Peter Steinfels Quotes
If Catholic moral doctrines have changed, how can the church still claim to preach the same message Jesus and his disciples did?
Peter Steinfels#, Religious Columnist & Director, Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, “Dogma,” New York Times Book Review, May 22, 2005
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Olivi was a brilliant scholar who ran afoul of the religious authorities on several occasions. He was accused of being a heretic for his writings, but was exonerated after intensive trials and debates. In this quotation, he attributed the religious error of Jews and others, not to the anti-Christ, human venality, or even fault of character, but from a difference in human perspective. He was a pioneering original thinker, who while not well appreciated in his lifetime, had a significant cult following including several cardinals of The Church that arose after his death. However, other conservative forces then decided that he was a heretic after all. They burned his writings and destroyed his tomb. Today, there is a street in France named for him.
Saint Benedicta was born and brought up as a Jew and converted to Catholicism. She and a few other leading German Catholics spoke out forcefully against Nazi crimes and immoralities. She was one of the few German Catholics who wanted the Pope to act more forcefully in Germany. The most controversial aspect of the Pontificate of Pius XI was his relative silence and failure to use the powers of the church and excommunication to condemn and control the Nazi rise to power and their, aggression, discrimination, and atrocities including mass murders. The Pope did occasionally speak out condemning the worst of the German Nazi outrages to morality, but he did not do so very vigorously or order the German Cardinals and other bishops to do so. Supporters of Pius XI point out that the entire Catholic Church in Germany was in peril. The Nazis might have shut down their churches, jailed or murdered priests and seize church property. Many of the German Catholics, including the clergy, were Nazi party members or supporters, and he feared a political schism of German Catholics as well. And Italy, surrounding the Vatican was then under the control of the Italian Fascists who were allies of the Nazis, The Vatican itself and its staff were themselves vulnerable and could have been easily occupied. Apologists for Pius XI observe that the entire Church and its leadership could have been wiped out had they ignored the practicality that the Fascists were in control and would tolerate the Church just so far. Saint Teresa and other Catholics who were outspoken, along with the few Protestant Lutheran Clerics who opposed the Nazis, were indeed arrested and Saint Teresa was finally murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Even that did not galvanize Pope Pius XI to assertive anti Nazi action. The records of the Vatican for that period have not been opened for public study so it is not known for sure that the Pope even saw Saint Teresa’s letter or it was intercepted by the strong pro Nazi faction in the Vatican. That year, Pius signed a Concordat (agreement) with the Nazi Government which many in the Vatican naively believed would control and limit the worst of the Nazi actions. But by 1937, Pius condemned the “violations” of the Concordat and Nazi anti-Semitism as well (encyclical written in German, Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Anxiety). His critics observe that he went no further, even with the Catholic Nazi clerics and other Catholics. The Carmelite order tried to protect Saint Teresa who was then just a non and leading Catholic intellectual (she had a PhD in philosophy) by sending her to a Carmelite facility in Holland. But the Germans overran the Netherlands, arrested her and sent her to Auschwitz where she was martyred. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio. This quotation was reprinted in religious and secular organs of almost all religions as the message was universal and could apply also to non-Roman Catholic Churches and non-Christian religions. The Pope in this statement did not change church doctrine one bit. It urged a major change in tactics, context, emphasis and style. Extreme fundamentalists within the Roman Catholic church and without, however, saw the statement as a softening of the moral position of the church regarding these controversial areas. Most however welcomed his quotation as long overdue and a stylistic throwback to a different time where people were less educated and less informed by media.
This quotation is often used to illustrate the complete intellectual conformity that was (and for some still is) required of the Roman Catholic Church. Although this was a theological statement, it is sometimes functionally used as a definition of loyalty to a President or other political figure with respect to staff.
Peter F. Steinfels (born 1941) is an American journalist and educator best known for his writings on religious topics.
