"Thar she blows!" - The Surprising Spirit of Vatican II

Mass notes – Sunday, September 30, 2018 – 26^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.” Another Sunday, another mass, another homily. This Sunday our priest shows us photos of two similar looking churches, one Catholic and one Lutheran, and among other things he tells us, “Before Vatican II (that wonderful council!) we used to think those Lutherans across the street were missing out on something Sunday morning... Hopefully we’re not so arrogant now!”

Whereby we might conclude: The Lutherans were not/are not missing out on anything. But they were/are missing out on the Eucharist (not to mention four other sacraments). Therefore, in Father’s supposedly Vatican II-enlightened eyes, the Eucharist is nothing.

And yet Vatican II teaches that the Eucharist is the “source and summit (or fount and apex) of the whole Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11) and that Lutherans are among those who “have not retained the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness” (Unitatis redintegratio, 22). So clearly, according to Vatican II, the Lutherans are missing out on something, something important – and thus, also clearly, so is Father.

What Father gave us was a fine example of the classic “liberal-progressive” (misleading labels, really) hermeneutic of pretending to embrace, advocate, champion Vatican II by warmly praising it, making oblique references to it, and ignoring what it actually says while saying stuff that really contradicts it.

Now Father also said they used to think that the Lutherans were pretty much “wasting their time” Sunday morning. By the lights of Vatican II, that would be going too far, and he could have called that arrogant (or something less judgmental – simply ignorant, perhaps, or ill-informed, or exaggerated), and should have left it at that. But instead he dropped in the clearly false and badly un-ecumenical remark that it’s arrogant even to think the Lutherans are missing out on anything. (Presumably he would think arrogant also anyone who thought he was missing out on anything?) But Father’s claim is clearly an example of false irenicism – in the earthier paraphrase of South Park's Cartman: “God-damn hippies!” – of which Vatican II says:

Nothing is so foreign to ecumenism as that false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers damage and its genuine and certain sense is obscured. (Unitatis redintegratio, 11)

Instead of showing concern for the “purity of Catholic doctrine” (anathema sit!), Father’s claim actually implied that the real teachings of Vatican II are arrogant, even while he pretended that he was just teaching us what those Vatican II teachings are.

This manner of preaching is hardly in the spirit of Vatican II (is it?), which teaches the great importance of priests speaking truthfully and accurately in the service of genuine ecumenism.

Sacred theology and other branches of knowledge, especially of a historical nature, must be taught with due regard for the ecumenical point of view, so that they may correspond more accurately with the truth of things. It is of great importance that future shepherds and priests should have mastered a theology that has been worked out accurately in this way, not polemically, especially in matters that concern the relations of separated brethren with the Catholic Church. For it is largely upon the formation of the priests that the necessary instruction and spiritual formation of the faithful and of religious depends. (Unitatis redintegratio, 10, emphasis added)

So Father seems to have ignored what Vatican II really says about our separated brethren, the Lutherans. He even seems to have forgotten about the importance of the Eucharist. His is a theology polemically worked out to oppose the very Church he is supposed to serve! (Is this an OFM thing? Or a Richard Rohr (OFM) thing? Father’s favorite(?) Franciscan guru writes, for example: “You do not create your True Self [full consciousness of True Self is salvation in Rohr’s thought], or earn it, or work up to it by any moral or ritual behavior whatsoever. It is all and forever mercy for all of us and all the time, and there are no exceptions.” So no wonder if Father doesn’t evince much regard for “ritual behavior” like the Eucharist.) But again, recalling my previous comments (see here), if one understands the mass to be just a kind of ‘community meal’ (one that’s certainly weirdly orchestrated and poorly catered) presided over by the priest, then naturally the priest or preacher or pastor and his sometimes idiosyncratic views may move to become the centre of attention, the central reality animating the community gathering, and it may become hard to see any value-added in the actual real sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or any loss if you were to go across the street to the Lutheran service. Really, if it’s all about the pastor, chances are the Lutheran pastor will be just as likeable as his Catholic counterpart (maybe more likeable! – and he’ll probably have a wife, who will probably also be lovely), his jokes will be just as funny (maybe funnier!), and the show he runs just as enjoyable (maybe more enjoyable!). At that point we’re into the free-market form of Church, of religious faith experience, which prevails among Protestants.

So in essence our (Catholic) priest shamelessly called anyone who actually believes and embraces the Catholic faith arrogant. (Note that this kind of thing doesn’t necessarily jive well with other rhetoric about “welcoming everyone.”) Now he didn’t actually say that, in those words. It’s just that that was an obvious logical implication of what he did say.  But to be fair, maybe he’s just not good at logic.

But that’s where many people might need to stop and consider in a way they may not have before: What is logic, anyway? What is it good for? Is it mostly an amusingly alien approach to thinking practiced principally by overly sophisticated, emotionally stunted philosophy professors, those ivory tower archetypes of Star Trek’s, pointy eared, strangely eye-browed, ever-amusing Mr. Spock? Or, is logic actually a basic tool of reason, something fundamental to being human, and to becoming a mature and indeed good human being? Well yes, that’s right, you guessed it: it’s the latter!

This fact about logic is well illustrated by Father’s preaching: because he is apparently not good at (or more likely, willfully ignores) logic, he is incapable of other forms of goodness: truthfulness, sincerity, honesty; and he is incapable of avoiding hypocrisy, incapable of effectively preaching the divine word, the logos who became flesh, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the faith of the Church.

[Objection: Is it that he is incapable of these things, or that he just doesn’t want them? Reply: Intellect and will never function in isolation. When someone vitiates his ability to reason well, he also vitiates his ability to want well; if you reject logic so as to render yourself incapable of knowing the good, you correspondingly render yourself incapable of willing the good.]

Now certainly this is true to some extent for all of us who are still sinners. All of us fall short of the glory of God. The problem with a priest who is more fundamentally a disciple of ‘Cosmic Christ’ (i.e., Richard Rohr), than of Jesus Christ, is that he can’t just be a regular Christian sinner, who knows he’s a sinner, who repents of his sins, and tries to sin no more. Why? Because he has really fundamentally rejected Christ, rejected reason and logic, and is instead actively attacking logic – as well as whichever large chunks of scripture and of things like the teachings of Vatican II he dislikes. He is being illogical, but not just being illogical; he is also actively advancing an ideological framework that undermines logic and castigates people who continue to respect and to strive to cultivate logic and respect for truth. He serves a crudely militant post-modernism. He accumulates a life experience that is essentially formed through the lens of his crude ideology, and then he deifies himself and his own experience as the consciousness (admittedly intermittent) of his own True God-self. He can’t distinguish greatness of soul from delusions of his own gnostical grandeur. And insofar as he continues to function as a Catholic priest and represent himself as a Christian, as a Catholic believer, he is unavoidably hard-pressed not to become a liar (about the teachings of Vatican II, for example) and a hypocrite (arrogantly calling those who disagree with him arrogant and immature, for example).

Now all this talk of logic, illogic, lies, and hypocrisy might strike some people as awfully drastic and perhaps melodramatic and overwrought. Which is to say, this kind of frank discussion of reality is apt to make people uncomfortable and fearful. “Help! Conflict! Negativity! Can’t we just look the other way and all get along? Wouldn’t that be the ‘mature’ thing to do? Can’t we just focus on the positives?” Accordingly, discussing this kind of thing is likely to elicit psychological defenses that will dampen one’s discomfort and fear, perhaps through scoffing rationalization, through dismissal of such immature and merciless perfectionism, or through anger or counter-attack. It might take a conscious effort, then, to serenely listen and ponder, in sincere openness and devotion to the truth, trusting that it has the power to set us free. And the truth can set us free.

But the problem is, if we have yet to come to know the truth, it’s often because we don’t love the truth, and if we don’t love the truth, if we are actually devoted to undermining truth and the way to truth (logos: the way, the truth, and the life), we are very likely to instead fear and hate and indeed bury the truth, including the truth about our own fear and hatred of the truth! For the word of God, the truth, is sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces us, and accuses us of sins against our training (etc.). “I have not come to bring peace upon the earth but a sword!” Thus considered, it is no wonder, it’s actually quite understandable, that the truth so often elicits an allergic reaction, is so often hated and feared and dismissed as unfashionable, impolite, arrogant, irrelevant, antiquated, immature, unmerciful, a manifestation of False Self, etc. So while we should seek earnestly to love the truth ourselves, we can also see the grounds for cultivating a spirit of mercy towards those who want mercy instead of truth, who think that the way to be, say, merciful, or ecumenical, or humble, or mature, or loving, is to tell lies and to scorn logic.

Now it might come as a surprise to some people that a Catholic priest preaching at a Catholic mass is disparaging the Catholic faith and dismissing the faith of his parents, and grandparents, and the fathers and doctors and saints and popes of the Church throughout history, etc., and even his former self, as merely arrogant! So that seems pretty arrogant, and moreover hypocritical. Sure. But is it surprising?

That’s a trickier question, but – lo and behold – it seems Father maybe sort of saw it coming. Accordingly, a major theme of his preaching was about how surprising God always is. God is always surprising us! We should be surprised if we’re not surprised! So (sous-entendu?) if anything Father says surprises you (shocks, disgusts, scandalizes, bemuses, confuses you), that’s God speaking! Well. Maybe.

So yes, the Holy Spirit blows where he wills. And yes, we have all indelibly received the mark of the Holy Spirit in baptism, so that even darling baby Adolph Hitler received the anointing to become priest, prophet, and king. But, just because something was true for Eldad and Medad back in Moses’ day (the Spirit actually empowered them to prophesy – see the first reading for the day, Numbers 11), it won’t necessarily turn out to be true for You-dad, Me-too-dad, and every-dang-body else too! It’s also possible that someone could come along with another gospel, trying to pervert the gospel of Christ (see Galatians 1) – as well as the teachings of that most wonderful of Church councils, Vatican II. Right, Father? Of course!

As for the gospel (see Mark 9), there John asks Jesus if he should stop a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name, since this man “was not following” with them. So on Father’s interpretation, it seems John was surprised that God would be working through this other guy who wasn’t in their group, hadn’t received any formal commission, etc. More plausibly, perhaps, John may have been surprised that this other guy would be acting in the name of Jesus without being a follower of Jesus. As Chrysostom comments:

It was not as moved by jealousy or ill-will [or merely by surprise, for that matter] that John hindered the one who was casting out demons; rather he wanted that all who invoked the name of the Lord should follow Christ, and should be one with his disciples [think “ut unum sint” (John 17) – clearly also what the Lord wanted]. But the Lord, through those who work miracles, even if they be unworthy, summons others to faith, and through this ineffable grace induces these others to become better; whence it continues: “But Jesus said to them, ‘Do not hinder him.’”

[Non autem zelo, seu invidia motus Ioannes prohibebat illum qui Daemones expellebat; sed volebat quod omnes qui nomen domini invocabant, sequerentur Christum, et essent cum discipulis unum. Sed dominus per hos qui miracula faciunt, licet sint indigni, alios provocat ad fidem, et ipsosmet per hanc ineffabilem gratiam inducit ut fiant meliores; unde sequitur Iesus autem ait: nolite prohibere eum.]  

In Father’s homily the forgotten part of the day’s gospel reading (surprise!) was: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me” – and implied here: you are free to do so – “it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea!” Well! God knows best, but it looks to me like a guy who preaches that those who don’t have the Eucharist aren’t missing out on anything and calls those who think they are missing out arrogant, that guy looks like a good candidate for someone who might be putting a stumbling block before those who believe. And Father is free to believe Richard Rohr and think otherwise; but if we believe Jesus Christ in the gospel, he won’t be free to avoid facing the consequences, in comparison to which our loving Lord tells us to prefer our necks in a millstone at the bottom of the sea. Nice image! It might give one pause.