Wednesday, April 12, 2023

All One in Christ on EWTN Live

Recently I recorded an interview about my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory for the television program EWTN Live with Fr. Mitch Pacwa.  The show airs today – at 5 pm Pacific time, again at 10:30 pm, and then tomorrow morning (Thursday) at 7 am.  The recording will be available for viewing later at the show’s website and at YouTube.

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13 comments:

  1. moja mediaworksApril 13, 2023 at 10:41 AM

    Your argument that CRT is self-defeating is fallacious. The ideological underpinnings for the power and structural analysis of systemic racism by contributors to Critical Race Theory is precisely to provide support and rationale for the dismantling of systemic racism and by intersection, European colonialism. CRT would not have had staying power if it had no function for the targets of European colonial systemic racism over the years. That's a primary importance. What European/white people, as benefactors of racism and colonialism, do with that figures in, but does not effect how BIPOC people worldwide use CRT concepts and contexts for our own liberation.

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    1. ZenoApril 13, 2023 at 4:14 PM

      Does anybody understand what this guy is trying to say?

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    2. Journey 516April 14, 2023 at 6:24 AM

      The best I can guess Zeno is that he’s making a circular argument that he already believes there is systematic racism but then CRT is trying to look for examples of it to justify his pre-established belief.

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    3. AnonymousApril 14, 2023 at 4:09 PM

      There are other reasons it might have had staying power---if staying power justified it, then perhaps staying power justifies colonialism, racism, etc., which after all have been around for hundreds of years, and thousands if you stretch the definition of colonialism.

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    4. Oktavian ZamoyskiApril 14, 2023 at 4:17 PM

      @Journey 516 - Oh, yes. Textbook circularity.

      It is rather disappointing to hear and read so many people with diplomas who fail to grasp very basic notions of what constitutes a valid argument/counterargument. And if you tried to explain them, you may be faced with an inert audience.

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  2. moja mediaworksApril 13, 2023 at 10:42 AM

    Previous comment by moja mediaworks written by Ukumbwa Sauti

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  3. AnonymousApril 15, 2023 at 6:00 AM

    I find it difficult to believe that bishops and priests came to America preaching and writing letters and personally warning those under their care, under pain of mortal sin, that they must mix with blacks, make their children go to school with blacks, free all their slaves, and work to force laws to allow whites to intermarry with blacks.

    Is there any documentation that this happened?

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    1. thefederalistApril 16, 2023 at 11:47 AM

      Of course there isn't, who alleges that that - "bishops and priests came to America preaching and writing letters and personally warning those under their care, under pain of mortal sin, that they must mix with blacks, make their children go to school with blacks, free all their slaves, and work to force laws to allow whites to intermarry with blacks" - ever did happen? I'm sure Dr. Feser never alludes to such a thing in his book.
      For instance, the Church has never taught that it is a mortal sin for whites to not mix with blacks. If that were true, she could never have canonized St. Columbanus or St. Dunstan.

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  4. AnonymousApril 15, 2023 at 7:54 AM

    I thoroughly enjoyed this!

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  5. Vincent TorleyApril 17, 2023 at 8:20 AM

    Hi Ed,

    I've just been reading a book titled, "All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church" (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books [2022]) by Fr. Christopher Kellerman S.J., and I have to say that I completely disagree with some of the historical statements made by you and Fr. Mitch Pacwa.

    You claim [4:37] that "there is a consistent 500-year history" and "consistent papal condemnation of mistreatment of the native peoples of the Americas" and [5:43] that "you had pope after pope who condemned the cruelty that was being inflicted on the peoples of the Americas, and also what was happening to peoples in Africa." It is indeed true that numerous popes condemned the enslavement of Native Americans, but as Kellerman points out (2022, p. 66), "When Pope Paul III and some of his successors wrote bulls against the enslavement of indigenous peoples, ... [t]hey were in support of something that Catholic kings were already trying to do. Though it might be tempting today to try to apply the logic of Paul III's bull to the Portuguese slave raids in Africa, no one at the time would have interpreted Paul's document as having anything to do with the Atlantic slave trade."

    Regarding the Atlantic slave trade, Kellerman notes (2022, p. 54): "Pope Nicholas V had given permission to the Portuguese to engage in slave raids in Africa and purchase slaves, and he gave this permission with some of the strongest invocations of papal authority available to him. These permissions were confirmed or renewed by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV in 1481, and Pope Leo X in 1514." Fr. Pacwa mentioned Pope Eugenius IV. However, what he condemned was not the slave trade as such, but slave raids of people living in the Canary Islands, who had already converted to Christianity, having been evangelized by Spaniards.

    In fact, as Kellerman observes (2022, pp. 127, 128), "The first Pope to denounce the Atlantic slave trade in any fashion was Pope Pius VII in 1814" (by which time it had already been outlawed by the US and Britain), and "It was Pope Gregory XVI who issued the first public papal condemnation of the slave trade in 1839. Britain once again was the instigator." Leo XIII was the first pope to teach that slavery as such was evil.

    Fr. Pacwa incorrectly claimed (6:36) that during the Middle Ages, "slavery had effectively disappeared in Europe under the influence of the Church... and pretty much, slavery did not exist in Europe." This is simply false. To quote Kellerman (2022, p. 33): "Slavery did not disappear during the Middle Ages, despite what later abolitionists and historians would claim... Children, like those given away by Gregory the Great, continued to be enslaved and treated as moveable property. Institutions of the Catholic Church owned slaves throughout the medieval period, and ... there is no evidence that the Church tried to end slavery." Pope Benedict VIII's Council of Pavia sanctioned the enslavement of the children of the clergy in 1022.

    Ed, you distinguished between chattel slavery and indentured servitude. However, as Kellerman remarks (2022, pp. 4, 14), this is not a distinction made in Scripture: "The Old Testament gives no hint that it is wrong to consider human beings to be one's property, harshly beat them, force them to work their entire unpaid lives, and then keep their children... I also think it is impossible to argue that the New Testament letters find slaveholding as such to be sinful." What's more, "The Church in the early Middle Ages did not simply 'tolerate' slaveholding; it rather enthusiastically embraced it" (2022, p. 29).

    Fr. Kellerman's book has been highly praised by historians. I think it's time to face the harsh facts.

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    1. CosmicCatApril 25, 2023 at 11:05 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. AnonymousMay 2, 2023 at 7:49 AM

      Conservatives live in a fantasy land. I thin conservatives have been so psychologically damaged by being called names like raciss and antiseemite, that they really live in a reality constructed by their own mind.

      It’s impossibke that the Catholic Church has condemn racism, a word that was coined in the 20th cent and is not easily defined or if if it is defined, examples would be non exitant. Slavery too. It’s just not true that the Catholic Church condemns slavery. it’s not like fornication, which is obviously immoral and clearly taught , but which many struggle. It’s not as if the bishops who owned slaves knew it was the most evil thing around, and were just struggling against owning slaves, but just had to buy a few! What, did they then go to confession?

      Conservatives are the worst

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  6. AnonymousJuly 31, 2023 at 3:58 AM

    Does Dante talk about "racists" in the INferno?

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