I notice that since I returned from the beach, I’ve written two things – one about the absurdity of the Catholic view of human sexuality and one about the high jinks involved in our Iraqi misadventure. Both are about the processes involved in passing off "wrong" ideas as "right." In both cases, the ideas are both kinds of wrong – morally wrong and incorrect. Both cases highlight that "right" and "wrong" are relative terms, highly dependent on one’s subjective point of view. In ancient Greece, there were two viewpoints – Dogmatists [searching for absolute truth] and Skeptics [all "truth" is relative]. In modern life, these positions are occupied roughly by Conservatives and Liberals.
The distinction between the two kinds of right and wrong [moral and factual] is likewise anything but trivial. We seem to accept factual wrongness [to err is human] much more easily than its moral counterpart [sin]. But, to be fair, it is the rare person who readily admits being wrong in any way without some kind of self justification. We call such unusual people "humble." And it’s striking that humility is a very desirable quality in others, but rarely emulated personally.
In the case of the Catholic Church, I’ve always marveled at the peculiar relationship it has with humility. On the one hand, the church teaches that personal conclusions are suspect and that one should always defer to God’s rules. In fact, confession of wrongness on a regular basis is part of the religion – mainly moral wrongness. Yet the Gospel of Jesus is striking in its avoidance of rules. Jesus was a rebel, and the thing he seemed to be rebelling against was rules, the absolute rules as represented by the contemporary Jewish "Law." Whenever he was asked about absolute rules, he answered paradoxically. "What is the greatest Commandment?" was met with a couple not even in the original list of Ten. When asked about sin, he answered, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." And yet, the church founded in his name is noted for its absolute rules, throughout its history. It’s the Catholic Church that has given the word dogma a bad name. How did the Catholic Church become dogmatic in representing a founder who was the opposite? For that matter, how did the Catholic Church come to be one of the richest institutions on the planet, when its founder lived in poverty and turned over the tables of the money changers at the Temple? And how did the Church become the ultimate judge of right and wrong representing a man who said, "Judge not that ye be not judged"?
I expect that the answer is that the laws of the church were the organizers of civilization in former times. In a world of Kings and Emperors, the laws of religion are a lot less suspect that those of a despot looking to enlarge his kingdom or his treasury. And the strict sexual mores of the church are more "civilized" and "socialized" than lust run wild. But that should make the laws of the church superfluous in a post Magna Carta democratic world with adequate secular legal institutions. As we have recently experienced, however, our legal institutions are as vulnerable today as they were in the days of yore. The Bush Administration made mincemeat of our Constitution and our laws with seeming impunity. I suppose the old saying, "Laws were made to be broken," is more profound than whimsical.
But I’ve wandered from my topic. Why doesn’t the Catholic Church look at its traditional view of human sexuality squarely and change it? The idea of unlimited population growth is unsustainable. Celibacy in the clergy breeds sexual abuse of children. Homosexuality is a state of being, not a conscious choice. Birth control measures do not produce hedonism. What would be wrong with having been wrong? And it is patently obvious that our invasion of Iraq was a wrong idea based on wrong "motives" and wrong "facts." The ends don’t even justify the means in this case. What would be wrong with making public how really wrong it was? Why, in both cases, is a position that was held in a former time from some particular point of view that is proven wrong by history so strongly defended? Again, what’s wrong with having been wrong?
I expect the answer is simple – it feels bad. When I look back at my own wrongs – moral, medical, incorrect – I wince. As much as I’m a Skeptic, a Liberal, a person who believes that "to err is human," I still wince. It feels more like shame than guilt. Guilt is a bad feeling that you feel about something you’ve done. Shame is a bad feeling about what you are. At least that’s the usual explanation of those feelings. But as much as I know that my wrongs were wrong doing, not wrong being, I still wince. And I don’t think that I’m unique in that regard. Personal infallibility is hard to transcend.
President Bush was probably not a moral black hole like his compatriot Dick Cheney. Cheney was never wrong. End of story. By his own report, Bush was different:
President Bush ‘unprepared for war’ and regrets false Iraq intelligence
TIMESONLINE
by Tom Baldwin
December 2, 2008President Bush has acknowledged that he was “unprepared for war” when he arrived in the White House at the start of an administration that would largely be defined by terror attacks at home and military conflict abroad. In an interview broadcast last night Mr. Bush said that he had not campaigned for the presidency on the basis that he anticipated handling an attack, adding: “One of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.”
With less than two months left in office Mr Bush is spending much of his time contemplating his place in history, declaring that his “biggest regret” were the mistaken claims in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction. “I wish the intelligence had been different,” he said, before pointing out that he had not been alone in making allegations that turned out to be false. “A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein.”
“It wasn’t just people in my Administration. A lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence.” Asked whether he would have still ordered an invasion knowing that Saddam had no such weapons, the President declined to speculate, saying: “That is a do-over that I can’t do” …
What a thought-provoking piece, Mickey. Your beach vacation must have been been revitalizing.
I didn’t grow up Catholic, but my Southern Methodist environment was equally afraid of examining its tenets and rules. My parents actually feared my going off to college and beginning to question the religious teachings. “If you start to question, you are lost” was the mantra. They were right, in the sense of being lost to their narrow set of beliefs, although I found my own in a broader sense.
Maybe the Catholic Church has the same fear. When you sit atop a house of cards, you can’t afford to let a single card be disturbed or the whole thing will come crashing down.
I’m not saying religion has no value. I’m saying they’ve built the institution on the wrong foundations and therefore can’t trust any renovation.
“… they’ve built the institution on the wrong foundations and therefore can’t trust any renovation.”
That’s a clarifying point and an apt metaphor. My intuition is that the fear that the edifice will not stand is at the center of the problem. That leaves two choices: either renovate and hope for the best – risking the enterprise altogether by making it right – or continue to build on the faulty foundation. I think I’d opt for option one [as would you, Mr. Director].
But I actually think that is something of a false fear – worth the risk. People respect integrity, even in the jaded post-Bush climate. Humility really is the most desirable of qualities in others. It makes people comfortable when someone they respect says “I was wrong.” It makes us comfortable with our own foibles. There are dogmatists who believe in absolute truth who see it as weakness – Cheney and Cheney come to mind. But they are not the norm. As hard as it is to admit being personally wrong, it is more acceptable if others do it.
I think Catholics would welcome a more rational view of sexuality. And I think only the sickest of Hawks would argue with full exposure of our Iraq mistakes [and deceit].
But, I could be wrong about that…
Their fear that “the edifice will not stand” is a reasonable fear. The edifice isn’t going to stand, whether they admit to wrong-doing and change or continue to prop it up. The modern world has left them too far behind in their opulent cathedrals, with all the gold and jewels and the supposedly celibate men in dresses swinging incense burners and abusing the altar boys, and the pope in his $700 hand-made red slippers.
Those plain priests and nuns who are out in the ghettos working with poor people or counseling troubled families, or walking picket lines with labor and civil rights marchers — that’s the foundation they should be building on. The Catholic Church has some proud history in social justice that they should emphasize.
Oh, I forgot. We can’t say “social justice” anymore or Glenn Beck will call us Nazis and Commies — I can never understand how it can be both??