In honor of this lovely story above, I have been involved in instituting a new prize that will be given out regularly to worthy Catholic apologists. It is called the George Weigel Prize for Catholic Convenience. It is a prize in fact for intellectual convenience of a very high order. To win this prize you must have two special qualities. First, you must dress up a problematic Catholic issue, historical or otherwise, in a passably reasonable language. Second, the ideas expressed must display a talent for complete Catholic detachment from intellectual and cultural history, so as to be actually meaningless, while also serious. This is a very high bar which few can reach. Mere polemics or logic are not enough. So, we have our first winner:

The George Weigel Prize for Catholic Convenience goes to:

Rob Vischer, St. Thomas University

for this spectacular paragraph in the Mirror of Justice:

"The Meta-Cognition Deficit

It seems to me that members of religious communities are equally (if not more) susceptible to this problem, particularly to the extent that we dress up our thinking about an issue with fixed language of theological absolutes. I'm wondering whether, for example, the Church's slow embrace of religious liberty was, in the end, a cognitive problem. "

The judges felt that Vischer's identification of the Catholic church's long history of, perhaps we can say, feeling inconvenienced by other faiths and beliefs was merely a cognition problem. That it was done contiguously with a hint that there might be some Catholic questioning of theological absolutes, which of course there is not, was considered a master-stroke on Vischer's part . What one judge commented on as especially brilliant was that in fact historically there was a great deal of Catholic cognition going on, think of the University of Paris. Apparently, on Vischer's brilliant analysis it just needed to be tweaked a bit meta-cognitively. But what really clinched it for Vischer was the fact that the Church's massive involvement with political power, which even continues today to some extent in the Diplomatic arena for instance, is completely disengaged from problematic reality by the notion that it was a mere cognitive problem. Therefore, the assertion means nothing in relation to history, but sounds serious. We congratulate our first winner.

Peter Paul Fuchs, Moderator

The George Weigel Prize for Catholic Convenience has such a high bar that few are likely to reach it. As the moderator I lament that one of my favorite Catholic bloggers, the ecclesiastically bubbly Michael Sean Winters, never quite has the high-minded breadth to achieve the needed preciseness. But he may get a an Honorable Mention for his recent post on the "The Catholic Reformation". Mind you, this is a man who once was in the Doctoral [program of Catholic University for Church History. So I think it says quite a lot, especially since he dilates regularly on historical matters in the supposedly liberal National Catholic Reporter, that he simply has fundamental historical matters utterly wrong. The interested reader will want to consult Jedin's two-volume set on the Council as a reference. Jedin was a Catholic, pro-Papal writer, with imprimatur of the Church. Yet Jedin had the scholarly honesty to describe how Paul III did just about everything to scuttle the real reforming tendencies for the Church at the beginning. HIs complex strategem worked to disempower the desire of real reformers like Cardinal Reginald Pole and others to undertake that would truly be a coming to terms with great difficulties and corruption. It is all there in black and white in Jedin. Let Michael Sean Winters be an example of the desire of Catholics, apparently, to simply remake history. It is wrong from so many perspectives. He wrote:

"Pope Paul III, elected in 1534 and one of the outstanding popes of all time. He gathered to himself all the different reforming elements from the Humanist Contarini to the conservative Carafa. The Council opened in 1545 and sat for two years. "

Could anyone read this and get a sense that the Pope himself actually worked against reform in a massive way. The details are important, and I would not blame Catholics for spinning it the way Jedin eventually does in summary to vindicate a certain view. But to not even be honest about the findings of honest historians indicates a very dangerous tendencies amongst Catholic idea -people. That tendency is propaganda, pure and simple. And it is of a very low-brow variety as to intent.

George - Other than mention Jedin you provide no other information to support your claims. Your comments certainly would have been aided if you could have provided a few quotes from Jedin's work to support what you said. You also conveniently leave out that Pole was made a cardinal by Pope Paul III in 1536, over Pole's own objections. In 1542 he was appointed as one of the three papal legates to preside over the Council of Trent, and after the death of Pope Paul III in 1549 Pole, at one point, had nearly the two-thirds of the vote he needed to become Pope himself at the papal conclave, 1549-1550.

Having read two of your posts I'm inclined to think the person with the tendency to promote propaganda is you in a very egocentric manner as if some how you are intellectually superior to many catholics. Trust me you aren’t. Try a little humility and making your point using evidence and corroborated facts as opposed to throwing around names.

You throw around words like propaganda without much historical width to grasp what it means. Your first paragraph, if I understand your basic point, says not one thing against my basic point. Namely, that Paul III did everything to thwart real change and reform at the Council. Really, also, I must say your prissy schoolmarmish desire to have me list everything for you, as in a class report so you can fiddle with it, is pathetic. You are an adult. I have given you a very reputable CATHOLIC source -- and a very fun one to read as well -- so stop oarading snooty condemnations. Read the damn book. You will find exactly what I said.

Another thing occurs to me. The thrust of your objection shows me underneath that you actually have read little real Church history. That there were factions and parties that vied for power is simply not an issue. Pope's appointed Cardinals for rather Machiavellian reasons at this period. But, the sum total from an unjaundiced CATHOLIC position is that Paul III basically stopped real reform. Your attempt to even subvert your own scholars for some bizarre reactionary reason is surpassingly strange.

George maybe instead appealing to ridicule you could actually support your claims. Remember it was you who made the assertions. All I am asking is you to prove them. If they are as obvious as you claim that shouldn't be too hard for you. It's not like I asked you to prove what Jedin was accurate. I attempted nothing except challenge you to prove your own assertion in that long winded egocentric post you made. Put up or shut up George. Otherwise I’ll have to dismiss you as not knowing what you’re talking about and just another misinformed empty barrel making quite a bit of noise.

You must be young, and part of the generation who sees scholarship merely as one bias against another. You are unaware of a fundamental issue of scholarship here. I don't need to prove Jedin to you, it is an accepted source, especially by Catholics. (if memory serves it even has and Imprimatur-Nihil Obstat) .So what you are engaged in is some sort of conceptual ping-pong. Have at it, don't let me dampen you kiddy games. I don't have the first volume of the Jedin history in front of me, otherwise I would love to end this with a flourish. If you are too lazy to get thee to a library and read, then don't pretend you are even interested in the topic. Congrats ping-pong champ you are worthy of a rec. center!

Wrong again I’m not young. I didn’t question Jedin I questioned you to prove claims you made with out support other than name dropping Jedin. Nothing scholarly about that. More like some playing the scholar to sooth their ego. If you have that volume it shouldn’t be that hard to back your claims with some quotes which is all I asked you to do. Instead you dance around and do everything except support your claim. Scholars actually make logical arguments supported with credible support. Pretend scholars toss out names and make claims then try and find ways to change the subject away from their own lack of knowledge. You seem to operate under the fallacy that it’s my responsibility to prove you wrong rather than yours to prove your claims. One more time if you want to make claims most scholarly people provide support not just name drop others work without quoting it.

Then you are a baby-boomer who watches a lot of self-help shows on PBS. Spoon-fed, enjoy your ping-pong, I'm finished.

George - More name calling and personal attacks. Since you don't want to actually quote from Jedin or any other source. I can only assume you can't prove your initial claims and when called on it tried personal attacks in an attempt to shame me away. Failing that you are doing the only thing left taking your ball and going home. George come baxck when you grow up and learn how to discuss things intellectually.

Special Update on the George Weigel Award for Catholic Convenience:

George Weigel Award Recipient Rob Vischer has augmented the powerful meaninglessness of his historical analysis with knowing commentary on the internet age. After pooh-poohing the modern notion of marriage by way of another's quote he adds on the Mirror of Justice site:

"This same logic [like modern marital logic] governs our responses to one another on the Internet. We clothe ourselves in the manifest justice of our favorite causes, and so clothed we cannot help being righteous (“Someone is wrong on the Internet”). In our online debates, we not only fail to cultivate charity and humility, we come to think of them as vices: forms of weakness that compromise our advocacy. And so we go forth to war with one another."

This is a wonderful way to defend the societally indefensible position of not granting marital rights to others. Other people's desire for a partner's health insurance, or hospital visitation, or inheritance rights, are just petty "favorite causes" on the hyperbolic internet. Mr. Vischer reaches an apotheosis of disengaged compassion for his fellow human being and snooty and trendy sounding reserve representing deeper reactionary views. Clearly Mr. Vischer is a virtuoso of the special ability and the award he was given was well deserved!