Well, if you look into the Straussian Calgary school philosophy and follow it to its logical conclusion, what you end up with Olaf, is a something akin to feudalism disguised as a modern democracy.

Precisely why those few of us paying close attention are rightly afraid of this gang of miscreants. And why the census decision is alarming.

Well, less people are voting period, so there's that. Then there is the disturbing question of how anyone knows the religious affiliation of voters period.

Emily, you embody what Mark R is saying, so you're the least convincing person to dismiss that argument that these boards could be possibly produce.

"That fact is that, if the Vatican applied its full authority to the liturgical lives of Canadian Catholics, there would not be a politician in the country who would be allowed to partake in Communion. "

That's incorrect. People are only denied Communion if they're (a) not Catholic, or (b) excommunicated.

The only common cause for excommunication that I know of is the one that happens automatically – i.e. for participating in or encouraging an abortion. Thus, Catholic politicians who promote abortion may already be excommunicated, but pro-life ones (of whom there are plenty in the House) aren't, even though they might be violating Church teaching in other respects.

I don't deny that the Church has the right to deny people Communion for any number of reasons, but what I said is that people are only denied communion (today, in our society) if they are excommunicate.

"Catholics in communion with the Church yet persisting in grave sin can (and should) be denied Communion—Catholics in unsanctified marriages (i.e. adulterous Catholics), for instance. "

Incorrect. They are supposed to deny themselves, but the priest does not make that decision for them unless there is some grave scandal that could be caused.

No contradiction. I'll repeat:
(1) Catholics can be denied communion for many reasons, but in our day and age this is generally reserved only for those who are excommunicated.

(2) Lots of people are not supposed to receive communion, but would not be refused communion if they decide to ignore that prohibition – we are each, after all, responsible for our own soul. Every Catholic is supposed to make a personal assessment before receiving communion and deny themselves if they're not in a state of grace – I've refrained many times. The Church, however, does not generally deny communion to someone on this basis unless there is some grave scandal that would unwittingly harm other people besides the recipient – at that point it becomes the Church's business, not just the individual's.

In short this reflects our just war argument. The Church lays down general conditions for a Catholic to receive communion, but it is up to the individual to determine whether he meets those conditions: the Church will generally not make that decision for him by refusing communion even if the priest knows that the recipient should not receive.

The exceptions to this are (a) the recipient has been excommunicated, as with abortion, being a member of Germany's Nazi Party, or any other terrible evil that the Church wishes to condemn as forcefully as possible, or (b) the recipient is flaunting their sin and still receiving communion. In those cases (scandal), the Church will occasionally refuse communion even if the person has not been excommunicated, but it is so rare that I've never seen or heard of it in my lifetime.

Which brings us to one final point: you say that you are concerned about supporting a politician who once supported the Iraq War. No one has been excommunicated for supporting the Iraq War. There is an automatic and widespread excommunication in effect, however, for anyone who directly supports an abortion. Wouldn't it make more sense for you to be more concerned about supporting the politicians who advocate for abortion, particularly the supposedly Catholic ones?

"… unless you wish to stand on the chimerical distinction between being denied Communion publicly—whilst one is standing before a priest—and privately—by way of a prior interview with the priest. "

For crying out loud. If John Doe and a priest go and execute someone for kicks, they're both in a state of serious sin and they both know it. Neither should receive communion. If John Doe then goes to the priest for communion at Mass, the priest is not required to refuse it – that is John Doe's decision to make.

"No. Weimar-era Nazis were not excommunicated."

My understanding is that they were, but I may be wrong.

"I cannot remember Trudeau, Chrétien or Martin ever being admonished, let alone excommunicated, for their views on abortion, despite the appropriateness of such measures. "

I can. I think it would have been better if they had been publicly refused communion though, to prevent the scandal of uninformed Catholics thinking that it was compatible with Catholicism for a politician to uphold abortion. However, that decision was not mine to make – our Bishops will answer for it.

"I currently “support” no politicians at all. Given your clear partisan leanings, however, I would respectfully advise you to consult the CPC's platform and legislative record on abortion…""

That is very good advice! And I will continue to do so. As a point of fact, I have always felt that it is foolish to vote according to party rather than simply picking the best candidate in one's riding. Likewise, given your clear partisan leanings, I would advise you to consult the LPC's platform and legislative record on abortion (as well as on other facets of the Culture of Life, including the worth of traditional marriage) before making a conclusive determination concerning the moral dimensions of that party. I would also urge you to consider the weight of evils such as the deliberate killing of 100K children a year in Canadian clinics/hospitals vs. evils such as insufficient care for the poor, and vote for individual MPs (rather than parties) accordingly.

Nonsense. Which is why, for example, there is a pro-life caucus spanning several parties. These MPs appear and speak at pro-life events, sponsor pro-life legislation, etc. even though no party will support such measures.

There is also a clear distinction between parties that tend to whip votes of conscience on these matters rather than those that allow a free vote.

The only way to change that 30-year record of minimal accomplishment is to vote for pro-life candidates, regardless of party.

"There is virtually no such distinction between the two major parties, and such distinctions as exist have produced no pro-life legislative measures of any consequence whatever for over thirty years. "

Well that's partly true, but partly false. The one significant attempt to limit abortion came from the Mulroney PCs passed the House and was defeated by a tie vote in the Senate, largely due to Liberal Senators.

It's also worth noting at least one distinction that emerged more recently: the LPC supported funding for abortions overseas, while the CPC blocked it. At least some lives will probably be saved as a result. This is not a small thing, and it came from the Conservative Party and was vigorously opposed by the leadership of the Liberal Party.

I'm afraid I simply don't believe you here. My read is that you have adopted the anti-Americanism of the modern LPC, and you have let this swamp the larger considerations on which our votes should be determined.

At any rate, the view that philosophical conservatism is founded on unswerving loyalty to a foreign land that just happens to be the global headquarters of dynamic liberalism, moral relativism, militant secularism, and consumerist nihilism sounds as preposterous to me as it would have sounded to Macdonald, Cartier and McGee, just three of the Founders whose "anti-Americanism" (*pshaw*) was far more incandescent than mine.

"Straw man"? That's odd. Your assertion that my purported "anti-Americanism" vitiates the authenticity of my conservatism seemed quite clear to me. Please direct me to your intended meaning.

Thanks, Holly, but…please—just a little love for Gaunilon. He's not done too shabbily, overall. ;)

"Supporting and/or fighting a war that the Pontiff has authoritatively declared to fall outside what the Church teaches are the criteria for a just war is a violation of Church doctrine. "

The thing is, that is an impossible hypothetical. The Church offers teaching on what constitutes a just war in general, and the Pope often provides an opinion concerning specific wars, but as I understand it the Church also teaches that she does not have the authority to determine whether a particular war is just or unjust – that determination is up to those responsible for the common good (i.e. the government).

The jurisdictional distance between the Vatican and Iraq is not appreciably farther than that between the Vatican and abortion. The Church does not invite us to apply the Just War doctrine loosely to individual wars the Church has condemned as unjust any more eagerly than she invites us to apply the Church's condemnation of abortion to individual cases that we think might be exceptions to the Church's rule. Our interpretation of the scientific evidence might persuade us that a first trimester abortion does not kill anything that can be described as a human life; your interpretation of the Iraq invasion might lead you to see it as a defensive action. All fine and good. But doctrine, and the deposit of faith which generates it, is not yours to bend according to your personal preference. It is vested in the teaching authority of the Church, and contesting it places you outside of it.

"You shall need to show me the article of the Catechism or provision of the Canon Law that asserts that the prescriptions of Church doctrine are morally subordinate to the determinations of secular governments."

Not the prescriptions of Church doctrine – rather the application of said doctrine to a particular war. From the Catechism, Section 2309, concerning just war: first there are the standard Thomistic conditions for a war to be just. The final point, also following Aquinas, is "The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good."

In other words, it is up to the responsible authorities to make the determination about whether a war is just. They may, of course, be wrong. But the determination is theirs to make, not the Church's. This makes perfect sense (and is boilerplate Aquinas) because only the responsible authorities know all the facts – the Church isn't in possession of all the information and intelligence on which those in authority must base their decision. The Pope can make a reasoned assessment based on what he knows of the situation, and statesmen would have to be pretty stupid to ignore that informed assessment, but in the end it's their call.

The Church provides authoritative guidance on what constitutes a just war in general, and what constitutes right and wrong in general, not on whether this particular case or circumstance fits those criteria – that is a matter of conscience to be borne by those responsible for the common good.

Of course, there are some things that the Church teaches to be wrong per se, such as deliberately killing an innocent person, which is what abortion (since you brought it up) is. Since "per se" includes the concept "without regard to circumstances", it follows that every particular case would be wrong. Fighting a war, however, is not wrong per se and therefore has to be weighed on a case-by-case basis by the authority denoted above.

Yes, you are correct that the state does not have the right to legislate that the citizens do something intrinsically evil, since that falls outside its authority. However, deciding whether to go to war falls within its authority. The Church can inform as to what constitutes a just war, but the Church has neither the information nor the authority to determine whether a particular war is just.

Which is why the final condition in just war theory (as listed in the Cat. 2309 I listed above) is that only the lawful governing authority has the right to make that decision.

In other words, state authorities are vested with the moral authority to pursue state aims, but their determinations do not, in and of themselves, provide objectively valid evaluations of the morality of the aims they are pursuing. The Catholic conscience is bound to accept only the legitimacy of the state's exclusive right to take the state to war according to its own moral analysis, but the Catholic's own moral analysis will not be subject to the state's "governing authority" but rather to that from which the state itself receives its authority—the Body of Christ, whose vicariate is held by the Magisterium.

He doesn't have to. As you said, He is not a Catholioc, Roman or otherwise. The Roman church's opin ion is arrelevant to all except those of the bent

Doctrine concerns universal truths, not particulars. Church doctrine teaches that certain acts are morally wrong and others are morally right; Catholics are obliged to accept these teachings, yes.

However, we are talking here about a particular war, not war in general. It is not Catholic doctrine that the Iraq War was morally wrong, and the Pope's expressed beliefs do not constitute Catholic doctrine unless they are made in his official capacity as Pope (i.e. Ex Cathedra).

The only entity with the legitimate authority to make that call was the US Congress, and they did. You, I, and JP2 believe they made the wrong call, and they will answer for it. But that does not mean that Catholics who went into battle in Iraq were acting immorally (unless they were doing something that they could see was clearly evil, e.g. following orders to deliberately slaughter innocent people). It is perfectly legitimate, as a Catholic, to say "I think this war is unjust, but since I don't know for certain I will fight." One is obliged to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and therefore one only refuses Caesar's orders when they include a command to do something obviously evil. War is rarely "obviously evil" since war can be just or unjust depending on information the common citizen does not have.

In short, there is no obligation on the part of a Catholic not to fight in a war that the Pope believes to be unjust. Likewise there is no obligation on the part of a Catholic not to support a politician who supports such a war. A politician's past support for a war in another country is even less relevant.

If the Magisterium had declared the Iraq War to be unjust, you might have a point.

In general the Magisterium will not try to apply Just War doctrine to particular wars since they generally don't have all the information required to assess it, as the state does. Hence section 2309 – the determination of whether a particular war meets the conditions for a Just War belongs to the state, not the Church.

"If one means by "Magisterium" the "Universal Church gathered in full council"…which, oddly enough, is what the Magisterium means.

"If one means by "Magisterium" the "Pontiff and the Curia"…" …. then one would be misusing the term, as you were.

"Naturally, a Catholic was intellectually free (though not, I believe, morally or canonically free) to prefer the moral evaluations of G.W. Bush and Stephen Harper over those of Pope John Paul II."

…except that in a matter for which Bush (never mind Harper) has pertinent information which the Vatican lacks, and the matter in question is such that pertinent information may well alter the determination, then it may indeed make intellectual, moral, and even canonical sense in light of the oft-repeated section 2903 above.

""Magisterium" refers to the teaching authority of the Church, which is routinely deployed by the Pontiff and Curia without recourse to ecumenical councils. Ex cathedra pronouncements and papal encyclicals, to take just two crucial examples, require no conciliar deliberation or ratification whatsoever—nor do episcopal pastoral letters. "

That is true concerning Ex cathedra pronouncements and papal encyclicals, and it is true because the Church in full council determined that when the Pope speaks ex cathedra he speaks with the authority of the Magisterium. In other words, the one follows from the other. It is not true with regard to opinions expressed by the Pope, whether supported by the "Curia" (actually just the Vatican newspaper in this case, I think) or not.

None of which changes the fact that the Magisterium did not condemn the Iraq War. The Pope did not speak ex cathedra on the matter, nor was there an encyclical, etc. He merely expressed his opinion. So this business about the "Magisterium's application of [Just War doctrine] to specific wars" with reference to the Iraq War is a red herring.

" It was precisely upon that wealth of what we now know to have been fraudulently alarmist information that the Vatican and others came to their decisions."

You betray your bias, sir. We know it to have been mistaken information; the allegation of fraud is merely speculation eagerly adopted by partisans who have other reasons to despise the Bush Administration.

Well, let's see. A politician expressing support for our allies in a war that may well have been unjust (although this is uncertain), versus a politician expressing support for our enemies in a (seemingly just) war that we're actually fighting. Yes, that seems entirely equivalent!

You can't be serious.

Interesting discussion, Gaunilon and Sir Francis! Forgive my ignorance of "just war" doctrine as I ask the following question: If the WMD evidence had turned out to be valid (let's say, hypothetically, that Hussein had procured a quantity of weapons-grade plutonium and was in the final stages of developing working nuclear weapons) would that have made the war just, in the view of the Pontiff and the Curia?

@ CR:

There are four specific criteria for a just war from the Catholic perspective (this is all in the Catechism para 2309, and is standard Thomistic moral philsophy based on the "Principle of Double Effect"):

(1) The damage expected from the aggressor must be "lasting, grave, and certain".
(2) the war is a last resort
(3) serious chance of victory
(4) the good to be achieved must outweigh the harm done

Without WMD in Iraq, condition 1 was unsatisfied. With WMD, condition 4 becomes questionable since Hussein was expected to start launching on his own people once the US closed on Baghdad – you might remember US troops were kitted out for chem/bio attacks as they advanced – as a form of "scorched earth" tactic.

At the time everyone (including me) believed there were WMD. My position and that of many others was that the benefit from eliminating them was equalled, if not outweighed, by the harm expected when Hussein launched them on Baghdad. The only difference was that these innocent lives would have been Iraqi rather than US or Canadian, which is really no difference from a Catholic perspective. Therefore I took the position that the war was likely not just.

…a politician expressing support for our enemies in a (seemingly just) war that we're actually fighting.Yes, that seems entirely equivalent!

According to you it is, because Catholics are obliged (by your reductive catechetical reading) to assent to the moral evaluations of those who have been made responsible for the common good, such as NDP MP's.

In fact, Canada's state authorities did make a moral determination about the war in 2003, which was that it was unjust (with a Conservative minority dissenting). Thus, according to your understanding, the competent moral arbiters did make a clear evaluation, one that was utterly congruent with the Vatican’s. Yet, you persist in asserting that it is morally permissible for a Catholic to dissent from the views of the Vatican and from the "evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy [which] belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good", the state.

Thus, your actual view is that Catholics were free to make up their own minds about the justness of the Iraq war without regard to the Vatican's rigorous and transparent application of the Just War doctrine and without regard to the moral determination made by those legitimately tasked with the responsibility for the common good—all of which is as strident an espousal of Modernist liberalism as anything Hans Küng could deliver.

In order to be a modern liberal a la Hans Kung, one would have to hold that Church doctrine is subject to personal interpretation as to its veracity…

…or that the moral determinations of secular authorities and one's own private evaluations of them have a higher claim upon our consciences than the Holy See's application of doctrine to current events.

…the application of this doctrine to particular wars can only be authoritatively made by the governing authority…

…leading to the patent absurdity of expecting an overwhelmingly non-Catholic (and largely atheist or agnostic) state authority to apply a doctrine upon incipient warfare that lies utterly outside its intellectual and moral universe.

You seem to be confused on this distinction between the universal and the particular application of it.

On the contrary, I acknowledge that distinction unreservedly. I fear, though, that a key distinction has so far escaped you—that between the state's duty to arrive at a rightly ordered (yet non-binding) evaluation concerning the morality of its war-making and the Catholic's binding obligation to attend to the Magisterium's doctrinal directions with an attitude of religious submission of intellect and will. Your habit of devolving to the state a moral role that belongs to the Church is more in the tradition of Orthodox caesaropapism than in the tradition of the Latin Rite, among whose martyrs who gave more heed to the moral evaluations of their Church than to those of their states are the thousands of Catholic Germans and Austrians who suffered imprisonment and death rather than fight for the Third Reich.

…the Magisterium generally makes no binding decisions concerning the justice of a particular war…

Naturally, because Gaunilon's Catechism tells him that Catholics must take the solemn assurances and "moral evaluations" of agnostics, atheists, and anti-Catholic evangelicals over the declarations of the Pontiff and the Curia.

Again, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church (not "Gaunilon's Catechism", as you sneeringly refer to the Catechism to which you supposedly adhere):

Cat. par 2309, regarding just war:
"The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good." [emphasis mine]

So one last time, the evaluation of whether a particular war fits the criteria for a just war belongs to the state, not me, you, the Pope, or L'Osservatore Romano. The "just war" criteria are Church doctrine, but the application of them to specific conflicts rests with the state. Catholics are obliged to obey the state unless commanded to support something that is obviously evil – wars are seldom "obviously evil" unless the state is promulgating them alongside an intrinsic evil.

Ah, the old "you'd fit in well with the Nazis" argument.

Ah, the old self-dramatising "you're being mean to me" argument, so often deployed as a self-pitying wail of victimised self-satisfaction meant to impersonate an argument when logical resources have been exhausted. It's disappointing to see someone who doesn't need such cheap rhetorical theatrics haul them out.

You'll note, of course, that the tradition with which I associated you was Orthodoxy, culturally the very opposite of Nazism. I spoke of Catholic martyrs, who belong to the Latin Rite—your rite. I said merely that the moral foundations of their sacrifice are consistent with the principles I have enunciated, not that your views are even remotely cognate to the ideology that murdered them, an hysterical reading from an otherwise relatively sound debater which, in my view, may symptomise a fairly high level of frustration with the futile task of proving that a Catholic owes greater fidelity to the secular state then to the Holy See (a key Modernist heresy).

This is wrong on so many levels that it's actually hard for me to address in one post, but I will try.

(1) Anti-Semitism, like any other form of racism, is intrinsically evil from a Catholic viewpoint as Pius XII's encyclical Mitt Brennender Sorge, the only Papal Encyclical ever written in the language of the nation to which it was addressed rather than Latin, made clear.

(2) Your reference was to "Catholic Germans and Austrians who suffered imprisonment and death rather than fight for the Third Reich." Since fighting for the Third Reich did not begin until 1939, well after both the Holocaust and the T4 euthanasia initiative, the point becomes rather obvious that Catholics were already conscience-bound not to support the regime.

(3) A Papal Encyclical is obviously regarded as authoritative, unlike the Pope's expressed opinion on something in a speech or the Vatican newspaper.

Of course, you're going to say that an encyclical commands greater obedience from the faithful than the Pope and Curia's verbally proffered opinions, without (naturally) admitting that the difference is relative rather than absolute. I would argue in response that Catholicism is not meant to be a religion of convenience from the rigours of which quibbling Boston lawyers are invited to free themselves by finding catechetical loopholes. Nor do we read that the Apostles, after hearing Christ's evangelical commission, huddled together to parse His words in order to find some meagre justification for staying safely at home with their families instead.

I think we're going in circles here, and I also think, based on disparaging comments about the Catholic Catechism as "Gaunilon's Catechism" and the equation of my position to that of Nazi soldiers in 1939, that I'm not dealing with someone entirely sincere here about either the debate or Church doctrine. So this will be my last post on it, and I will pray for you.

If I'm wrong, then my apologies, and in that case your prayers in return would be much appreciated.

Emily, I can no more remove my religious beliefs from my desired policy goals than you can remove all of your moral and social preferences from your policy goals.

As a citizen, it is my constitutional right to pursue those goals through my representative in Parliament, just as you have the right to work against them.

If someone is opposed to everything I stand for, then they aren't a very good representative.

Yes, Emily, I'm sure you would legislate in such a way that takes my concerns and priorities in mind.

I'm sure if I would elect someone from the NDP they'd do likewise. That's why we don't really need the party system, or election platforms.

Right. Last time I looked we were a secular state supposedly free from all that religious horsepoop. . I get really annoyed when some bigoted religionist wants the rest of the world to follow their religious misconceptions. Do it to your own if you will but leave the rest of us alone. Fortunately this is not an ultra-montane coountry that they once wanted Quebec to be.

What other people do is NONE of their business.