America has spoken: The National Catholic Weekly will speak "the truth in love"

In other words, America will continue to place the teachings of the Magisterium side by side with their more-than-fallible antitheses. The editorial speaks for itself.

America will change nothing. They do a fine job, thank you very much, of informing the "educated Catholics and other readers interested in intelligent examination of church and world affairs. "They need no counsel from Rome, for they are Jesuits, and they "will continue to carry out [their] mission with fidelity to the Petrine office, to Pope Benedict XVI and to his fellow bishops."

Of course that means more fine examples of obedience such as this:

Writings of John Paul II, like Redemptoris Missio, are quoted to make the point that the church respects the other as the other and eagerly wants to enter into conversation with those of different mindsets.

One wonders where the author was when American women theologians were told in no uncertain terms that any discussion about women’s ordination would never take place? What of the victims of sexual abuse in Boston who had to unseat a cardinal before they were invited to the table, and what of the talented and committed theologians around the world who with no due process are forbidden to teach at Catholic universities? Where is the dialogue that the reader is promised by the community of the cathedral? Perhaps one of the reasons why Christianity is suffering dismissal in Europe is that while the church apologizes for grievous errors of its past, it seems to forget the errors of its present.

Now that's obedience. Accept for publication a review of a faithful theolgian's account of Europe's identity crisis. Let the author confuse the imprudent application of canon law with the declaration of 2,000 years of Catholic Tradition. Let her call them both "errors."

I'm sure Pope Benedict XVI feels the loyalty of America's obedience here.

The editors of America either love irony or don't get it. This review appears in the same on-line edition as their editorial.

But I digress.

America will continue business as usual because they have discovered the truth. The truth is that those catholics who profess to be "orthodox" aren't interested in the fullness of the Faith. They are interested only in partisan political advantage:

Unfortunately, there are some in the church who would reduce the faith to pious simplicities and partisan political slogans. But slogans are no substitute for genuine doctrine, and litmus tests function only as polemical weapons, not as instruments of faith-filled inquiry. They are the war cries of a spurious orthodoxy, advanced by religious controversialists, uninterested in Catholicism’s rich complexity.

In other words, Catholics that complain when America presents Church teaching and it's opposing views as though they're both morally legitimate positions are not genuinely concerned and Faithful Catholics. They are "religious contraversialists" that are "uninterested in Catholicism's rich complexity." They are propagators of "partisan political slogans" and purveyors of "pious simplicities". America may dismiss them because America is for "educated Catholics". They know better.

After all, they understand that we are one, big, happy Faith:

Neither ideas, nor politics, nor pastoral practice need divide us. In no case should they be reason to “lord it over” one another.

No idea should "Lord it over" the rest of us. Let alone a really pesky one like our requirement to give assent to the Ordinary Universal Magisterium. Politics need not divide us, even when the "seamless garment" continues to undermine Prolife political involvement by equating the unequal, such as abortion and the death penalty. Pastoral practice certainly does not need to divide us, even when Cardinal Mahony demands that Eucharist communicants stand until all receive, despite a contrary ruling from Rome.

All Catholic Fools recognize that we are "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." We understand that we must be all of those things if we are to truly be Catholic. We may disagree with decisions reached by the Magisterium. However, we are called by our Lord, Jesus Christ, through his apostolic successors to obey him. If we truly believe that he is still with us through the Holy Spirit, and that we are a part of him in the Church, then we must take obedience seriously. If that means we need to change our understanding, then so be it. Dialogue on ideas may hold sway for certain pastoral practices in certain situations. Dialogue may help us to better understand Doctrine. It must not be the formulator of teaching because it can't be. Christ teaches us. It's not the other way around.

I look forward to the day when America understands this. Then they can join the struggle to evangelize this darkened world with the vigor that would make St. Ignatius proud. Until then, they remain, in my humble opinion, just another sad Foolable journal, voicing a Catholicism fewer and fewer Catholics appear prepared to believe.

BTW, this reflection in no way detracts from this Jesuits as a whole. True, too often the name Jesuit appears in the same sentence as some notorious dissent. Fr. Drinian comes to mind. The 70 or so letters of protest from the Georgetown University faculty (Theology department, I believe), directed at Cardinal Arzine for his remarks at Georgetown University's commencement, comes to mind, too. However, many Jesuits witness to the Gospel and to the Faith every day. Faithful Jesuits abound. There may even be some working at America. However, America's editorial board has demonstrated that this publication will not live in that Faithfulness. America has become another thought on the mind of those who say, often with loving frustration, "Jesuits. Again."