ACTION ITEM POLL ALERT: Fishwrap’s Person of the Year – UPDATED

Why won’t NCR make “The Unborn” their ‘Person of the Year’?

UPDATE 21 Dec 20:19 GMT:

The Fishwrap’s webpage says at the top: “Update: Our poll was so popular our account with SurveyMonkey, which hosted our poll, topped off the number of votes. This seems to have affected the ability to view the results of the poll, for which NCR apologizes. We’ll look into it and see if there’s a way to restore the results of the vote. Thanks to all of you for casting your vote!”

Surely they are not monkeying with the survey.  Noooo…..

____

ORIGINAL POST Dec 19, 2012 

I have been with child to know whom the National catholic Reporter (aka Fishwrap) would select as their Person of the Year.

As you will remember, for the last two years they have supported the Magisterium of Nuns.  The first year, they picked Sr. Carol Keehan, head of the Catholic Health Association, who gave cover to catholic Democrats in Congress so that they could vote in favor of Obamacare and thus force tax-payers and Catholic institutions to pay for abortion, contraception, etc.  Last year they chose Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, who writes theology so weird that the USCCB got on her case.

As we come to the end of the year, I’ve been wondering how Fishwrap would pick between so many great candidates.

Wouldn’t you have loved to listen in on that staff meeting….?

“But Roy has been excommunicated.  He’s perfect!”

“But he’s a man! We owe it to the women this year. They have been through so much.  The women. Especially the n…”

“Sr. Joan was with the Council of Elders, she was with the Occupiers. She went to Tahrir Square! She…”

“Let’s pick President Obama like Time Magazine did!  He’s so… so… dreamy….”

“We need to make a statement.  We could…”

“Right!  A statement!  Let’s put someone like Bishop Finn on the list and then have a poll!  When that horrible Father Z points people to the poll on his blog and, and… like… by a long shot, Finn get’s more votes than, like, Sister Joan, we can trash him again as having the greatest negative influence on the, you know….”

“Great idea!  Could we put Z on the list too?”

“I’m uncomfortable in this room right now. Gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and questioning persons of all genders must be affirmed.  I need a voice! If it isn’t given to Margaret, who was condemned by the CDF, I’ll just… I’ll…”

“But the LCWR has really suffered from Roman patriarchal oppression!”

“Everyone in the LCWR agrees with us.”

“LCWR? We need a person! Unless… do we want to redefine personhood?!?”

“You have a point.  We don’t want to be species-ist, either.”

“My choice would be for Sister Simone.  That bus thing was groovy.  It reminded me of the Freedom Riders buses.  Those were the days. ‘I’dont feel no ways tiiiiired….'”

“Wasn’t she on Colbert’s show?”

In any event, Fishwrap has a poll.  Here is the screenshot.

Curious choices.  No?  Screenshot:

I am sure they would want you to vote only once.  Right?

It may be that this poll will make no difference at all.  They have already chosen their man, woman, other-gendered or other-specied person.

Whom will they select?

I can hardly wait!

And, just for fun and profit….

UPDATE 18:28 GMT:
Results so far

UPDATE 20 Dec 13:28 GMT

Curious results.  No?

It would seem that both The Tablet (aka The Pill) and The Fishwrap have a hard time with polls.

Remember what Fishwrap wrote:

NCR‘s editorial board has already selected our Person of the Year for 2012, though you have to wait until Dec. 26 to find out who was selected.

Until then, we open the floor to you! Below is the list of Person of the Year finalists who were discussed for the title. Who would you choose? The comments boards are, as ever, yours.

As Fr. Fox mentioned, this is a “magisterium of the editors”!

Down with editorial clericalism!

UPDATE 20 Dec 21:44:

This is getting funnier and funnier.

Can anyone figure out what might have happened?  Apart from the obvious, is there a benign interpretation?

UPDATE 21 Dec 23:29 GMT

Soooo…. what’s up?

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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70 Comments

  1. carl b says:

    Um. I am not familiar with the use of “with child” in this way. Does it mean impatiently awaiting? Like a mother past her due date in the hot summer months?

  2. The Masked Chicken says:

    Yes.

  3. teomatteo says:

    The Person of The Year? The ‘bus’.
    (keeping with the TimeMag ‘computer’ tradition, we cant be anti-object-istic)

  4. Father:

    You have that dialogue, and peculiar way of speaking, down cold. Really too well. It’s kind of suspicious…

  5. From the early votes, it Cardinal Dolan looks like the likely choice, but surely Bishop Finn, as the year’s most orthodox and faithful Catholic bishop, deserves some consideration.

  6. Frank H says:

    Indeed, Fr. Z, they HAVE already made their choice, per this combox comment by their on-line editor…

    “NCR’s Person of the Year is and always has been decided by our editorial board and will not be changing based on the poll. The poll was just a little something fun to see what others had to say!

    Pam Cohen
    Web editor”

    [We all really knew that, didn’t we.]

  7. So far Cardinal Dolan is winning. I’d like to see Bishop Finn win, even though they’ve already made up their minds.

  8. I meant to say …. the year’s most unfairly persecuted Catholic bishop.

    Unless they decide to honor Father Z, in gratitude for his having given the NCR so much publicity they’d not otherwise have gotten, since nobody else pays much attention to the Fishwrap anymore.

  9. fvhale says:

    I voted for Cardinal Tagle!

  10. Adam Welp says:

    The last two lines above the actual pole:

    NCR’s editorial board has already selected our Person of the Year for 2012, though you have to wait until Dec. 26 to find out who was selected.

    Until then, we open the floor to you! Below is the list of Person of the Year finalists who were discussed for the title. Who would you choose? The comments boards are, as ever, yours.”

  11. ml1948 says:

    Tough call between Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Finn, but in the end I went with my Archbishop and voted for Cardinal Dolan – who has a substantial plurality of over 40%.

  12. Philangelus says:

    It seems unfair that they, the elite of the National Catholic Register, [Reporter… Fishwrap] have already chosen a recipient of this great award and not let the People themselves have a voice. This poll is only lip service to democracy. It smacks of paternalism. ;-)

  13. AJS says:

    Henry,

    Surely out of that list Patriarch Mor Bechara Butros Rai would count as the “most persecuted” considering he is trying to prevent the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East?

    However maybe the Maronite Archbishop of Damascus, among others, who bravely remained in Syria as his nation is being devoured by radical Islam?

    Yes, bishops in the US have to deal with political oppression and intimidation but they aren’t cutting their heads off here – yet. Catholics in the United States haven’t had to live in fear of their lives yet so it isn’t surprising that they don’t really understand such things.

  14. kelleyb says:

    Father, did you say we could remove the cookies for surveymonkey.com and vote again, or did you say we mustn’t do such a thing?

    [I don’t recall writing that. But, you say… you just remove the cookies for suerveymonkey.com? Amazing the things you learn.]

  15. AJS: Point taken. I was thinking only of those on the NCR list.

  16. AJS: Now that I look at the list again, I can only plead ignorance.

  17. So the hierarchy (the editors) decide, but they graciously allow the laity (the readers) a meaningless exercise?

    Don’t they know a new church is a-borning? Empower the laity! Down with editorial clericalism! Voice to the people!

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  18. I actually went over to the NC(hahaha!)R site to post something like my latter comment, and others had beat me to it. Hilariously, two–count ’em, two!–staffmembers showed up to “moderate” the discussion, and clarify that, ahem, this is a news judgment (you mean, what’s true?), not a matter of popularity.

    Hahahahaha!

  19. Cathy says:

    If only their person of the year, every year, was Jesus Christ. Alas, they have moved beyond such a consideration!

  20. aragonjohn7 says:

    Yes:

  21. Tony from Oz says:

    Cardinal Dolan’s atrocious judgment in inviting Obama to the Alf Smith Dinner is paying dividends for him with the Fishwrap readership, it would seem.

    Why aren’t I surprised?!

  22. frjim4321 says:

    Is this about “most influential,” either for good or for bad, as is the case with other news magazines?

    None of those people are in the same league as Dolan with respect to influence on the US Church in 2012. I am hardly a fan, but he is clearly the most influential. I think many of our dignified, refined and well spoken prelates/churchmen of the past are spinning in their graves at his antics and “liturgy as sports banquet” standup routine. Gag me, but he is without a doubt the person of the year in the US Church.

    I purposely left out the non-US cardinals.

    Finn would be runner up for most damage done to the US Church in 2012, but he’s not as well known and he’ll be buried in KC. So really not all that influential.

    Same with Roy. Kind of a flash-in-the-pan, not really influential. I’m sympathetic to his cause, [You are, therefore, making a public statement in support of the ordination of women to the priesthood?] but really I think he hoisted himself on his own petards to very little benefit. Nobody won.

    Colbert is a brilliant man and very, very funny. I think he is probably more influential than Dolan but not really because he is Catholic. He is clearly much smarter and funnier than Dolan, but he does not really influence the US Church. So, I don’t see why he would be the NCR person of the year.

    Paul Ryan is pretty much done, you could stick a fork in him. There’s no way it will be Ryan.

  23. frjim4321 says ” I think many of our dignified, refined and well spoken prelates/churchmen of the past are spinning in their graves at his antics and “liturgy as sports banquet” standup routine.”…understatement of the week…Strangely I agree in part with frjim’s analysis….the end of the world must be on friday then…

  24. Bob B. says:

    Not the pope? Not Archbishop Chaput? Cardinal Dolan, really?
    Let’s see… Al Smith dinner, closure of more Catholic schools, the contnued existence of gay parishes in NYC, he didn’t have any idea about the passage of gay marriage law in the state until it passed, and there seems to be no discussions with or about the gay politicians of the city and state, as well as those who favor abortion, contraception, etc, as representatives of the people, but insist they are all “good” Catholics. The cardinal talks a good game and that’s about it – maybe that’s why he leads in fishwrap?

  25. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says:

    I think many of our dignified, refined and well spoken prelates/churchmen of the past are spinning in their graves at his antics and “liturgy as sports banquet” standup routine . . . Finn would be runner up for most damage done to the US Church in 2012, but he’s not as well known and he’ll be buried in KC. So really not all that influential.

    I wanted to vote for Tom Brady, but he wasn’t on the list, so I voted for Cardinal Dolan.

    IMHO, all high profile US bishops are in a difficult situation with their public face because they seem to feel obligated to present themselves as accessible, friendly, and funny. And it takes a while for an ordinary in New York to adjust to the fact that his every comment makes news. Cardinal O’Connnor himself mentioned the difficulty of such an adjustment.

    And not to defend Bishop Finn, but I know that he inherited a mess from his two predecessors in KC, Mo. I used to live in that diocese. The asst pastor at a parish where I often attended daily 5ish mass left the priesthood and died of AIDS a few years later. And that was only one incident. Bp Finn has done a lot to try to clean up the diocese.

  26. acardnal says:

    Fr. Z, the dialogue from inside the Fishwrap’s staff meeting was hilarious. Have you considered becoming a screenwriter? Perhaps you and William “Bill” Donohue from the Catholic League could team-up and write something to compete with The Daily Show.

  27. pmullane says:

    I long for the day when NCR makes the unborn child its ‘Person of the year’.

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  28. This farce gets funnier by the hour.

    As mentioned above, I posted a comment laughing at the N(hardly)CR’s clericalism.

    They took it down!

    HAHAHAHA!

  29. Northern Ox says:

    “The comments boards are, as ever, yours … except for you, and you … and you with the collar on. Can’t you find a nice sportcoat and a turtleneck?”

  30. chantgirl says:

    Hmmm. I hope the editors of the Fishwrap do not also serve as election officials.

  31. Laura98 says:

    I was going down the list… most names I’m familiar with, though not all, and I kept expecting to find the name of our Dear Leader – you know, President Obama. I mean, since he is Time’s Person of the Year, I expected he’d get a 2-fer! I’m shocked, shocked he’s not on that list as an “honorary” catholic or something. Especially, considering all his good works – saving us all from terrorism, helping all hurting and displaced after Hurricane Sandy, steering a drowning nation … Must’ve been an oversight… /end sarcasm/

  32. frjim4321 says:

    [You are, therefore, making a public statement in support of the ordination of women to the priesthood?

    I don’t speak publicly about items that are speculative in nature because I don’t think this is helpful to the faithful. [This isn’t a matter of speculation. First, it isn’t a matter of speculation what the Church teaches. Second, it isn’t a matter of speculation if you directly answer the question. We won’t then even need to speculate.] With regard to preaching and teaching there is so much important material central to catechesis that to bring up controversial topics is a waste of time and shunts energy away from other material. There is 95% of material that we can all agree up; ginning up controversy over the remaining 5% is an injustice so I don’t do it. Particularly because people will only remember the controversial material and forget about the 95% of material that is central. So what I might speculate on privately I do not bring up publicly because I think it is a disservice. For instance in our educational materials here we do not stray from basic Catholic teaching either to the left or to the right. Mainly, as I said, it is a waste of time and effort and undermines efforts to convey the core truths of the faith. [How long did it take to write that? o{];¬) ] I’m not known by parishioners, classmates or the diocesan structure as being overly polarized in my ministry. That said I don’t think very new and recent arguments that have been raised in the past ten years or so in this regard are very convincing from the standpoint of basic Christian anthropology, but that’s a matter of speculation and I firewall that from my teaching and preaching.

    The asst pastor at a parish where I often attended daily 5ish mass left the priesthood and died of AIDS a few years later. And that was only one incident. Bp Finn has done a lot to try to clean up the diocese.

    You’re kidding yourself if you think a retrogressive/traditional ecclesiology is going to change tragedies like this. I know of three such situation and two were quite trad.

    Strangely I agree in part with frjim’s analysis….the end of the world must be on friday then…

    Then I can go ahead with my plan to eat a pound of bacon for breakfast tomorrow!

  33. benedetta says:

    frjim4321 your responses here are only half baked! So your pick is Sr. Farley? And you would know all about the culture of the ncr fishwarp/fishwrap…

  34. Joe in Canada says:

    but … but …. What about Joe Biden? How can we start a write-in campaign? In the absence of a bloated Kennedy, he’s the obvious choice!

  35. Midwest St. Michael says:

    And on another thread fr. jim says he’s a “moderate”?

    Uh-huh. Right.

  36. chantgirl says:

    If I had to venture a guess, the Person of the Year would be the Latino Catholic voter.

    Fr.Jim- When we have Catholic priests voting for the most pro-abortion President ever (who also likes to persecute the Church), we are much more than 5% apart. That’s a chasm.

  37. Panterina says:

    About the zeroed results, the NCR posted this notice:
    Update: Our poll was so popular our account with SurveyMonkey, which hosted our poll, topped off the number of votes. This seems to have affected the ability to view the results of the poll, for which NCR apologizes. We’ll look into it and see if there’s a way to restore the results of the vote. Thanks to all of you for casting your vote!

    [LOL!]

  38. Fr_Marc says:

    Sure, they found a way not only to “restore” the results of the vote but also to “rearrange” them. Suddenly Sr. Simone Campbell has 47 percent of the votes…

  39. B16generation says:

    Get back on the poll, folks!
    Cardinal Dolan went from 41% down to 9% and Sr. Campbell and Roy Bourgeios shot to the top!

  40. The_Scott says:

    How unusual (and yet predictable). The poll now works. However, it claims that I voted for Sr. Simone Campbell – I certainly did not!

  41. pmullane says:

    Yep, I just voted for Paul Ryan, a wonderful man who would have been voted in in a drove in any sensible country, and somehow my vote was ‘transferred’ to Sr Simone, a women who I have never heard of. This poll is a crock and a sham, is it being run by ACORN?

  42. MichaelJ says:

    No doubt another unfortunate “technical glitch”, but I too just voted for Paul Ryan. I do not know if my vote was transferred to someone else, but when I viewed the results, I see

    Paul Ryan 0.0% 0

    How pathetic.

  43. Bea says:

    I would have picked
    “None of the above”
    but they didn’t have it.

    How about Fr. Z.? for his loyal following of the Magisterium in step with Tradition?

  44. wmeyer says:

    Looking at the poll, it seems pretty clear that the old votes were (sort of) lost. They are no longer available in the tabulation, but they are represented in the count. And apparently, the count of those who skipped is the count of lost results from before the limit was hit. What a mess!

  45. frjim4321 says:

    “frjim4321 your responses here are only half baked! So your pick is Sr. Farley? And you would know all about the culture of the ncr fishwarp/fishwrap…” . . . I didn’t even come close to saying that. Where did that come from?

    “Latino Catholic Voter.” . . . very savvy response and probably of greater influence in the long run than Dolan.

    “moderate” . . . I think it’s safe to say moderate with respect to first world western civilizations, but yeah in the US where more than half the population believes in a 10,000 year-old young earth and a vast number disagrees with NOAA, NASA and 95% of scientists regarding global warming I’m probably a good standard deviation to the left.

    Ryan … again, he’s over, and really of no influence.

  46. Tantum Ergo says:

    Since Fr. Z is a non-starter (having soiled his NCR mess kit), my vote is Michael Voris. I’ve long surmised that there’s some sort of interdimensional vortex thingy going on at the NCR anyway. According to documents recovered from NASA under the Freedom of Information Act, magisterium of nuns backwards, “snun fo muiretsigam” is actually Romulan for “conquer the earth from within.”

  47. eulogos says:

    It looks to me as if they zeroed out the poll, then hurriedly had their staff all vote, then ended the poll. They just are not honest enough to show the actual results of the poll. If they want only results they like, they ought to open polls only to their subscribers.

    Fr. Jim, I know a priest so much like you that you could be he if you had not already told us where your parish is. (as he is somewhere else) He also keeps the controversial and his private opinions out of his public teaching. In confession he responds according to the penitent’s conscience, not his own opinions. He says a reverent mass. More conservative Catholics in his parishes are usually happy to have him and would be surprised to know of some of his private opinions. So I know you are only unusual in the setting of this blog. But I think the person who questioned whether you are “moderate” was referring to issues of ecclesiology and doctrine, not to issues like global warming, which is not a matter of faith at all, or to young earth creationism which isn’t an issue among Catholics. Ultimately, the terms liberal, moderate and conservative don’t mean much with relation to doctrine and ecclesiology. The real question is how one understands the Church and its teaching authority. ( Underlying that is how one understands truth and the degree to which truth can be expressed in words. )

    Do you understand that to those here you frequently seem not to “think with the Church” ? How do you explain to yourself being a priest of the Church and yet having divergent opinions? I have some guesses about what you might say, but I thought I would ask you first.
    Susan Peterson

  48. This reminds me of the Monty Python Ypres sketch in which the colonel attempts to use various methods of deciding who will take “the other way out” but starts over each time the method chooses him. “Cardinal Dolan? Well, there’s obviously been a bit of a muddle…”

  49. marajoy says:

    Now THAT’S interesting… my vote to Dolan didn’t change his having gotten 9 votes in the last screen shot. {eyeroll}

  50. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says:

    There is 95% of material that we can all agree up; ginning up controversy over the remaining 5% is an injustice so I don’t do it. Particularly because people will only remember the controversial material and forget about the 95% of material that is central.

    Sorry, but I don’t think a question that concerns the nature of the priesthood is only 5%.

  51. frjim4321 says:

    The real question is how one understands the Church and its teaching authority. (Underlying that is how one understands truth and the degree to which truth can be expressed in words. )

    Exactly, Susan, it’s all about ecclesiology. I agree. And about how one understands truth. These are indeed correlative issues.

    I don’t see the magisterium as an institution that serves up teachings for thinking persons to consume in whole without any amount of critical judgment. I do see it as a process of applying a set of gospel values and priorities to the changing situations of history and culture. I most certainly do not see it as perfect but as a quite human process.

    Further with regard to truth I understand truth to be univocal; truth cannot contradict truth. Scientific truth is by definition in complete harmony with theological truth is in complete harmony with anthropological truth which should be in complete harmony with magisterial truth. When I don’t see all those gears meshing I get a bit squeamish.

    The “cafeteria Catholicism” canard doesn’t work for me because it only works if we’re happy with an understanding of persons as veal wedged in little pens spending their entire lives being force fed. I don’t see how an adequate Christian anthropology limits human persons to little more than uncritical consumers of magisterial pronouncements. That being said I do believe that there should be a presumption that the teaching authority is competent and thus worthy of deference, respect and genuine obedience.

    Sorry, but I don’t think a question that concerns the nature of the priesthood is only 5%.

    Only if the bulk of your understanding of the nature of the priesthood is predicated on the plumbing.

  52. JacobWall says:

    I just voted, and the results are IDENTICAL to those posted in Fr. Z’s last update (21:44) except the number of “skipped questions.” I assume one of two things:

    1. They’ve simply fixed the results as they now appear, and they will not change, regardless of how anyone actually votes.
    2. They’ve capped the results for their disliked candidates, and only results for their favorites show up.

    I might be remembering this wrong but apparently, in East Germany, voters were presented with 4 candidates (chosen by the Communist Party), all of whom could (and would) be elected; the voters had the option of “approving” or “disapproving” for each one. The final votes only gave an approval rating to the candidate, and did not necessarily affect whether they became part of the government or not – I guess it was just to say “candidate X was elected to the government with Y% of popular support.” Miraculously, all the candidates always received around 99% approval!

    For some reason – I’m not sure why – this poll reminded me of that.

  53. JacobWall says:

    Speaking of NCR’s take on voting, for some reason when I vote “up” a comment, it adds two points; perhaps they’re compensating for the fact that my vote on the survey counted for nothing? At least they’re trying to be nice, I guess. “You’re vote for the President doesn’t count since you voted for the wrong person, but to compensate we’ll give you two votes for the municipal committee for trash collection.” It really would be amusing if they ran a country – as long as I didn’t have to live in it.

  54. robtbrown says:

    frjim4321 says:

    Exactly, Susan, it’s all about ecclesiology. I agree. And about how one understands truth. These are indeed correlative issues.

    I don’t see the magisterium as an institution that serves up teachings for thinking persons to consume in whole without any amount of critical judgment. I do see it as a process of applying a set of gospel values and priorities to the changing situations of history and culture. I most certainly do not see it as perfect but as a quite human process.

    The magisterium–more specifically, the development of doctrine–is a human process protected by the infallibility of the Church. As as unrepentant Thomist, I think that acts of faith are intellectual acts of assent (rather than of obedience). The a priori act of assent, however, is that the Church has Divine Authority to teach.

    Can dogma be reformulated in language more appropriate for an era? The answer is yes, but with two important restrictions.

    a. Any new expression must not contradict the dogma, otherwise, it is obviously heresy.

    b. Any new expression must not be so ambiguous that it permits affirmation by those who actually oppose the dogma. Such an approach, which would permit a warmed over version of Semi Arianism, designed not to affirm the Truth but rather to include everyone in the club. (This very important principle is conveniently “forgotten” by Karl Rahner in his theology of the development of doctrine.”

    Further with regard to truth I understand truth to be univocal; truth cannot contradict truth.

    Although the principle of non contradiction is obviously true, I strongly disagree with your premise that truth is univocal. Saying truth is univocal is the path to saying it is equivocal. Such was the MO of Karl Rahner, the basis of whose thought is that being is univocal, after which follows a body of work based on another error–that other knowledge being equivocal.

    That’s why I have said over and over here that all theological knowledge is analogical.

    Scientific truth is by definition in complete harmony with theological truth is in complete harmony with anthropological truth which should be in complete harmony with magisterial truth. When I don’t see all those gears meshing I get a bit squeamish.

    As someone who has studied science formally (including psychology), I am very interested in the relation of scientific principles to Cosmology and Revelation.

    I recommend Maritain’s famous “The Degrees of Knowledge”.

    The “cafeteria Catholicism” canard doesn’t work for me because it only works if we’re happy with an understanding of persons as veal wedged in little pens spending their entire lives being force fed. I don’t see how an adequate Christian anthropology limits human persons to little more than uncritical consumers of magisterial pronouncements. That being said I do believe that there should be a presumption that the teaching authority is competent and thus worthy of deference, respect and genuine obedience.

    See my comments about re the act of faith as intellectual assent rather than obedience.

    Sorry, but I don’t think a question that concerns the nature of the priesthood is only 5%.

    Only if the bulk of your understanding of the nature of the priesthood is predicated on the plumbing.

    1. Are you saying you think the only difference between a man and woman is biological? In addition to being Cartesian dualism, such an opinion would support the criticism that priests don’t have any insight into the personality of women.

    2. The Church has never said that women cannot be priests–that would posit a deficiency in women. What has been said is that the Church does not have the power to ordain women to the priesthood.

  55. benedetta says:

    We all know what you won’t say frjim4321 it’s that your answer implied certain things…it was entertaining to read you plucking only certain candidates of your choosing and weighing in with your profound assessments…

    But, your rendering of the magisterium as “presumption of obedience”, wow I feel sorry for you, how sad. A great many people have found a dynamism in what robtbrown describes as intellectual assent.

    But, as to your presumption, then, when it comes to the fiswrap, the bitter pill, seminaries, universities, and even parish schools and high schools, homilies, according to your liberal not cafeteria portrayal, all of these would be teaching the magisterium to begin with. Except many are not, at all even. Not seeing the presumption of obedience there.

  56. The Masked Chicken says:

    “As someone who has studied science formally (including psychology), I am very interested in the relation of scientific principles to Cosmology and Revelation.”

    May I suggest Pierre Duhem?

    From, Encyclopedia Britannica, Mobile:

    PIERRE DUHEM

    (born June 10, 1861, Paris, Fr.—died Sept. 14, 1916, Cabrespine), French physicist, mathematician, and philosopher of science who emphasized a history of modern science based on evolutionary metaphysical concepts. He maintained that the role of theory in science is to systematize relationships rather than to interpret new phenomena.
    Duhem studied at the Collège Stanislas and École Normale Supérieure before teaching at Lille and Rennes. As professor of theoretical physics at the University of Bordeaux (1894), he was also known for work in thermodynamics and hydrodynamics. Among his voluminous writings are Études sur Léonard de Vinci (1906–13; “Studies on Leonardo da Vinci”) and La Théorie physique, son objet et sa structure (1906; “Physical Theory, Its Aim and Structure”). In 1913 he began publication of Le Système du monde; Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques, de Platon à Copernic (1913–17; “The World System; History of Cosmological Doctrines from Plato to Copernicus”), which eventually comprehended 10 volumes; but only five were completed by the time of his death.

    If you have heard of the Quine-Duhem Hypothesis in the philosophy of science, then this could be of interest.

    The Chicken

  57. Agellius says:

    As of now the Fishwrap results still show 100 people voting (even though I just voted). But “Skipped Question” has increased from 1718 to 2265.

  58. Agellius says:

    Actually the NCR webpage says at the top: “Update: Our poll was so popular our account with SurveyMonkey, which hosted our poll, topped off the number of votes. This seems to have affected the ability to view the results of the poll, for which NCR apologizes. We’ll look into it and see if there’s a way to restore the results of the vote. Thanks to all of you for casting your vote!”

  59. Pingback: ACTION ITEM! HELP THE NcR (FISHWRAP) WITH THEIR OWN POLL! | Fr. Z's Blog – What Does The Prayer Really Say?

  60. pjleinen says:

    I find the claim that SurveyMonkey on only allowing 100 votes VERY suspect since their other polls using Survey Monkey have allowed over 100 votes. It would appear that they have a paid account.

    Example: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/vote-what-was-your-top-religion-story-2011

    If only there was a REPORTER to look into this … hmmmmm. :-D

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  61. MichaelJ says:

    FWIW, I foud the below in SurveyMonkey’s help documentation. It seems that the” 100 response limit” applies only to Free surveys, but NcR had over 600 responses when they said it was capped out at 100. Very curious.

    What is considered a survey response?
    A survey response is considered a response to the survey, no matter the number of questions.

    If a respondent answers 1 or 100 questions in a survey, it is still considered ONE response.
    A partially completed survey also counts.

    BASIC (free) Plan:
    Once a collector reaches 100 responses, the system does continue collecting responses beyond the first 100. Upgrade to a paid plan in order to view all responses.

    SELECT Monthly Plan:
    The SELECT monthly plan includes 1000 free monthly responses.

    You can collect as many as you want.
    Any overages during a monthly billing cycle will accrue an overage charge.
    The 1000 count is a cumulative total for all active surveys during the monthly billing cycle.

    Take Advantage of no overage charges with a SELECT annual, GOLD, or PLATINUM Plan:
    Annual accounts allow unlimited responses at no additional charges. Simply click the [Upgrade] button to take advantage of this feature!

  62. AnAmericanMother says:

    Q: What’s the difference between the Fishwrap and the East Germans?
    A: The Ossis were more competent poll-fixers and better at lying about it.

    I would go over there and harass them, but they want my Email, and given their track record for cheating and lying, they’d probably sell it to the Nuns on the Bus or something.

  63. tstracey says:

    Pam Cohen @ Fishwrap: We did not reset the poll…SurveyMonkey did that for us, because with our basic package, we only are allowed 100 responses. It looks like the poll is now only showing the first 100 responses, and I think after those, all have been lost. I tried to find a way to get them back yesterday, but unfortunately, we’d have to pay to upgrade to get the full results.

    Me:Why would there only be a 100 vote cap for a nationally syndicated article? Derp Derp Derp. Also, no Pope Benedict? Really? : / I imagine you are all getting your extra traffic from Fr. Z’s blog. lol You should take some tips from him on how to run a poll.

  64. majuscule says:

    I would go over there and harass them, but they want my Email, and given their track record for cheating and lying, they’d probably sell it to the Nuns on the Bus or something.

    Use mailinator.com (I don’t think that would be lying?)

  65. robtbrown says:

    The Masked Chicken says:

    May I suggest Pierre Duhem?

    Sorry for the delay

    Maritain deals with Duhem in The Degrees of Knowledge. My interest in science is two fold: How scientific conclusions are related to Cosmology (the Philosophy of Nature) and the quality of scientific knowledge. Maritain spends more than a few pages on the influence of mathematics on science (mathematic-empirical science) and its relation to Cosmology

  66. The Masked Chicken says:

    “My interest in science is two fold: How scientific conclusions are related to Cosmology (the Philosophy of Nature) and the quality of scientific knowledge.”

    I will have to read, The Degrees of Knowledge. I found a nice summary article, online from vol. V the 1943 issue of, The Thomist (special Maritain issue), of some interesting ideas:

    http://www.thomasinternational.org/ralphmc/readings/Simon000.htm

    Duhem points out that:

    The very nature of mathematical abstraction renders mathematical thought indifferent to the reality of its object.

    This, of course, is correct and displayed by the so-called symmetry properties of mathematical laws (different physical properties, such as density and Boyle’s Law obey the same mathematics). Maritain would respond that the abstraction must have an original basis in a similar physical property and he is correct, also. They are talking about the same thing before and after the transformation to mathematics.

    Maritain did not live long enough to know about the Quine-Duhem Thesis, which demands a cosmology in which to embed an hypothesis.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis

    This does not directly impact Maritain’s arguments, but, if the Thesis is correct, it does show that considering sense data as an isolated res is not correct. The sensory argument of knowledge of Aristotle and Aquinas demands a multi-dimensional sensory space. This does not mean that the dimensions are orthogonal, however. By this, I mean that there is no simple, “knowing,” in a physical sense as senses are coupled. One can confuse the senses by say, presenting contradictory data either to the same sense or different senses. The Law of Non-contradiction can be gotten around by an interesting process of interpretation (used in humor), which I don’t have time to get into.

    I would love to get into this with you, since problem-solving is an interest of mine and how problems are solved depends on the knowledge that is admissible. This, depends on cosmology, in the broad sense.

    Alas, this is not the topic of this post :(

    The Chicken

  67. rinkevichjm says:

    And they chose Chief Justice Roberts, at least it wasn’t for his views on church teachings and theology, which probably shows how Catholic the the Fishwrap is.

  68. Imrahil says:

    The comments of Rev’d dear @Fr Jim on Cafeteria Catholicism were very interesting and I tend to agree (assuming of course that we were talking about fallible Magisterium… infallible Magisterium, for the Catholic, is simply to be accepted as true).

    However, I tend to think that most probably the 5% of controversy are 5% of controversy for the precise reason that they are the most interesting 5% of topics. It is always the ecumenist standard-argument that we agree on so much (which in fact has been said about heathens too, and perhaps also atheists). The interesting thing is that when we go a little bit into more detail, it is – besides the fact that truth allows no compromise – two things appear: first, we agree on very few things, if by agreement is meant an agreement altogether; second, even on a broader definition it is always the most dear, the most popular, the most everyday-relevant things that we disagree on. Besides, it is a dangerous untruth to say that Christianity is hard and not joyful; but about a Christianity stripped of so-called Catholic pecularities, I’d not be so sure it is an untruth.

    And certainly for all practical matters, the question of the priestly s*x is of highest immediate importance.

    Hence, btw, it is problematic to always argue along the line of “Jesus Christ did not allow for women priests”, which all-to-often implies an unsaid “even though I’d very much wish He did”, or even “that is a problem of the Worldwide Church which allows of no national exceptions”. We may not deviate from the all-male priesthood; but let’s remember that thus we also should presume that Christ wanted male priests for a reason, and that we may and perhaps should rejoice in the fact that we only have male priests. (Though perhaps we do not as yet know why that’s for rejoicing. Here’s work for the innovative theologian.(

    Heavily interesting, though, were dear @robtbrowns nice distinction that The Church has never said that women cannot be priests–that would posit a deficiency in women. What has been said is that the Church does not have the power to ordain women to the priesthood. I have been thinking so myself too… (however also supposing a genuine metaphysical less-aptitude, not deficiency, for the women to become priests as the reason for this.)

  69. Cathy says:

    @Father Jim, as I profess and vow as the whole of my faith that I believe all that the Holy Catholic Church proposes for my belief. I, as well as your parishioners deserve to be taught 100% of what the Holy Catholic Church teaches. I remember reading somewhere that satan is quite pleased when people accept 99% of Church teaching, if they only find 1% error to cling to. Regardless of your opinion on Church teaching, you, like myself, have an obligation to accept and believe it 100%. If your people find 5% of Church teaching objectionable, it would seem that you need to ramp up your own faith in the 5% and learn effectively to defend the teaching. To avoid this may not endanger your priesthood, but could, effectively endanger both your own and your parishioners identity as Catholics.

  70. robtbrown says:

    Imrahil says,

    Heavily interesting, though, were dear @robtbrowns nice distinction that The Church has never said that women cannot be priests–that would posit a deficiency in women. What has been said is that the Church does not have the power to ordain women to the priesthood. I have been thinking so myself too… (however also supposing a genuine metaphysical less-aptitude, not deficiency, for the women to become priests as the reason for this.)

    There are arguments that women lack a certain aptitude, but those arguments are ex convenientia. Likewise, bread and wine are appropriate as Eucharistic matter, but it cannot be said that other food and drink are in some way metaphysically deficient. In the case of Holy Orders and the Eucharist, Christ Himself specified the matter.

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