Mass notes: Sunday, September
23, 2018 – 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This week I think I may have gained some important insight
into the hermeneutical presuppositions (i.e., ideology) of the priest (and
deacon) at our new parish. This is because he quite forthrightly based his
preaching on the thought of Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, a New Mexico-(where
else?)-based fellow with more than a few disciples, who has been described,
probably quite aptly, as a new-age heretic.
“Has anyone read his books?” Father asked the pew-sitters. Evidently some
people had. “Yes? Yes? Good, good!” Well, hardly surprising, especially in our
parish, which comes equipped, since 2015, with a Sacred Garden featuring a
labyrinth – usually a good clue that some significant movers and shakers at the
parish have moved ‘beyond’ the traditional apostolic Christian faith and on to
some form of ‘alternative orthodoxy’ (as Rohr describes his own thought). And
certainly Rohr’s books pair well with the scandalous fine collection of
Sister Joan Chittister books displayed in the church lobby.
Father preached on Richard Rohr’s teaching about something
like “the four stages of maturity of a spiritual (possibly Christian)
community.” Given what he wanted to say, Father naturally took bits of the 2nd
reading from James and from the gospel, Mark’s, as his points of departure: “Where
there is envy and selfish ambition [contentio],
there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. … Those conflicts and
disputes among you, where do they come from?” (James 3:16; 4:1) “Jesus asked
them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on
the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. Jesus sat down,
called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of
all and servant of all.’” (Mark 9:33-35)
So, Father noted, James was writing to a dysfunctional
Christian community; cue Richard Rohr and the four stages of development of
maturity in community. I can’t remember exactly what they were – someday I’ll
be less occupied with kids at mass and I’ll be able to take notes – but it was
something like: (1) honeymoon (“I love these people!”); (2) disillusionment
(“These people are selfish, disgusting sinners!”); (3) resignation (“I guess I
still have to try to love these selfish, disgusting sinners (after all, technically I’m one of them)”); (4) finally just being kind and cool with everyone (“Just
whatever, man, just be, it’s all good! Would you like some more soup?”). Well,
something fairly amusing like that anyway. (Father's big on jokes and bonhomie, he's a good guy, not a ‘sourpuss,’ as they say.)
Father’s (Rohr’s) schema seemed a little vague, a little
contrived, and perhaps with a hint of the insidious. It’s the kind of schema
that is open to being subtly developed in a rather demagogical direction, to
where the pew-sitters are encouraged to believe that it just would be ‘immature’
of them were they (1) too in love with their community (I don’t think this
possibility is emphasized); or more importantly were they (2) to be critical of
sin or challenge doctrinal error – the way that Jesus of Nazareth did.
So, next obvious question: Was Jesus of Nazareth (before he became Richard Rohr's resurrected ‘Cosmic
Jesus’) spiritually ‘immature’? Presumably not, Father? But then hopefully you
see what I mean when I say the schema seems vague, contrived, and perhaps
insidious. Rohr – and presumably with him his adepts – seems to regard himself as
mature (or rather, as the veritable icon of a “great advance in human maturity”),
daring, great-souled; and subversive,
certainly, but not insidious. But of course reality may not be quite what he
thinks.
And in fact reality can’t be quite what he thinks, or rather
it’s meaningless to talk about quite what he thinks reality is, because Rohr is
(at least rhetorically) ‘through the looking glass,’ so to speak, and (claims
that) he holds opposites together in the irresolvable tension of his own great
soul – or at least that’s what he aims for and recommends to others. A few quotes
to illustrate, first from Rohr’s Hope
Against Darkness, a book allegedly about “the transforming vision of Saint
Francis in an age of anxiety” (poor actual Saint Francis, his name is so
abused!):
You could say that the greater
opposites you can hold together, the greater soul you usually have. By
temperament, most of us prefer one side to the other. Holding to one side or
another frees us from the tension and anxiety. Only a few dare to hold the
irresolvable tension in the middle. [A
hint of “Hegel for Dummies” here perhaps?]
I’m seeing people of great faith
today, people of the Big Truth, who love the church, but are no longer on
bended knee before an idol. [For example,
no longer kneeling for communion? As Rohr and (presumably following Rohr) our
deacon say: when you receive communion, you are what you eat, and surely it’s a bit silly to go down on bended knee to
worship yourself (your own (Richard
Rohr’s own) ‘True Self’)?] They
don’t need to worship the institution; neither do they need to throw it out and
react against it. [Of course it never once occurred to people before ‘today’ that these were not the only two options!] This is a great advance in human maturity. Only a few years
ago it was always [yup, it was always!] either/or thinking: ‘If it isn’t perfect I’m leaving it.’ We
are slowly discovering what many of us are calling ‘the Third Way,’ neither
flight nor fight, but the way of compassionate knowing. [“The way of compassionate knowing”; i.e., the way of ‘passive’
aggression, of undermining the Church from within? – not, by the way, a strategy
discovered “only a few years ago”!]
Then there’s this bit of “irresolvable tension,” i.e.,
doublespeak (‘Rohr’ is German for pipe or reed, by the way, and one naturally
thinks of the Pied Piper in this connection, leading away first the rats, and
then – alas! – the children):
Observing nature, we see that
diversity is essential to balance, wholeness, and resilience. Ecosystems thrive
when a variety of species of plants and animals nourish each other. Diverse
environments are much stronger and less susceptible to pests and disease than
mono-crop fields. The world is a relational system full of complex
inter-dependence among very different creatures. If we want sustainable
communities, we must always welcome
the “other” [so what about pests and disease? or, say, sexual predators, heretics, charlatans? or “the world”? (see the day's reading from James, in the next verse of which (4:4) James tells us, “adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”) – hmm... we might also welcome some nuance, eh Father?] and learn to see [see? not love?] our neighbor as ourselves. Without it, we do not
have community at all, but just egoic enclaves. (taken from Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation website, here)
So diverse ecosystems are wonderful: sure, great! I’m all
for that (although, being a practical person, I’m also not a big mono-crop
hater). Therefore, we must always
welcome the “other.” Why? So that we are strong and not susceptible to
invasion by the ever-threatening “other
other”! That is, for Rohr (tolle! lege! and by all means dispute if you see fit!), we must welcome the “other” in order to defend against the “pest and disease” that are represented by the
traditional, apostolic, Biblical, creedal, magisterial teachings and practices
of the Christian faith (yes, including the teachings of Vatican II), as well as against the first principles of philosophy and theology. At least, so it seems!
In saying these kinds of things, Rohr assumes – following
the gnostical logic of his own ideology – that his own great soul is the very measure
of reality and so, quite consistently, he can patronizingly, smugly, glibly
dismiss the “False-Self”-ness of those who might presume to measure him up and
find his thought wanting (MENE, MENE, TEKAL, UPHARSIN and all that). So Rohr is
an unfortunate kind of guru for a Catholic priest or deacon to be following in
his preaching. But it’s also not surprising that such characters should arise
from time to time, and raise up disciples to follow them (this is the case of a bug in the Church which in a sense rises to the level of a feature), especially in the kind of narcissistic, clericalist, “self-enclosed
circle” of community that Ratzinger warns against in The Spirit of the Liturgy, wherein an incautious priest may tend to be drawn, by
the very setup of the physical, ‘incarnate’ space, to regard himself as the
centre of attention and who thus feels responsible for sustaining the whole
thing by his own overactive, poorly grounded creativity (see Spirit of the Liturgy,
p. 80 and my previous related comments on Ratzinger’s thesis here).
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