Et cetera: Weigel or Wills?
ET CETERA Weigel or Wills? H Commentary magazine, published by the American Jewish Committee, rarely takes direct notice of developments or events in the Catholic world. Catholic-Jewish relations,...
...His readers will remain unaware of that fact as well...
...Johnson buys into Weigel's diagnosis of how the so-called "culture of dissent," a "Trojan horse" "introduced into the church after the Second Vatican Council," lies at the root of the present crisis...
...Johnson concludes by quoting Irving Kristol's glib lament that the "church turned the wrong way [in the 1960s...
...One feels sorry for Commentary readers who are not getting quite the whole story about the pope's heroic resistance to what is pernicious in the "modern world...
...Where Johnson lands is no secret...
...Catholic-Jewish relations, or examinations of the church's troubled history of anti-Semitism and arguments about the church's alleged complicity in the Holocaust, are understandable exceptions...
...At the heart of the article is a comparison between George Weigel and Garry Wills as Catholic intellectuals representative of two competing factions within the church...
...The church also "went to modernity" in the 1960s, reversing centuries of teaching and practice, to embrace those notorious Gnostic impulses, religious pluralism and freedom of conscience.ence...
...Weigel Catholics see sexuality in sacramental terms, interpreted through John Paul II's 'theology of the body,' and as part of a moral continuum that takes in such contested issues as abortion, euthanasia, and genetic engineering," Johnson writes...
...Wills is pointedly a "failed priest," but no mention of Weigel's seminary training is made...
...Johnson shouldn't hide the full horror from Commentary readers...
...Johnson's ostensible topic is the sexual-abuse crisis gripping the American church, but he ranges far and wide, from debates about the reception of Vatican II to John Paul II's dramatic gestures of apology and reconciliation toward Jews...
...Johnson even goes so far as to categorize people as either "Weigel Catholics" or "Wills Catholics...
...Not surprisingly, Johnson has left out of that "moral continuum" John Paul II's condemnation of artificial birth control as an intrinsic evil...
...It went to modernity at the very moment when modernity was being challenged, when the secular Gnostic impulse was already in the process of dissolution...
...Johnson seems blissfully unaware that the views of the vast majority of American Catholics land in the middle ground between both Weigel and Wills...
...But intramural church arguments do not usually warrant space...
...The February Commentary features an article, titled (what else...
...Exceptional times deserve exceptional treatment, however...
...The Catholic Crisis," by one Daniel Johnson, an associate editor of the London Daily Telegraph who identifies himself as a cradle Catholic...
...Weigel's ultramontane effusions about John Paul II are warmly endorsed...
Vol. 130 • February 2003 • No. 4
