“Fence-sitter,” “Line-walker,” lots of choices to make these days, and many of them are nuanced, or complex, or multifaceted. No one escapes the see-saw of life except those who—my my gosh! Here comes another cliche—those who see only in terms of black and white, Either/Or, and right and wrong. Gray isn’t a color; it’s a washout; and then, as we are “metaphored” into movie talk, even gray comes in fifty shades.
Poor Pope Francis I. Fresh off his trip to an Arab country that condemns homosexuality as a disease of the mind, he had to answer why he put pro-choice economist Mariana Mazzucato on the Pontifical Academy for Life. * His obfuscation? She’s pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. Duh? How are the two not related? His argument? “Women know how to find the right path and move forward…She is a great economist from the United States, and I put her there to give a little humanity to it…[and, Wait for it—one can’t say anything nowadays without offending someone] Women…shouldn’t become like men [sorry, Trans]. No, they are women; we need them…Equality to move forward because otherwise we are impoverished.” This comes from the same pope who declares that abortion is murder. What did Johnny Cash sing? “I walk the line.” Francis I appears to teeter on a narrow fence. Tell us, Francis, just where do you really stand on the issue? Or should we ask, just where do you stand on the practice centered on the issue? Is this a matter of theology? Of philosophy? Or of psychology?
But lest I find myself on the slide under someone else’s microscope, I should note that in some way each of us is a fence-sitter because absolutes are difficult to justify. Sure, there are some absolutes for some, but no absolutes for all—Did I just write an absolute? Murder, for example, seems to be acceptable in war and self defense, seems to be acceptable against a perceived enemy, but not so much against friends and family or against random innocents.
Go ahead. Name your “absolute” and then wend your way along the path of its practice. There aren’t just fifty shades of gray; there are shades too numerous to mention. And what is that “right path” the Pope mentions that “women know how to find”?
One might think that someone in a position to issue complex Papal Bulls might clarify with details and irrefutable logic. But then, Francis I is a human, and in my experience, humans tend to fail intellectually when they argue from atop a fence. And I include myself in that category of “humans.” As a result of our difficulty in resolving nuanced absolutes (obviously, an oxymoron), we usually switch our argument from philosophy to psychology. “He’s a good person who just got into the wrong crowd”; “We can’t judge him from a single act in a lifetime of good deeds”;“She separates her personal life from her professional life”; “He’s a practicing Catholic except for his public statements that conflict with the tenets of his faith”; or “He’s a peacemaker who out of necessity starts a war to prevent the potential advance of a perceived enemy. Peace through war was his only option.”
Run the logic on any absolute you hold near and dear.
*https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2022/11/07/pope-francis-defends-choice-pro-abortion-woman-academy-life/
Poor Pope Francis I. Fresh off his trip to an Arab country that condemns homosexuality as a disease of the mind, he had to answer why he put pro-choice economist Mariana Mazzucato on the Pontifical Academy for Life. * His obfuscation? She’s pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. Duh? How are the two not related? His argument? “Women know how to find the right path and move forward…She is a great economist from the United States, and I put her there to give a little humanity to it…[and, Wait for it—one can’t say anything nowadays without offending someone] Women…shouldn’t become like men [sorry, Trans]. No, they are women; we need them…Equality to move forward because otherwise we are impoverished.” This comes from the same pope who declares that abortion is murder. What did Johnny Cash sing? “I walk the line.” Francis I appears to teeter on a narrow fence. Tell us, Francis, just where do you really stand on the issue? Or should we ask, just where do you stand on the practice centered on the issue? Is this a matter of theology? Of philosophy? Or of psychology?
But lest I find myself on the slide under someone else’s microscope, I should note that in some way each of us is a fence-sitter because absolutes are difficult to justify. Sure, there are some absolutes for some, but no absolutes for all—Did I just write an absolute? Murder, for example, seems to be acceptable in war and self defense, seems to be acceptable against a perceived enemy, but not so much against friends and family or against random innocents.
Go ahead. Name your “absolute” and then wend your way along the path of its practice. There aren’t just fifty shades of gray; there are shades too numerous to mention. And what is that “right path” the Pope mentions that “women know how to find”?
One might think that someone in a position to issue complex Papal Bulls might clarify with details and irrefutable logic. But then, Francis I is a human, and in my experience, humans tend to fail intellectually when they argue from atop a fence. And I include myself in that category of “humans.” As a result of our difficulty in resolving nuanced absolutes (obviously, an oxymoron), we usually switch our argument from philosophy to psychology. “He’s a good person who just got into the wrong crowd”; “We can’t judge him from a single act in a lifetime of good deeds”;“She separates her personal life from her professional life”; “He’s a practicing Catholic except for his public statements that conflict with the tenets of his faith”; or “He’s a peacemaker who out of necessity starts a war to prevent the potential advance of a perceived enemy. Peace through war was his only option.”
Run the logic on any absolute you hold near and dear.
*https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2022/11/07/pope-francis-defends-choice-pro-abortion-woman-academy-life/
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