The conception of the family as a subject
This idea that human rights are for individuals rather than for groups is relevant to the Vatican’s reflection on the Rights of the Family in the context of the Universal Declaration, too. (Do you see a pattern here? There is one. Religions, especially coercive, totalizing, domineering religions such as Catholicism and Islam and Protestant fundamentalism, are suspicious of human rights and would like to elbow them aside in favour of group rights, especially [of course] religious-group rights. We need to watch that, so that we can fight back.)
This bit of the Pontifical Council’s ‘reflection’ is the giveaway:
One aspect of fundamental importance for the promotion of human rights is recognition of the “rights of the family”. This implies the protection of marriage in the framework of “human rights” and of family life as an objective of every juridical system. The Charter of the Rights of the Family, presented by the Holy See, implies the conception of the family as a subject that includes all its members. The family is thus a whole which should not be divided up when it is being dealt with by isolating its members—not even for reasons of social substitution which, although necessary in many cases, should never put the family as a subject in a marginal position.
What’s that saying? That the family should be treated as a person, indivisible and with rights, and that in aid of that the members of the family should not be treated as indivisible persons with rights, they should be treated as parts of an indivisible whole. The family is a subject, with all that that implies, and the people who make up the family are merely parts of that subject.
That’s a really terrible idea. It’s also nonsensical. Families aren’t persons; no matter how united and loyal and loving they are, they still are never persons, they are groups of people, and a group of people is never the same thing as one person. You don’t add a person and a person and a person and get one big person, you get three people; three different, separate people, each with her own wants and needs and plans. They may all cohere and cooperate and agree, fine, but that still doesn’t make them all one person. No group has a mind; no group is aware; no group has consciousness or sensations or feelings or experience. All those belong to single individuals, one at a time. They may want to make sacrifices for the good of their family or religious group or political party, but that is still not the same thing as the notion that any of those groups has its own rights. Beware of anyone who tries to persuade you otherwise.
“This idea that human rights are for individuals rather than for groups is relevant to the Vatican’s reflection on the Rights of the Family in the context of the Universal Declaration, too.”
(Do you see a pattern here?
Yes, with one breath it is ‘the person’ – with the next it is ‘the peoples’ – and then it is ‘the person’ again.
See:
“it is based on the dignity of “the person”, and promotes and defends respect for peoples and for “every one” of their members.
Then it says,
43. The family is the primary institution for the protection of children’s rights. For this reason, the child’s interest requires its conception to take place in marriage and through the specifically human act of conjugal union. “The gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union”.
Marriage is obviously ‘one body’!
Do you see what I mean when I mention the word ‘illegitimacy’ within Catholicism. It is still by it considered a dirty word. Those whom come under its undignified banner are simply in the eyes of the RC, non persons’
Person, my foot!
Yeah. I noticed that, along with the ruling out of (of course) same-sex unions and any other kind of unions. It’s one woman one man officially married; absolutely everything else is ruled right out. Pretty much without explanation or elaboration; it just is.
They’re a nasty bunch.
I think the most key idea in your response is right here:
‘Zactly! Not that I need to point this out to you, but I feel like ranting about it and I’m not getting much else done besides laundry this afternoon.
First, there is the problem of the raw presumption of unity here, the declaration that the ideal state of family (a cooperative, coherent family unit – with a prescribed composition to boot, but never mind that for now) is the only state that matters. No. All the exceptions that exist – the less-than-coherent, non-cooperative families, the single parents and broken relationships and violent dependencies and all the varieties of family relationships that happen in the real, non-ideal, not-Papally-approved world of actual human beings leading real lives outside the sheltered walls of Vatican City – all of those people are human beings whose rights and welfare matters! It would be a violation of basic moral reasoning to privilege some people above others because they happen to exist within these (incredibly rare) cooperative, coherent family relationships. (And American conservatives rant about “special rights” for gays!)
Second: That coherence and cooperation in families, where it does actually exist, springs from and depends upon the choices and actions of the adults in it. As such, a “family” is clearly a completely dependent, secondary entity which depends upon those individuals for not only its bare existence, but for any and all moral status it may have. (Note: Like corporations, it may make practical sense to acknowledge families as legal entities in order to advance certain collective goods for society – but that’s completely different from and necessarily subordinate to protecting and advancing individual human rights for all.)
Third, I must raise the question of who bears the privilege of of speaking for this mysterious group entity, this “family” that the Church declares is a subject in its own right, an indivisible whole of which the individual family members are merely parts. Which part is supposed to have a voice and make decisions for the family, do you think? Could it be the part that also happens to be attached to testicles? Could it be that the repugnant, self-serving old men of the Catholic hierarchy are uniting the family under one hypothetical personhood for the benefit of advancing and preserving male privilege as the head of and spokesman for every family, as males have the exclusive right to lead and speak for the Church?
Nah, of course not! Der Popenfuhrer’s just looking out for the children, of course. Think of the children!
I wasn’t particularly fond of JPII, but der Popenfuhrer makes him look like a frickin’ Hero of the Enlightenment by comparison.
Good job of ranting!
“All the exceptions that exist – the less-than-coherent, non-cooperative families, the single parents and broken relationships and violent dependencies…all of those people are human beings whose rights and welfare matters!”
And furthermore, they’re the ones who need rights-protection most, not least! People in ideal families already have considerable protection, while people in unideal families are usually far more vulnerable – often to their own family members. So declaring families to have rights that individuals within the families don’t have is downright perverse – it’s like locking the hostage firmly inside the bank with the hostage-taker and throwing away the key.
For more on “Der Popenfuhrer’s” [Thanks, G.] lack of connection to reality, check out this short article. It’s a hoot. The photo alone makes following the link worth it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=504969&in_page_id=1811&in_page_id=1811&expand=true#StartComments
or:
http://tinyurl.com/257toq
Doug, that photo reminds me… My other favorite title for the former Herr Ratzinger comes from this post by Ed Brayton, in which he refers to him as Pope Palpatine I. Seriously, this scary old man has to win the prize as the most creepy-looking Pope in history – and I’m including the corpses of the dead ones!
*shudder*
Of course, it’s what he says and how he thinks (and how common that same way of thinking is) that’s genuinely scary…
Laundy wow G you must be one of these new men types I keep reading about?
G: that is why my pet name for Mr. Ratzinger is “Hairy Scary”. You can prefix his name with it (Hairy Scary Joseph Ratzinger), or insert it in the middle like a boxer does (Joseph “Hairy Scary” Ratzinger). Of course, the similarity between the word Hairy and the word Herr is coincidental.
Pope Palpatine is good too.
I find it very strange that these papal types are banging on about families and marriage. What do they know about marriage and family? Inquiring minds want to know.
The very last prayer, at all RC masses was to St Michael the Archangel. It was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
“Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio. contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.” See: Prayer to saint Michael @ Wiki.”
Crikey, is there not an awful lot of mix-up betwixt the various religion’s!
The RC decides to get rid of Wise Aul angelic Mick. While the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus and the Archangel Michael are the same being?
“The gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union”
What if it is not ‘actualised in marriage’ – what is it then? An Excluded Non Gift? A Non-entity?
In accordance with the ‘laws inscribed’…
By Whom?
The Defect of Birth (Illegitimacy)
Therefore the Church raises the barrier of illegitimacy before the entrance to the priesthood….The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II. Published 1907….
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02579b.htm
I do not want to stray off the beaten path. As it would not be a very legitimate thing to do – at all.
This is real scary stuff.
Scary and of course profoundly ironic – since there is good reason to think the historical Jesus was ‘illegitimate.’ Not to mention the fact that one of the attractive aspects of the Jesus of the Gospels is that he annoyed the respectable by consorting with various despised and rejected people.
‘The Defect of Birth’ – godalmighty.
As Dave Allen said many years ago, ‘If you are not playing the game, don’t make the rules.’
I looked up ‘Defect of Birth’ [@ Wikipedia] and spotted this, “Under the current 1983 Code of Canon Law, illegitimacy no longer has any canonical implications or consequences.” Well, Lordy me, we must get down on our knees and thank Pope John Paul 11 – as up until then “The defect of illegitimate birth could only be cured in four ways: (1) By the subsequent marriage of the parents, if they were capable of contracting a marriage at the time of birth; (2) By a rescript of the pope; (3) By religious profession; (4) By a dispensation.” [Wiki]
Now I am going to toddle off to see what “rescript” means?
“he annoyed the respectable by consorting with various despised and rejected people”
The first shall be last – and the last shall be first!!
‘Dirt after the brush!’ Or is it the other way round?
Now I am going to toddle off to see what “rescript” means?!
Aye, it is just a revisal on what is already written. With respect of the Roman Catholic Church – it is a response from the pope or another ecclesiastical superior to a question regarding discipline or doctrine.
Rescript can also mean a reply by a Pope to an inquiry concerning a point of law or morality answer, reply, response – a statement (either spoken or written) that is made to reply to a question or request or criticism or accusation; “I waited several days for his answer”; “he wrote replies to several of his critics”
It is also a word used very much in law.
What a load of Papal Bull?!