Fr. Z's Blog

ORIGINAL: Published on: Feb 26, 2011

Dr. Ed Peters, canonist, may be able to add “indefatigable vivsectionist” to his CV if he keeps up this pace.

A few days ago, he exposed problems in a statement from the Diocese of Albany.

Yesterday, he diced a spaghetti flinger from the Fishwrap.

Today, he disemboweled a jackanapes from the Huffington Post.

One of my favorites remarks:

In any case, shuddering even to contemplate the punishment of Hell being visited on a fellow being, and knowing that Church law (my specialty) has no jurisdiction over such eventualities, I said nothing about Hell. Collins did. For reasons he chooses not to share.

Read the whole thing there.

UPDATE 27 FEB 23:27 GMT:

Dr. Peters, the learnéd, the tireless, has responded to the Jesuit darling of the liberal media Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, of Georgetown University.

Fr. Reese, defending Communion for Gov. Cuomo despite can. 915, has waded in with a personal attack on the person of Dr. Peters.

A good line from Dr. Peter’s:

Reese can hardly be ignorant of the differences between Canons 915 and 916, so I can only take his derisive comments that I must have “some kind of spiritual telescope to look into the soul of Gov. Andrew Cuomo” as a deliberate obfuscation of my position.

And so it continues for Dr. Peters.

UPDATE 1 MAR 04:54 GMT:

Mr. Winters of Fishwrap, reprising the role of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has … once again… responded to Dr. Peters.

[wp_youtube]zKhEw7nD9C4[/wp_youtube]

Dr. Peters has patiently responded… once again.

A snip:

If I may be permitted a personal illustration, I remember in college when my Jesuit spiritual director told me in our first session, “Well, Ed, you start by observing the Ten Commandments.” St. Paul spoke from a mystical appreciation of just Who stood behind the Ten Commandments when he warned the Corinthians—and us—against taking the Lord’s Body and Blood outwardly to our condemnation inwardly. Canons 915 and 916, I suggest, simply expresses these same points canonically–you know, f/b/o Catholics who don’t read the Bible but who keep a copy of the Code on their nightstand.

Dr. Peters laments that there is no moderator for this sort of discussion, or any judge to determine who won.

I hereby volunteer.

Another snip for your delectation:

I am not going to convince Winters of the persuasiveness of my position over his, because he believes that (take your pick): my interpretation of canon law represents horrible theology, I engage in sneering, I don’t quote Scripture in my canonical writing, I am given to plunging canonical daggers into straw men, I feel mighty self-satisfied with the 99 sheep instead of looking for the lost one (indeed I pose a threat to the returning sheep), I must see law as a purely penal instrument, I am more prone to condemning instead of using the medicine of mercy, and so on and so on and so on. Well, okay. I am none of these things. But so what?

Mostly, though, I sense the futility of debating Winters further because he still defends a fundamentally skewered understanding of the role of canon law in the Church.

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE!

UPDATE 3 March 1640 GMT:

Again, Dr. Peters.  This time, on his excellent blog, we find a reaction to a column by the distinguished Phil Lawler.  NB: This is not an adversarial exchange.

However, in the context of his most recent entry, Peter also educates a “young Franciscan” who, it seems, thinks that St. Francis would have given Communion to anyone no matter what that implied or what the Church’s law is.

I am right now thinking of some of the things the real Francis wrote and did in his life.  Francis wasn’t just bunnies and birdies and Sister Moon.