Sunday, March 10, 2019

Miller v. Dolan, Round 3!

Wherein Monica M. Miller leaps from the turnbuckle to flatten Ed Peters and his pal, Cdl. Timothy Dolan.

You can read the entire thing here, but this is the section which resonated with me:

...Cardinal Dolan acted as if Canon 1398 didn’t exist. Peters defends the cardinal by noting that the 1917 Code, Canon 2350, mentions women specifically: “Procurers of abortion, the mother not excepted, incur, upon the effect being secured, automatic excommunication reserved to the Ordinary.” However, since the specific mention of the female sex is omitted from the 1983 Code, according to Peters, this means that Dolan’s statement “‘We don’t do that anymore’ is correct or, at the very least, is quite ‘reasonably asserted.’” Peters holds that my “condemnation of Dolan’s phrasing as being an ‘egregious error’ and ‘completely false’ totters.”
On the contrary, despite the omission of “matre non excepta,the standard interpretation of the 1983 Code’s Canon 1398 does include women, as well as those who aid in the procurement of the abortion and the person who performs the abortion. John P. Beal, a leading canonist and co-editor of the New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, explains in The New Catholic Encyclopedia: “The current Codes omit the 1917 Code’s explicit reference to the mother as one who incurs the censure for abortion. The explicit mention of the mother in the 1917 Code was intended to resolve a controversy among pre-Code authors. Since the 1917 Code definitively resolved this dispute, mention of the mother in the revised Code was seen as superfluous.”...
When I read Peters' argument contra Monica, that omission of 'mother' also struck me as key to Miller's argument--that is, the omission could not possibly mean that the procuring mother was exempt from excomm.  Now and then it is good to be correct.

Cdl. Dolan is a nice fellow and well-meaning, but frankly, his pastoral-ism remains stuck in the 50-year period ending A.D. 2000.   The Church and the West are both in moral and teleological crisis resulting from the "We're really nice guys, love, love, love, sparkles and unicorns!!!" theory of pastoral practice.  A few mentions of sin and Hell are called for.

It's Lent!  Good time to start, Eminence!!

1 comment:

Praypraypray said...

“Cdl. Dolan is a nice fellow and well-meaning”!?! I think I get where you’re going with the “nice guys”...”theory of pastoral practice.” However, I cannot, in good conscience, say that the guy is even “well meaning”... what with his scandalous chumming it up with anti-Catholic politicians at political dinners and other locations, his unapologetic support by his presence in a place of honor at the pro-sodomite Irish parade, his support of a scantily dressed freak show at the Met which was a disgusting, mockery of the Catholic Church, and his blatant cheering on of an athlete who “came out of the closet”, etc., etc., etc. I believe he will have a great deal to account for when he is judged by God, unless he changes and repents prior to his judgement day. He needs to repent and pray for humility. As a pro-life Catholic, I am very disappointed by his words and actions or lack there of when most needed. I truly believe that he needs a great deal of prayers.