Thursday, May 12, 2005
BRUSKEWITZ ON DIALOG AND TOLERANCE
"The Limitations on Dialog and Toleration."
His limitations on dialog from the article:
1. Dialog cannot rationally be accepted as a permanent state of affairs.
2. There is no guarantee that the process will always result in the emergence of truth.
3. It can result in the mutilation or marginalizing of truth. Concensus and good feeling may become the outcome of desire, in the process trivializing things that are important for the sake of compromise and consensus.
4. It can reverse the relationship of teacher and student. "It must be clearly seen that the Church is already in possession of a certain measure of truth, and the purpose of dialog is to make sure that the terminology in which this truth is phrased is acceptable and can be accommodated by the one who is the partner in the dialog."
On the subject of toleration, quoting Cardinal Newman he writes:
"A great scandal it is, and a perplexity to the little ones of Christ, to have to choose between rival claimants upon their allegiance, or to find a condemnation at length pronounced upon one whom in their simplicity they have admired."
This would clearly be the consequence of not recognizing what I call limits of tolerance or toleration. Once again. Cardinal Newman sets the matter forth in an exceptionally coherent way. He says that "what we may be dealing with is a teaching that all religions are tolerated and all are simply matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous, and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. Devotion is not necessarily founded on faith. Men may go to Protestant churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither. They may fraternize together in spiritual thoughts and feelings without having any views at all of doctrines in common, or any need of them. If a man puts on a new religion every morning, what is that to you? It's as impertinent to think about a man's religion as to think about his sources of income or the management of his family."
Frankly, in that he has given a summary of the philosophy of Freemasonry on the subject of God. It aptly describes what Bishop Swing is promoting in URI as well.
This paper of Bruskewitz's certainly comes much closer to what Cdl. Ratzinger wrote in his book Truth and Tolerance than anything being promoted by Bishop Swing with Archbishop Levada's help.
