Statues in the Tiber

Ed Peters, the rather nonsensical canon lawyer who likes to get clicks to his blog, has certainly gone above and beyond himself. He usually just charges lay Catholics with heresy, but has now implicitly laid the charge at the Pope's feet, as if he has the right to judge the Pope. If he were familiar with canon law, he would realize that he does not.

Ed opined "{T]he faithful have the right to trust that what they see in Catholic sacred places is actually there in service to the sacred and is not simply a gesture toward some form of political correctness or the latest cause du jour" ... my heavens, that IS laughable.

For instance, would old Ed object to the placement of, say, the American flag in the sacristy, because such a placement is pretty obviously just a "gesture toward some form of political correctness"?

If someone took that flag out of the sacristy and threw it in the river, or burned it, in order to protest the presence of the profane thing in the sacristy, would Eddy see no serious problem? Would he laud the refusal to set up idols like the American flag?

And to those who object, there is no question the American flag HAS become an idol to many American Catholics. The flag is at least as much an idol to Americans as those statues are to various other people. Think about it.

How many American Catholics voted for Hillary or Bernie or Obama, all politicians who are pure anathema from a Catholic standpoint? How many American Catholics voted for Trump despite Trump's attacks on the Vicar of Christ, despite Trump's clear dissonance with Catholic Faith in immigration matters? How many continue to defend the idol that is Donald Trump even after he gave a half BILLION dollars in federal funds to Planned Parenthood?

How many Catholics ignore Catholic teaching as it applies to America because "America First!"? Yet the same people who applaud the throwing of statues into the Tiber would be outraged if the American flag were removed from the sacristy and thrown in the river.

Look, I have zero problem with people throwing the statues in the Tiber. If they want to, fine. Similarly, if bishops want to put the statues in the sacristy, I can't stop them. The sacristy is under the control of the local bishop and the Pope. The statues have no meaning to me, nor will they ever, so sacristy or burned and drowned is all the same to me. Like the American flag, the statues don't mean what other people want them to mean. Placing something in the sacristy doesn't make it holy any more than consecrating a man of priest makes him henceforth sinless. There are all kinds of people and things in the sacristy which just aren't worthy of God, most especially, when I enter the sacristy, me.

The placements of the statues are simply performance art: neither putting them in the sacristy nor throwing them in the river has anything to do with being Catholic nor with Catholic liturgy.

I can reject private revelation, like Lourdes and Fatima and be a perfectly good Catholic.

I can ignore the statues I consider ugly or unnecessary and be a perfectly good Catholic.

I can shake my head in disgust when priest or laity place a national symbol in the sacristy which represents a country that murders unborn children, embraces eugenics, and endorses homosexual marriage. I will still be a perfectly good Catholic.

The statue controversy is just click-bait for Catholics who are determined to be angry about pointless, unimportant things. It serves the necessary weekly outrage that keeps most Catholic blogs alive, but beyond lining someone's pockets, it matters not at all.

REMEMBER: “Even if the Pope were Satan incarnate, we ought not to raise up our heads against him, but calmly lie down to rest on his bosom. He who rebels against our Father is condemned to death, for that which we do to him we do to Christ: we honor Christ if we honor the Pope; we dishonor Christ if we dishonor the Pope. I know very well that many defend themselves by boasting: “They are so corrupt, and work all manner of evil!” But God has commanded that, even if the priests, the pastors, and Christ-on-earth were incarnate devils, we be obedient and subject to them, not for their sakes, but for the sake of God, and out of obedience to Him.” — St. Catherine of Siena, SCS, p. 201-202, p. 222, (quoted in Apostolic Digest, by Michael Malone, Book 5: “The Book of Obedience”, Chapter 1: “There is No Salvation Without Personal Submission to the Pope”).

The "Faithless Elector" Problem

Let me begin by saying the electoral college is a brilliant idea, unmatched anywhere else in the world for balancing political interests, and it should definitely NOT be abolished. However, a common complaint against the electoral college is the problem of the "faithless elector".  Let me explain.

When we vote for president, we aren't actually voting for the president. We are ACTUALLY voting for an elector who will then take his or her place in a very temporary institution called the "electoral college." The electoral college comes together only once every four years, after the presidential election is over. The term of office is counted in days. It is the electors who cast their votes for president, it is the electors who elect the president, not the general public.

Once in the electoral college, the elector should, if everything goes according to plan, vote for the same presidential candidate that the state s/he came from voted for. That's the idea, but the Constitution doesn't actually REQUIRE any particular elector to vote in a way that agrees with the majority vote of his or her state. Some states have state laws which put this requirement on their electors, but the constitutionality of those laws is unclear - they have never been challenged. Certainly not all states even have such laws in place. So, theoretically, the elector can actually vote for whoever they darn well please. This has created no end of entertainment over the last 200 years.

Now, the complain made against the electoral college is precisely about those "faithless electors" who vote their own conscience instead of the "will of the people" of the state that put them into the electoral college. But here's the nub: what - exactly - is the will of the people?

When we elect a senator or representative, those ladies and gentlemen (and I use both terms very loosely) often don't vote the way we want. In fact, the only thing we can count on is that they ALWAYS vote the way THEY want.

This is how they do it: if their opinion on an issue is shared by the majority of the people who elected them, then they proclaim that they are championing the majority and vote with the majority. However, if the senator or rep's opinion is only held by the minority of the people who voted for them, then the senator or rep votes the minority and claims s/he is fighting for the rights of the oppressed!

That's why we have to be very careful who we vote for. Each person in Congress, SCOTUS or the presidency is going to do whatever they damned well please. Despite our luscious illusions to the contrary, neither the majority nor the minority have any control over that. Everyone in government does whatever is in their own interests. If it happens to be in the interests of the majority, well, isn't that grand? But if it isn't, then the majority be damned. If you can't please everyone (and you can't), then you have to please yourself.

So, when it comes to representation, a "faithless elector" is pretty much par for the electoral course..It's standard issue politics. I don't see why anyone would be upset about someone doing, as an elector, what everyone already does as a senator, representative, SCOTUS judge or president. We can't very well expect higher standards for the largely faceless members of the electoral college than we have for all the other, far more permanent, offices.