Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Happy National School Choice Week!

School choice -- and, more specifically, public support for the education of the public that is provided by parochial and other Catholic schools -- is required in justice and by the Church's social teaching.  If you have not read it before -- and, frankly, even if you have -- check out John Coons' "School Choice as Simple Justice", here.  Then, go the web page for National School Choice Week, read about what's going on, and commit to helping out.  

Then, watch this great video about Catholic school teachers (the video features, among others, the daughter of a proud MOJ reader) in Chicago and the mission of Catholic schools.   Then, go to the site of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education, learn about their amazing work, and write them a check.  (And then send a note to the Cardinal Newman Society, suggesting that they re-allocate some of the effort they spend trashing, for fundraising purposes, Notre Dame to praising A.C.E.)

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2013/01/happy-national-school-choice-week.html

Garnett, Rick | Permalink

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Good advice for a range of Catholic advocacy organizations, left and right, to focus more of their albeit often slim resources on supporting, through both raising awareness and shaping public policy, the excellent work our Catholic schools do.

Posted by: Dave Cochran | Jan 31, 2013 10:57:04 AM

As someone who has respect for Notre Dame, The Ace Program, and The Cardinal Newman Society, I am wondering, Professor Garnett, if you are referring to the Cardinal Newman blog post, where Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the ACE Leadership Program for Catholic educators at The University of Notre Dame stated in an article about the need for a Fidelity Oath, that he keeps a photo on his desk from the 1940s, that shows all the German bishops, in their garb, doing the Nazi salute, which is deeply disturbing. According to the statement by Rev.Nuzzi, it reminds him that the wisdom of the bishops is limited.

It is important to note, that one cannot be autonomous and in communion with Christ's One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, simultaneously.( Catholic Canon 750) If it is true that those bishops in the picture were defenders of Nazism, they were no longer in communion with Christ's Church. In order to be Catholic, one must be worshiping The True God, The God Who desires that we overcome our disordered inclinations, including our disordered sexual inclinations, and thus not be led into temptation, but be delivered from evil, through God's Grace and Mercy, Amen

The Sacrifice of The Cross, Is The Sacrifice of The Most Holy and Undivided Blessed Trinity, for God so Loved us that He sent His Only Son...It is through Him, With Him, and In Him, In The Unity of The Holy Spirit, that The Body of Christ exists.

Posted by: N.D. | Jan 31, 2013 2:10:37 PM

Apropos of Father Nuzzi's observation, in July, 1859, then Father John Henry Newman authored an unsigned article in the Catholic journal, The Rambler, entitled "On Consulting the Laity in Matters of Doctrine," containing an "allusion to a passage in the history of St. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria" including:

"I venture to introduce my notice of St. Dionysius. He was accused on a far worse charge, and before a far more formidable tribunal, than commonly befalls a Catholic writer; for he was brought up before the Holy See on a denial of our Lord's divinity. He had been controverting with the Sabellians; and he was in consequence accused of the doctrine to which Arius afterwards gave his name, that is, of considering our Lord a creature. He says, writing in his defence, that when he urged his opponents with the argument that 'a vine and a vine-dresser were not the same,' neither, therefore, were the 'Father and the Son,' these were not the only illustrations that he made use of, nor those on which he dwelt, for he also spoke of 'a root and a plant ... .. a fount and a stream,' which are not only distinct from each other, but of one and the same nature. Then he adds, 'But my accusers have no eyes to see this portion of my treatise; but they take up two little words detached from the context, and proceed to discharge them at me as pebbles from a sling.' [Athan. de Sent. Dion. 8.] If even a saint's words are not always precise enough to allow of being made a dogmatic text, much less are those of any modern periodical."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/newman-faithful.asp

Dr. Thomas Joseph Brown, Bishop of Newport and Menevia in Wales, formally "delated" Father Newman's article to Rome as heretical.

http://www.newmanreader.org/biography/ward/volume1/chapter17.html

Apparently some Catholics remain at the ready with pebbles and sling.

Posted by: dfb | Feb 1, 2013 7:28:43 AM

The point is, there is no reason not to sign an Oath of Fidelity unless you do not believe The Word of God in The Deposit of Faith as Revealed in the trinitarian relationship of Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Teaching of The Magisterium is Divine.

Posted by: N.D. | Feb 1, 2013 4:51:13 PM

Or perhaps one would decline to sign an Oath of Fidelity on the basis of Matthew 5:33-35:

"Again you have heard that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not forswear thyself: but thou shalt perform thy oaths to the Lord. But I say to you not to swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God: Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool: nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king."

Posted by: dfb | Feb 1, 2013 5:07:04 PM

To state that I believe in Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, is, in fact, to perform an oath to Christ, for it is through communion with Him that His Church exists.

Posted by: N.D. | Feb 1, 2013 5:43:55 PM

Matthew 5:36-37:

"Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil."

Posted by: dfb | Feb 1, 2013 6:28:36 PM

To state, I believe in The Word of God in The Deposit of Faith as He Has Revealed Himself to His Church in the trinitarian relationship of Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Teaching of The Magisterian, and will not put forth as truth that which is not consistent with The Deposit of Faith, is not an example of one forswearing oneself.

Posted by: N.D. | Feb 2, 2013 1:18:56 AM