User:Ridiculus mus/sandbox/Missionary Position Errors

Errors regarding the Catholic faith

"On the subject of Mother Teresa, however, [Mr Hitchens] does not seem to have felt the need to acquire much information on her spiritual motivations — his book contains a remarkable number of howlers on elementary aspects of Christianity"

Blatant errors include six aspects of Catholic moral and social teaching, one aspect of Church discipline, and a further four places where the book discloses other "howlers" on elementary aspects of Christianity. The errors range from those – items (6) to (11 ) – the removal of which would not affect the argument (although they would deprive it of some barbed comments and the semblance of familiarity with Catholicism), to those – items (1) to (5) – which cannot be removed without destroying the basis of one of his fundamental assaults on Mother Teresa and the prime source of his detestation both of her personally and of what she stands for.

• (1) A mother is supposed to sacrifice her life for her child's (p. 51)

This is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. See, e.g., Pope Pius XII, Address to the Family Front Congress (27 November, 1951):-

Never and in no case has the Church taught that the life of the child must be preferred to that of the mother. It is erroneous to place the question with this alternative: Either the life of the child or that of the mother. No; neither the life of the mother nor of the child may be submitted to an act of suppression. Both for the one and the other the demand cannot be but this: To use every means to save the life of both the mother and the child.

• (2) "The sexual act within marriage is frowned upon unless it has reproduction as its object" (p. 51)

On the contrary, the marital act "is not considered illegitimate even when it is foreseen to be infertile": Humanae Vitae (1968), nn. 11, 16.

• (3) Ensoulment (p. 52)

". . the nobility of this essential teaching [on abortion] is compromised by the fact that it depends on an unnecessary theological assumption about ensoulment." This is false: the Church's condemnation of abortion long preceded the evolution of the mediaeval ensoulment theory, and has survived its tacit abandonment. The word "ensoulment" is nowhere mentioned in any of the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965); nor in the CCC. For an explicit statement that prohibition of direct abortion precedes the mediaeval theory of ensoulment and is not dependent upon the validity or otherwise of this theory, see: Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974), n. 7. The moral ground of the prohibition is not based on ensoulment but on respect for the sacredness of innocent human life.

• (4) "the ban extends to all means and methods of avoiding conception" (p. 53)

On the contrary, "responsible parenthood" is promoted by the Catholic Church: Gaudium et Spes (1965), n. 51; Humanae Vitae (1968), nn. 10, 16; Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974), n. 27; CCC (1992/1994) 2368-2372)

• (5) "[over-population] . . a problem which the Church has chosen entirely to ignore" (p. 54)

By the date of the book, the Church had been addressing the problem for a generation, see: Mater et Magistra (1961), Part III, section on "Population Increase and Economic Development"; and Gaudium et Spes (1965), Part II "Some Problems of Special Urgency", chapter 1, "Fostering the Nobility of Marriage and the Family". On 4 October 1964 Paul VI delivered a Speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations which included this:-

It is in your Assembly, even where the population problem is concerned, that respect for human life should find its strongest support and its most reasonable defence. Your task is so to act that there should be bread in abundance at the table of mankind and not to favour the artificial control of births, which would be contrary to right reason, with a view to lessening the number of guests at the table of life.

Pope Paul VI reverted to the topic in Populorum Progressio (1967), section "Population Growth". Also see what Pope John Paul wrote in: Familiaris Consortio (1981), n.30; Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), n. 25; and his Letter dated 18 March 1994 to Mrs Nafis Sadik, the then Secretary General of the International Conference on Population and Development and Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund. The Cairo Conference (as it was called) decided against demographic targets and instead adopted a 20-year Programme of Action, which focused on individuals' needs and rights (the principle consistently proposed by the Catholic Church). Among the conclusions in the Final Report (dated 18 October, 1994 ), the Conference specifically repudiated abortion as a means of family planning (see para. 8.25, beginning "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning."), echoing the condemnation by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae (1968), n. 14.

• (6) "The Church claims the right to make law . ." (p. 58)

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council exhorted the faithful, in the exercise of their civic duties, to observe Christian teaching and, by engaging in temporal affairs, to direct them according to God's will. The Church considers it her right to admonish and advise political leaders.

• (7) A supposed prohibition on women preaching (p. 59)

This is incorrect. The law of the Church specifically permits preaching - even in a church - by lay persons (there is no distinction between male and female) under certain defined conditions. See CCL (1983), can. 766: "The laity may be allowed to preach in a church or oratory if in certain circumstances it is necessary" (etc. and without prejudice to can. 767 §1); can. 767 "The most important form of preaching is the homily, which is part of the liturgy itself, and is reserved to a priest or a deacon"

• (8) Faulty reminiscence of the anointing at Bethany (pp. 28f.)

Imperfectly recalling the pericope at Mk.14:3-11 (cf. Jn.12:1-8), Mr Hitchens asserted that Christ anointed Himself. It was a woman who performed the office. Mark does not name her; John says it was Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha. Mr. Hitchens' grasp of the pericope extended as far as the word "spikenard" (which appears in the King James version - here and in the Song of Songs), but he was guilty of an elementary error of English in writing "spikenard ointment". Spikenard is a type of perfumed ointment, not a perfume.

• (9) Bizarre understanding of Redemption (p. 77)

Mr. Hitchens falsely attributes to the "Church of Rome" a:

. . problem of theory and practice. If a human soul could only be redeemed by acceptance of the New Testament canon – the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – then what was to become of those who had never heard the news?

There was indeed a theological problem about the salvation of those who died without having had the opportunity to hear the Good News, but Mr Hitchens was so radically confused about the nature of the problem as to think Christ's own disciples fell within that class on the ground that they "had never read the Bible story, either" (emphasis added).

• (10) Faulty reminiscence of Christian Creeds (p. 77)

Mr Hitchens wrote of "passages in the Creeds which speak of Jesus descending into hell in order to carry out some retrospective redemption". The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (the only creed with universal acceptance among Christians) is silent on the Descent into Hell. The Descent is asserted in the Apostles' Creed, but nothing is said there about Christ's purpose.

• (11) Erroneous understanding of the Christian duty to forgive

In an aside (footnote 5, pp. 87f.) Mr Hitchens attempts a theological critique of Mother Teresa's reported forgiveness of the makers of the 1994 British television programme Hell's Angel. He commented that it was "odd" (on the ground that forgiveness had not been requested), and capped it with a remark that her response was:-

[o]dder still if you have any inclination to ask by what right she assumes the power to forgive. There are even some conscientious Christians who would say that forgiveness, like the astringent of revenge, is reserved to a higher power.

This seems to be a reference to the adage "To err is human, to forgive Divine". In developing the idea, Mr. Hitchens overlooked the distinction between the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of personal offences. That the distinction was not recondite appears sufficiently from the central plea in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".

Sources

Second Vatican Ecumenical Council

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (1964)

Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People, Apostolicam Actuositatem (1965)

Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (1965)

Papal Magisterium

Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

Address to the Family Front Congress (27 November, 1951)

Pope John XXIII

Encyclical Mater et Magistra (1961)

Pope Paul VI

Encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968)

Encyclical Populorum Progressio, on the Development of Peoples (1967)

Pope John Paul II

Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981)

Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987)

Encyclical Evangelium Vitae (April, 1995)

Doctrinal Documents of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974)

Instruction Donum Vitae (1987)

"CCL", Code of Canon Law (1983)

"CCC", Catechism of the Catholic Church (Latin text, 1992; authorised English translation, 1994)

Final Report (dated 18 October, 1994) of the International Conference on Population and Development of the United Nations held in Cairo, Egypt in September, 1994 (the so-called Cairo Conference)