Thank you for hosting a wonderful, lovely, Eucharistic Congress, and for just generally being a fantastic Archdiocese. Since your humble Blog Goliard has not had the occasion to offer such praise in this space before, let that be said at the outset.

Now that it has been said, yours truly has a bone to pick with you.

One of the Archdiocese’s official Twitter updates today reads as follows:

We are relieved to learn a federal judge has temporarily blocked parts of GA’s HB87. Vote 4 comprehensive Immigration! http://t.co/GHA8BTs

This pushes several of your humble Blog Goliard’s buttons.

So it’s now official Catholic teaching that governments may not enforce immigration laws, and that violating those laws must not be investigated and prosecuted?

And it’s the official position of the Archdiocese that the principles of subsidiarity and democratic governance can be thrown out the window, so long as the unelected lawyers in Federal robes are voiding only those legitimately enacted laws of our state government that we personally dislike?

“Social justice” is not the exclusive property of the open-borders crowd, and is not synonymous with “what liberal Democrats believe” (however much it may have been made to appear otherwise over the past forty-plus years). Catholics may legitimately disagree on many political issues, even when the peace and justice crowd would very much prefer to pretend otherwise. Issues—for instance—such as whom we should allow to enter the United States, and what to do about those already illegally here.

Neither the legal nor the political aspects of this dispute are within the Archdiocese’s areas of competence or authority. The Archdiocese should stick to those things that are.

Even though he terminated one of my comments with extreme prejudice in his combox, your humble Blog Goliard is becoming a fan of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, aka “Fr. Z”.

Fr. Z now has a column in the Catholic Herald, the premier Catholic newspaper in the United Kingdom. There is a nifty feature available to bloggers, such as yours truly, who have digital subscriptions to the paper, whereby we can post clippings on our own blogs. Here is Fr. Z’s recent column on the new, corrected English response to “The Lord be with you”:

The Catholic Herald

18 March 2011

Page 16

Any of your humble Blog Goliard’s several readers who might have an interest in this fine publication will wish to know that there is a special offer being extended in the month of March. When using the promo code “CHPROMO”, a digital subscription to the Catholic Herald costs only £10 right now, for a whole year. (When paying by credit card and bypassing PayPal’s conversion service, this came out to just $15.94 for me, as Capital One is the least evil card provider by far when it comes to international transactions.) For more information, see Fr. Z’s link and instructions.

Fr. Robert Araujo and others on the “Mirror of Justice” blog have been calling attention to an academic program to be held this fall entitled “More Than A Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church”.

Your humble Blog Goliard would be most interested in attending such an event. Not out of agreement with the conveners’ worldview and goals, mind you; but rather for the opportunity to try, through the promised dialogue, to finally comprehend exactly how such dissidents propose to construct and properly ground an alternate ethics of sexuality. This is something which he quite honestly has never been able to come close to comprehending, even after perusing various representative writings of such thinkers.

While dissenting from certain orthodox teachings, these theologians do not consciously place themselves outside the Catholic community and Christian tradition. Yet what they are positing makes an implicit case that all major monotheistic religions have been consistently wrong about the morality of sexual acts since the beginning of time.

That’s a big ask, to put it mildly.

So what arguments are they able to deploy, exactly, that support the idea that after thousands of years, this band of enlightened 20th/21st century dissenters are the ones who have finally gotten it right? Your humble Blog Goliard has thus far only managed to find a lot of soft-pedaling of Sacred Scripture, the teachings of modern Popes, and everything in between. True engagement with any of these authorities is then evaded by privileging “contemporary experience”, the autonomous and unguided conscience, and the claims of social and human “science” over all of them.

It would be enlightening and encouraging to learn that there is something deeper and more solid underlying all this; that despite appearances, the dissenters are in fact grounded in something more than the typical Boomer-style narcissism, willful wish-fulfillment, and disdain for Dead White European/Semitic Males.

Clarification of just what is to replace traditional sexual morality would also be most welcome. If there is a coherent alternate sexual ethic being proposed by anyone, to guide us as to what intimate acts are licit and what are illicit, it has somehow entirely escaped your humble Blog Goliard’s attention.

Or is to state it that way to miss the point? Is it instead the dissenters’ position that sexual acts are, in and of themselves, morally neutral? Or that the moral question depends so utterly on the specific persons and situations involved, and on individuals’ subjective judgments and soveriegn consciences, that making clear distinctions and moral judgments is impossible?

Dissenting theologians do not seem inclined to do much more than leave hints as to how we are all to behave once the old oppressive sexual teachings have been finally routed. One can only hope that this is more the byproduct of mere thoughtlessness than of active evasion.

Finally, there is a direct (and, truth be told, rather impolite) question that your humble Blog Goliard would love to be able to ask such an assembly, full as it promises to be of religious persons who favor radical redefinition of the sacrament of Marriage:

Precisely how do they propose to define, for purposes of unions of two men or of two women, the act of consummation?

The question is posed not in a spirit of provocation or prurience, but rather in hopes that the answer—as well as the manner in which it would be delivered—would prove highly instructive for all concerned.

There’s been considerable discussion over in The Corner lately about the Latter Day Saints; and having grown up around them, and thought about and studied Mormonism to some degree, I can’t help but chime in here.

For me, Mormon history and beliefs raise many questions; but above all stands the following puzzle.

I am a Catholic. I became a Catholic because I came to believe that the Church’s doctrine, and its take on the historical story of Jesus, were the truest and most intellectually sound things in the world of religion. I still believe this.

On the other hand, my studies of things LDS have led me to believe, by contrast, that the Mormon scriptures and teachings and history range from merely derivative to flimsy to untenable to scandalous to flat-out unintentionally hilarious. (Please forgive me, Mormon friends—I know such criticism must sting, but I never could make it through more than a few pages of the Book of Mormon at a time without collapsing in laughter.)

But, presuming I am right…what has each of these belief systems wrought in America, over the past 30-50 years? Even discounting for grass-is-greener distortion, I’d have to say that the LDS is comprehensively kicking both Catholic and mainline Protestant butts when it comes to family life, to personal morality, to faithfulness and loyalty and unity within the church community, and to evangelism outside it.

So the puzzle that I am left with is this: After all these centuries of debate and conflict and even religious war, could it be that history and doctrine are really not all that important after all? Can a faith community not only survive, but thrive and bear impressive fruit, even when their history is embarrassing and their teachings a train wreck? (And—closely related to this—when their leadership and administration have long been dominated not by holy men and charismatics and theologians, but by businessmen and corporate types?)

I don’t know. Maybe I am still hostage to the outsider’s grass-is-greener perspective. Maybe the present successes of the LDS can’t possibly last—in that it is still based on real grave weaknesses, or that it is more specifically suited to a particular culture and age, than for all people for all time.

But if not…then what does that mean?

Drinking From Home calls our attention to the BBC’s questionable judgment in choosing which reader comment to highlight on a story about the B16 kerfuffle.

I had read that story, and noted the breakout quote from reader John Lin of Illinois, a day or two previously. Not delving deeply into the comments, I had simply presumed that Lin was representative of the usual suspects who can be expected to hang around the BBC website. Drinking From Home convinced me otherwise.

Which is a shame. More people should take to heart Lin’s brave and insightful words. Here is the sentence the BBC chose to highlight:

Pope Benedict probably should self-criticise Christianity’s violent past before commenting on the other faith

As this controversy has swirled, I have been waiting, waiting for someone to finally point this out. A house-cleaning at home is surely in order before we dare question the Other; the West has avoided criticism of its own past for far too long.

I mean, just try to find a university professor anywhere in Europe or America who is willing to say anything bad about the past of Christendom. They’re rare as hen’s teeth…though not as rare as apologies from the Holy See. Pope Benedict’s predecessor was, after all, famous for his refusal to examine the past of the Church and offer any sort of apology to anyone. Mr. Lin is quite right to call our attention to this failing.

It will be a difficult struggle, but perhaps one day Western civilization will stop blaming all its problems on others. Perhaps one day Westerners will show a willingness to open themselves to unflinchingly honest self-criticism—that same willingness that has allowed Islamic civilization to surpass all others in science, politics, popular culture, and so many other fields of human endeavor.