The Last Acceptable Prejudice
The latest example of what Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University and an Episcopalian, has called "the last acceptable prejudice" can be found in the May 28, 2008, issue of the New Republic. Steven Pinker, in an article ("The Stupidity of Dignity") ostensibly on the problems raised by taking into account human dignity when discussing bioethical questions, keeps returning to the insidious role that the Catholic Church has apparently played in stifling scientific research.
Pinker is worried about a report, Human Dignity and Bioethics, recently released by the President's Council on Bioethics. He takes for granted that all reasonably intelligent people have no qualms about "biomedical innovation, including drugs that would enhance cognition, genetic manipulation of animals or humans, therapies that could extend the lifespan, and embryonic stem cells and so-called 'therapeutic cloning' that could furnish replacements for diseased tissue and organs."
The authors of the report, however, beg to disagree, and Pinker thinks that he knows why: "eleven work for Christian institutions (all but two of the institutions Catholic)." The first chairman of the Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, "packed it with conservative scholars and pundits, advocates of religious (particularly Catholic) principles in the public sphere . . . " Pinker finds that "the pervasive Catholic flavoring of the Council, particularly its Dignity report, is at first glance puzzling." He concedes that the Catholic Church has a "long tradition of scholarship and . . . rock-solid moral precepts," but it's not clear that he regards this as good.
In fact, Pinker suggests that the Catholic Church is opposed to such modern innovations as embryonic stem-cell research, in vitro fertilization, and assisted suicide because they threaten "the Church's franchise to guide people in the most profound events of their lives--birth, death, and reproduction." That, he argues, is why "'dignity' is a recurring theme in Catholic doctrine: The word appears more than 100 times in the 1997 edition of the Catechism and is a leitmotif in the Vatican's recent pronouncements on biomedicine." The possibility that the Church regards human dignity as an essential part of the Christian message seems never to cross his mind. Instead, it's all part and parcel of "imposing a Catholic agenda on a secular democracy and using 'dignity' to condemn anything that gives someone the creeps."
While Orthodox Judaism and Islam hold similar views on bioethical questions, it's hard to imagine Steven Pinker writing an article expressing similar views about either of those religions, or the New Republic running such an article. And if they did, the outcry would be intense. But in Pinker's version of a "free society," individuals are free to live their lives as they wish--just so long as they don't stand up for the truth as taught by the Catholic Church.
Related Resources:
- The Catholic Church's Teaching on Stem-Cell Research
- Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (compare prices)
- Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics (compare prices)
- Catechism of the Catholic Church (compare prices)
Y’know, while I really wish we were down to only one prejudice (and there are in fact lots of people out there bashing Judaism and Islam as we speak), I have to say that what Pinker wrote was incredibly inarticulate and, yes, anti-Catholic. I like the guy, but he’s being a jerk in this case and should write an apology.
The Catholic and Christian religion is very large indeed, and deserves respect ; however the influence of various sects harms its prestige.
Think of all the sects who are opposed to our most holy religion :
*Gnosticism, a kind of spiritualist and occult philosophy which encourages liberalism
*Freemasons, essentially based of gnostic illuminism.
*Feminism, a kind of female gnosticism which states that women have no particular obedience neither to Man nor to the Lord.
*Darwinism, the view that evolution is the foremost principle of everything, including morality.
*Mathusianism, a teaching of Malthus, that the Earth deserves to be depopulated.
*Averroism, a teaching of Averroes, that there is a vast separation between philosophy and theology, and ultimately between faith and knowledge.
*Nietzcheism, an extreme form of nihilism that strongly denies the presence of Our Lord.
*Statism, the teaching that the Governement is the measure of all things, more so than the Church.
*Individualism, the denial of any possible social cohabitation, especially that of the Christian society.
*Socialism, the view that social engineering on families is feasible and desirable.
*Historicism, the teaching of Hegel that human history is the measure of all things, which is notably opposed to biblical revelation.
*Marxism, the view that all social existence is summarized in class warfare, where any kind of legitimate power must be dissolved.
*Lockism, an unhealthy exalting of Tolerance, where intolerance is held to be anything that is not politically correct.
*Positivism, which teaches that only scientifc knowledge is really knowable.
*Protestantism, which denies the Real Presence of the Lord is the Nost Holy Sacrament. It further denies the very notion of Sacrifice, most notably the sacrificial priesthood.
*Arianism, a teaching of Arius that denies the divinity of Christ. This heresy survives in the more liberal brands of protestantism.
*Deweyism, a educational view that children must never be given any kind of morality, especially the religious kind.
*Anticlericalism, the special hatred of priests, priestly actions and teachings.
*Anarchism, the denial of any kind of special social order, especially the natural order as willed by God or by legitimate rulers.
*Spinozism, a form of pantheism which states that nature is a kind of god and that we can never know the divine essence.
*Kantism, an epistomological view which states that no reason is reason in itself, thus denying any form of Logos or divine reason.
*Scepticism, a philosophy of David Hume which claims that even human reason is doubtful in itself.
*Anti-papism : the view that the Pope is either an impostor or a medieval despot.
*Anti-dogmaticism : the systematic denial of any kind of Church held belief, any kind of conviction that is helf to be sacred.
*Anti-episcopalism : the rejection of bishops, and the espousal of an ecclesiatical polity that excludes their sacred ministry.
*Secularism : either the public rejection of Church contributions, or the rejection of all lthat is sacred in the modern world.
*Weberism : the teaching of Max Weber that holds that the sacred beliefs of religion are disappearing, or will disappear sometime in the future.
*Sociologism : the held view by many sociologists that society in itself can explain just about everything, without any possible recourse to the sacred.
*Vitalism : the view that life in itself is not sacred but instead can provide a standeard bearer for rationalism and the sort.
*Rationalism : an extreme form of cartesianism, which provides that human reason is either equal or superior to the supernatural.
*Cartesianism : a reductionist view of the supernatural which admits the existence of God, but reduces it to a purely natural or naturalist phenomenon.
*Hyper-calvinism : an extreme protestant view that basically claims that there is not a great difference between sin and grace, because both are irresistible.
There are many more of these, but it is fair to say that many modern thinkers have been anti-catholic.
Thanks for the comment, Tom. Of course, there are many prejudices, and many people who hold them. But the outcry over the public expression of most is swift and severe. That’s what Jenkins was getting at by calling anti-Catholicism not “the last prejudice” but “the last acceptable prejudice.”
I tend actually to be a little thicker-skinned than most on the subject of anti-Catholicism, and I’ve even publicly criticized (in other venues) the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights for occasionally stretching the definition so far that it becomes useless. (They once condemned a cartoon by Wiley of the Washington Post that portrayed Pope John Paul II as an Old West gunslinger, cutting down heretics. I thought the cartoon was hilarious and had it on the door of my office for years.)
On the other hand, I think that Jenkins is right about the rise of anti-Catholicism in recent years. Comments on this very site about clerical sex abuse, for instance, tend to move quickly from the undisputed facts of the case to conspiracy theories that have every Catholic cleric from the pope on down promoting sexual abuse as a matter of course for the last 1,600 years.
As traditional morality and taboos break down, and the Catholic Church is the sole or primary voice speaking out against, for instance, the destruction of embryos or the redefinition of marriage, it’s reasonable to expect that opposition to the Church will increase. But there’s a difference between opposition and the sort of anti-Catholicism that Pinker is engaged in.
I have not read Mr. Pinker’s article, but he sings a familiar tune. It is hard to conceive of humans having inherent dignity when human beings are considered just another species of animal. This view of humanity pervades modern science, unfortunately. I am glad that the Catholic Church has the courage to say that we are MORE than animals, and MORE than our animal nature.
some great comments today! I can’t argue about ‘the last acceptable prejudice’, though I MIGHT expand it to include all Christians – except that so many of them are anti-Catholic too! Or perhaps expand it to include all believers!!
A great example of the anti-Catholic prejudice out there could be found in last week’s episode of ‘Boston Legal’, in which a woman sued the Church for discrimination because she couldn’t become a priest! That could have been an interesting story line, but the ‘arguments’ at the trial were so blatantly anti-Caholic – and so amazingly inaccurate when speaking of either doctrine or history – that I sat there screaming at the television like a rabid sports fan!
And for the record, I am contacting ABC and the producers with my comments!
Oh, and A. Monette – thanks for that GREAT list of sects, cults and belief systems!
The Catholic League’s 2007 Report on Anti-Catholicism is now available.
http://www.catholicleague.org/
I run into it in an overwhelming volume of protestant literature I encounter, and I am accustomed to hearing anti-catholic remarks regularly in everyday life.