Truth and Charity in Discourse

"Christian discourse"?  What a strange comment.   As if Catholics were big participants in public affairs and their speech and thoughts needed to be tempered and controlled.  Why most other groups urge their members to boldly paticipate and speak up on public affairs.  Catholics are being told to be very careful; and inhibited in their speech.  Speech is dangerous you might say something in the heat of debate that is not quite tfue or complete.  How awful.   Better to ramin auite and "mind your business".  It not your place to speak up, you might risk saying something incorrect.   

Ironically this perfectionistic standard is what a southern sheriff in the 1960s sued civil rights groups for insisting that speech crticizing him be exactly and perfectly true.  Initially the sheriff won liable suits against people who criticized the Sheriff's handling of his job.   However on appeal the U.S. Supreme  Court in a milestone free speech case, NY Times vs Sullivan of 1964, corrected this obsession with perfection by allowing speech not intentionally in reckless disregard to the truth or intentionally and  materially false and malicious, very high standard of proof that are extremely difficult to prove.   The Supreme Court did not want rigid standards that would have a "chilling effect" of preventing free speech criticism of public officials or public figures.    

Catholics should not be inhibited by a need to be perfect in speaking up on public affairs. 

Tim, I agree with you; however, my point was simply that certain bloggers have a tendency to post inflammatory rhetoric (considering that this is a Catholic magazine) and then condem the commenters for a percieved "lack of charity" when they do not like the response.

Perhaps a minority of these posts are uncharitable to Catholic thought/tradition, and it is the commenters who are being charitable in their retorts?

That said, I do enjoy much of the other posts on the blog/magazine and understand your position - but I guess that is the joys of being a web editor ;)

Dose this mean we will not see any ad hominems by the authors here?  No snide remarks about Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or whatever cleric or politician is out of favor with certain groups now?  No references to ''right wing'' anything?  No calling someone a whacko?


That would be a plus and maybe a chance to discuss and hear opinions that do not resonate with the choir in this particular church.

Right, being critical of the America blog authors and holding them to account for the agenda that they are pushing (while claiming neutrality) is not being uncharitable as such.

Perhaps neutrality if the wrong word, but I am speaking of the passive aggressive stance that many of your bloggers take in attacking Catholic teaching - esp. by Mr. O'Loughlin and Fr. Martin.

These contributors regularly post pro-homosexual material and then claim that critical responses (usually heated but respectful) to this view are "uncharitable".  This is dishonest and it is simply a way for liberal Catholics to try to silence opposition by calling them, more or less, "un-Christian."

A similar move is used in the secular world (with out the reference to theological virtues, of course) - any opponent of same-sex marriage is called "homophobic" - i.e. they have a phobia - an irrational fear that should be treated by a professional and therefore their opposition is null and void.  This is despite the fact there are many legitimate rational secular and religious reasons to oppose such social changes.

It is a demonization of the opposition while claiming the high ground  and normalcy for your particular view (or neutrality...)

Since Cardinal Wuerl has a blog, one obvious explanation is he reads the comments (or has them summarized for him) from his blog.  And having read the comments on Archbishop Dolan's blog out of NY, I am sure the good cardinal has been excoriated, misinterpreted and otherwise vilified by both his enemies and his erstwhile friends. 

see Nicholas Lasch's article here and the idea of "dissent" which permeates the division and damage in many posts.

America tolerates far more dissenting comments than, say, Fr. Z.

I think how something is said is considered more significant than what is said.  I know all my comments regarding the death penalty were accepted even though the editors obviously did not share my perspective.  Some people, though, take personal offense when their opinion is at odds with that of the editors.

PS - I do not want to give the impression that I am questioning the loyality or service to the Church of someone like Fr. Martin - because it is unquestionable; however, I think I can question his judgement on some of these issues and be well within the limits of charity.

The way Tim and Bruce dialogued is a good example of how to disagree agreeably. If we are honest both sides can get out of hand. Usually the heat rises when others ridicule one's point of view. We are living in a new age where the authority of the magisterium is not enough to settle issues even of faith and morals. Nor does that mean that the Vatican can not be a very constructive mechanism for bringing all Christians together. We have to realize that the Reformation and Counter Reformation are over and that Christians are reaching out to each other beyond dogmatic lines and seeing that the Beatitudes trumps everything. So the heat will continue at different highs and lows. If we are peacemakers we will get through it.