The President and the Pope

[Will Linden]

  I do NOT find it persuasive, however, when someone proclaims 
"TheChurch/TheChurches should stay out of politics", and fails to explain 
why issues he differs with are "politics" and those he espouses are "not 
politics". I can only feel that the "wall of separation" is differentially 
permeable. (The last "answer" I got to my question was, I kid you not, "I'm 
not talking about excommunication!", implying that the MORE serious 
"sanction" is less "political", or something which made an equal amount of 
sense.

At 02:40 PM 6/14/04 -0400, you wrote:

>On Monday, June 14, 2004, at 02:04  PM, Will Linden wrote:
>
>>   Or if in 1967, the excommunication of Leander Perez has been preceded 
>> by a presidential colloquy seeking papal support for civil rights 
>> campaigns. (Sorry, but for years I have been driven up the wall by 
>> increasingly incoherent responses on why That Was Different).
>
>It is different because substance, not just process, matters.  The 
>coherence or lack thereof of an analogy or distinction is based not merely 
>on the formal structural components of what is being compared, but also on 
>the substance of what is being compared.  Depending on one's substantive 
>values, an analogy or distinction will be more or less persuasive.  To you 
>an analogy between the unborn and the fight against slavery may seem 
>obvious.  But to find it compelling one must ignore the vast array of 
>substantive differences between the two settings.  From the other point of 
>view, the distinctions between the two may seem compelling, but that too 
>requires either ignoring the important similiarities or choosing to favor 
>the distinctions over the similarities.
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