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March 12, 2007
Responding..
....to the Hannity/Euteneuer dustup...FoxNews commentator, Fr. Jonathon Morris, LC:
As I watched a fellow Catholic priest spar with you on the March 9 edition of Hannity and Colmes, I hung my head in shame and sadness. My colleague in religion (whom I've never met) used the public airways and Internet to call you a heretic and hypocrite. Because he chose to do this in a public forum, I want you and your viewers to know, publicly, that as an analyst of this television network, I believe this good priest, who does great work, exercised, on this occasion, shockingly poor judgment. I consider his willingness to give his personal opinion about your status within the Church inappropriate and ill-considered, to say the least.
Regardless of the issue and arguments at hand, brandishing law without palpable love almost always repels. I must assume he just made an honest mistake.
The unfortunate event reminded me of the bigger question of the fast-eroding credibility among religious leaders in our nation and its causes.
snip
Here's my point:
When we believe we have discovered truth and, therefore, we believe others are wrong — a sign of cultivated intelligence, not pride — we must reject the temptation to throw civility to the wind. Being right always didn't ever inspire Jesus to jeopardize people's reputation or dignity. It went against his very nature, and it should go against ours too. Sometimes he spoke harshly, but he always spoke in love, and he made sure people knew it.
Sean, I don't always agree with you and Alan, as I have told both of you in person, but I think you are both honest, and both have the humility and courage to accept truth when you stumble across it, even when it comes in bits and pieces. I think it's precisely this three-pronged attitude of honesty, humility and courage that best prepares us, with all of our imperfections, for heaven.
Rather strange.
I agree that Fr. Euteneuer put himself in a challenging situation and the whole concept of heresy could have been put aside in favor of another way of discussing the same subject in a way that's not so incendiary.
Some can say (and are saying) that he should have attempted to contact Hannity privately with his concerns. Possibly true - but, trust me, getting through to those people at that level is very difficult, and would be even for the head of an international pro-life group.
Another possibility, that I hear no one mention: that upon hearing about Fr. Euteneuer's original column, if Hannity was so concerned and really invested in being a faithful Catholic, he could have contact Father and asked, "I'm wondering about that column you wrote...could you enlighten me further? Because you're a priest, and I'm a Catholic in the punditocracy, and gosh, I want to make sure I get Catholic teaching right before I spout off about it to millions. That's a responsibility I take seriously."
But no, he invited him on his show, yelled at him, and allowed him very little time to speak without interruption. Which is par for the course, and to be honest, if I'd been advising Father (yeah), I would have told him not to go on the show - to insist on radio time, perhaps, since that was the starting point of all that, and the radio show is a bit less blustery and frantic than the television setting. That "talk show" environment of those programs is a lose-lose situation, almost all the time.
UPDATE
Thanks to a commentor for noting - Fr. Euteneuer has posted comments on his appearance
(It's also here - a blog with a comment function).
....and another to Fr. Morris:
Your letter to Sean Hannity indicates that you did not know that I asked to speak to him in private about this matter in 2004 otherwise you may have tempered your remarks about my supposed lack of charity in dealing with a high profile Catholic who dissents from clearly-defined and reiterated Church teachings. [See “Fr. Euteneuer asks to meet with Hannity about birth control” on sidebar.] You also seemed to be unaware of the fact that Sean was the one who invited me on his program and who then promptly “[threw] civility to the wind,” refused to display “cultivated intelligence” on the issues and jeopardized another person’s “reputation and dignity.” May I also point out that you did not employ with me the same standard of “fraternal correction” that you expected me to employ with Mr. Hannity. I at least made the attempt to speak to him about this issue in private without success; you, in contrast, went immediately to the internet to take me to task. I do not intend to understand your motives; I can only evaluate what I see in your actions.
The question that comes to mind is an obvious one: if you are a Fox analyst on Catholic matters, wouldn’t you have been the one to have had those “private conversations” on birth control with Mr. Hannity? How about discussions on his abortion exceptions? When you told Sean “in person” that you “disagreed with him,” was it on the issue of birth control? If you had done that, I applaud you, but your powers of persuasion may need a little honing—Sean has only gotten more vocal on this issue over time. If you did not speak to him about his public dissent, then I ask you, “Why?” While we are on the subject, have you also analyzed and disagreed with Bill O’Reilly’s perfectly horrible disdain for the Holy Father and the Church that you represent?
snip
As a seminary rector, I would sincerely hope that you are not teaching by word or example the young men in your charge to be politically correct sissies who are afraid to roll up their sleeves and defend the Church in private and in public. We have tons of those types in the clergy already. I would advise you to drink deeply of the wisdom of the Number Two man at our Headquarters who has in no uncertain terms told all of us that high profile dissenters are a scourge and a danger to souls. [See item: “Bertone: Dissident Catholics More Worrying Than Atheists.” http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011003.html.]
I wish you fraternal blessings for your priestly work.
Is it me, or is it getting hot in here?
My only problem with Fr. E's first response, which concerned the show in general - is his use of the vocabulary of "conservative" and "liberal." I can see his reasoning, since Hannity's MO is "conservative." Fr. E then uses the occasion to say that Hannity has been revealed as a "liberal."
That's a mistake, though because we're talking about matters of faith here, and that vocabulary is totally inadquate to the cause. Besides, I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of political conservatives in this country share Hannity's "no problem" with contraception, and don't even see it as a moral issue, much less a political one.
So with that caveat...Round Three? Four?
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
I'm very disappointed by this Legionary Priest's attempt to suck up to a celebrity. Amy, you're right, Fr. Euteneuer could have handled it differently, but that said, Hannity's behavior was inexcusable and showed that Euteneuer was right about him. The Legionary's response unfortunately reminded me of the response of Cardinal Egan when asked about the pro-abort Catholic pols--they're my friends. Yes, friendship with the world is the game.
Posted by: David Deavel at Mar 12, 2007 4:16:44 PM
With all due respect to Fr. Morris, I had to read his opinion a couple of times to make sure I read him correctly. And now, after the second reading I have to respectfully ask Father just which scriptures he felt confident in conveniently skipping over in order to design a rather incomplete picture. In giving the benefit of the doubt I'm assuming that perhaps he may just be in denial as to the rather obvious attitude demonstrated by Jesus in particular public situations of judgement....not only Him alone in those scriptures, but also the one He called no man better born of woman - John the Baptist - who also was no Mr. Sweetness and Light towards certain of adulterers...who also presumably liked to justify that they too were "good" members of the faith of the times.
Posted by: chris K at Mar 12, 2007 4:17:30 PM
Why was Fr. Morris so soft on Hannity, even suggesting he has humility? It just does not seem honest to give Hannity such dignity after the way he behaved.
Posted by: Michael at Mar 12, 2007 4:20:36 PM
So now this other priest has validated Hannity in thinking he can disagree with and disobey the church and still be a "Good Catholic."
Such people can be so smug and self righteous it almost takes really sharp words to penetrate. Nicey nicey stuff won't do it. And Hanity himself wasn't being polite, civil,or gentle. At least Fr. E attempted to speak the truth to Hannity. That shows genuine love for his soul. To speak the truth in a loving way while someone is yelling at you on national TV and hardly letting you get a word in edgewise is an awfully difficult assignment.
Susan Peterson
Posted by: Susan Peterson at Mar 12, 2007 4:22:08 PM
What really got me about the interview is the way Hannity kept on saying "Judge not, ...." He totally ignored the fact that the priest was talking about Hannity's recorded statements that contradict Catholic teaching, not judging the state of his soul.
Posted by: Sr Lorraine at Mar 12, 2007 4:34:39 PM
If Fr. Thomas was throwing stones at Hannity, the Fr. Jon was throwing stones at Fr. Thomas just as much. How does Morris defend himself?
Posted by: cricket at Mar 12, 2007 4:36:28 PM
Why didn't Sean mention the church's treatment of Galileo?
Posted by: The Kid at Mar 12, 2007 4:42:06 PM
I guess LC now stands for "lapdog of conservatives."
Posted by: Hunk Hondo at Mar 12, 2007 4:43:07 PM
Being right always didn't ever inspire Jesus to jeopardize people's reputation or dignity. It went against his very nature, and it should go against ours too.
Father Morris's bible must have left out the various things Jesus called the scribes and pharisees--apparently right to their face too, since (in my version) it says that his words led them to plot his murder.
Posted by: ron chandonia at Mar 12, 2007 4:43:58 PM
Boy are you ever right about the TV talk/interview shows- you almost never come across well on those things because you are up against a professional. No matter how right you are, and how wrong they are, they can almost always make you look foolish.
Posted by: thomas tucker at Mar 12, 2007 4:48:45 PM
This is what I don't get. A public personality like Sean Hannity states several times that he disagrees with the church on XYZ. I understand that the nice thing to do is take him aside and tell him about it. But when does the error that is now out there bringing hurt and scandal ever get addressed? Short of someone like Hannity having a change of heart and publically recanting the prior remarks - it doesn't. In that sense I think Father Euteneuer was right and even brave to address it and give Sean Hannity the opportunity to ask for clarification or admit that he was wrong. At the very least he at least illustrated that Sean just might be wrong in his dissent.
Posted by: Elena at Mar 12, 2007 4:52:48 PM
Well good grief, talk about one extreme to the other. On the one hand we have Fr. Euteneuer, who basically comes off like a fire and brimstone preacher yelling "heretic" and telling Hannity he would deny him Communion, and on the other hand there's Fr. Morris, who seems to be bending over backwards to make amends and soothe the savage beast (Hannity) while barely acknowledging that Fr. Euteneuer has truth on his side.
Nobody wins on these Fox sparring matches it's true (except Hannity and Colmes' ratings) but it sure would be nice to see a powerful AND orthodox Catholic communicator take on loudmouth cafeteria Catholics like Hannity and drive home the same points (with more humor and less heresy talk, perhaps?) Of course, if Fr. Euteneuer hadn't challenged Hannity directly by name, he wouldn't have been invited onto the show to begin with.
Still, I'm SO tired of the arrogance of people like Hannity, who think that because they studied in a seminary and know a bit of Latin automatically makes them "devout." It's like Amanda Marcotte saying she has the right to dump on her own religion because she got a degree from Loyola.
Posted by: CV at Mar 12, 2007 5:13:56 PM
I'm surprised Fr. E wasn't more prepared for the ubiquitous "Judge not..." line. Sr Lorraine could've supplied him the perfect rejoinder by saying that rather than judging Hannity's soul, his statements contradict Catholic teaching. Soundbyte length too.
Posted by: TSO at Mar 12, 2007 5:16:54 PM
It's been a long time since I've talked with Fr. Jonathan. (He was still Br. Jonathan when I knew him.) For the little my knowledge extends, he's a good guy, even if I found him overly exuberant about recruiting for LC, but I think he's woefully mistaken here.
The website doesn't make it crystal clear, so some might not fully catch on to the fact that Fr. Jonathan works for Fox News as a guest contributor. He regularly writes a column on the website and has done television commentary for them for some time. So, in all likelihood, he probably feels like he's defending a friend a bit and probably has met Sean personally. I'm not sure how Jonathan first got picked for doing the TV work. His good looks probably don't hurt and I'm sure some of it comes from the fact that he worked on Gibson's film, The Passion -- he's one of the two LC priests mentioned in the credits -- and that he's now stationed in Rome and was there during JPII's death.
Personally, I think the guy's had way too much attention thrown at him at a young age. And it's natural that a priest could be as caught up in the confusing conservative/catholic times (are they one and the same, in conflict with each other, an ideological distortion of the latter for the former, etc.)as so many others are.
So, I'm disappointed in this column, if only because I think, on the little I know of him, Fr.'s better than this. But he's a good priest overall.
Not trying to overly defend him, but I would hate to see this reduced to LC=conservative lapdogs as it was above.
Posted by: JACK at Mar 12, 2007 5:24:32 PM
Canonical question: Father E said he would withhold Communion from Hannity if Hannity approached him.
Does a minister of Communion have that canonical authority, to withhold Communion from someone like Hannity, without prior instructions from the Ordinary?
Also: What precisely is Hannity's position regarding contraception? That Humanae Vitae is wrong? Or, that HV doesn't require outlawing contraception, or acknowledging that contracepting is preferable to aborting or spreading disease? The latter is hardly a manifestly dissenting position; Amy in the past linked to a Tablet article from an Opus Dei priest / moral theologian who argued much the same.
Posted by: Rick at Mar 12, 2007 5:29:17 PM
Well, at least Alan Colmes came out OK is this clip. His interjection toward the end cracked me up! :)
Posted by: Sue T. at Mar 12, 2007 5:37:54 PM
Several have mentioned that Fr E. should have talked to Hannity privately. I initially thought that would have been a better approach until I realized that Hannity invited Fr E on the show to discuss his column. If Fr E had refused, Hannity would have more than likely gone on the air and basically accuse Fr E of being a coward for not defending his position.
I think Fr E did the right thing. Perhaps he could have worded his responses a little better, but overall, I think that Hannity comes off as an *ss.
Posted by: Brian Day at Mar 12, 2007 5:41:12 PM
Sean, I don't always agree with you and Alan, as I have told both of you in person, but I think you are both honest, and both have the humility and courage to accept truth when you stumble across it, even when it comes in bits and pieces. I think it's precisely this three-pronged attitude of honesty, humility and courage that best prepares us, with all of our imperfections, for heaven.
Oh, I get it! It was wrong of Fr. Euteneuer to imply that Mr. Hannity was bound for hell, but it's acceptable to speculate about his suitability for heaven. Thanks, Padre!
Posted by: Rich Leonardi at Mar 12, 2007 5:50:33 PM
Father Jonathan has just given permission to Cafeteria Catholics to continue with their pick and choose mentality. I grew up in the same era and same diocese as Sean Hannity and I can tell you that the catechesis was horrible!
It would be great if Bishop William Murphy would publicly clarify the Church's teaching in the Long Island Catholic. In my entire lifetime, I have never heard a priest in this diocese preach about the sinfulness of birth control.
Posted by: lourdes at Mar 12, 2007 6:04:20 PM
Hopefully Grisez's fourth tome planned for 2004 (?) and geared to clerics and religious will help the men in collars discern the particular grave moral responsibility they are bound by as vicarious Pascal Lambs - neither Fr E. nor Fr M. in my mind comes off well in these encounters: they may feel they were addressing only Mr. H. But the whole of America (with global reach via cable syndication) is watching - your audience Gentlemen of the Cloth is everyman. As Barbara Nicolisi noted last week at her blog Church of the Masses, media savvy Catholics do not grow on trees they need to be 'pruned' to bear fruit. We need a Christian Center for the Arts and Media to help folks grasp that arguments from practical reason (pagan philosophy) suffice to describe the pursuit of happiness, to be human is to act humanely. A Catholic is not called to be a a witness to mere humanity by avoiding inhumane conduct (the decaloque, Thou shalt not... etc.) but to be a witness to Christ (Blessed are the poor in Spirit, see Cantalamessa post on Matthew 5 below). Unfortuately neither of these priests makes anything close to that argument, as indeed most of their brothers or fathers in faith, the bishops, also fail. Anyone with clout and some disposable income should seriously consider Barbara's proposal, and help out these hapless men of the cloth!
Posted by: Clare Krishan at Mar 12, 2007 6:13:30 PM
Thank you, Fr. Morris, for correctly pointing out that Fr. E. was being judgemental. And waaay too publically.
Too bad mnay in the com boxes here don't get this.
Sean Hannity: the new poster boy for Conservative Cafeteria Catholics!
Posted by: Brigid at Mar 12, 2007 6:16:25 PM
"overall, I think that Hannity comes off as an *ss"
When doesn't Hannity come off that way?
I'm ashamed of Fr. Morris for what he has said. I fear he may be too "embedded" with Fox to be able to speak honestly and forthrightly about this matter.
Posted by: Jordan Potter at Mar 12, 2007 6:19:09 PM
I'm surprised to find an LC bashing a fellow priest. If anything I thought he'd be backing up his brother priest, who was in a rough spot being barked at on national TV like that, not defending Hannity, who appears to be objectively in the wrong.
We had a saying in my old evangelical world: truth without love can be hurtful, but love without truth is meaningless. It's a tricky balancing act to get them both right, and we do err. But should we beat up the person who slipped up speaking the truth, and let off the guy who’s glaringly, publicly, wrong?
As for the question of heresy, while it might be a bit harsh to throw the term around in public, it’s not exactly incorrect, and maybe even understandable given the heated circumstances (be honest: how many of us could really can keep our cool, and be all gentle, sweet, and nice, in a situation like that? I don’t think I could.). For your erudition:
Heretic: a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his or her church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church. -Diciontionary.com
”The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval.” -St. Thomas Aquinas
Posted by: Aimee Milburn at Mar 12, 2007 6:24:07 PM
Having read both Fr. Euteneuer's letter and Fr. Morris' column, I have to side with Fr. Euteneuer.
Sadly, many Catholics who watch Fox News will side with Sean Hannity whose views on birth control matches theirs; and Fr. Morris' letter will go a long way toward convincing them that they're just fine, that birth control is really okay with the Church, and that even priests disagree about it.
In fact, since Fr. Morris' letter doesn't mention birth control or contraception at all, people reading the letter will come to the conclusion that Fr. Euteneuer's 'rudeness' or incivility is a greater sin, a greater denial of Christ than Mr. Hannity's support of the evil of artificial contraception. It's as if a guest present on the occasion of Salome's dance for Herod were to be more upset with John the Baptist's head for making all the guests ritually unclean than he was with Herod for beheading John the Baptist in the first place.
Posted by: Red Cardigan at Mar 12, 2007 6:35:56 PM
This is exchange is evidence of what Cardinal George said in his last ad limina visit to the Vatican:
"The church's mission is further weakened by her inability to shape a public conversation that would enable people to understand the Gospel and the demands of discipleship."
Nearly all public conversation these days has the character of this exchange. It has the character of a political point-counterpoint, and is full of logical falacies, such as the ad hominem fallacy and the failure of the discussion participants to stay on point.
What relevance does the Church scandal have to this topic? None. What discipleship is ever possible if the response is: "judge not lest you be judged"?
The public conversation is nearly beyond repair. Not just on TV (though perhaps especially on TV), but in backyard barbecues as well.
Posted by: Mike at Mar 12, 2007 6:37:31 PM
