John McCloskey shows what can happen when a smart Wall Streeter turns pastor. Via
the Christianity Today
weblog, the Boston
Globe tells us:
McCloskey personally baptized Judge Robert Bork,
political pundits Robert Novak and Lawrence Kudlow, publisher Alfred
Regnery, financier Lewis Lehrman, and US Senator Sam Brownback of
Kansas, whose baptismal sponsor was another senator, Rick Santorum of
Pennsylvania.
The rest of the article is well worth reading, contrasting McCloskey's sensible view
that Catholics who don't believe in Catholicism should leave the church with that of
other conservatives who are trying to mobilize as many Catholics and pseudo-Catholics as
possible for political purposes. What I found most striking, though, was the following:
Even John McCloskey has said that he would leave the church if, by some
chance, a future pope were to change the church's stand on, say, birth
control or abortion.
McCloskey sounds like an ultramontane in the rest of the article--- a true papist who
believes in 100% subscription to the teachings of the Church, and who is not afraid to
say he thinks American and Protestant thinking is bad for the Church. But it seems he is
Americanized after all. Particular doctrines are more important than the authority of
the Pope. I'm glad he believes that, even though he's wrong on birth control.
Interesting, isn't it, that he's so willing to go against the Pope on birth control,
a minor doctrine and one where the Bible does not give us guidance one way or the other,
while Martin Luther only reluctantly came to oppose the Pope on indulgences, which
strike at the core doctrine of faith vs. works and where the Bible clearly supported
Luther's position.
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