On the Contrary: Common Ground

“You’re not really listening to me!” Thus, after hours of argument my mind remained unchanged. Presumably, if I had been “really listening,” I would have yielded long ago to my frustrated accuser’s incontestable reasoning. I had, however, been listening to him, very closely—I heard his ideas and rejected them.

This is not to say that I am always an attentive or charitable listener, but merely to say that sympathetic listening doesn’t necessarily bear the fruit of agreement. People can disagree due to different starting points for their interpretation of the world, not just because they fail to be “sensitive.” It’s no surprise that in a therapeutic age intellectual disagreement elicits psychological allegations with moral overtones. Insinuations of prejudice and intolerance are substituted for head-on arguments. My convictions arise from something more than my identification with a race, class, or the male of the sex.

Orthodox Catholics are routinely charged with an unwillingness to dialogue with liberals and dissenters. I don’t know what this means. I never have turned down an opportunity to discuss issues with them. I hardly remember a social occasion where I wasn’t asked to defend my position on abortion, women’s ordination, or contraception. It seems I spend a lot of time in these conversations, as do my friends. How are we avoiding dialogue?

I am sometimes asked why Crisis does not contain “both sides of the argument.” The answer is simple: Any good argument—say, for an exclusively male priesthood—is going to answer the best arguments against it. So both sides of the argument should be addressed.

Secondly, Crisis is one of the very few places where Catholics and conservatives can make their public arguments against the disintegration of mainstream culture. Those who celebrate the cult of

the autonomous individual already dominate most of the major media venues, where conservative voices, especially orthodox Catholic voices, are regularly filtered out or sandbagged. Witness 60 Minutes’ disgraceful treatment of Helen Alvare on the partial-birth abortion ban.

I continue to delight in discussing the teachings of the Church whenever and wherever I can. I’m not reluctant to face disagreement squarely in the face or agree to disagree. Disagree all you want—I certainly won’t use the psychological ploy of feeling offended. I will do the best I can to trace our differences back to their first principles in hopes of an ultimate reconciliation. Resolving claims of “offense” is another type of discussion involving another set of issues, often having little to do with the subject at hand.

When I am asked about the possibility of women’s ordination, I often surprise people by saying that it’s not my decision to make. I tell them that I accept the teaching of the Church, that I understand its theological rationale, but ultimately the authority of the Magisterium guides my thinking. It’s interesting to me how many non-Catholics, in this age of multicultural tolerance, have well-defined opinions on how the Catholic Church should change.

But of course the debate over “common ground” has now been raised by Catholics themselves who represent various positions on the theological spectrum. Conversation between contending forces is always good; debate over key documents of the Church is necessary for cultivating doctrinal understand­ing. But Cardinals Hickey, Law, Maida, and Bevilacqua are right in pointing to the obvious: The common ground long held by Catholics, a common ground always demanding reflection and discussion, is our Scripture and Tradition as interpreted through the Magisterium.

Let’s face it and not be naive. In the past six months there has been a well-orchestrated media campaign among key members of the Catholic Left. The We Are Church press conference, Father Greeley’s latest poll of Catholic attitudes, Grealey’s novel on the next papal election, the stories of Call to Action members allegedly persecuted by Bishop Bruskewitz, Leonard Swidler’s Toward a Catholic Constitution, Archbishop Quinn’s Oxford lecture and its subsequent coverage in the secular and Catholic press. Obviously, a lot of planning went on here.

Now we have received an invitation to participate in a process of mediation between right and left. In the July/August Crisis, Mark Tooley explored the way the Religious Left has repackaged itself as moderate. It’s Clinton’s “new Democrat” strategy transposed into the religious arena. “Fake Right, and run Left,” as a Crisis contributing editor puts it. Whether the recent call to discover common ground is another version of this strategy remains to be seen.

Doubts are raised by the specific issues being placed on the table for discussion. The Church recently has spelled out its teaching on each and every one of them. Certainly we should be discussing these teachings so we can better understand and promulgate them. John Paul’s call to a new evangelization must begin among ourselves.

Author

  • Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is ​publisher and editor of The Christian Review and the host of "Church and Culture," a weekly two-hour radio show on the Ave Maria Radio Network.​ He is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine.

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