{"id":2394,"date":"2007-03-23T09:23:39","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T09:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/nope.html"},"modified":"2007-03-23T09:23:39","modified_gmt":"2007-03-23T09:23:39","slug":"nope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/nope.html","title":{"rendered":"Nope"},"content":{"rendered":"

A statement from the USCCB:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

The document Statement Concerning Two Pamphlets Published by Professor Daniel Maguire<\/em> was developed by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  It was approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2007 meeting as a statement of the Committee and has been authorized for publication by the undersigned. <\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

On June 19, 2006, Professor Daniel Maguire of Marquette University sent two pamphlets to all of the Catholic Bishops in the United States, one entitled The Moderate Roman Catholic Position on Contraception and Abortion <\/em>and the other A Catholic Defense of Same-Sex Marriage.<\/em>  These pamphlets do not present Catholic teaching.  His views about contraception, abortion, same sex "marriage", as well as the very nature of Church teaching and its authoritative character, cross the legitimate lines of theological reflection and simply enter into the area of false teaching.  Such mistaken views should not be confused with the faith and moral teaching of the Catholic Church.  Since it is apparent that considerable efforts have been made to give these views the widest possible distribution as if they were a valid alternative to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops considers it important to offer a public correction of the erroneous views proposed in these pamphlets.  At the same time, the Committee on Doctrine calls attention to the Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/em> where correct and authentic teaching can be found.  This readily available source of the faith and moral teaching of the Catholic Church clearly demonstrates the mistaken character of the positions found in the two pamphlets and their unreliability as a guide for Catholics seeking to know and live their Catholic faith. <\/p>\n

Church Teaching<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The fundamental error in these pamphlets concerns the nature of Church teaching.  In the first pamphlet Professor Maguire argues that there is "no one position on contraception and abortion" that can be called "Catholic," and thus that there is no authentic Church teaching that is binding on all the members of the Catholic Church.[1]<\/a>  He argues that there is the "extremely conservative view," held by conservative theologians and by the Pope and the bishops, a position that opposes contraception and abortion, as well as the "moderate and sensible view," held by other theologians, which endorses contraception and abortion, at least under certain circumstances.[2]<\/a>   He concludes that "the Roman Catholic position on abortion is pluralistic.  It has a strong ‘pro-choice’ tradition and a conservative anti-choice tradition.  Neither is official, and neither is more Catholic than the other."[3]<\/a> <\/p>\n

In the second pamphlet Professor Maguire argues that there is no one position that can be called "Catholic" concerning the morality of homosexual acts and same-sex "marriages."  "In Catholicism" he writes, "there are three sources of truth, (or three ‘magisteria’): the hierarchy<\/em>, the theologians<\/em>, and the wisdom and experience of the laity<\/em> (called in Latin sensus fidelium<\/em>)."[4]<\/a>  Because there is, according to Professor Maguire, no consensus at this time among these "three sources of truth," he concludes that "Catholic teaching is in transition on this subject and Catholics are free to let their consciences decide either for or against same sex marriages.  Both views \u2014 for or against homosexual marriage \u2014 are at home in the Catholic world and neither one of them can be called more orthodox or more official or more Catholic than the other."[5]<\/a> <\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

The Archbishop of Milwaukee, exercising his pastoral responsibilities as teacher and shepherd, has made public statements affirming that the views expressed by Professor Maguire in his two pamphlets are erroneous and incompatible with the Church’s teaching.[24]<\/a>  We the Committee on Doctrine of the USCCB concur that, despite his claims to authority as a Catholic theologian, the views of Professor Maguire on contraception, abortion, and same-sex "marriage" are not those of the Catholic Church and indeed are contrary to the Church’s faith.  We deplore as irresponsible his public advocacy of his views as authentic Catholic teaching.  Lastly, we trust that this statement will clarify the Church’s faith and teaching for all of the Catholic faithful throughout the United States.        <\/p>\n

Most Rev. William E. Lori, Chairman
Most Rev. Leonard P. Blair
Most Rev. Edward W. Clark
Most Rev. Jos\u00e9 H. Gomez
Most Rev. Robert J. McManus
Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli
Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron
Most Reverend Donald W. Wuerl
His Eminence Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, Consultant
His Eminence Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Consultant<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Via Diogenes<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A statement from the USCCB: The document Statement Concerning Two Pamphlets Published by Professor Daniel Maguire was developed by the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).  It was approved by the Administrative Committee of the USCCB at its March 2007 meeting as a statement of the Committee and has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nNope - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/03\/nope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nope - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}