilidades. Quede claro que, desde aquí se estará siempre a favor de que cada persona se identifique con la identidad que quiera tener, o con las identidades que vaya teniendo. Nada en contra, por tanto, de la autodeterminación de la identidad por parte del individuo, posibilidad que, en principio, está al alcance de cualquiera en un país libre. La cuestión que plantea la ley, sin embargo, es otra. De lo que se trata, si hacemos abstracción del caso que regula, es de que la identidad que uno reconoce como suya, frente a otra que se le asignó oficialmente, obtenga el sello de reconocimiento del Estado. La ley posibilita resolver esa incongruencia en relación al género, pero ¿por qué dejarlo ahí?

Por qué dejarlo ahí cuando puede haber – y hay – más incongruencias entre la identidad oficial y la que uno siente como propia. Máxime si esa falta de coincidencia provoca sufrimiento o reduce las oportunidades o favorece, por ejemplo, la discriminación. Naturalmente, no son comparables el sufrimiento y la discriminación de los trans con los de otras personas que perciben disparidad entre su identidad sentida y su identidad oficial. Cada sufrimiento es un mundo. Pero de una ley que permite cambiar del sexo asignado al nacer con una declaración ante un funcionario se desprende un principio importante: la plasmación oficial de la identidad no debe estar determinada por ciertos hechos biológicos. Siendo así, tampoco debería estar determinada por un hecho biológico como la edad. Habría que dejarla al libre albedrío.

Pongamos la vida real. Muchas personas, al llegar a una edad, se encuentran con que no pueden encontrar empleo, debido a su edad, precisamente. Se sienten en plena forma, tienen experiencia y todo lo demás, pero a la vista de su fecha de nacimiento, nada, que no los quieren. O, al revés, aunque esto es mucho menos frecuente. Y qué decir de los estereotipos asociados a la edad: por qué hay que soportarlos, padecerlos o amoldarse a ellos. Ya que lo fundamental es sentirse, si uno siente que su identidad en términos de edad no es la que corresponde a su edad oficial, ¿por qué no arreglar esa incongruencia? Circula un nuevo y horrendo término, edadismo, para referirse a la discriminación por razón de edad, que indudablemente existe. Cierto que no va a desaparecer así como así, pero un avance, y fácil, sería eliminar la fecha de nacimiento del DNI. O el propio DNI, ya puestos.

Hace un par de años, un ciudadano holandés, Emile Ratelband, presentó una demanda para cambiar su edad de 69 a 49 años. Se sentía discriminado, y tanto a la hora de encontrar empleo como de comprar una casa o de buscar pareja. «Vivimos en una época en la que puedes cambiar de nombre y cambiar de género. ¿Por qué no puedo decidir yo mi propia edad?», alegó. Estaba dispuesto a renunciar a su pensión de jubilación con tal de que su edad oficial concordara con la que él sentía que tenía, pero no lo consiguió. El tribunal reconoció que la edad es parte de la identidad de una persona -un primer paso-, pero concluyó que el cambio de edad provocaría demasiadas complicaciones. ¿Y el cambio de nombre o de género, no? Además, qué importan las complicaciones cuando se trata de la autodeterminación de la identidad. Luchemos por el reconocimiento oficial de la identidad autodeterminada. En todo y para todos.

Laura Zifer Powell.

[Traducido de aquí. Comentarios del traductor entre corchetes. La notación X:Y significa «capítulo X y versículo Y» del Corán (o para ser exactos «sura X y aleya Y del Corán»)]

Mientras estos dos hombres [el reverendo cristiano Anthony Rogers y el musulmán Dr. Shabir Ally] debatían, pensé en cómo respondería a esta pregunta de si la visión coránica de Jesús es confiable y en qué temas me enfocaría si tuviera una cantidad limitada de tiempo para presentar mi caso. Aquí están mis pensamientos.

Argumento 1: El dilema islámico

Primero, usaría el siguiente silogismo para mostrar que el Corán no es digno de confianza porque afirma y contradice los Evangelios.

1. El Corán afirma la inspiración divina, la autoridad y la preservación de los Evangelios (3: 3-4; 5:47; 5:68; 6: 115; 18:27)
2. El Corán contradice los Evangelios sobre importantes cuestiones históricas y teológicas (5: 116; 4: 157; 5:72)
3. Por tanto, no se puede confiar en el Corán

Explicado de otra manera, dado que el Corán afirma la inspiración divina, la autoridad permanente y la perfecta preservación de los Evangelios y, sin embargo, también contradice los Evangelios en las principales enseñanzas, entonces

• Si los Evangelios NO son confiables, entonces el Corán es falso porque el Corán enseña que los evangelios son confiables.
• Si los Evangelios SON fiables, el Corán sigue siendo falso porque el Corán enseña hechos contradictorios y mutuamente excluyentes con los Evangelios sobre cuestiones clave.
• De cualquier manera, el Corán es falso y no se puede confiar en él.

Algunos pueden responder que los versículos que afirman los Evangelios pueden haber sido derogados, pero no hay versículos posteriores en el Corán que afirmen la corrupción de los Evangelios. Hay versículos del Corán que afirman que los evangelios fueron mal utilizados y mal interpretados, pero no hay ninguno que afirme que los evangelios se corrompieron permanentemente o se perdieron en la historia. Además, si los Evangelios fueron confiables en algún momento durante la vida de Mahoma, como el Corán claramente establece que lo fueron (5:47; 5:68), entonces son confiables hoy porque nuestras Biblias modernas están traducidas de manuscritos anteriores a Mahoma y el Corán.

Argumento 2: Un desastre científico

En segundo lugar, demostraría que el Corán no es digno de confianza porque con respecto a la información que se conoce con certeza y puede ser probada, vemos que es un absoluto desastre de libro.

Por ejemplo, con respecto al desarrollo de un embrión, el Corán enseña que las personas comienzan como un extracto de arcilla. Entonces nos convertimos en una gota de esperma. Entonces Dios hace que la gota de esperma se convierta en un coágulo adherido, y convierte el coágulo adherido en un bulto. A partir del bulto, él forma nuestros huesos, y después de que todos los huesos son creados, Dios los cubre con carne. Finalmente, el humano se convierte en otra creación. (Sura 23: 12-14).

Si bien gran parte de este lenguaje que describe el desarrollo de un embrión es tan vago que resulta inútil, las partes que son comprensibles están totalmente equivocadas. El ejemplo más obvio es que los huesos de un ser humano no se crean primero y luego se cubren con carne. Más bien, una sola capa embriológica, llamada mesodermo, se diferencia en huesos y carne al mismo tiempo.

Aquí hay algunos ejemplos más de enseñanzas coránicas que muestran que no es confiable:

• El Corán 18: 83-86 informa que Dhul-Qarnayn viajó tan lejos que encontró el lugar donde se pone el sol. Según el Corán, el sol se pone en un manantial de barro oscuro.
• El Corán 37: 6-10 dice que las estrellas fugaces son misiles que Alá usa para disparar a los demonios que se acercan demasiado al cielo para espiar a la asamblea de ángeles.
• El Corán 86: 6-7 enseña que los espermatozoides se crean entre la columna vertebral y las costillas.

[El Corán confunde a María (madre de Jesús) con Miriam (hija de Moisés) que vivió más de mil años antes]

[Si se encontraran errores en la Biblia, podrían explicarse alegando que los autores humanos se han equivocado, pues los judíos y cristianos creen que la Biblia es inspirada por Dios, pero escrita por humanos, que incorporaron su personalidad y humanidad en el texto.

Sin embargo, los musulmanes creen que el Corán es eterno y que un ángel lo dictó a Mahoma a partir de la copia que existe en el cielo eternamente. Por eso, los musulmanes creen que el Corán está exento de error, pues viene totalmente de Alá (Dios), sin intervención humana.]

El propio Corán dice que, si no es de Dios, entonces deberíamos esperar encontrar en él “mucha discrepancia”, y eso es exactamente lo que encontramos: mucha discrepancia entre lo que se enseña en el Corán y lo que se puede observar, probar, y verificado en el mundo real.

Argumento 3: El mejor de los engañadores

En tercer lugar, demostraría que, a lo largo del Corán, Alá es un intrigante engañoso en el que no se puede confiar en sus palabras ni en sus acciones.

Por ejemplo, la Sura 3:54 dice: “Y ellos (los incrédulos) engañaron, y Alá engañó. Y Alá es el mejor engañador «.

Y la sura 8:30 dice: “Y cuando los que se hicieron infieles te engañen para detenerte o matarte o expulsarte. Y engañan, y Alá engaña. Y Alá es el mejor engañador «.

[Hay que decir que en la tradición cristiana a Satán se lo conoce como “el príncipe de las mentiras”]

El Corán no solo afirma repetidamente que Alá es el mejor engañador, sino que esto se demuestra en su enseñanza de que Jesús no fue realmente asesinado o crucificado, sino que Alá hizo que pareciera que sí.

4: 157 Corán dice: «Y [por] su dicho:» De hecho, hemos matado al Mesías, Jesús, el hijo de María, el mensajero de Alá «. Y no lo mataron, ni lo crucificaron; pero [otro] fue hecho para parecerse a él. Y, de hecho, quienes discrepan al respecto tienen dudas al respecto. No tienen conocimiento de él, excepto el seguimiento de suposición. Y no lo mataron, seguro”.

Toda la evidencia empírica de los dos primeros siglos indica que Jesús fue asesinado por crucifixión. De hecho, prácticamente todos los eruditos de todas las religiones y cosmovisiones [incluso ateos] que han estudiado la evidencia están de acuerdo con esto. La crucifixión de Jesús está atestiguada por numerosos no cristianos del primer y segundo siglo, incluidos Josefo, Mara-bar Serapion, Tácito y Luciano de Samosata, así como los cristianos Mateo, Marcos, Lucas, Juan, Pablo, Papías, Policarpo, Ignacio y Clemente.

De hecho, la muerte de Jesús por crucifixión está tan bien documentada que sigue siendo virtualmente indiscutible incluso entre los eruditos no cristianos de hoy, incluidos Bart Ehrman, Gerd Ludemann, Paula Frederiksen y John Dominic Crossan. A pesar de su deseo de encontrar cualquier forma posible de desacreditar la comprensión histórica de Jesús, Crossan ha escrito: “La muerte de Jesús por crucifixión bajo Poncio Pilato es tan segura como cualquier cosa histórica. Porque si ningún seguidor de Jesús hubiera escrito nada durante cien años después de su crucifixión, todavía lo sabríamos por dos autores que no están entre sus seguidores. Sus nombres son Flavio Josefo y Cornelio Tácito «.

Debido a la evidencia, la muerte de Jesús por crucifixión se había afirmado abrumadoramente durante casi 600 años cuando un comerciante de caravanas llamado Muhammad dijo que vio un ser espiritual, que inicialmente creyó que era un demonio, que le dijo que Jesús en realidad no fue asesinado ni crucificado, y de repente se supone que el mundo le cree, sin ninguna evidencia? No lo creo. Quizás esta sea una de las razones por las que el Islam debe confiar en las amenazas de violencia, vergüenza y muerte para mantener a sus seguidores.

Aún más preocupante es la explicación del Corán de por qué el mundo inicialmente se equivocó: no lo mataron ni lo crucificaron; pero [otro] fue hecho para parecerse a él. En otras palabras, Alá hizo que pareciera que Jesús fue crucificado cuando en realidad era otra persona (4: 157-159). Según esta explicación, el engaño de Alá fue tan convincente que incluso la madre de Jesús, sus seguidores y toda Jerusalén creyeron que Jesús de Nazaret fue asesinado por crucifixión. Esto requiere que Alá sea un engañador muy eficaz, responsable de la existencia del cristianismo y de la condenación de miles de millones de almas si es mentira. Sin embargo, eso es exactamente lo que Alá afirmó ser: ¡el mejor de los engañadores! Entonces, ¿cómo vamos a confiar en algo en su libro [si es un engañador]? La respuesta, por supuesto, es que no podemos.

Tyranny and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: A Jesuit tragedy

By John R. T. Lamont

[Taken from here]

In the light of new revelations about sexual abuse in the Church, many Catholics are asking how the situation that these revelations have disclosed can possibly have come about. The first question that occurs, a question of long standing, is; why did bishops deal with sexual abusers by concealing their offences and moving them to new assignments, rather than by removing them from ministry? No sufficient answer has yet been given to this question. It has now been made more pointed by a further question; how did Theodore McCarrick get appointed as Archbishop of Washington and Cardinal, and even become a principal drafter of the American bishops’ policy on sexual abuse in 2002, when his own involvement in sexual abuse was widely known in clerical circles and had been made known to the Holy See?

These things did not happen because of the law of the Church. Until November 27, 1983, the law in force in the Latin Church was the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Canon 2359 §2 of this code decreed that if clerics commit an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue with minors under sixteen years of age, they are to be suspended, declared infamous, deprived of every office, benefice, dignity, or position that they may hold, and in the most grievous cases deposed.

This canon was replaced by Canon 1395, §2 in the 1983 Code, which states that ‘a cleric who in any other way has committed an offence against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, … with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ The 1983 Code addressed offences of the kind committed by Cardinal McCarrick with Canon 1395 §2, which states that  ‘A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.’ These canons do not present these punishments as options; they require that such offences be punished by ecclesiastical authority. So our question now becomes; why did ecclesiastical authorities break the law by not enforcing these canons?

No doubt a number of factors combined to produce this disastrous situation. There is one factor however that has not been widely discussed or understood, but that has had an effect that is second to none in giving rise to the scandalous situation that now engrosses our attention. This is the influence within the Church of a conception of authority as a form of tyranny, rather than as being based on and constituted by law. This essay will present the nature of this conception, describe how it came to be influential, and explore some of its more significant results.

The intellectual origins of this conception of authority and obedience are largely to be found in nominalist theology and philosophy. William of Ockham notoriously came down on one side of the Euthyphro dilemma by asserting that good actions are good simply because they are commanded by God, and that God could make idolatry, murder, and sodomy good, and abstention from these actions evil, if he commanded that they be performed. This conception of divine authority lends support to a tyrannical understanding of authority in general as based on the arbitrary will of the possessor of power, rather than on law.

A law-based understanding of authority, in contrast, holds that law derived from the nature of the good provides the source of the authority of a ruler, and delimits the sphere in which a ruler can give commands. Scholars have long known that the dominance of nominalist thought in the fourteenth century left its mark on Catholic thought for centuries, with key nominalist theses remaining entrenched even in scholars who believed themselves to be upholding anti-nominalist traditions. The nature of authority was one of these theses. Catholic theologians and philosophers during the Counter-Reformation all held that law and moral obligation are to be understood as resulting from the command of a superior; Suarez gave a characteristic description of law as ‘the act whereby a superior wills to bind an inferior to the performance of a particular deed.’

Restoration of discipline among clergy and religious was one of the main goals of the Counter-Reformation. The theories of law and authority that guided this restoration differed from a pure nominalist position, but these differences were lost when the practical principles for training in obedience were devised. These principles embodied a tyrannical understanding of authority, and a servile understanding of rightful obedience as consisting in total submission to the will of the superior. The most influential formulation of these principles was given in the writings of St. Ignatius Loyola on obedience. The key elements of the Ignatian notion of authority are the following:

— The mere execution of the order of a superior is the lowest degree of obedience, and does not merit the name of obedience or constitute an exercise of the virtue of obedience.
— In order to merit the name of virtue, an exercise of obedience should attain the second level of obedience, which consists in not only doing what the superior orders, but conforming one’s will to that of the superior, so that one not only will to obey an order, but wills that that particular order should have been given – simply because the superior willed it.
— The third and highest degree of obedience consists in conforming not only one’s will but one’s intellect to the order of the superior, so that one not only wills that an order should have been given, but actually believes that the order was the right order to give, simply because the superior gave it. ‘He who aims at making an entire and perfect oblation of himself, in addition to his will, must offer his understanding, which is a further and the highest degree of obedience. He must not only will, but he must think the same as the superior, submitting his own judgment to that of the superior, so far as a devout will can bend the understanding.’
— In the highest and most meritorious degree of obedience, the follower has no more will of his own in obeying than an inanimate object. ‘Everyone of those who live under obedience ought to allow himself to be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior as if he were a lifeless body which allows itself to be carried to any place and to be treated in any manner desired, or as if he were an old man’s staff which serves in any place and in any manner whatsoever in which the holder wishes to use it.’
— The sacrifice of will and intellect involved in this form of obedience is the highest form of sacrifice possible, because it offers to God the highest human faculties, viz. the intellect and the will.

            It should be said that St. Ignatius’s practical exercise of authority did not agree with his own writings. He was accustomed to send Jesuits on independent missions where they had to use their initiative. Literally construed, his writings on obedience could have no application in these situations, because the superior was not there to give the commands to which this kind of obedience is due.

We can explain the contradiction between his theory and his practice by the influence of the accepted philosophical and theological ideas of his time, and by the goals that his teachings on obedience were aimed at. His doctrine on obedience was intended to provide for an initial training in discipline, of the kind practiced in the military profession that he had once followed. Once this training was completed, it was also intended to ensure that Jesuits on independent missions internalized the objective that their superiors had sent them to accomplish, so that they would correctly and wholeheartedly carry out the missions they had been given. But St. Ignatius did not intend to give religious superiors a totalitarian control over all the thoughts and actions of their subordinates.

Unfortunately, the interpreters of his works read his writings literally, and credited him with upholding a totalitarian control of this kind as the model of religious authority. Some expositions of his teaching described obedience to an order than one suspects but is not certain to be immoral as an especially high and praiseworthy form of obedience. This statement about the exceptional merit of obeying orders that are morally dubious is made in St. Ignatius’s letter 150. The letter was in fact written for him by Fr. Polanco, his secretary; but since it went out under St. Ignatius’s signature, it benefited from his authority.

The full development of a tyrannical conception of religious authority and a servile conception of obedience can be found in Alphonsus Rodriguez S.J.’s Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues. This work, the most widely read manual of ascetic theology of the Counter-Reformation, was published in 1609. It was required reading for Jesuit novices up to the Second Vatican Council. Its contents were accepted as the correct interpretation of St. Ignatius’s teaching on obedience. In his proposed examination of conscience, Fr. Rodriguez (who is not to be confused with St. Alphonsus Rodriguez) requires the penitent

1. To obey in will and heart, having one and the same wish and will as the Superior.
   III. To obey also with the understanding and judgment, adopting the same view and sentiment as the Superior, not giving place to any judgments or reasonings to the contrary.
   IV. To take the voice of the Superior … as the voice of God, and obey the Superior, whoever he may be, as Christ our Lord, and the same for subordinate officials.
   V. To follow blind obedience, that is obedience without enquiry or examination, or any seeking of reasons for the why and wherefore, it being reason enough for me that it is obedience and the command of the Superior.

Rodriguez praises obedience – as he understands it – in illuminating terms.

One of the greatest comforts and consolations that we have in Religion is this, that we are safe in doing what obedience commands. The Superior it is that may be wrong in commanding this or that, but you are certain that you are not wrong in doing what is commanded, for the only account that God will ask of you is if you have done what they commanded you, and with that your account will be sufficiently discharged before God. It is not for you to render account whether the thing commanded was a good thing, or whether something else would not have been better; that does not belong to you, but to the account of the Superior. When you act under obedience, God takes it off your books, and puts it on the books of the Superior.

Like other writers, Rodriguez makes the usual exception for obedience to commands that are manifestly contrary to the divine law. It has however been noted that the Jesuit doctrine of probabilism tends to nullify this exception. According to this doctrine, there is no sin in doing any action that a reputable authority maintains to be permissible; and one’s religious superior normally counts as a reputable authority. There is also a psychological fact that tends to make this exception nugatory. Internalising and practicing this notion of obedience is difficult, and requires time, motivation, and effort. When it has been done successfully, it has a lasting effect. Once one has destroyed one’s capacity to criticise the actions of one’s superiors, one cannot revive this capacity and its exercise at will. Following the directive to refuse obedience to one’s superiors when their commands are manifestly sinful then becomes psychologically difficult or even impossible – except perhaps in the most extreme cases, such as commands to murder someone, which are not the sort of sinful commands that religious superiors often have an interest in giving in any case.

This conception of obedience did not remain a peculiarity of the Society of Jesus, but came to be adopted by the Counter-Reformation Church as a whole. It became prevalent in the new institution of the Counter-Reformation seminary; the Treatise on Obedience of the Sulpician Louis Tronson gave St. Ignatius’s teaching and writings as the summit of Catholic teaching on obedience. The Sulpician adoption of this conception was particularly important because of their central role in the training of priests in seminaries from the seventeenth century onwards. The servile conception of obedience remained the standard one into the twentieth century. Adolphe Tanquerey, in his widely read and translated (and in many ways excellent) work Précis de théologie ascétique et mystique, could write that perfect souls who have reached the highest degree of obedience submit their judgment to that of their superior, without even examining the reasons for which he commands them.

The Jesuit approach to the manifestation of conscience contributed to inculcating a totalitarian understanding of authority. St. Ignatius not only encouraged but required the manifestation of conscience, and he required that the manifestation be made to the religious superior. The manifestation of conscience included ‘the dispositions and desires for the performance of good, the obstacles and difficulties encountered, the passions and temptation which move or harass the soul, the faults, that are more frequently committed … the usual pattern of conduct, affections, inclinations, propensities, temptations, and weaknesses.’ He required that such a manifestation be made every six months, and he directed that all superiors and even their delegates were qualified to receive these manifestations. Instead of restricting the purpose of the manifestation of conscience to the spiritual well-being of the manifestee, he not only permitted but required the superior to use the knowledge of his subordinates gained through the manifestation of conscience for the purposes of government.

The overweening power that this practice gives to the religious superior needs no underlining. The ancient religious orders resisted the introduction of an obligatory manifestation of conscience on St. Ignatius’s model, but many modern religious institutes adopted it. The abuses of the practice were so severe that the papacy eventually had to forbid it. It was banned for all religious by canon 530 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law (the Jesuits, however, were permitted to preserve it by a special decree of Pope Pius XI). By this time, however, the practice had had several centuries to leave its mark on the understanding of authority, the forms of behaviour, and the psychology of superiors and subordinates within the Catholic Church.

The novelty of this understanding of obedience can be seen by contrasting it with the position of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas considers the proper object of obedience to be the precept of the superior (Summa theologiae, 2a2ae q. 104 a. 2 co., a. 2 ad 3). St. Ignatius’s lowest degree of obedience, which he does not consider to be virtuous, is considered by St. Thomas to be the only form of obedience. He holds that St. Ignatius’s alleged higher forms of obedience do not fall under the virtue of obedience at all:

Seneca says (De Beneficiis iii): ‘It is wrong to suppose that slavery falls upon the whole man: for the better part of him is excepted.’ His body is subjected and assigned to his master but his soul is his own. Consequently in matters touching the internal movement of the will man is not bound to obey his fellow-man, but God alone. (2a2ae q. 104 a. 5 co.)

St. Thomas does not consider obedience to involve the sacrifice of one’s will as such. The virtue of obedience in his view only involves the sacrifice of one’s self-will, which is defined by its adherence to objectives that are contrary to our ultimate happiness. Rodriguez however makes it clear that it is not self-will, but the entire human faculty of will itself, that is to be sacrificed. This is a sacrifice in the sense of an abandonment and a destruction, since it involves eliminating the operation of one’s will and handing it over to the will of another human being. Nor does St. Thomas think of obedience as a virtuous form of personal asceticism. He does not hold that obeying a command we dislike is better as such than obeying a command we are happy to fulfil.

A good person will be glad to carry out any suitable command, since such commands further the common good. He does not consider that all good acts are motivated by obedience to God, because he considers that there are virtues the exercise of which is prior to obedience – such as faith, which religious obedience presupposes. Nor does he consider that the essence of sin consists in disobedience to God, or even that all sin involves the sin of disobedience. All sin does indeed involve a disobedience to God’s commands, but this disobedience is not willed by the sinner unless the sin involves a will to disobey the command in addition to a will to do the forbidden act (2a2ae q. 104 a. 7 ad 3). Obedience is simply an act of the virtue of justice, which is motivated by love of God in the case of divine commands and love of neighbour in the case of commands of a human superior. These loves are both more fundamental and broader than obedience.

The conception of religious authority and religious obedience that became dominant in the Church from the sixteenth century onwards was thus a fundamental innovation that departed from previous Catholic positions. It came to influence the Church through the training given in seminaries for diocesan priests, and the approach to discipline in religious congregations. The daily life of seminarians and religious was structured by a multitude of rules governing the minutiae of behaviour, and activities that fell outside this routine could generally be pursued only with the permission of the superior. Such permission was arbitrarily refused from time to time in order to encourage submissiveness in subordinates. Reasons for orders were not provided, and questions about the reasons for orders were not answered.

This approach to authority had damaging effects on clergy and religious. The exaction of servile obedience from subordinates destroyed strength of character and the capacity for independent thought. Exercise of tyrannical authority by superiors produced overweening pride and incapacity for self-criticism. The fact that superiors all started off in a subordinate position meant that advancement was facilitated for those proficient in the arts of the slave — flattery, dissimulation, and manipulation.

The laity could not hope for advancement in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, so the effect of promotion of a servile understanding of religious obedience was to infantilize them in the religious sphere. This infantilization can be observed in religious art and devotion, especially from the 19th century onwards, and in willingness to give blind obedience to the clergy. The resulting dissociation between adult maturity and religious belief undermined religious faith and commitment among the laity, and contributed to the steady secularization of Catholic societies.

The effects of this conception of obedience were mitigated by countervailing factors. Canon law, liturgical discipline, and the rules of religious orders provided detailed prescriptions that limited the tyrannical exercise of authority by superiors. Scholastic philosophy and theology, classical education, and the requirement for proficiency in Latin all imposed objective standards for the knowledge and intellectual capacity demanded of the clergy. Jesuit secondary schools, which were by far the most important and successful of their apostolates, were governed by an excellently designed ratio studiorum that laid down in detail what was to be studied and how. As long as the tyrannical conception of authority was restrained by these factors, it was crippling but not fatal to the Church.

An insidious feature of this conception of authority is that at the outset it seemed to be a success. It was used to put an end to the financial and sexual misbehaviour of the clergy that had helped to produce the Reformation. By so doing, it contributed to the brilliant achievements of the Counter-Reformation. The situation of the Church was like that of Rome under Augustus or France under Louis XIV; the peace and order produced by absolute rule permitted a flowering of the talents produced by the free society that had existed prior to absolutism. When the inheritance of freedom was spent and the full effects of absolutism were felt, these talents withered. The brilliant constellation of saints and geniuses that illuminated 17th century Catholic France was succeeded in the 18th century by failure and frequent capitulation in the face of the anti-Christian attacks of the Enlightenment.

This exposition of the history and nature of a tyrannical conception of authority in the Church explains many features of the crisis of sexual abuse. Psychological maturity is needed in order to successfully resist sexual temptation. By attacking this maturity, the inculcation of a servile understanding of authority makes chastity very difficult. The warped and inadequate personalities of those who are attracted to perverse sexual activity will not be identified in a system of training that is based on inculcating servile obedience. Such persons are often good at servility and dissimulation. They will thrive in a system based on servile obedience, while men of intelligence and character will struggle under it.

Superiors will not think of their own authority as bound up with the authority of the law, and they will not be inclined to respect and obey the law as such. They will have a strong incentive to conceal sexual abuse, because the authority of the clergy over the laity will rest on an infantilized conception of clerics as godlike father figures who can do no wrong. Such a conception is destroyed if serious wrongdoing by the clergy is made public. The laity who hold this conception will easily be persuaded or intimidated into silence about the cases of sexual abuse that they encounter. Both superiors and subordinates in a tyrannical system are taught to worship power and those who hold it, and to despise inferiors, the weak, and victims. As a result they will not tend to feel sympathy for victims of sexual abuse, especially children. Their sympathy will go to the abusers, who have been exercising tyrannical power in an extreme form. All the above  phenomena have been observed time and time again in the cases of sexual abuse that have come to light.

The infantilization produced by this understanding of authority contributed to sexual abuse in several ways. An infantilized person cannot exercise independent judgment and is not able to stand up for himself or others. Infants are not able to comprehend evil, and they are not able to admit or even understand that their father figures are evil. Those priests who took the tyrannical understanding of authority seriously, rather than conforming to it in order to realize their ambitions and enjoy the pleasures of tyranny, were thus psychologically unable to speak out against sexual abuse and take risks to correct it. The ambitious did not do so because there was no percentage in it for them.

As for the laity, the brutal truth is that much sexual abuse of children by priests occurred with the collusion of the parents of these children.  Without this collusion, the sexual abuse of children and adolescents by priests could never have taken on the dimensions that it did. Witness this statement by ‘James’, a boy repeatedly sexually abused by Cardinal McCarrick:

James said he had tried to tell his father that he was being abused when he was 15 or 16. But Father McCarrick was so beloved by his family, he said, and considered so holy, that the idea was unfathomable. … James says that as a boy, he had no safe place to discuss what was happening to him. “No place. No place. My father was just not going to hear it.” … “I tried a couple of times with my mother, but she would say ‘I think you’re mistaken.’ My father was born in 1918, my mother was born in 1920. They were raised in a way that the Catholic Church was everything. My father was a holy guy. He’d walk around with a rosary in his hand all day. My parents were very holy, and their parents were very holy. Their whole idea about life was that way.”^[1]

This erroneous conception of holiness was not the result of the stupidity of this man’s parents. It was what they had been taught by the clergy — following a tyrannical conception of authority. It meant that they were incapable of grasping that priests could be evil – and that they thought that this incapacity was virtuous and a religious duty.

The chaos that engulfed the Church in the 1960s and 1970s was probably due in large part to rebellion against the tyrannical exercise of authority that had been inflicted on clergy and religious prior to the 1960s. Like other revolutions recorded by bistory, however, this revolt against tyranny did not lead to the triumph of freedom. Instead, it produced a more far-reaching and thorough tyranny, by destroying the elements of the ancien régime that had placed limits on the power of superiors. It did away with the factors listed above that had counteracted the influence of a tyrannical conception of authority in the Counter Reformation Church.

The progressive faction that seized power in seminaries and religious orders had its own programme and ideology that demanded total adherence, and that justified the ruthless suppression of opposition. The tools of psychological control and oppression that had been learned by the progressives in their own formation were put to most effective use, and applied more sweepingly than they had ever been in the past — the difference between the two regimes being rather like the difference between the Okhrana and the Cheka.

Part of the progressive ideology was the falsity and harmfulness of traditional Catholic sexual teaching; the effect of this tenet on the sexual abuse crisis need not be laboured. But it would be a mistake to think that progressivism as such is responsible for this crisis, and that its defeat would solve the problem. The roots of the crisis go further back, and require a reform of attitudes to law and authority in every part of the Church.

^[1] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/uncle-ted-mccarrick-special-boy/

Labels: Jesuits, Sexual Abuse

By Adfero. at 10/27/2018 02:26:00 PM

Daniel Rodríguez Herrera

Original aquí

La lógica nos diría que la querencia por un mayor o menor grado de restricciones durante la pandemia y durante este final en que se llama cuarta, quinta, decimotercera ola a un martes cualquiera no debería depender demasiado de la ideología. Sí, es cierto, los más liberales siempre van a mirar con más sospecha cualquier tipo de medida que coarte derechos fundamentales, en los cuales incluiremos muchos que la izquierda desprecia como meramente económicos, pero poco más. Lo que debería ser normal es que confinamientos más duros sean recibidos con mayor agrado por quienes son más aprensivos, menos propensos al riesgo o tienen circunstancias objetivas que les hacen temer más a la enfermedad. Y eso es lo que ha pasado en general en la derecha, pero no en la izquierda.

Así, tras el fin del estado de alarma hemos podido comprobar cómo las imágenes de la vida en la calle, de la gente saliendo y pasándoselo bien al aire libre, donde menos riesgo de contagio hay por otro lado, de los botellones, en definitiva, se han encontrado con la condena unánime de la izquierda. La izquierda, sí, esa ideología política que se vende como si fuera la tolerancia misma, la diversidad, la compasión, la solidaridad, el buen rollo, el humor, el arte; en definitiva, todo lo bueno y nada de lo malo, el cielo en la tierra. En la práctica, sin embargo, a lo único a lo que parecen dedicarse ahora es a trazar líneas rojas por todas partes para poder niñiñear a todo aquel no ya que se las salte, sino que se atreva a arrimarse un poco a ellas.

Lo hacemos todo mal. Comemos mal, hay que evitar la carne y hacernos todos veganos, o como mucho comer insectos. Follamos mal, hay que prohibir el porno, la prostitución y el sexo sin amor. Cagamos mal, hay que usar poco papel higiénico y no hablemos de las toallitas, que son anatema. Viajamos mal, que vamos en avión a todas partes y eso es fatal para el cutis y el clima climático. Compramos mal, ¿qué es eso de tanto envase de plástico y de tanta ropa de temporada, es que nadie va a pensar en la ecología? No hay semana en que los medios de mucho progreso no nos revelen dos o tres cosas que hacemos rematadamente mal porque no estamos suficientemente concienciados ni nos tomamos la Agenda 2050 como el camino, la verdad y la vida.

El coronavirus está en retirada gracias a las vacunas, algo que sólo un idiota podría negar a estas alturas. Montar fiesta en la calle puede no ser lo más prudente del mundo, pero ya no es tan arriesgado, especialmente porque ahora sabemos que contagiarse al aire libre no es tan fácil. Deberíamos estar hablando de limitar a espacios cerrados la obligación de llevar mascarillas, no escandalizándonos porque en una ciudad de varios millones de habitantes cien o doscientos jóvenes se lo pasen bien en una plaza. No estamos en marzo del año pasado. Ya hemos visto que el fin del estado de alarma no ha llevado a repunte alguno. Lo racional es cambiar de mentalidad, relajarnos y dejar de comportarnos como la vieja del visillo. La policía del balcón tuvo su momento, y no es éste. A no ser, claro, que sea tu forma de pasar por la vida, y el coronavirus simplemente haya aportado a tus vicios una legitimidad de la que en tiempos normales carecen.

Look, Bruce, it is difficult for you to understand how a Catholic thinks about these topics, because you are a son of the Reformation, where the primacy of the individual conscience is paramount. The same way it is difficult for me to understand some posts of yours. But let me explain. I am positive that you will disagree with me but, since you asked, I will try to explain myself with the best English I can (not my native tongue).

For me, the closing of the churches during the pandemics was a scandal and a sin of huge proportions. Maybe the biggest sin of Church officials in the history of the Church. But it was only a bitter confirmation of something I already knew. Many bishops and priests of the Catholic Church are not Christian anymore. They belong to the progressive religion and express it with a Catholic language to fool the faithful.

My awareness of this was progressive but started intensifying during the pontificate of Francis. It was shocking to hear the Pope openly stating doctrines that were anti-Christian and anti-Catholic while behaving as the chaplain of the United Nations. Disagreeing with these anti-Catholic doctrines does not make us Protestant, because, as Catholics, we are faithful to the doctrines of the Catholic church not to what the Pope says on a plane.

After much reading, observation and reflection, I reached the conclusion that the Second Vatican Council was the triumph of liberalism (progressivism) in the Church (the French Revolution of the Church, as someone said). After this Council, the establishment had stopped being Christian and had adopted liberalism as its religion. All we see is a consequence of that.

So what surprised me of the closing of the churches was not the bishops implementing an anti-Catholic idea (the First Commandment of the Catholic Church says that you must go to Mass). It was the sheer openness, shamelessness and impudence of their actions. Everything was done in the open, with no protest or resistance to the orders of the civil authorities. It was a seamless implementation of these orders. They withdrew the spiritual nourishment of millions of people for months just like that. This filled me (and fills me) with anger. I told my sister: «If priests don’t believe what they preach, they can look for another job, the lazy bastards». I agree with you that this proves the convergence of the Catholic hierarchy with the world bureaucracy.

So what’s a (very bad) Catholic to do? This is what you will have problem to understand. If I was a son of the Reformation, this would prove that the Catholic church is not the true Church. Since other churches are also compromised, I will end up as an independent Christian or a theist.

But a Catholic does not reason like that. The legitimacy of the Catholic Church does not come from the good behavior of its officials, but because it was founded by Christ. I know that you won’t agree. Fair enough but you asked for a Catholic perspective. My wife, who comes from a Protestant family, told me once: «I would love to see you in a Protestant cult to see how you feel». I told her: «I am positive that I would feel well, better than in the Catholic Mass. In fact, my spirit is more Protestant than Catholic and I would be happier belonging to a Protestant church».

Why, then, am I Catholic in spite of having a Protestant spirit and in spite of the shamelessness of Church officials? Because I have studied the history of Christianity and no other denomination seems coherent to me. The arguments of the Protestant reformation seem untenable to me. I would be an atheist before being a Protestant, because I see it as a really incoherent position. The same with «independent Christianity». Orthodox and Oriental churches are more coherent in my humble opinion, but, when you see the history of their disagreement with the Catholic Church, I see that the position of those churches is untenable.

So, in my humble opinion, when you see the truth, you have to submit yourself to the truth, even if you don’t like it. (The modern world is the opposite: the truth is what it feels good to me so I would choose the Church that fits me the best.)

For me, this means that, if I reached the conclusion that the Catholic church is a false church (and this could happen), I would stop being Christian. For me, Christianity would be disproven because no other church seems coherent to me.

Once you are Catholic, you have tools to understand the chaos we are suffering. Multiple saints and Virgin apparitions prophesized that the Church would become corrupted, that the corruption would come from above, that Rome would become the See of the Antichrist, that most priests would be unfaithful, etc.

Once you are Catholic, you believe in the importance of the sacraments. And the sacrament is valid regardless of the moral character or personal beliefs of the priests administering it (this was the lesson of the donatist controversy, back in the fifth century). So I stay in the Catholic church because a) it is the true Church in my opinion so I am not entitled to leave b) It has the sacraments and these sacraments are still valid.

This has been longer than I thought but these are complicate issues and we live in complicated times. The intention of this comment is not to convince you, Bruce. I know this is impossible. We start from very different fundamental philosophical assumptions. I have read you for many years, I know how you think and I can anticipate your objections. But, since you asked, I wanted to explain myself so you could understand Catholics a bit more (while still disagreeing with us).

Quan va eixir la Internet, va ser celebrada com un mitjà que igualaria les diferents idees.

Abans perquè la teua idea arribara al públic, havies de convéncer a un periodista o a un editor de llibres que la publicara (Això se li diu «gatekeepers» en anglés i des de fa més d’un segle són els més progres).  Ara es creia que ara que cadascú podia enviar la seua idea al món i que guanyaria la idea millor

Ara que ja portem unes dècades, veiem que això no funciona així

D’una banda, la majoria de la gent segueix anant a les pàgines del mitjans de comunicació més importants i a les xarxes socials, on només es veuen les idees més populars.

Es més: en estes xarxes socials és extremadament fàcil «assenyalar virtut». Es produeix una carrera armamentística d’assenyalar virtut en què milions de persones intenten aparentar ser més virtuosos que els altres, produint-se el que es coneix com «holiness spirals» (espirals de santedat):.

– Jo sóc bo perquè recolze a les dones
– Jo sóc millor perquè recolze a les dones i als gais
– Jo sóc millor perquè recolze a les dones, als gais i als trans

Es per això que el desplaçament de la finestra d’Overton a l’esquerra s’ha accelerat els últims anys. La competició per assenyalar virtut fa que el món es desplace a l’esquerra ràpidament

Este és el primer efecte de la Internet en el món ideològic. El segon efecte és que la distància entre dreta i esquerra és cada vegada major.

Abans la gent només tenia unes poques teles per vore, que impartien el catecisme progre. Tot el món anava desplaçant-se lentament cap a la progrhez.

Ara els de dreta es posen en cercles d’internet de dreta i els d’esquerra en cercles d’internet d’esquerra. La gent reforça la seua ideologia (especialment en l’esquerra, com han demostrat estudis) i per tant les comunitats se separen.

El tercer efecte és que idees que apareixen en comunitats marginals (com la neoreacció), van filtrant-se a comunitats més àmplies, acaben sent agafades per alguns periodistes i arribant a la societat en general. Este és el cas del cònclave i la neoreacció

Es un procés lent, però és el més paregut al que es pensava que seria la Internet

En resum, els tres efectes de la Internet en la ideologia són.

• 1. Una acceleració de la societat cap a la progressia
• 2. Un distanciament ideològic entre dreta i esquerra
• 3. Idees heterodoxes que són veritat acaben filtrant-se cap a la societat majoritària

Ara ho podem saber, després d’algunes dècades

Hoy hubo una fiesta en la que fue nuestra casa,
y vinieron los amigos, y rodaron las copas, y empezaron los bailes,
y alguien puso la música que tanto te gustaba
y yo temí que sonara nuestra canción.

En una casa vacía llena de gente,
donde has dejado una una soledad inmensa,
hubo risas, hubo chistes, hubo alegría,
y yo pensé que iba a a sonar nuestra canción.

Y los amigos no me dejaron solo ni un momento,
y se aseguraron de que mi copa siempre estuviera llena,
y alguien escondió todas tus viejas fotos,
y alguien paró la música cuando iba a sonar nuestra canción.

Y poco a poco se fueron yendo los invitados,
y la casa quedó vacía, fría y oscura.
Había restos de comida por todas partes,
y yo me quedé solo, triste y pensando en ti.

Pero Dios fue bueno, y fue clemente, y fue misericordioso,
porque a pesar del dolor, y de la angustia, y del agobio,
a pesar del vacío inexpresable que dejaste cuando te fuiste,
no llegó a sonar nuestra canción.