In response to yesterday's posting about the Cardinal Newman Society and Notre Dame's invitation of President Obama as its commencement speaker (here), a reader posted a response, asking what I meant by the term "thugs" and to whom I was applying it. I replied, and a dialogue ensued.That dialogue seems significant to me. Since blog comments are notoriously under-read, I'm lifting yesterday's comments to a posting. Here's the discussion:
John: Why call them 'thugs'? If it was some Soros-funded outfit trying to influence the culture, you'd laud them as 'activists' or 'community organizers'. But right-wingers are always 'operatives' and 'thugs', simply because you disagree with them?
Bill: Thanks for your reply and question, John.
The term "thug" is Joan Walsh's, in reference to Randall Terry.
And I completely agree with that term, as applied to Mr. Terry.
John: OK, glad to know you don't think the Newman Society is a bunch of thugs. The title of your post made me think you did. In any event, I would say that the more conservative bishops are 'allying' themselves with groups like Newman (accepting your notion that they are) for the purpose of rallying resources in order to respond to 'scandal'. What is more pastoral than wishing to protect your flock from the danger of moral confusion?
Bill: John, I do actually view the Cardinal Newman Society folks as thugs. It's not a word I use often. I've been blogging here for, well, quite a while, and if you do a search of the blog using its search engine, you'll see that I have never used the word until today.
But I do agree with Joan Walsh's use of it in this context, and I would extend that word to Cardinal Newman Society. I agree with the assessment of Bishop John G. Vlazny, when he wrote (as he ended his tenure as chair of the U.S. Bishops' committee on higher education), that Cardinal Newman Society often employs tactics that are "aggressive, inaccurate, or lacking in balance," as well as "objectionable in substance and in tone."
Both leaders of American Catholic higher education and bishops have noted that Cardinal Newman Society engages in bullying tactics. In my view, if our position on life issues is right, it will be compelling and morally persuasive and will not require coercion or hardball tactics that include fudging the truth and playing partisan politics. The fact that we keep resorting to those tactics undermines the message on life that we hope to present to the culture at large.
As for the bishops' concern to protect the flock from scandal, many of us are already scandalized, and by the bishops themselves. As a lay Catholic, if I were asked by the bishops how I'd like them to exercise pastoral leadership, I'd point them to the Catechism, which states, ''The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love'' [Catechism, para 25].''
"The love of our Lord must always be made accessible": the actions of Terry and Cardinal Newman Society, and of many bishops who ally themselves with those folks, do not make the love of the Lord accessible to many of us or to the culture at large, I believe. We will persuade others with our message when we live it--in love--rather than trying to beat others up and shout them down.
John: OK, fair enough. I like +Vlazny (my own shepherd, here in W Oregon) so that's persuasive testimony. If the Newman Society is being deceptive, shame on them. I support their mission, though, as long as it's conducted charitably. The letter-writing campaign and such is, in my opinion, a completely legitimate expression of dissent and concern.
Bill: John, Vlazny is a good bishop. I spent a semester in Oregon doing sabbatical research on the work of Martin Luther King, and was impressed with him (and with many members of the local Catholic community I met out there) during that period.
It's not the letter-writing campaign of the Cardinal Newman Society I object to. It's the bullying tactics and the shilling for one party--while the Society totally ignores the considerable moral shortcomings of the positions and leaders of that party, focusing exclusively on the party it opposes.
