Religion & Law

Here is the NYT account of Arbp. Timothy Dolan's homily at St. Patrick's this past Sunday.  (I was there.)  Sigh.  Is this really the best the "oh so great all the smart people read it" paper can do?  

The homily was, in fact, a straightforward, accessible meditation on "faith and mercy."  For the NYT writer, though, it became (through the magic of the NYT's "control-alt-Catholics-hate-science" function) something . . . different.  And there was this howler:

He did not refer to it, but there is conflict between Catholic dogma and scientific conventions on several fronts, including the medical definition of brain death, the legal definition of the beginning of human life and the ethics of embryonic stem cell research.

But, of course, there is no such "conflict" between "science" and "Catholic dogma" (that's "the reasoned moral judgments developed in the Catholic tradition" to you and me) because "science" has absolutely nothing to say about the "legal definition of the beginning of life" or the "ethics of embryonic stem cell research."  Now, if "scientific conventions" means "the political and moral views of those who happen to be scientists" then, well, fine.  But such a conflict is one between two different non-scientific visions, not between "Catholic dogma" and science.  (HT:  Amy Welborn.)