In his new book THE CHURCH AND ABORTION: A CATHOLIC DISSENT, George Dennis O'Brien (aka G. Dennis O'Brien) steps forward as a concerned practicing Catholic to debate the questionable teachings of the Catholic bishops regarding abortion. In light of the antiabortion anguish that the Catholic bishops have stirred up, even non-Catholics who are interested in the abortion debate might want to read O'Brien's dispassionate book.

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Duluth, MN (OpEdNws) February 6, 2011: George Dennis O'Brien (aka G. Dennis O'Brien) has written his short 185-page book THE CHURCH AND ABORTION: A CATHOLIC DISSENT (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010) for his fellow practicing Catholics. Many practicing Catholics are evidently afraid to debate the questionable teachings of the Catholic bishops regarding abortion publicly. But not O'Brien. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago (1961) and is the author of the book HEGEL ON REASON AND HISTORY (University of Chicago Press, 1975). But he's now retired after a long and distinguished career as an academic administrator. His retirement may have contributed to his courage to debate the questionable teachings of the Catholic bishops.

Nevertheless, as a reprisal for debating the teachings of the Catholic bishops about abortion, O'Brien's local bishop could deny him communion at Sunday Mass. Local bishops have the authority to make fools of themselves whenever they want to. For example, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted recently declared St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix could no longer be considered to be a Catholic hospital because an abortion was performed in the hospital in an emergency situation to save the mother's life. Everybody agrees that he had the authority to make a fool of himself as he did. Such is the frightening authority of the Catholic bishops. So who knows what O'Brien's local bishop will do to him for publicly debating the questionable teachings of the Catholic bishops regarding abortion?

Even though this book has been written by a practicing Catholic for his fellow practicing Catholics, non-Catholics who are concerned about the abortion debate in the United States might want to read O'Brien's book. Even if you happen to disagree with him occasionally, as I myself do, you'll probably find the book stimulating and thought provoking to read.

Disclosure: Even though I was a Jesuit seminarian for a number of years earlier in my life, I am not a practicing Catholic at this time. Moreover, I have published an op-ed piece online titled "The Questionable Ethical Teachings of the Catholic Bishops Regarding Abortion in the First Trimester Should Be Debated" at OpEdNews.com on January 3, 2011. From what O'Brien says in his book, he probably would not accept my reasoning in my article, just as I am not impressed with everything he says in his book.

Nevertheless, throughout his dispassionate book, O'Brien comes across as an attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible American citizen who is addressing his fellow practicing Catholics about public discourse and debate in the United States regarding abortion.

But O'Brien has evidently not asked himself the crucial question that Americans concerned about the antiabortion zeal of the Catholic bishops should ask: What's in it for the Catholic bishops to stir up antiabortion anguish? In a word, money. By stirring up antiabortion anguish, the Catholic bishops can keep conservative antiabortion Catholics stirred up and willing to contribute their money to the bishops. The greed of Catholic bishops and priests has been well known at least since Dante's INFERNO.

In the twentieth century, the Catholic bishops and priests stirred up anticommunist fervor, because the communist regimes were officially against religion. The communists in the former Soviet Union, for example, made the practice of religion against the law; the Soviet communists wanted to put the Catholic bishops and priests out of business. As a result, the Catholic bishops and priests fomented anticommunist fervor among Catholics. But since the Supreme Court of the United States legalized abortion in 1973, antiabortion fervor has replaced anticommunist fervor as a way for Catholic bishops and priests to keep Catholics contributing money to them.

Moreover, we should never forget that the dubious ethical judgments of Catholic bishops contributed enormously to the priest sex abuse scandal.

Furthermore, we should never forget that Catholic bishops represent institutionalized patriarchy. The Catholic bishops do not want to allow women to be ordained priests. The Catholic bishops do want even want to hear any discussion or debate about this possibility. They do not even want to allow diocesan priests to be married to women. Because legalized abortion in the first trimester obviously favors and empowers women, the Catholic bishops are against it, because they are the guardians of centuries-old patriarchy.

In any event, the Catholic bishops in the United States and elsewhere around the world live a rich fantasy life in which they imagine themselves to be the successors of Jesus's apostles. Their fantasy life includes a noncritical understanding of the four canonical gospels and the portrayal of Jesus and his apostles in them as based on some kind of defensible historicity. (By contrast, a critical understanding of those stories would challenge their historicity.)

But in one of the canonical gospels, the character named Jesus is portrayed as sending out his followers to preach, but he tells them to turn around a leave any village where the people do not want to listen to them and to shake the dust from their feet as they leave to show their contempt for the people that they are leaving behind. But the Catholic bishops in the United States and elsewhere are not following those instructions. Instead, they are following the example of certain ancient Hebrew prophets such as Amos.

Nevertheless, in the view of the Catholic bishops, O'Brien is not a successor of Jesus's apostles. Therefore, the Catholic bishops see their role as successors of Jesus's apostles as teaching people like O'Brien. In the bishops' thought-world, it is not O'Brien's role in life to try to teach the bishops. Unfortunately for O'Brien, he evidently does not understand this.

Therefore, the Catholic bishops are not likely to read O'Brien's book, because he's a nobody in their thought-world and because they want no debate about their position regarding abortion.

Conservative antiabortion Catholics are also not likely to read O'Brien's book, because they are not interested in why he or anybody else might dissent from the ridiculous teachings of the Catholic bishops.

So the only Catholics who are likely to want to read O'Brien's book are people who are skeptical about the bishops' antiabortion anguish or who already disagree with the bishops regarding abortion.

I mentioned above that the Catholic bishops appear to be acting like passionate ancient Hebrew prophets such as Amos. By contrast, O'Brien writes in a dispassionate way. As a matter of fact, he writes so dispassionately that there is scarcely an appeal to pathos in this book. Nor is there a call to action.

However, if people consider O'Brien's dispassionate critique of the Catholic bishops to be cogent, shouldn't they feel a spark of anger against the Catholic bishops for failing to articulate an intelligent, reasonable, responsible position regarding abortion in the first trimester? Or are we Americans to overlook the failures of the Catholic bishops and chalk up the shortcomings in their reasoning to their passion and zeal as imitators of the ancient Hebrew prophets such as Amos?

It seems to me that the Catholic bishops have been given a free pass by the NEW YORK TIMES, for example. In a recent editorial in the NYTIMES titled "A Matter of Life or Death" (December 23, 2010), the editorial writers refer to the teachings of the Catholic bishops regarding abortion as "religious doctrine." The word "doctrine" means teaching; the Catholic bishops are obviously "religious" authority figures; therefore, their teaching regarding abortion can be dubbed "religious doctrine." But by dubbing the ethical teachings of the Catholic bishops as "religious doctrine," the editorial writers give the Catholic bishops' ethical teachings regarding abortion a free pass, instead of subjecting those teachings to careful scrutiny.

Ethics has been a branch of Western philosophy at least since the time of Plato and Aristotle. Moreover, Aristotle taught that we should consider the character of persons who advance philosophic arguments. Therefore, I urge all Americans to consider the ethical character of the Catholic bishops who transferred priests accused of sex abuse from parish to parish and from country to country. The actions of Catholic bishops who transferred priests accused of sex abuse speak louder than their words do in the ethical teachings that they advance regarding abortion in the first trimester.

For a scholarly discussion of Aristotle's views concerning the character of people who advance philosophic arguments, the interested reader should see Mark D. Morelli's article "Reversing the Counter-Position: The "Argumentum ad Hominem' in Philosophic Dialogue" in the irregularly published periodical titled the LONERGAN WORKSHOP, volume 6 (1986): pages 195-230.

In his book RENDER UNTO DARWIN: PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT'S CRUSADE AGAINST SCIENCE (Open Court, 2007, pages 95-120), James H. Fetzer, my former colleague at the University of Minnesota Duluth, works with deontological ethical theory to work out dispassionately a position on abortion in the first trimester that I find acceptable.

Finally, I should mention Barbara Koziak's book RETRIEVING POLITICAL EMOTION: THUMOS, ARISTOTLE, AND GENDER (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). In the book's title Koziak refers to retrieving political emotion. However, she does not mean that emotion has been lost from our political debates and that we should therefore set about retrieving it, as we might retrieve a lost object. Instead of meaning that kind of retrieval, she means that we need to retrieve the role of political emotion in our theory about politics and political discourse. In short, in our theory about politics, political emotion has been "lost" or left out. But Aristotle did not leave political emotion out of his theory of political discourse.

In his famous treatise about civic debate known simply as the RHETORIC (aka THE ART OF RHETORIC), Aristotle identifies three sources of appealing to the audience that the public speaker uses in his or her civic discourses: (1) logos, (2) pathos, and (3) ethos.

I have already acknowledged that the Catholic bishops are authority figures in the Roman Catholic Church. This is their ethos, their claim to authority and credibility. Unfortunately, most of their critics, including O'Brien and me, cannot establish an ethos as easily as the Catholic bishops can. Therefore, their critics should use ad hominem arguments about their supposed credibility by reminding everybody of the dubious ethical behavior of Catholic bishops in transferring priests accused of sex abuse from parish to parish and even from country to country.

Next, I should discuss pathos. In the abortion debate, the Catholic bishops stir up pathos by referring to the loss of innocent human lives through abortion in the first trimester.

Unfortunately, we have not heard the Catholic bishops speak about the loss of innocent human life in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where noncombatants are killed through American action and referred to as "collateral damage" (i.e., the loss of innocent human life). If the Catholic bishops are concerned about the loss of innocent human life, why aren't they leading antiwar protests against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? I guess that leading antiwar protests would not help the bishops make money from conservative Catholics. So the Catholic bishops are selective in their concern about the loss of innocent human life. They know a money-maker when they see one.

Next, I should discuss logos. O'Brien centers his attention on logos in his many-faceted critique of the Catholic bishops. Fetzer also centers his reasoning on logos in his fine chapter about abortion in the first trimester. So do I in my above-mentioned article about abortion in the first trimester. So there is more than one way to use logos to discuss abortion. But the Catholic bishops appear to believe that their way of thinking deserves to prevail over all other ways of thinking, because they fantasize that they have some special authority due to their fantasy about being successors of Jesus's apostles. But the NEW YORK TIMES' editorial writers have given the Catholic bishops a pass by referring to their ethical teachings regarding abortion as "religious doctrines."

In other words, centuries before John Henry Newman (1801-1890), the Roman Catholic convert who became a Catholic cardinal and who was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on September 19, 2010, used the expression "the whole man moves" in 1867 in his book APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, Aristotle in effect understood that "the whole man moves." Aristotle understood that logos, pathos, and ethos should work together to prompt people to move to action, such as the action of voting for a particular course of action. But O'Brien centers his attention on logos, on trying to get people to change their thought-world. (The expression "the whole man moves" is sexist. I have no problem with the idea of using the expression "the whole person moves," except when I mean to indicate exactly what Newman said.)

Related Reading: For an introductory discussion of Newman's rhetorical thought, the interested reader should see Walter Jost's book RHETORICAL THOUGHT IN JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (University of South Carolina Press, 1989). For an excellent discussion of Aristotle's view of ethos, the interested reader should see William M. A. Grimaldi's article "The Auditors' Role in Aristotelian Rhetoric" in the anthology ORAL AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION: HISTORICAL APPROACHES, edited by Richard Leo Enos (Sage Publications, 1990, pages 65-81).

Now, Albert Ellis is famous for pioneering rational-emotive-behavioral therapy. He claims, correctly in my judgment, that when people change their thought-world, their emotional responses to events and even their behavior will change as a result. O'Brien clearly aims to examine the thought-world of the Catholic bishops. Good for him.

But how do we move to change our thought-world? What moves us to change our thought-world? Are we supposed to be moved to change our thought-world by simply having O'Brien set forth certain implications of the antiabortion thought-world as presented by the Catholic bishops?

Usually, something needs to move us to consider changing our thought-world before we reach the juncture of examining alternative thoughts to our already established thought-world, such as the thoughts and implications that O'Brien works out. Aristotle suggests that alternative thoughts alone will probably not move us to change our thought-world. He suggests that pathos and ethos need to be added to the mix of thoughts (logos) to persuade us and move us to action. But in his dispassionate book, O'Brien centers his attention on logos.

But O'Brien is trying to reason with people who are being unreasonable, as though reason alone should suffice to get them to stop being unreasonable. But if the Catholic bishops stopped being unreasonable about abortion, wouldn't they lose face with all the conservative Catholics they've whipped up with their antiabortion anguish?

To stir up antiabortion anguish, the Catholic bishops have used the slogan, "Life begins at the moment of conception." I think this claim is itself problematic. Nevertheless, let's consider this claim briefly. If the Catholic bishops were to retreat from their antiabortion anguish, they would in effect call this slogan's claim into question. Moreover, if this slogan's claim were called into question, then the teaching prohibiting artificial contraception should be called into question as well. Thus a retreat on antiabortion anguish should have a domino effect and call into question the ban against artificial contraception set forth in Pope Pius VI's encyclical HUMANAE VITAE (1968). This prospect should strike fear into the conservative Catholic bishops because their whole moral thought-world could tumble down just as Humpty-Dumpty tumbled down.

As I see the abortion debate today in the United States, the forces of centuries-old patriarchy and male chauvinism represented by the Catholic bishops are fueling antiabortion anguish. For understandable reasons, the Catholic bishops fear that their old moral thought-world is threatened by legalized abortion in the first trimester. Therefore they use the ethos of their supposed moral authority to help advance antiabortion anguish. But the ethical teachings advanced by the Catholic bishops have no intrinsic superiority over the ethical insights advanced by deontological ethical theory.

The Catholic bishops also appeal to pathos by claiming that their want to defend supposed   human life. Just as white slave holders in the nineteenth century defended the old moral thought-world of slavery, so too today's antiabortion zealots defend the old moral thought-world of patriarchy and male chauvinism.

The other side of the abortion debate today represents the counterpart of nineteenth-century abolitionists, because the other side of the abortion debate wants to overthrow the old moral thought-world of patriarchy and male chauvinism in favor of emancipating women.

As I've indicated, I support legalized abortion in the first trimester. However, once the fetus reaches the point of viability (i.e., becomes capable of living outside the mother's womb), then I think the federal and state laws should require protection of the fetus, except in extraordinary circumstances where saving the viable fetus would endanger the life of the mother. But for federal and state laws to mandate the protection of the viable fetus, federal and state laws should provide funding for late-term abortions.

In summary, nineteenth-century Americans emancipated slaves from slavery. Are we in the United States going to emancipate women from centuries-old patriarchy represented by the Catholic bishops not only by legalizing abortion in the first trimester but also by providing taxpayer funding for late-term abortions that protect viable fetuses where possible?

O'Brien should be commended for not giving the Catholic bishops a pass and for debating their questionable teachings regarding abortion to a certain extent. I wish that Fetzer and other non-Catholic philosophers would also debate the questionable ethical teachings of the Catholic bishops regarding abortion, as I myself have in my above-mentioned article.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview