A friend of mine asked what I thought of this piece: https://dwightlongenecker.com/pope-francis-the-dogma-doesnt-live-loudly-in-him/
It's an interesting one, though I don't know enough about the intellectual history of its bones to say whether it's right or wrong on the central point. I was more interested, indeed, in some assumptions baked into the language of Fr. Longenecker--assumptions that I doubt he intended, since they are so nearly universal--but ones which are for all that, and precisely because of that, worth drawing out and responding to.
Some of the language in the essay lends itself to the idea that the dogmatic and the pastoral are to be balanced with each other, that there's a certain tension between the two. It's reminiscent of the notion that Catholics are supposed to be neither conservative nor liberal but somehow to inhabit a tension of views between the two, to be a sort of moderate force, if only in virtue of being extremely liberal on certain things, and extremely conservative on others.
All that I think is profoundly wrong. Dogma, properly understood, IS pastoral. It exists not to condemn but to save. If it is sharp, it's sharp like a scalpel, not like an ax--and likewise, pastoral softness can smother a person to death, or it can warm her like a blanket. There is no tension here, except for those of us who have failed to integrate truth and charity. But Jesus had both, perfectly integrated. That's really one of the most fascinating things about the Gospels ... God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world ... But also, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.
(And this goes to the political point too, I think: a really integrated thinker politically is going to realize that people of good will, whether they are conservatives and liberals, agree on a lot of the ends, and the disagreement is one of means. But that's probably a rabbit hole, and anyway, I'm much less confident that it's accurate.)
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