Thank you for this thoughtful, yet painful essay. I have followed your twitter thread and was dismayed that you were signing off, but this is a much more suitable platform for the sustained development of ideas that you presented here.
Prior to the Nov 2020 election, I took advantage of numerous streamed panels and presentations, including ones from your center that re-introduced me to the ideas of conscience formation that I had learned in college (ca 1975). I re-read pertinent VII Council documents, and writings of JPII and BXVI and John Henry Newman to take seriously my responsibility to form my conscience. Yet, I was attacked by people who believed that one's conscience was only formed rightly if you were in total agreement with magisterial teaching, and they laser-focused in one aspect of it. I was constantly challenged by one deacon who saw me as scandalizing people because of my decisions. I wish that I had had something like this essay to give them. I will encourage him to subscribe to your substack account.
Your extensions to the conditions post-election are important additions to my thought process for future decisions. Please keep up the work that you are doing.
The statement "the goal of the consistent ethic—is a particular sort of public witness of Catholic faith. The point is that our consistency should seem like it is something different and attractive about Catholics. Our perspective is bigger than both political parties. " If we come to understand this, we begin to understand the difference between what Jesus taught as a way of life versus an institution woven within an empire. We begin to understand the meaning of Do Justice, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly.
Thank you for this thoughtful, yet painful essay. I have followed your twitter thread and was dismayed that you were signing off, but this is a much more suitable platform for the sustained development of ideas that you presented here.
Prior to the Nov 2020 election, I took advantage of numerous streamed panels and presentations, including ones from your center that re-introduced me to the ideas of conscience formation that I had learned in college (ca 1975). I re-read pertinent VII Council documents, and writings of JPII and BXVI and John Henry Newman to take seriously my responsibility to form my conscience. Yet, I was attacked by people who believed that one's conscience was only formed rightly if you were in total agreement with magisterial teaching, and they laser-focused in one aspect of it. I was constantly challenged by one deacon who saw me as scandalizing people because of my decisions. I wish that I had had something like this essay to give them. I will encourage him to subscribe to your substack account.
Your extensions to the conditions post-election are important additions to my thought process for future decisions. Please keep up the work that you are doing.
The statement "the goal of the consistent ethic—is a particular sort of public witness of Catholic faith. The point is that our consistency should seem like it is something different and attractive about Catholics. Our perspective is bigger than both political parties. " If we come to understand this, we begin to understand the difference between what Jesus taught as a way of life versus an institution woven within an empire. We begin to understand the meaning of Do Justice, Love Mercy and Walk Humbly.