Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

John Allen has a new blog piece up concerning the recent lifting of the excommunications against the SSPX bishops.  I don’t think much of it. Allen tends to agitate me, and he has done so again with this most recent blog post. Still, a lot of Catholic bloggers seem to love John Allen, including the highly popular “Fr. Z,” who counts Allen among his personal friends, and who finds Allen’s piece on the SSPX “insightful.”

I have issues with Fr. Z’s take on several things, including his take on Allen, but I generally chalk up these issues to differences in personality. From what I have read of Fr. Z’s blog, I presume that  he is not particularly theologically minded, except in regard to ecclesial legal concerns pertaining to the rubrics of the liturgy. He seems to be more of a classicist or grammarian. I am more broadly philosophically minded. So, I can excuse whatever issues I may have with his take on things, including his reading of Allen’s work.

I can excuse Fr. Z , for instance, for saying of Allen that “he [Allen] writes more thoughtful and articulate things than most of what I read on the blogospher, web or comboxes these days.” Well, who has time to compose particularly thoughtful combox entries? And, moreover, who gets paid to do so? As for blog posts and websites, there is much out there that is more insightful than Allen. Though, perhaps we confuse pithy articulation for insight? It might be the occupational hazard of a classicist….

Be that as it may, Fr. Z runs a slick blog which I quite enjoy, that keeps up with the news and does not cause offense. Who could possibly impute malign will to his questionable interpretation of the phenomenon that is John Allen? Fr. Z is a good guy doing good work, even though one would probably not go to him seeking advice on issues in Christology or Trinitarian theology, or to find penetrating analyses, from the perspective of theological anthropology, of contemporary cultural issues.

But whether I can say of Allen himself that he is a good guy is another story entirely. Based on his work, I have my doubts. Again, he almost always leaves me agitated, and his recent blog piece on the SSPX is no exception. I should have avoided it, but the temptation was apparently too great. Mea culpa!

Anyway, Allen says something in this piece about the Holy Father’s Regensburg lecture and its aftermath, connecting it with the recent lifting of the excommunications on the SSPX bishops, that I find highly troubling. Prior to making this connection between Regensburg and the lifting of the excommunications, he makes some points about how the SSPX affair might have been better handled from the standpoint of public relations so as to have caused less public outcry. I think that there are holes in his assessment, which I will not go into here except to say that I do not think that he fully grasps why the Holy Father lifted the excommunications at this time. The excommunications were lifted, one suspects, not only to open up a dialogue with the SSPX-ers, or eventually to bring lost sheep back into full, sacramental unity with the Church for the sake of their souls. They were lifted, as well, for the good of the post-conciliar Church itself, to strengthen its own self-identity by reaffirming within it the rights of its Tradition! Be that as it may, here’s the quotation from Allen’s piece that most troubles me:

In short, the Vatican under Benedict XVI still has not learned the lessons of Regensburg. The terrible irony of these meltdowns [including, in Allen's opinion, the SSPX affair] is that they’re a boon for people hostile to the pope or the church, who can cluck about how “I told you so,” while they fall hardest on those most inclined to be sympathetic.

The Church has still not learned the lessons of Regensburg? Puh-leeze! Mr. Allen’s take on the Regensburg lecture and its aftermath is dreadfully superficial. The Regensburg lecture was a great oration, at a profound level of theological insight.

There is no way that the Regensburg lecture could have been otherwise packaged for mass consumption. It was intellectually subtle, and that is to its benefit, especially given the audience to whom it was being addressed. It is journalists, such as Allen, who twisted certain parts of it out of context or proportion, or who were sympathetic to those who did. Those Catholic journalists who defended the lecture for the truth of its content were the much more even-handed and responsible to their vocation. Those who, like Allen, expressed, above all else, a concern that the Pope should have been more PR-conscious about its presentation, failed to report on the lecture with the integrity required by their vocation as Catholic journalists.

Allen’s problem, seen in this blog post on the SSPX and Regensburg and in most of his NCR articles, is that his hermeneutical lens is sociological and not theological. Not only does he rarely evince the requisite theological competence to do his job, he does not even seem to think theologically at all.

His work is, thus, not of much service to the Church. Catholic journalists have a special vocation in regard to the conveyance of truth. They should not presume that it is their job to emulate their secular counterparts. This is especially so when they work for Catholic publications, or even pseudo-Catholic publications, as Allen does. The Church needs fewer superficial journalists who fret over whether our therapeutic culture is going to find this or that action or teaching of the Church offensive to its sensibilities. The Church’s teachings need to be boldly proclaimed, even by journalists. Allen does not help things in this regard. The pseudo-objectivity of his sociological perspective is a hindrance to his analyses.

Though, truth be told, perhaps we would be better off without journalists altogether. Hegel said that philosophers must read the daily papers in order to commune with the Zeitgeist. Foucalt said that philosophers must all become journalists now. Truly Catholic thinkers, on the other hand, must take a contrary attitude to this worship of the present moment. They have the responsibility to avoid the destruction of the intellectual life that attends journalistic culture. Indeed, I am not at all convinced that the discipline of journalism does not necessarily degrade the intellectual life, if only because it aids in the destruction of our attention spans.

In reading this latest piece by Allen, the fear lightly touches me that perhaps Pope Benedict might actually take the goadings of sociological reductionists in the Curia to heart, who think as Allen does, when in fact we need him to continue, as he did at Regensburg, to speak firmly (and here I use jargon with which Allen is familiar) “truth to power.”

To sum up this post by transposing it to another key: the Church has not flourished under the regime of post-conciliar Realpolitik, and there is no reason to make the dictates of Realpolitik normative, as Allen seems wont to do.

In reading Archbishop Robert Herman’s, the Administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, recent column published in the St. Louis Review, I was reminded of G. K. Chesterton’s famous poem written in 1907, “The Secret People.”

In his article, Bishop Herman put things in the right perspective, showing that anger at BO and his administration is misplaced (do read the entire column linked to above).  Rather, our anger, or rather our focus, ought to be on the enabling of Catholics (or half of us) and of Catholic politicians who have allowed us to arrive at where we now stand.  BO did not hide what he had planned even if the MSM did its best to keep it out of public view.

It is a failure of Catholics to understand and live their faith that has allowed the country to drift into a post-Christian, post-God malaise.  Chesterton’s poem is written about events in English history that he sees as significant. Chesterton asserts that the average Englishman was/is more endowed with common sense than those leaders whose goal it was to labor for freedom from the Crown.  However, in each of these events he writes of he admonishes, it seems to me, the average Englishman for his silence being more interested in mundane niceties than fighting for what justice:

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

Chesterton writes of the suppression of Catholic monasteries in England while the common Englishman says nothing:

They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,
Till there was no bed in a monk’s house, nor food that man could find.
The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak.
The King’s Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

He writes about reign of Charles I in an indictment of the blindness, in fact, the tyranny of the democratic forces that opposed Charles.  Recall that Charles I was the last King of England who professed the divine right of kings and who was eventually executed for his various attempts to secure this right:

And the face of the King’s Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey’s fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.

He goes on to speak of Napoleon and others but ends with what he seems to find to be the sad state of political affairs of his time and the fact that the common Englishman has not spoken yet:

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

What is common to both Bishop Herman’s column and Chesterton’s poem is that we all know, or should know, what is right and what is wrong.  We have the responsibility for standing up for what is right.

In our present circumstances, we must stand for the right of the unborn to be born and for the right of society to be free from the tyranny of disordered social structures mascarading as protected alternative lifestyles.  We have to put truth and justice ahead of convenience and social acceptance.  We have to put down our ale and stand to protest against erroneous claims of promoting freedom that in fact, deprive us of authentic freedom.

Both, perhaps could  be summarized by the dictum attributed to that 18th century Irishman, Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.”  Let us not talk of ale while our blind politicians talk of freedom.

Well, it was not a surprise I suppose, but it was still a blow.  On Friday, as expected, BO signed an executive order reversing the Mexico City policy which now allows US funded NGOs to promote abortion–and promote they will.  It is not a surprise since BO made it clear that this was his plan and he is filling his staff which will oversee life issues, with proabortion zealots.  BO has bought into the illusion that abortion is a matter of women’s rights just as he has bought into the error that the same sex attraction disorder agenda is also a matter of civil rights.  Thus, these are areas in which he will brook no compromise.

The extent to which these rights extend in his mind can be seen in his active support of FOCA and his rejection of former President Bush’s end of term executive order put in place to safeguard the right to conscience of health care workers.  The ACLU is emblematic of this disturbing thinking.  The right to act according to one’s conscience is trumped by a supposed “right” not just to “act out” on disorders (abortion, SSAD, etc.) but also by a “right” to force others to enable such behavior.  In fact, BO’s support for additional “hate crimes” legislation, as we are seeing in Canada and in Europe, suggests that religious liberties are also to be subordinated to such fabricated “rights.”

The tyranny that appears to be on our horizon, the foreshadowing of which was Friday’s executive order, is a modern form of tyranny which Monsignor Robert Sokolowski mentions in his epic tome, Phenomenology of the Human Person.  In summarizing the way that syntax reveals the human person as the agent of truth, Sokolowski asserts that the corruption of truth is the aspect of modern tyranny that makes it perhaps the greatest malady man must endure.  He refers to George Orwell’s novel 1984:

… modern tyranny is complete only when subjects are willing to disavow their own exercise of truthfulness, and to say that four fingers being held up in front of them are not necessarily four, but that they could be three, or five, or four, or even all of these at once, depending on what the Party says the are.  As the tyrannical O’Brien says to Winston in 1984, “The thought is all we care about,” and, “When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will” (96).

Clearly, the tyranny is not yet complete.  However, it seems that the groundwork is now being laid.  The majority of the US electorate either cared not enough about the threat or did not see it clearly enough.  The crisis atmosphere is now upon us which makes the possibility that the majority could willingly abandon their responsibilities as agents of truth all the more credible. We will see in the next few months how committed BO is to social reconstruction as a priority.  He has loaded his administration with abortion ideologues.  He is willing to now spend scarce US tax dollars on pushing the abortion “ideal” upon the underdeveloped world.  If he champions FOCA and hate speech legislation amidst the crises he has on his plate, the answer will be clear.

When Catholic hospitals and all healthcare workers of conscience  find that they now are obligated to cooperate with the culture of death, expect to hear again Blago’s retort to Illinois pharmacists…”it’s time to find another profession.”  When Christians, Jews, and Muslims are ordered to no longer teach that abortion is murder or that same sex attraction is a disorder, expect to hear that they have no right to promote hateful and devisive ideas. When BO holds up four fingers and asks what you see, expect to hear the Party whisper in your ear the answer you are to give before you have a chance to respond.

We may have turned the corner that we all were hoping we would not turn.  If this charismatic man who now inhabits the White House indends, as his first priority, on foisting upon us the social shennanigans he has promised, then the Church in the U.S. should be ready for persecution well beyond the threat of taxation we are now seeing in San Francisco.  With the Psalmist we should pray all the more fervently for the Church: Lord, protect Her from evil, guard Her still.

The CatholicVote.com – Grassroots video I posted on the other day is doing quite well apparently. It has already had over 5 million hits since it was debuted a few days ago. They are now running it on major networks. If you have an extra $3M you don’t know what to do with, perhaps you could contact them about helping to run it during the Super Bowl. Here is some more info over at LifeSiteNews.com.

This is the first of a 10 video campaign by CatholicVote.com. I promise to keep you informed as the next nine appear (or at least as I am informed any way). Who knows, perhaps we might even get a pre-release look.

All eyes throughout the world have been focused of late on the inauguration of Barack Obama to the American presidency. This is, needless to say, quite natural. The American presidency is the seat of the greatest political power on the face of the earth, and the people of the world have been sloganeered into believing that a figure of messianic significance has come to occupy it. Much ado about nothing, really, as Obama will be no more significant to the future of the world than, say, Jimmy Carter or, perhaps, Nero and Diocletian.

But amidst all of the delusional hoopla surrounding this mega-marketed occasion, a quiet revolution of real world-historical significance might be in the offing. The man who sits on the Throne of Peter, who wields real, spiritual power, the power of the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, is rumored to be poised to make an announcement of truly great importance. According to the English-language Rorate Caeli weblog, drawing on reliable European sources, the announcement is imminent that the excommunications against Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer, and the four bishops consecrated by them for the SSPX, have been lifted or removed.

Though I could not possibly weigh in on what any of this means canonically, it is an announcement that would be, potentially, of immense importance for the unity of the Church and for the resacralization of her Sacred Liturgy. It would be, as well,  a consecration of Counter-Reformation theology — at least it would be a sign that the great early- modern, scholastic theological tradition of the Church still has a place in the intellectual formation of priests. This last point is not an insignificant one, and a lot of commentators do not bring it to light.

The “re-legitimization” of the SSPX would be important for the character of Catholicism on the continent, especially in France and Germany. The absolute power of anti-religious bishops would be beneficially held in check in favor of Tradition, and Benedict XVI would have gained new and important allies in seeing to it that the mandates of Summorum Pontificum are upheld. Moreover, the Church would be reunited with a body of the faithful, whose numbers are quite significant in parts of the world, who recognize at a deep spiritual level that the natural family is the irreplaceable, basic unit of society.

But beyond all of that, sources are reporting that the Holy Father himself has said that the future subsistence of the Church in France and Germany might rely upon the reunification of the SSPX with the Holy See.

If the rumor turns out to be true that the excommunications have been lifted, and the SSPXers are themselves open to working in unity with the See of Peter, it would be a momentous occasion.

Salvation history is, of course, the essence of history, and Barack Obama’s election is mostly insignificant in this regard. His power will be fleeting, and his long-term impact on the course of world-history will not have a positive, constructive importance — no greater than the regimes of Nero, Diocletian, or, say, Jimmy Carter. Let provincial secular historians, whose pronouncements are shallow and ephemeral, busy themselves with dissecting the significance or insignificance of his political programs.

A far more epoch-shaping event may be on the near horizon. Let those who have eyes to see focus their hopeful attention on Christ and the working of His Spirit in and through the earthly holder of the keys to the Kingdom.

Most everyone has seen the new viral video produced by Grassroots Films for CatholicVote.com:

It is a brilliant video by Joe Campo and his young men. Unfortunately, it will not likely sway some people. That is, the many who rabidly support abortion will certainly not get the point.

They will not ask themselves the question: when would then the first black US president would then have come about if BO’s mother had done the “sensible” thing and “terminated her pregnancy”? Sensible that is if the father had not married her or if she had known that she would soon be a single mom whose son would get in the way of her studies and later career.

They will not ask themselves what other firsts have been missed because other mothers have made that “wrenching choice” which after all, does have a “moral dimension” to it.

They will not ask these questions because when they first see the picture of the ultrasound in this video they will see the enemy. This unborn baby is what stands in the way of their “freedom” to behave as if there were no consequences to their actions.  He is the enemy who threatens their consciences when the see him and claim to see only a “lump of tissue.”

They will not ask the question: when did this particular lump of tissue transform itself from the enemy into their messiah? They will not ask because it was foreordained, though they will not ask themselves by whom, that at this auspicious point in time (i.e. that they are around to “benefit” from it) they would be given this guarantor of “hope” who promises to lead them to Nietzsche’s “great sea of endless possibilities” in which no one need be restricted by nature to a sexual identity or sexual preference or family structure or anything else that restricts their will to power.

However, there are hopefully many more people of good will who will be affected by it. Perhaps they will ask the questions. Perhaps they will follow them to the necessary conclusions.

I wonder if BO will ever get to see this video. I wonder if he will ask the questions…

On this eve of the inauguration I find myself in the position of feeling to be on the outside looking in.  It is an amibivalent experience to be sure.  The media hype of celebrations and the myth-making rhetoric of the political commentators have turned the last few weeks into the same circus atmosphere that followed the election.

It would be nice to be able to celebrate with those who see this inauguration of the first person whose skin color is not predominantly Caucasian.  That is to say, is would be nice to celebrate that a perceived racial barrier has been surmounted, or perhaps more accurately at this point in our nation’s history–a milestone in the progress toward interracial harmony has been reached.  This certainly is a reason to celebrate.  However, on the other hand,  one also gets the sense that the very felt need to celebrate such an event suggests an underlying deficiency in the “color blindness” that is said to be the goal.

This is not the source of the ambivalence, however.  No, the ambivalence arises when one considers what this inauguration will mean for life and natural family legislation.  The executive policies and support for legislation that will do damage to both over at least the next four years is certain. The degree to which these will be successful in doing damage is the only uncertainly.  These concerns, the pure, inherent evil associated with the position BO takes on them , cannot outweigh the good that this inauguration might bring for interracial harmony.  In fact, I find myself not able to even wish him success in those areas of agreement because I recognize that those successes will provide him the political capital he requires in order to carry out his more nefarious designs.  I can only pray for his well being and for his conversion.

This administration will not be friendly to the unborn.  It will not be friendly to the protection of natural families.  And it will not be friendly to those who attempt to protect and defend the above.  The pro-death Catholics who have been selected to comprise the next administration and the much noticed dearth of Catholic clergy in the inaugural celebration do not seem to parallel moderation we have seen in the selection of BO’s incoming cabinet and other administration officials (Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation is one exception I suppose).  It seems to me that this is a harbinger of things to come.

BO will not give a place at the table of public discourse to anyone whom he sees as morally opposed to his social agenda and obliged to publicly profess their moral opposition.  He has said that it is time to get past the public debate of what he has termed “divisive” issues and to get on to working together on areas of mutual agreement.  Now usually this might not be such a bad thing.  However, I suspect that what  he means by this is a demand that as a precondition for working together, those opposed to his social policies will be obliged to remain silent as he unilaterally implements misguided social policies that, in his mind, make everyone equal by deconstructing institutions like the natural family, in order that radical feminists and those with various sexual disorders are not reminded of the fact that they cannot choose to create realities that defy the natural order.

No, the next four years will not be friendly to Catholics and others who insist upon publicly professing the sanctity of human life and the truth about the human person.  It is quite possible with the economic challenges and the sure to come (based upon the vice-president elect’s prognostication anyway) direct international challenges to the BO administration, that the worst of his promises for socially destructive policies will have to be sidelined.  It is also quite possible that this crisis environment will provide him the emergency expedience he needs to put them on a fast track.  We will have to see.

It is quite certain, however that more babies will begin to die as soon as his executive orders are enacted.  It is quite likely that faithful Catholics and others of conscience could face more government facilitated social persecution and perhaps government enabled legal persecution (I am thinking about here, for example, the attempts to tax the San Francisco Archdiocese $15M apparently as retribution for their support of Proposition 8).  How dark the night is yet to be determined, but on this eve of the inauguration the shadow of night has already begun to fall.

Here is the final installment for my letter to Fr. “Gary.”  It is perhaps, worth noting that the final report for the Apostolic Visitation showed up on the USCCB website recently without much fanfare.  In general, the findings are that diocesan seminaries are by and large (but not universally) healthy.  Seminaries run by religious, not so much.  The latter have problems with fidelity to Church teaching, an authentic understanding of the priesthood, and recognition that same sex attraction disorder is in fact a disorder.

However, even within the healthy seminaries there are problems of dissent from moral teaching with at least a few faculty members.  By and large, spiritual formation is lacking in most seminaries.  However, things are not as dire as they were as recently as the 1990s.  They point out, however, that this is based upon spot checking of seminaries and there is no guarantee that the visitation has uncovered all problems.  In fact, since there was plenty of warning about the arrival of the visitation, one wonders that even this much was uncovered.

I would say that this report corresponds with what I understand from my contacts with seminarians and priests going through various seminaries around the US.  Things are getting better at the larger diocesan seminaries but there is still a long row to how before we might call seminary formation solid, as a whole, in the US, .  This perhaps explains the reason so many of us are familiar with the problems reflected in Fr. Gary’s homiletics.  Here is the last installment of what I shared with him:

Finally, I think that content wise there are several messages of which so many Catholics are desperately in need.  I think these messages are what the laity is missing if it is to be motivated to change.  Now I agree that the emphasis should be upon the what and why before we address the consequences for all too long the lacunae in preaching on some matters has sent the message that  there are no consequences for one’s actions or non-action.  Here are the lacunae to which I refer:

Hell – I am not trying to suggest that we need to go back to the “fire and brimstone” sermons that were more popular prior to the late 60s.  What I am suggesting is that what we have lost is the connection between our actions and their consequences as if we get to choose both.  People need to understand anew that hell is real; furthermore, it is a real possibility if we choose to live a radically selfish life that is closed to God’s will (not as difficult to do these days as some theologians would have us believe).  If we radically choose our will over/against God’s (i.e. the truth) then we are choosing for ourselves how we will spend eternity; that is, separated from God which is the very definition of hell.

Purgatory – There are many others items that need to be heard, the need to pray for the souls in Purgatory and to live lives that will avoid the need for purification after we die (assuming we do so in a state of grace).  This is a teaching that is infallibly taught by the Extraordinary Magisterium and can never be reformed.  The mystics are emphatic about the need to pray for souls of the faithfully departed, especially for those who have no one to pray for them.  With so few people who are hearing about this reality these days, there are less and less people who are making reparations for those in Purgatory.  This is kind of like the problem with Social Security, more and more people are in need of reparations for them but there are less and less people who are providing for their needs.

Chaste living – the need to live chaste lives in our sex lives.  For example, married couples need to shun artificial birth control and endeavor toward chaste marital relations and those not validly married need to live chaste lives.  We need to be more discriminating in the movies and the TV shows we watch, in the magazines we read, and in the video games we play, etc.  The lack of chaste living, I believe can be correlated with the sociological ills of our society and I am convinced this explains why we see abortion as commonly accepted today as it is; why we are seeing the family and society fall apart; and why the West appears to be on a trajectory to repeat the Fall of the Roman Empire.

I will save you the details but to summarize that the lack of chaste living has taught us to think of others as objects rather than persons and has led to this culture of death in which we are now mired.  While some say that a priest has no credibility to talk about such subjects, I suggest that he, as one who has heroically (especially in our hedonistic culture which assaults chastity) dedicated his life to chaste living in the single state, provides the living example that chaste living is a gift from God if we are open to it.  There is no one else who has the credibility to say that it cannot be done when we have tens of thousands of examples showing that it not only can be done but that there are great graces for doing so.  These are the primary sources of grave sin today and nothing psychiatrists or moral theologians say will be able to change the grave nature of impure thoughts and acts.  This is something Catholics need to be taught once again.

Sacraments and Grace – Most Catholics do not understand that sanctifying grace is a share in God’s very nature and radical communion with the Three Persons of the Trinity through the Son.  They do not understand the Sacrifice of the Mass -that Calvary is made present at Mass.  They do not understand the Real Presence- that they join with Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and divinity in Holy Communion.  They do not understand that the ordinary means for our being made holy is through the Sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist.  This alone explains the lackadaisical attitude people have toward the Mass and the Eucharist.

Confession – The need for regular, individual, private, confession again needs to be emphasized.  The fall off in the numbers of faithful who make use of this awesome grace is staggering and I believe the primary reason that we see no difference between Catholics and the general population in all of the categories of societal ills such as divorce, prison populations, etc.  For Catholics who ignore this, their ordinary means of grace, it is difficult to see how they will get that grace otherwise.  Hebrews 2:3 comes to mind here and frightens me, “…how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation.”  Not reject, not ignore, just neglect…

Father Gary – I don’t know if you have made it this far.  If so, I sincerely hope that I have not sounded condescending or lecturing.  If so I apologize, that was not my intent.  I have tried to, with all humility, and  understanding that I am a sinner in great need of God’s mercy, to identify those things that I sincerely believe are critical for any priest to effectively pastor souls in today’s hostile environment.  I am most open to your feedback and/or criticisms if you desire to dialogue on any or all of my points.  None of this lessens my love for you as one of the pastors of my soul and I have earnestly prayed that for you it does not damage our relationship. I continue to keep you and your priesthood in my prayers.

Here is the third in the installment:

I believe that the next issue is perhaps the fundamental reason for any disagreements that we may have had.  I would characterize this as the misconception of a conflict between love and obedience.  Forgive me if I have misunderstood your position on this issue, but I will restate here what I have interpreted it to be based upon your homilies:

Jesus’ Gospel message was one of love.  Love now replaces the legalism of the Old Testament and therefore rules are to be avoided and even disregarded if they seem to conflict with a loving pastoral response in any given situation.  This is exemplified in Jesus’ continual berating of the scribes and Pharisees for their legalism.  Jesus freed us from rules which get in the way of love.

I would argue against this position.  The canard that viewed the Pharisees as rule following legalists was an artifact of Reformation polemics that placed Catholics in the same boat.  In fact, the above reflects view reflects Luther’s “law and the Gospel” dichotomy.  Even among Protestants, this view is beginning to change.  There is a new perspective upon Paul led by scholars such as N.T. Wright and E.P. Sanders that are reevaluating the Reformation’s interpretation of Paul.

Posing “love” against “obedience” is a false dichotomy.  Our culture is dominated by a legalism which presupposes that rules are arbitrary human inventions that necessarily impose themselves upon human freedom.  This is a deficient view of freedom however.  In reality, rules are supposed to be based upon the truth about the way things are.  It is true that we multiply laws in the West at a dangerous rate.  However, this is because we have done away with fundamental moral principles and now we are trying to clean up the mess by legislating against the problems that arise because of it.  When it comes to the Church, rarely does a conflict arise between the Church’s “rules” and a loving pastoral response any particular situations.

Rather, the Church’s canons are aimed at helping the faithful live according to the message of love that Jesus gave us.  Because of this, I think that one needs to be very careful to understand the rationale behind a particular rule before one disregards it.  I know that there are many periodicals, many of them I have seen on your desk, that caricature Church teaching and discipline as arbitrary and archaic human inventions, but for whatever their motivation, the caricature they make of the Church’s hierarchy and Her rules does a great injustice to those who have faithfully labored to instruct the faithful in the ways of the Gospel and an even greater disservice to the faithful for whom these rules are put in place to help them grow in holiness and grace.  The laity needs pastors to love their souls at least as much as the pastors are concerned for their feelings.

The Church teaches there is no difference in God’s message in the Old and New Testaments.  The Old Testament is the New Testament veiled, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  Jesus’ message was that love means obedience and that love can only be demonstrated by obedience to His Truth (cf. John 14:15-16,21, 23-24).  Obedience extends beyond just the 10 commandments and mortal sins, but it demands we do God’s will in everything.  Since Jesus’ authority is exercised by the Church in discipline as well as in teachings of faith and morals, obedience to these disciplinary rules is also paramount.

Far from being pharisaical, this is a response of love for God and His Will in our lives.  I see that the teachings of Jesus in Scripture that may seem harsh, make much more sense when viewed from this perspective.  A truism is that ultimately people will only be genuinely moved by the truth, and if this is the truth it must be made part of one’s thinking if he is to motivate others to change their lives.

One note of interest, the drastic decline in Mass attendance and practice of the faith in the West have corresponded very closely to the general trend in homiletics of avoiding discussing the difficult issues and infusing teaching with opinions which contradict Church teaching.  While there may be some negative feedback initially when presenting the difficult truths, the overall positive fruit will eventually eclipse the negatives.

So what is Jesus saying to the Pharisees and scribes if he is not telling them stop pushing the rules?  Jesus is telling them to change their hearts.  His point is that the rules are meant to transform themselves interiorly through observance of exterior behavior.  Both are necessary.  Jesus never said anything close to the assertion that rules are bad or opposed to His message.  In fact He did the opposite, for example He cited some rules (the 10 commandments) to the young man in response to his question about what he had to do to be saved.  Furthermore, Jesus told His disciples that they had to obey the spiritual authority of the Scribes and Pharisees because they sat on the “cathedra” of Moses (see Matthew 23:2).

Jesus was trying to change the Pharisees’ hearts and to help them to realize that they could not save themselves through external observance of the law without a corresponding interior transformation.  Moreover, they needed a Savior Who would give them the grace enabling them to reach perfection.  He, likewise, showed them the rules they were implementing were not in fact carrying out God’s plan.  Not that all rules were bad.  It is a logical fallacy called a “hasty generalization” to say that because the Pharisees and scribes went astray with their rule making that everyone who makes up rules does the same thing. Thus, comparing the number of canons in Canon Law with the number of laws the Pharisees imposed is not a valid argument for disobeying Church discipline.

What the Church has that the Scribes and Pharisees did not is God’s grace and the protection of the Holy Spirit and this should give us confidence that the Church, in general, applies rules in the way God wants, in order to carry out the Gospel message.  But even for those few cases where Her disciplines are not the most well advised, we still have to go back to Matthew 23:2, and do what the Church says because She has God’s authority.

Only in those rare cases where following a rule would in reality contradict what the Church really directs because of some uniqueness to the situation, should a rule be dispensed with and then discreetly so as to not scandalize (in the true sense of the term) the faithful.  I don’t think this applies to minor inconveniences and dispensing of Church discipline definitely is not justified due to preference or the desire to avoid hard feelings.   It also requires a thorough understanding of the intent of the rule and the ramifications of dispensing with it.  In truth, almost every canon in Canon Law provides for these eventualities anyway.

If we look at the source of this dichotomy between obedience and love we will not find it Scripture, nor in the writings of the Fathers of the Church.  It is not in the saints or the mystics writings.  Rather, we find it in faulty philosophies of Nominalist voluntarism, in Reformation extrapolations upon this, and in Enlightenment rebellion against authority.

All the evidence throughout Church history show me that it is safest to stay close to Mother Church because she always leads us in the right direction.  If I am left to my own devices, I can see that I make more mistakes in a week than even the worst critic of the Church says She has made in Her 2000 year history.  Without reliance on the authority of the Church we are left with the confusion seen in Protestantism today, perhaps around 40,000 different communities/denominations all teaching different things.  This confusion, I fear, is what we effectively have among so many Catholics today.

I have no illusions about convincing you, but I could at least hope you might see this from another perspective rather than dismiss it as rigid legalism.  In the end, I think that the chances of convincing your listeners to allow God’s grace to change them will only be successful when they are convinced with rock solid certainty that they are being given the truth and can trust in it.  Otherwise, they are being asked to go completely against what their culture says is good with no reason to think that the message they hear from the pulpit is any more certain than the message they hear from the television.

I want to courteously suggest that obedience also applies to the priest in the liturgy.  The lack of apparent concern that too many priests seem to have for the rubrics of the Mass is the perhaps the most significant thing that grieves so many of us, and for which we feel obligated to dedicate much of our reparations.  I am not talking about the legitimate selection of options, but changing of words in the Mass for a variety of reasons (inclusiveness, attempts to be clearer, to save time, or for personal preference), the dropping of required parts of the Mass, etc.

The Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium paragraph 22, subparagraph (3) says specifically, “…no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”  The CDF has called these changes grave matter and therefore this appears to me to be one of the most serious issues, potentially undermining many of the intentions of the Masses themselves.  I cannot imagine a greater slap in the face of Christ.  To take His perfect act of obedience and turn it into an act of disobedience (to a greater or lesser extent) is the very definition of sacrilege. There is probably nothing else that undermines a priest’s authority in the eyes of the laity than for that priest to ignore the authority from which he derives his own authority.  Having said this, I am not making any judgments of anyone’s intention in this.  Personally, I honestly believe that most priests sincerely do not believe their adaptations are considered serious.  Most probably do not consider the gravity of what they are doing.  However, because of these disobedient changes are objectively grave, great harm is done.

Here is the second issue with regard to homiletics which I brought up with Fr. Gary.  Now Fr. Gary is a difficult to understand man and this comment reflects something of that.  He would not want to be said to be disobedient to the Church.  However, he was all too often able to rationalize such disobedience.  Thus, this comment in written with the presupposition of fidelity to the Church while trying to show ways in which he may not always have been:

Another comment which I would like to offer may seem insignificant, but I think that it is not.  It is the way one treats difficult passages of Scripture in homilies.  Too often recourse is made to interpretations which seem more palatable to the faithful but I would argue that this tends to undermine the authority with which an ordained priest speaks, especially when he speaks in union with the Church.   In general I think that these difficulties can be divided into three categories:

- an apparent contradiction between the words of Scripture and the Gospel message as taught by the Church;

- an apparently harsh statement by Christ or one of His disciples that would seem to be at odds with what the preacher perceives to be the message of the Gospel;

- an apparent contradiction between history/science and Scripture

For the last 50 years or so, all too many critical scholars are all too quick to dismiss this or that scriptural assertion as an error.  If it is true that it is possible for Scripture to err in any matter that it asserts to be true, then intuitively people will begin arrive at the logical consequence that Scripture is not completely trustworthy.

While this realization remains in the “preconscious” mind of the faitful, it can result in a selectiveness in accepting Church authority based upon the impact it has on them given their life situation. If the ramifications of the undermining of scriptural inerrancy reaches their consciousness, it very well could compromise their faith.

In any case the assumption of error on the part of these scholars is incorrect.  It is clear that the Church has infallibly taught there can be no error in Scripture.  I understand some Catholics teach that Dei Verbum, paragraph 12 indicates that there could be error in Scripture if an assertion does not have to do with faith or morals.  This is based upon seeing a supposed restrictive clause in the text dealing with inerrency, which says “for the sake of our salvation.”  I believe that this is a misunderstanding of the paragraph.

Without going into the details of why this is the case, I think the previous sentence makes any discussion of the supposed “restrictive clause” unnecessary.  The previous sentence says, “…as true authors … they consigned to writing whatever [the Holy Spirit] wanted and no more”  (DV 11).  The logical consequence to saying there is any error in Scripture then is to say that the Holy Spirit wanted the inspired authors to convey error; a theological impossibility.  What then remains is that what we think to be an error is, rather, our misunderstanding of the author’s meaning or our understanding of Church teaching.

Unfortunately to suggest that either Jesus or the inspired author was wrong and the modern scholar or priest is correct, not so subtly implies to the listeners that they are on their own when it comes to discerning the truth.  If God Himself can make errors then it makes no sense to trust Him or His Church.  Again, this implicitly supports the relativism prevalent in modern society and makes it nearly impossible for any homilist to motivate the laity to change their lives if it is in the least bit inconvenient…much less difficult.

It is all too common today for many homilists to rely upon the opinions of theologians and Scripture scholars.  Unfortunately, this can be the case even when these opinions contradict the teaching of the Church.  While there are plenty of Catholic theologians who deny the ability of the Church to be authoritative (much less infallible) in anything, much more common for homilist to rely upon are those who incorrectly divide matters down a hard line between infallible/irreformable teachings and reformable/opinions of the Church.

These scholars treat a teaching that is not infallibly taught by the Extraordinary Magisterium (ex cathedra statements or declarations of ecumenical councils) as if it were on the same grounds as the opinion of a theologian.  This is an incorrect distinction and disregards the teaching authority given by the Lord to His to the Church.

First, they miss the fact that there are infallible teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium. The CDF has given the examples of the Church’s teaching on women’s ordination and artificial contraception as infallible teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium.  Second, even teachings that are not infallibly taught by the Ordinary Magisterium still carry significantly more weight than a theological opinion.  Vatican II’s  Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium paragraph 25 advises that even papal teachings that are not infallible still must be given the submission of intellect and will (i.e. beyond mere outward obedience, but a areligious assent) if they are taught by Him as something that must be held by the faithful.

A theological opinion carries no such weight.  Therefore a theological opinion that contradicts what the Church teaches, as expressed by the pope when he is teaching as pope, can never be used as a possible alternative teaching.  When this is done it again undermines the authority of the Church and therefore the authority of the homilist.  Again, people intuitively understand that truth does not change (times change, secular values change, but God and His truth cannot-even if we sometimes understand the truths more deeply or describe them in different language); therefore, if the Church contradicts itself in any dogmatic teaching then it is not worthy of trust in anything.

Without the confidence that the priest is teaching with God’s own authority, through the authority of His Church, the laity will be inclined to follow only that guidance already in line with the way they currently live.  And I suggest that this is very logical, after all if there is not human authority on earth that has God’s authority and infallible protection, then we don’t even know that we can believe in the Gospel.

Confidence on the part of the faithful in the inerrancy of Scripture and the infallibility of the Church are foundational for the homilist’s authority because his credibility and authority to speak are derivative upon these. Uncritical use of critical theories which will probably change tomorrow, may make the homilist look erudite and modern, but it works at cross purposes with his vocation.  A more integral use of all senses of Scripture in accord with Catholic tradition is the most effective and appropriate approach to homiletics.

I was in the USAF for twenty years and during that time, I had the opportunity to experience a wide variety of priests, both active duty and civilian, around the world.  In general, I would say that most of them more poorly formed in their homiletics.  That is not to say that most were poor public speakers.

Actually, most of them could speak relatively well from the pulpit.  Rather, most seemed to use the same tired formula for homilies.  It begins with some personal experience that some how relates to the theme that the homilist intends to convey.  Then, if it does any explanation of the biblical text under discussion at all, it is usually to provide a popular critical theory which serves no purpose other than to undermine the authority of Scripture in the minds of the faithful.  Then it ends with some sort of exhoration that seems aimed at others, that is what happens when sin is only committed by social structures I guess, who are not as generous with their time or taxes as we are.

A number of years ago before leaving one assignment, a retired priest who assisted at the Air Force chapel that I attended asked me to provide him my assessment of his homilies.  Now this priest was not the worst that I had encountered but he did exemplify many of the problems that I see in homilies.  I ended up with a 7 page response; the first page and a quarter were encouragements to continue in strengths that I saw.  This left 5 and 3/4 pages of criticisms.  I thought I might share some of these in a series of posts.  Let me know if any one has seen similar problems in their Mass experience or has an opinion to share with respect to my response to, we will call him, Fr. Gary:

The first content comment is that it appears that you subscribe to the prevalent perspective among liturgists today that the purpose of homiletics is to inspire rather than teach. I understand that this philosophy goes so far as to explicitly rule out incorporating catechetical instruction as part of the homily.

In an ideal world, I would agree with this philosophy as it better fits the artistic nature of the Sacrifice of the Mass. However, this approach presupposes a sufficient catechesis of the listener so that he has the ability to respond to the message and therefore I don’t think this approach can succeed.

I do not believe that my experience is a unique aberrance, but the CCD I received provided me with far LESS than the bare minimum understanding an adult Catholic should have. I think that this is true of the vast majority of lay Catholics; and compounding the problem—I think that very few do any type of continuing catechesis. Therefore, the necessary background is missing.

Most Catholics know neither the “what” of how we are supposed to live much less, the “why” they should be living that way. Therefore, there is no foundation from which to inspire them. For a homily to challenge and inspire the listener, he must know what he is being inspired to live up to and why.

Therefore, for any priest to have a fighting chance of getting his parishioners to be equipped to respond to his message, I think that basic catechetics must be part of almost every homily. The primary reason we see little to any response is that most Catholics do not understand:

1) that they must be saints to enter heaven (Rev 21:27 “…nothing unclean shall enter [heaven].” Also see Lumen Gentium #40);

2) beyond this they do not recognize that Jesus Christ established a Church, the Catholic Church (cf. Matt 16:18);

3) that the Catholic Church has Jesus’ authority over them to bind and loose  in matters of discipline as well as in faith and morals (cf. Matt 16:19);

4) that the Church and Her Sacraments (most especially the Mass/Eucharist) are their ordinary means to achieving what Vatican II terms the “universal call to holiness;”

5) that they have a moral obligation to follow the spiritual direction of Church through their bishop and priest in all aspects of their lives “for they are keeping watch over [their] souls, as men who will have to give account.” (Heb 13:17) when they are directing them in union with the Church.

These are realizations which “floored” me when I came to understand them after living through 30+ years of a veritable “spiritual coma.” These realizations are what have caused me to reform my life and with respect to the topic at hand, they continue to cause me to take everything I can from a priest’s homily regardless of his talent as a preacher.

Without these truths, the average Catholic will feel he has no reason to follow anything a priest or anyone else says because he is influenced by today’s predominant philosophies of: relativism which suggests there is no absolute truth, or skepticism claiming that even if there is, no one can know it any way.

Therefore, “it” is all opinion, one opinion is as good as another, and so the easy, hedonistic opinion which we are pummeled with from the mass media is the “opinion” we are most often going to go with. I think that this is what we are generally seeing in the life of Catholics in the West today.

As the passage from Hosea I cited earlier said (and I really do believe it applies to us today): “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (Hos 3:6). Unless obligatory catechetical classes for adults were implemented I fear the only way to get these basics across is using the homily.

Our librarian passes along an initiative by the Library of Congress to collect sermons and homilies that reference the inauguration of BO as the 44th President of the US.  She writes:

The Library of Congress is soliciting sermons that comment on the significance of the inauguration of 2009 and are being delivered between Friday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. They are collecting audio and video recordings, as well as paper copies for their archival collection documenting significant American events.  Their invitation provides an unusual opportunity to document the Catholic perspective for those who may be interested in participating.  The full press release on the project and requirements are below:

From: Cheryl Adams [mailto:cada@loc.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 7:27 AM
To: atlantis
Subject: [atlantis] LC seeks Sermons and Orations Relating to 2009 Presidential Inauguration

Press Release:

December 23, 2008
Press contact: Erin Allen (202) 707-7302,  eral at loc.gov
David Taylor (202) 707-1737,  dtay at loc.gov

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SEEKS SERMONS AND ORATIONS
RELATING TO 2009 PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION

Over many decades, the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress has documented everyday citizens reactions to major historic events in our collective American experience. For instance, man-on-the-street interviews were recorded on the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941; Italian-Americans were documented to celebrate the Columbus Quincentenary in 1992; interviews were conducted with Americans across the nation in the weeks following the tragedy of September 11, 2001; and the Veterans History Project is preserving the personal experience stories of Americans who served the nation in wartime. These voices of ordinary Americans responding to extraordinary events exist as valuable research collections for the scholars of today and they are a cultural legacy preserved for future generations.

On January 20, 2009, the United States will inaugurate Barack Obama, the countrys first African-American president. In anticipation of citizens efforts to mark this historic time around the country, the AFC will be collecting audio and video recordings of sermons and orations that comment on the significance of the inauguration of 2009. It is expected that such sermons and orations will be delivered at churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship, as well as before humanist congregations and other secular gatherings. The AFC is seeking as wide a representation of orations as possible. This collection is one of many oral history and spoken word collections at the AFC that preserve American emotions and memories of important cultural events.
Congregations and groups interested in contributing to this once-in-a-lifetime documentary project are asked to record sermons and orations delivered during Inauguration Week 2009 and donate them to the Library of Congress. The donated recordings will be preserved at the AFC in order to enhance the nations historical record and preserve the voices of religious leaders and other orators for researchers and scholars of the future. After being processed by archivists, the collection will be made available to scholars, students and the general public.

Individuals and groups interested in contributing to the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project are asked to submit audio and video recordings made in digital or other approved formats. To be accepted into the collection, the recordings must be of sermons and orations that were delivered to congregations and other audiences between Friday, Jan. 16 and Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009.

In addition to audio and video recordings, the AFC is collecting written texts of sermons and orations (submitted in the form of print or electronic media), as well as printed programs from the events during which the sermons and orations were delivered. All submissions must be postmarked by Feb. 27, 2009, and must be accompanied by a signed release form and completed data form, found on the AFC website, www.loc.gov

For additional information about the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project, including the technical specifications of the recordings that can be accepted, downloadable copies of the required forms, and instructions for submitting collections, please visit www.loc.gov , or call the Center at (202) 707-5510 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, Eastern Standard Time.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled collections and integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Many of the Librarys rich resources and treasures may also be accessed through the Librarys Web site www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a new, personalized Web site at myLOC.gov.

The American Folklife Center was created by Congress in 1976 and placed at the Library of Congress to preserve and present American Folklife through programs of research, documentation, archival preservation, reference service, live performance, exhibition, public programs and training.

PR 08-234
12/19/08

This information may be forwarded to appropriate listservs, organizations, or individuals. Apologies for any cross-posting or incorrect mailings that may occur.

Stephen Hand, the radical traditionalist proprietor of the Traditional Catholic Reflections and Reports weblog, has the goods on an important upcoming conference on economics and Catholic thought in New York City.

Garden City, NY, USA. A conference hosted and sponsored by the Nassau Community College for Catholic Studies in Long Island, New York, is confirmed for April 4th, 2009 at the College Center Building. The debate will present and contrast the Capitalist, Socialist, and Distributist positions in economics. The Conference, Catholicism and Economics, will present and compare the intellectual arguments about the compatibility of Catholicism with, respectively, democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, and distributism.

Thomas Storck will speak for the distributist position. Dr. Charles Clark will be the speaker on democratic socialism. Michael Novak will be the main speaker for the democratic capitalist position.

From 11:30pm until 12:30pm there will be a luncheon for all in attendance (speakers and audience) including sandwiches, salads, cake, coffee/tea/cold beverages. Following lunch, there will be a brief tribute to the recently deceased Catholic scholars, Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., and Msgr. Michael Wrenn. The debate will begin at 1pm with a half hour presentation by each participant. Subsequently, there will be an opportunity for the participants to respond critically to one another, with a brief summary statement made by each main speaker. Dr. Stephen M. Krason, President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, will close the event with a short reflection on the conference from the perspective of Heinrich Pesch and Solidarism. The event will conclude by 4:30pm.

Thomas Storck is an author, a member of the Editorial Board of the Chesterton Review and of The Society for Distributism.

Dr. Charles M.A. Clark is a Professor in the Department of Economics and Finance, Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John’s University, Jamaica, Queens, New York.

Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute of Washington, D.C.

Stephen M. Krason is Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

All conference attendees must register. In order to register for the conference, contact:

Nassau Community College
Office of Life Long Learning
One Education Drive
Garden City, New York, 11530
1-516-572-7472.

The Society of Distributism website

While you are at Mr. Hand’s blog, be sure to see his very interesting post on Cardinal Biffi, directly above this advertisement.

The Feast of the Epiphany brings to mind the great distortion that our fallen world has when it comes to the meaning of “power.”  Almost continuously in the news we hear about “power” plays in politics, power struggles among nations, and attempts to “empower” the disenfranchised.

Modern philosophies are built upon the distorted notion that equates power with the capacity to coercively impose one side’s will over against the other.  Marxism’s central theme of class struggle is one such philosophy.  Post-modern deconstructionist theory in which all communication is reduced to the attempt of the communicator to impose his will on his interlocutor is another.

Power defined as coercive is likewise at the root of the decadence of many contemporary theologies popular among some who call themselves Catholic. The Church hierarchy is viewed solely, or at least primarily, in terms of coercive power.  This is reflected in their distrust of Church authority and their attempts to employ the coercive “power” of public opinion in a “power” struggle against the hierarchy.

The idea of God’s power as, if not coercive, at least as “intervening” in natural affairs is also very common among Christians.  It is not surprising since this is a part of the Judaic tradition.  However, it requires Christian refinement which is oftentimes missing.  For example, I once heard an otherwise orthodox Catholic priest, who was taken with the Charismatic Christian emphasis on God’s power as interventionist, say that while Catholics have the truth, Charismatic evangelicals have the power of God.

The English “power” comes to us, through French, from the Latin potentia. This term can connote coercive power but it also can suggest an ability or capacity (potency if you will) given by one’s nature. The latter definition is the Christian understanding of power.  Jesus Christ in His whole being manifested authentic “power.”  Just before He died He explained to His disciples the difference between Christian authority and pagan “power.”  The former is for service, the latter is used for coercive enforcement of will.

St. Paul, calling Jesus Christ the wisdom and power of God (see 1 Cor 1:24), explains Jesus’ power in terms of the Crucified Christ.  This is not hyperbolic rhetoric but a deeply theological assertion.  The Cross is the manifestation of inter-Trinitarian life; namely, an act of total, self-giving love.  This visible, temporal manifestation of God’s eternal love begins with the Incarnation.  There are many truths revealed by God’s subjecting Himself, as a defenseless babe, to man’s caprice.  Of prime importance, as Jesus later makes explicit, is the fact that God’s power must be reconceived.

The Epiphany ties together, in a very unique way, the birth and the death of the Messiah.  The Epiphany traditionally has celebrated the manifestation of Jesus to the Anawim at His birth, to the Gentiles in the visit of the Magi, to Israel in the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the wedding feast at Cana.  The Latin Church’s Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the visit of the Magi to Jesus as an infant.  The early Church Fathers saw, in the gift of myrrh from these men from the East, the prefiguring of Jesus’ death on the Cross.  The innocent Babe and the condemned Savior become manifestations of God’s total, self-giving love.

For those who are philosophically minded you will understand that God’s love is His power.  That is to say, God is pure simplicity.  All of God’s attributes are the same thing in God but because He is infinite in nature finite beings can understand this infinite oneness only finitely.  Thus, we understand God’s nature in terms of distinct attributes when in reality they are one “thing” in God.  The attribute of power is the “potency” if you will, for God to act in His creation according to His nature, which is love.

Now love is the total gift of self in God (precision: this love cannot be total from God’s perspective when given to finite creatures). Love demands the faculties of “intellect “in order to know the other and “will” in order to choose to give oneself to the other.  As creatures, we have these “personal” faculties in order to choose to give ourselves to God or not.  It is not love if it is coerced because it is then not a free act of the will. If we do not freely choose then it is not authentic love.  Thus, for God in order to act in accord with His nature (He created human nature according to the archetype of divine nature), cannot coerce the human will.

God acts in the world in such a way that, in order to draw all men to Himself, He does not permit their wills to be coerced in order to love and serve Him.  That is not to say that He does not act in miraculous ways at times, but when He does we are assured that those who do not wish to give themselves to Him will not be forced by such an intervention to do so.

We need to renew this understanding of God’s power as well as our own.  It is a capacity to act in accord with our nature.  Our nature is fashioned so as to love God and neighbor as our selves.  When we want to understand authentic power, we must turn to the Cross and to the Babe in the manger.  It becomes an abuse of power when we use our abilities to coercively exert our wills upon others when this is not necessitated by the common good.  Rather, we are most powerful when we live in such a way as to enable others to see Christ, in His power and love, in us.  The Epiphany should be a reminder of our obligation to show Christ forth in the way we live.  Imagine if all Christians lived like this; now this would be an epiphany.

David and I recently did a post on the disturbing phenomenon of sex parties at Catholic colleges. Since the time of that post, I have come across the darkly beautiful music video linked to below from the alt-rock group “Radiohead.”  The title of the song is “House of Cards:”

The song explores, with as much artistic depth as Generation X can muster, the interconnection of swinger’s parties, the technologization of man, and civilizational disintegration. It captures the encompassing despair of these sordid gatherings. The first line of the song, “I don’t wanna be your friend, I just wanna be your lover,” is the sort of twisted, dehumanizing compliment one might hear at a swinger’s party. The video suggests that the bursting is nigh of the bourgeois bubble of technology and suburban comfort that makes it possible for swinger’s parties to exist as sad realities of our age.

Amidst all of the dark themes in the song, the human spirit lifts above the carnage in the haunting vocals of Thom Yorke, the lead singer and songwriter for Radiohead. And the beauty of the human person shines through in the video, a beauty that even the darkest nihilism of our age cannot completely cover over. Even the thought that man is a collection of electronic data particles, which is one of the implicit themes of the video, cannot destroy our intuition of the beauty of the person. Our technological age induces us to assimilate ourselves to our machines. We are even compelled to think of ourselves as nothing more than ordered bits of electronic data. This pretense is intimately connected to our quest for loveless sexual exploration. But a finely honed artistic sense, as is expressed in this video, sees through, consciously or not, this deformed technologism.

The video is well worth viewing and the song worth listening to. The music of Radiohead is perhaps at the pinnacle of the alt-rock genre, for whatever that might be worth. It is often said that music is the condition that all art aspires to. In that spirit, I have often told people that the music of Radiohead is the condition that all of postmodernity aspires to.

Here’s an interesting interview that Thom Yorke gave to the Christian publication “Third Way” a couple of years ago. Obviously, given his genre of music, one would not expect Yorke to have much sympathy for Christianity. His religious preferences are western Buddhism and eco-radicalism. Noam Chomsky is his Promethean figure of choice. He is instinctively nihilistic, to be sure. But he remains, musically, a poet rather than a political hack. One could rightly say of him that he is a gifted artist working with the debased materials of his age.