From The Sour Patch Kids blog:
...German liberation theologian Dorothee Solle wrote, “God and love are inseparable. It is not possible—and this is probably the gravest error of all conservative theologies—to tear God and love apart and to say that God is primary and permanent while love is some secondary, derivative thing.”The author claims to have a bachelor's degree in Theology - given that he's a devotee of Call-to-Action (which the blog is associated with), it makes me wonder if it's a degree in Catholic Theology.It’s not so much that God is primary. God needs descriptors and modifiers, so we take some quality ascribed to God, supposedly more fundamental than love, and make that primary...In the Catholic Church, the hierarchy emphasizes Truth, with a capital T.
This has been explicit in the reigns of the last two popes. John Paul II and Benedict XVI have often framed their missions as calling us back to a crisp, rigorous, detailed Truth.
Benedict’s motto is Cooperatores veritatis (“Co-workers of the Truth,” 3 John 8). John Paul devoted an entire encyclical, Veritatis splendor (“The Splendor of Truth”), to the concept. Benedict wrote an encyclical titled Caritas in veritate (“Charity in Truth”), which is a reflection on socio-economic problems, but I find that title interesting: charity, or love, as a subset of Truth.
Consider the two. Love, whether euphoric and romantic or the “harsh and dreadful thing” of Dostoevsky, is about relationships. Love is regard for flesh and blood, flesh and blood that cries and laughs and sweats and burps, that demands respect in and of itself, for itself. People must be approached carefully, gently, individually.
Truth, however, is abstract. It is Plato defining a chair in its ultimate chair-ness. It is about coolly contemplating perfection. Perfection comes before people, and things may be done to people in perfection’s name.
One need not ask too many questions about what it means for a man to fall helplessly in love with another man, or for a woman to fall helplessly in love with another woman. Since tab A so obviously fits slot B, one may simply file such people under “intrinsically disordered.”
Nor does a bishop need to look too closely at a nun, a hospital administrator, who reluctantly approves an abortion to save the life of a mother of four. Rather, the bishop can confidently excommunicate her, and strip the title of Catholic from her medical center, depriving it of liturgy and sacrament a few days before Christmas.
“Truth,” strangely, doesn’t require you to think too much. In the end it is about implementation, not reflection. As John Paul told the Vatican Supreme Court, the Sacred Roman Rota, in 1992, “There can be no question of adapting the divine norm or even of bending it to suit the whim of a human being.”
Jesus, in the recent cycle of daily Mass readings from Mark, associates with lepers excluded by the “divine norm” and exercises his “whim” to heal and include them. He also heals the sick and lets his hungry disciples pick grain on the Sabbath day, thereby transgressing the “divine norms” of the Sabbath so egregiously that he signs his own death warrant.
If “Truth,” or wrath, or anything but love is really first in Christianity, then Jesus says Christianity is not “for you.” Let “them” keep it.
A few snarky points. First - God is both Truth and Love, simultaneously and equally. As Christ said: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life"; and, "I have come to testify to the Truth"; and yet again: "...you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."
As faithful Catholics then, we have to balance the divine law of Love with the Pontian question of "What is Truth?" And not just balance them - but daily commit to Love while seeking and giving assent to the Truth. Obviously, this writer has a ways to go in getting there, when he writes: "One need not ask too many questions about what it means for a man to fall helplessly in love with another man, or for a woman to fall helplessly in love with another woman." Heck yeah you gotta ask a lot of questions! Problem is, too many people are ignoring the hard answers, and instead of relying on the Truth That Will Set Them Free (which is not 'love makes the world go round', by the way, or 'two consenting adults + sex + commitment = love'), they rely on their own interpretation and end up suffering miserably.
Second - the writer's claim that John Paul II and Benedict XVI have focused primarily on Truth throughout their pontificates. Hello, McFly! Remember B16's first encyclical , a little something called "Deus Caritas Est"?? Selective memory - my sons suffer from the same malady. And Pope Benedict's motto, from 3 John 1:8? If you read that letter, John uses the word 'truth' about ten times, even before reaching verse 8! So the writer must think that John is primarily focused on truth, too.
Third - the writer's JPII quote in his speech to the Rota in 1992. Here's his 'quote': “There can be no question of adapting the divine norm or even of bending it to suit the whim of a human being.”
Now, here's the actual quote from his actual speech (I've emphasized the presumed quote the writer has abrogated): "In this search, as in the Church’s uninterrupted tradition and the ceaseless work of this Apostolic See, there is a continual effort to harmonize, on the one hand the supreme demands of God’s unavoidable and immutable law, confirmed and perfected by Christian revelation, and on the other hand the changeable conditions of the humanity, its particular needs, its most acute weaknesses.
Obviously, it is not a matter of modifying the divine law, and still less of bending it to human caprice, because that would mean the very denial of the former and the degradation of the latter. It is rather understanding people of today; placing them in proper harmony with the absolute demands of the divine law; of pointing out the most consistent way of conforming to it."
The context changes everything, as well as the original wording. I find it rather dodgy that he attributed a quote to the late Holy Father (and shortened it too, which changed the meaning) - but then again, Call-to-Action has always resorted to twisting words and interpreting meanings to fit their worldview.
All the writer has done in his piece, in setting up a false dichotomy of Truth v. Love, is to contrast a misinformed interpretation of the Truth with his distorted interpretation of Love. It's too bad he's not associating with folks who can help him learn the difference.
