Left-footer: I wouldn't go round handing out cards with 'left-footer' written on them, you may attract the wrong sort of audience! (I presume you're aware of the modern connotations 'left-footing' has amongst the gay community)
Oh come off it Laurence, anyone who accuses you of being theologically illiterate is something of an eejit.
At least you're not Iggy Pop crossed with Laura Ashley, a Mallory Towers Messalina, unlike some we could mention.
This is the downside of the internet. People liberally chuck hurtul insults about, designed to hit at one's weak spot. Isaiah 54: 17 is a good one for these situations.
When I was having a hard time, I found this really helpful, I still do to be honest.
Dear Dr Lyons, I write to express my dismay at the news that you have withdrawn an invitation to Professor Tina Beattie to speak in your University, on the grounds that she allegedly "dissents" from the Church's moral teaching. I have on more than one occasion found myself in friendly disagreement with Professor Beattie on theological matters, but she is a learned, reputable and devout Catholic in good standing with her own bishop, and I do not know by what process you have decided she is a "dissenter", though I note the usual wash of abusive and uncharitable gossip against her on the Catholic blogosphere. It is deeply dispiriting that the President of a Catholic University should characterise academic discussion and debate among Catholics as "dissent", and should seek to suppress academic exchange by black-balling an individual whom the Church has not condemned.
In 1872 Blessed John Henry Newman deplored similar attempts to silence discussion in the church of his own time: "In former times," he wrote, "it was by the collision of Catholic intellects with Catholic intellects that the meaning and limit of dogmatic decrees were determined," and he lamented that in the wake of Vatican I "there has been no intellectual scrutiny, no controversies" on the issues defined by the Council. In the same letter he criticised the "short-sightedness" of those who "have thought that the strictest Catholic university could by its rules and its teachings exclude" intellectual challenges to faith. As he wrote, "The cultivation of the intellect involves that danger, and where it is absolutely excluded, there is no cultivation."
I fear that by publicly withdrawing this invitation, the University of San Diego has brought academic ignominy on itself, and is colluding in the sovietisation of Catholic intellectual life which many feel is one of the saddest features of the contemporary Church. I very much hope you will think better of this decision.
Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Cambridge
You will have received many letters in the last week or so expressing concern and sadness at the decision that you have felt it necessary to take in cancelling the invitation to Professor Tina Beattie to hold a visiting fellowship and to speak at the University of San Diego.
Some of these will have acknowledged the very difficult position you have found yourself in, subject to strong forces and seeking to balance a range of responsibilities. Whilst operating in a significantly less charged and less polarised atmosphere than prevails in the US Catholic context, as Director of the only Centre for Catholic Studies in the UK university system and as the current President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, I want first also to acknowledge these very real difficulties. Catholic leadership can be an exposed and challenging vocation wherein prudence, courage and discernment are needed in equal and full measure.
With this I want also to share with you something of the context and habitus of committed Catholic scholarship and theological conversation in the United Kingdom, out of which Professor Beattie operates. My hope is that doing so will help you better to appreciate both Professor Beattie herself and the vital importance for the health of Church and world alike of our beloved Catholic community showing what it means to have a mature capacity for conversation that transcends the destructive and disordered polemic marring too much of contemporary social, political and religious culture. This must surely be central to any significant Catholic presence in the university world.
Professor Beattie, herself a devout and personally committed Catholic, is a respected member and former President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, of which I am the current serving president. The association exists "to promote the study of theology and in particular of the doctrines and tenets of the Roman Catholic faith" through appropriate conversation, exchange, mutual challenge, and scholarly analysis; always in pursuit of the further discerning and living of Catholic truth within the Church. Professor Beattie's former role and continuing standing within the association by no means suggests any formal endorsement of all the positions she personally explores, nor general membership's agreement with her on some of these points. Rather, it represents due recognition of her integrity, commitment, learning and distinction and, with that, recognition too that the way in which theology serves the Church and thereby the world is through robustly charitable conversation (cf. the classical role of disputatio), confident that the Spirit is leading the Church always into the total truth of God in Christ.
May the Lord guide us all as we seek to live this vitally challenging vocation in the university world and may our institutions show forth the health and wealth of Catholic conversation for the good of Church and world. Paul D. Murray, Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Centre for Catholic Studies President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain (2012-14)
Such utter nonsense from whoever is behind the Fr AS title - it has more than a hint of the green-eyed monster. Pride in worldly things too, and disdain for the purpose of theology, which is ultimately to serve the Church in its mission to save souls. Academic life igenerally is also in the service of the moral good, for the individual and the community.
'Anonymous' comments will not be displayed. Please use your name or a pseudonym. If you wish to comment then I ask that you maintain a measure of good will. If you are unable to do so, then please go elsewhere.
I'll read untrained and orthordox over trained and dissenting any day!
ReplyDeleteI like it! I think it could arouse people's curiosity to investigate further if you produced these for real.
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea, and one that has got me thinking.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...this could catch on.
Count yourself a fool for Christ. An honnourable calling.
ReplyDeleteHardly 'illiterate'.
ReplyDeleteLeft-footer: I wouldn't go round handing out cards with 'left-footer' written on them, you may attract the wrong sort of audience! (I presume you're aware of the modern connotations 'left-footing' has amongst the gay community)
ReplyDeleteYou're now self employed Laurence and if you were to set up a charitable status or such like, people would support you.
ReplyDeleteOh come off it Laurence, anyone who accuses you of being theologically illiterate is something of an eejit.
ReplyDeleteAt least you're not Iggy Pop crossed with Laura Ashley, a Mallory Towers Messalina, unlike some we could mention.
This is the downside of the internet. People liberally chuck hurtul insults about, designed to hit at one's weak spot. Isaiah 54: 17 is a good one for these situations.
When I was having a hard time, I found this really helpful, I still do to be honest.
http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/humility.htm
Dear Dr Lyons,
ReplyDeleteI write to express my dismay at the news that you have withdrawn an invitation to Professor Tina Beattie to speak in your University, on the grounds that she allegedly "dissents" from the Church's moral teaching. I have on more than one occasion found myself in friendly disagreement with Professor Beattie on theological matters, but she is a learned, reputable and devout Catholic in good standing with her own bishop, and I do not know by what process you have decided she is a "dissenter", though I note the usual wash of abusive and uncharitable gossip against her on the Catholic blogosphere. It is deeply dispiriting that the President of a Catholic University should characterise academic discussion and debate among Catholics as "dissent", and should seek to suppress academic exchange by black-balling an individual whom the Church has not condemned.
In 1872 Blessed John Henry Newman deplored similar attempts to silence discussion in the church of his own time: "In former times," he wrote, "it was by the collision of Catholic intellects with Catholic intellects that the meaning and limit of dogmatic decrees were determined," and he lamented that in the wake of Vatican I "there has been no intellectual scrutiny, no controversies" on the issues defined by the Council. In the same letter he criticised the "short-sightedness" of those who "have thought that the strictest Catholic university could by its rules and its teachings exclude" intellectual challenges to faith. As he wrote, "The cultivation of the intellect involves that danger, and where it is absolutely excluded, there is no cultivation."
I fear that by publicly withdrawing this invitation, the University of San Diego has brought academic ignominy on itself, and is colluding in the sovietisation of Catholic intellectual life which many feel is one of the saddest features of the contemporary Church. I very much hope you will think better of this decision.
Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity, University of Cambridge
Dear Dr Lyons,
ReplyDeleteYou will have received many letters in the last week or so expressing concern and sadness at the decision that you have felt it necessary to take in cancelling the invitation to Professor Tina Beattie to hold a visiting fellowship and to speak at the University of San Diego.
Some of these will have acknowledged the very difficult position you have found yourself in, subject to strong forces and seeking to balance a range of responsibilities. Whilst operating in a significantly less charged and less polarised atmosphere than prevails in the US Catholic context, as Director of the only Centre for Catholic Studies in the UK university system and as the current President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, I want first also to acknowledge these very real difficulties. Catholic leadership can be an exposed and challenging vocation wherein prudence, courage and discernment are needed in equal and full measure.
With this I want also to share with you something of the context and habitus of committed Catholic scholarship and theological conversation in the United Kingdom, out of which Professor Beattie operates. My hope is that doing so will help you better to appreciate both Professor Beattie herself and the vital importance for the health of Church and world alike of our beloved Catholic community showing what it means to have a mature capacity for conversation that transcends the destructive and disordered polemic marring too much of contemporary social, political and religious culture. This must surely be central to any significant Catholic presence in the university world.
Professor Beattie, herself a devout and personally committed Catholic, is a respected member and former President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, of which I am the current serving president. The association exists "to promote the study of theology and in particular of the doctrines and tenets of the Roman Catholic faith" through appropriate conversation, exchange, mutual challenge, and scholarly analysis; always in pursuit of the further discerning and living of Catholic truth within the Church. Professor Beattie's former role and continuing standing within the association by no means suggests any formal endorsement of all the positions she personally explores, nor general membership's agreement with her on some of these points. Rather, it represents due recognition of her integrity, commitment, learning and distinction and, with that, recognition too that the way in which theology serves the Church and thereby the world is through robustly charitable conversation (cf. the classical role of disputatio), confident that the Spirit is leading the Church always into the total truth of God in Christ.
May the Lord guide us all as we seek to live this vitally challenging vocation in the university world and may our institutions show forth the health and wealth of Catholic conversation for the good of Church and world.
Paul D. Murray, Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Centre for Catholic Studies President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain (2012-14)
And finally, my own and last comment regarding your ranting tirades....
ReplyDeleteA little knowledge can be a dangerous thing!
Is that your letter?
ReplyDeleteSo, Tina has more than one dissenting supporter?
ReplyDeleteIn your world, the qualifications and status of those writing appear to be incredibly important.
In the eyes of God, simplicity and love of the truth is more important even than status and career.
Do you really imagine that Our Lord is impressed by letters after someone's name?
Such utter nonsense from whoever is behind the Fr AS title - it has more than a hint of the green-eyed monster. Pride in worldly things too, and disdain for the purpose of theology, which is ultimately to serve the Church in its mission to save souls. Academic life igenerally is also in the service of the moral good, for the individual and the community.
ReplyDelete