The Economist has an obituary on the late cardinal:
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11288470
I didn't know this person was most of a stickler for orthodoxy than then Ratzinger! (at least, that's my impression from the article)
Readers may want to comment and refute some of the anti-catholic comments people have left on the article.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
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2 comments:
Which comments would you characterize as "anti-Catholic," if I may ask?
boswellj wrote:
May 05, 2008 15:13
Look, it should be obvious to everyone that Catholics are entirely right to claim anything they like about the truth and feasibility of practices dictated by their Church. That is entirely their choice.
The problem arises when they (or indeed anyone) dictates how others should think and behave--on matters that bear immediate relevance to one's personal and public life. Does anyone really think it is fair for Person A to dictate to Person B the right way to happiness? What does it mean for Person A to claim to speak for "God's plan" for Person B? Fortunately, in Western liberal democracies, Person A has no legal right to make decisions on Person B's behalf--all they can do is plead and argue. And that's fine--as long as the discourse stays at the verbal rather than legislative level.
Now on the issue of abortion--since the foetus hasn't the ability to decide its own fate, it's obviously impossible for (a) Catholics to let go of their moral claim to speak for it; (b) for the mother (or others) to want to decide its fate on its behalf. This is why non-Catholics get anxious about Catholic claims that they hold a monopoly on "God's plan." It is simply not possible to argue with them--they have "God" on their side and a definition of "life" and "happiness" that is inflexible to argument. For them, it's simply a matter of faith and Church teaching.
For those of us who are pro-choice, we believe that no one should have the right to force a woman to give birth against her will. Similarly, no one should have the right to force Person A to surrender a kidney to Person B, under any circumstances. Person A's body, and everything in it, belongs solely to Person A. To deny that is to define and control the bodies of others--and that is essentially unjust. Now I realise that Catholics understand the foetus to have rights equivalent to their mothers. They are entitled to believe that. Let's never allow them to enforce that view on those who do not share that belief.
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