05/06/2004: "No rules, just right"

This is a hoot. The good Father was clearly fast asleep during his seminary classes on New Testament, theology, and ethics, not to mention the one where they taught you to think before you speak:

GOOD NEWS: NO RULES. Fr. Edward Holterhoff, scripture scholar and parish administrator at St Timothy's Catholic Church in Morro Bay, [CA,] composed a meditation on "contemporary morality" that appeared in the September 21, 2003 edition of the parish bulletin. Quoting the Dalai Lama, as his authority Holterhoff stated, "we must 'find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.' It is imperative, therefore, to develop a basic moral consensus on which everyone can agree if we hope to promote a universal ethical approach to living. Individual faith communities certainly will be able to affect this agenda but not dominate it."

Father Holterhoff seemed to attack the concept of moral standards. He wrote, "from a Christian point of view, Jesus had no interest in rules, and, in fact, is seen as consistently breaking them. Thus, there is no theological foundation for a rule-based morality in Christianity." Addressing the question of the inherent moral quality of our actions, Holterhoff went on to say, "should we use terms such as wrong, bad, evil? Are not categories like 'harmful or helpful' more simple and inclusive?" Near the end, Holterhoff stated for his readers what he thinks should be the purpose of the Catholic Church. "The mission of Jesus, simply described," wrote Holterhoff, "was to foster happiness and to minimize suffering." Holterhoff justified the last statement saying it is in perfect accord with Sermon on the Mount.

No, "take up your cross," eh, Father? No, "whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me," right? No, "you should have done the one (justice and mercy) without neglecting the other (tithing)," jah? Those are just legalistic interpolations in an otherwise suffering-free, commandment-free text. Father Holterhoff just knows it must be so, because great revelators like John Spong and Robert Funk (currently on Jesus Seminar tour duty together�"Abbott and Costello Meet Whats-His-Name from Nazareth" movie material, clearly) told him so. Or maybe he just made it all up.

(Thanks to Mark Shea for the link.)