DeVos moves to roll back regulations on federal aid to religious colleges

Another sharp change from the Regulatory State of Obama.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has moved to make it easier for faith-based entities to qualify for government grants and student aid by taking aim at regulations that go too far in restricting religious participation.

Notices posted late Wednesday as part of the federal government’s twice-yearly regulatory agenda said the department would undertake reviews to ensure that rules governing religious organizations comply with current law.

That includes the Supreme Court’s decision last year in the Trinity Lutheran case striking down a Missouri law that had prevented a church from obtaining public funds for resurfacing playgrounds.

Regulators gone wild, reined in.

via  Washington Times

Pope Francis’ thoughts on mercy contrasted and analyzed

Encouraging statement here, for those concerned about God’s anger.

One thing the world seems pretty certain about: Christianity is a killjoy, anti-sex religion. But this is a lie. Nothing in the Bible says that sex is wrong.

The Bible does hold the view that sex is such a mysterious and powerful thing that it ought to be subject to certain boundaries — like marriage. The Bible views the body as something important — something to be taken care of and used in God’s service, not used as a sexual toy. [Italics mine

— via CBN.com

This surely doesn’t solve a lot of problems, but it’s a good start.

That said, the writer offers this, from Colossians 3:5-10:

Put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires.

Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. God’s terrible anger will come upon those who do such things. You used to do them when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.

Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old evil nature and all its wicked deeds. In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.  [Boldface added]

Pope Francis typically takes a somewhat different tack, as in this in a Jan. 13, 2016, address:

  1. OUR LORD IS A “MERCIFUL AND GRACIOUS” GOD, “SLOW TO ANGER, AND ABOUNDING IN STEADFAST LOVE AND FAITHFULNESS”

The Lord is presented in Sacred Scriptures as “merciful God.” And this is His name, through which He reveals to us, so to speak, His face and His heart. He Himself, as narrated in the Book of Exodus, on revealing Himself to Moses describes Himself thus: “The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (34:6).

We find this formula also in other texts, with some variation, but always the stress is put on mercy and on the love of God who never tires of forgiving (cf. Jonah 4:2; Joel 2:13; Psalm 86:15; 103:8;Nehemiah 9:17). Let us look together, one by one, at these words of Sacred Scripture that speak to us of God.

All Old Testament references, interestingly, when the writers were bleaguered by worshipers of all sorts of other gods. He leaves out (avoids?) St. Paul to the Colossians. I’d say that’s because he is more aware of today’s beleaguered people’s struggles than of strictures and commands. It’s how his mind works and how he sees his audience.

If  you want a mystery to plumb, theological or otherwise, by the way, think hard about how his mind works.

A Chilean scholar made a very well-aimed shot at it in a critique of Francis’ latest exhortation, Exsultate et Gaudete, in which he equates pro-life efforts with pro-immigration activism:

. . . it is utterly disquieting that, on the one hand, the Pope has been “flexible” on matters that, according to Catholic doctrine, are the object of a specific and absolute prohibition, saying for example that “we must not insist too much on such issues [of abortion]”, or speaking favorably and even inviting hardline pro-abortion personalities such as Emma Bonino while, on the other hand, supporting in an absolute and rigid manner political decisions about immigration, that are clearly the object of a prudential judgement.

In this sense, he gives the strong impression that he uses his papal influence to promote his own political ideas rather than affirming Catholic doctrine, as would be his duty.

Now that’s getting down to business. Catholic men and women can disagree about the latter, but not so the former, one being about what not to do, the other about how to do it.

Claudio Pierantoni is a Patristic Scholar of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Chile and Member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and Family. He is someone I will be looking up as a prime practitioner of the art of figuring Francis out, a guide for the perplexed, you might say, to use a phrase familiar indeed to the Medieval expert.

Does Pope Francis sound like a 1925 agnostic philosopher?

I refer the reader to: Fulton Sheen’s 1925 book, God And Intelligence In Modern Philosophy A Critical Study In The Light Of The Philosophy Of Saint Thomas, p. 166, explaining an agnostic’s position, calling on Aquinas’ De Veritate, “On Truth,” Part I. chap. IV:

There is a double presupposition at the basis of the modern contention that we cannot designate God properly as object, but merely symbolically or metaphorically.

The first is that we do not know reality. Hence God is taken to be a symbol for reality.

“If that’s all it is, the hell with it,” Flannery O’Connor told Mary McCarthy after the latter had observed breezily that the mass was very good symbolism.

The second is that mind is the measure of reality, and hence God is to be measured in terms of the needs of the individual, the needs of the age, of values for our lives and in function of evolution.

God is “measured in terms of the needs of the age, of values for our lives and in function of evolution.” And that’s it, my friend.

Sounds like Francis’ approach as change agent  almost 100 years later.

Not quite, but it gets tricky, He emphasizes the activist and pastoral at times, evincing at least suspicion of the cloistered contemplative in his “Gaudete Et Exsultate” — “26. It is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others, to want peace and quiet while avoiding activity, to seek prayer while disdaining service” — and for that matter has issued new rules and regulations for them.

Tempted as I am to call it another case of men telling women what to do, I won’t.

He shoots down the doctrinal, sounding like Obama famously telling donors about citizens who “cling to their guns or their religion.”

For Francis it was “Clinging To The Written Word,” his title for a homily he gave in the chapel of the house he lives in on April 11, 2016. In it he begins:

What matters to Jesus is a person’s life, not a framework of laws and words . . .

But people have died for laws and words. What does he have in mind, winging it on a daily basis, making principles up as they go along? Why does he talk that way? Why oppose a person’s life to laws and words? I think a lot of words and tend to take it personally.

Another puzzler, from the same homily, makes sense in a way but turns Scripture on its head:

“It saddens me”, Francis shared, “when I read that passage in the Gospel of Matthew, when Judas repented and went to the priests and said ‘I have sinned’, and wanted to give back the silver pieces”.

They responded to him: “What is that to us? See to it yourself!”. They had “a closed heart in regard to this poor, penitent man who didn’t know what to do”. They told him: “See to it yourself”. Thus Judas “went and hanged himself”.

Too bad. But in the midst of reading the passion story, he sheds a tear for “this poor, penitent man”? Apparently.

For Francis it’s dogma vs. pastoral care. Natl Catholic Reporter’s Josh McElwee explained to National Public Radio — accurately, I’d say — what Francis said in Amoris Laetitia about the role of conscience:

“That’s something that the church talked about 50 years ago, but the last couple of popes did not expand upon.

“And what Pope Francis is saying is that conscience means that people can be hearing something from God, kind of in the depths of their heart, that may even be not quite in accord with what the church teaches generally, as a general norm, but can still be true and can still be discerned to be God’s will in their life.

“So he’s allowing for a little bit of discord between individual cases and the general church teaching.”

Hearing it from God in the depths of one’s heart. Not quite in accord with what the church teaches. A little bit of discord. Rome has spoken, the issue is decided.

Again not quite. With Francis it’s a nudging process: nudge a little here, nudge a little there. Give a homily, issue an exhortation, talk to newsies off the cuff. Before you know it, the real magisterial stuff.

And the beat goes on . . .