Church No Longer Has Authority

Body and Soul pointed out that the boss of Carrie Gress (one of the people interviewed by Hagerty), is George Weigel, who recently argued that people should ignore the Vatican... when it comes to war. This brought to mind a similar piece by Hagerty, in which she was discussing the declining authority of the Church. In that, she interviewed the editor of First Things:

HAGERTY: And, of course, the '60s challenged every form of authority, from the police and the presidency to pastor and the pontiff. The changes were particularly pronounced in the Catholic Church, as that decade brought a dramatic shift in the relationship between the hierarchy of the church and the people in the pews.

Unidentified Man: Amid all of the conflict, the holy man in Rome carried on his peaceful pursuits. He opens the second session of the Ecumenical Council in Rome.

(Soundbite of religious chanting)

HAGERTY: The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960's gave the laity a greater role as the public face of the church. Then, in the 1968 Encyclical on the Regulation of Birth, or Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI instructed Catholics not to use artificial birth control. According to Father Richard McBrien, a church historian at Notre Dame, Humanae Vitae drove a wedge between lay Catholics and the church hierarchy.

Father RICHARD McBRIEN (Notre Dame): Humanae Vitae made Catholics realize, perhaps for the first time in modern times, that whenever the pope speaks, he may not always be right. He may not always know what he's talking about.

HAGERTY: American bishops continued to weigh in on topics such as nuclear deterrence, economic policy and welfare reform, and until the past decade or so, these pronouncements usually made a big splash in the news media. But Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of the Catholic magazine First Things, says those statements only serve to undercut the Catholic Church's credibility with the faithful.

Mr. RICHARD JOHN NEWHOUSE [sic - it's Neuhaus] (Editor-in-Chief, First Things): An awful lot of people said, 'Hey, you know, what do these bishops really know about American nuclear policy? What do they really know about marginal tax rates?' And by speaking too often when it was not necessary to speak, the bishops undermined their credibility when they speak on questions that require their speaking..

Neehaus, of course, in addition to being the editor of First Things is also a director at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, at which both Gress and Weigel work.

So, one short year ago it apparently wasn't important to be a "good Catholic" or an "orthodox" Catholic. Ignoring the will of the church was a good and correct thing. Now, apparently, ignoring the will of a few in the Church is a bad bad bad thing. And, according to Hagerty, it isn't just important to Catholic voters - it's important to all voters. Where Hagerty gets this piece of information? She pulls it right out of her ass.

How did Hagerty conclude that report?

HAGERTY: Whether these kinds of messages will influence the public's thinking about a possible war with Iraq, much less the president's thinking, is anyone's guess. No doubt churches will still try to give moral guidance to the nation. They'll just have a lot more competition. Barbara Bradley-Hagerty, NPR News, Washington.

You see, then Hagerty did inform us that Bush was defying the wishes of his own Church. But, again, that was a good and normal thing. Unlike now. You see, then it apparently wasn't important to voters that Bush was a good Methodist, or other legislators were good Catholics.

grrrrrrr