tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18569525403935604772024-03-19T05:18:04.840-07:00David McPikeDavid McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-34590915059172379532021-03-10T08:18:00.000-08:002021-03-10T08:18:20.259-08:00Letter to Bishop McGrattan on abuse at local parish<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit;">Dear Bishop McGrattan:</span></p><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am writing further to the email that I originally sent you September 19, 2019 about the pastor's liturgical abuse at St Mary’s as well as abuse in the RCIA program there.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A few months back I came across an edifying news story: </span><a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1856952540393560477/1726960438039432750#" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Toronto cardinal rebukes Catholic school board members for barring Catechism reading</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. The lead line reads: </span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto has rebuked members of the local Catholic school board for refusing to allow a passage of the Catechism of the Catholic Church pertaining to ministry to people with same-sex attraction to be read during a recent meeting.</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In an </span><a data-auth="NotApplicable" href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1856952540393560477/1726960438039432750#" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">open letter</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> to the board chair, dated November 17, 2020, Cardinal Collins wrote:</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">At a recent meeting of the Toronto Catholic District a member of a delegation attempted to quote from the section of the </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Catechism of the Catholic Church</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> which concerns the teaching and the pastoral practice of the Church in caring for our brothers and sisters who experience same sex attractions. Shortly after he had begun reading the quotation, he was interrupted, and it was suggested that to continue reading from the Catechism was to be treading in dangerous waters, and would be putting down a marginalized and vulnerable community, and that the language of the Catechism is not proper.</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That a Catholic should be criticized, and effectively be prevented by Catholic Trustees from reading from the Catholic Catechism at a meeting of a Catholic School Board is simply reprehensible. I highly commend Trustee Crawford for pointing out the significance of this act.</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Catholic faith must guide all who are engaged in Catholic education…</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If those engaged in Catholic education ... have bought into the fundamentally anti-Catholic narrative... (etc.)</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I'd like you to compare this event, including Cardinal Collins’s response, to what happened to me at St Mary’s in Cochrane at the hands of the pastor and a fellow parishioner, the head of the RCIA team. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I had been observing, enduring, and pondering the pastor's ostensible abuses of the mass at St Mary’s for about a year, when in September of 2019, preparatory to raising some issues with the pastor himself, I raised the issue with and sought advice about proceeding from the more seasoned parishioners on the RCIA team, of which I was a new member. It seemed fitting, indeed a prompting of the Holy Spirit, to do so, following the RCIA meeting we had just had, at which we discussed the story of the golden calf and I had pointed out the liturgical relevance of the golden calf story, as Cardinal Ratzinger described it in his book </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Spirit of the Liturgy</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. In response to my raising the issue of the pastor's liturgical abuse at St Mary’s, the head of the RCIA team rudely and summarily dismissed me from what she evidently regarded as ‘her’ RCIA team and the pastor seconded her decision. He even assured me that it was my part, in his words, to just “take the slap,” to accept the abuse I had received from her (and from the half of the RCIA team which concurred with her, and evidently from the pastor himself) in the spirit of Christ before Pilate (</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">sic</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We see, however, that when Christ was slapped for speaking the truth before the high priest (the corrupt clergy of his day), he did not merely take it in silence. As St Thomas Aquinas points out in his commentary on </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Romans </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">12:19, Jesus did not just “take the slap”:</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Even the Lord himself commanded, Mt 5:39: “if someone strikes you on one cheek, offer him also the other.” But, as Augustine says in the book </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Against Lying</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">, those things which are done in the New Testament by the holy ones serve as examples for understanding the Scriptures, what is contained in its precepts. But the Lord himself, when he was struck by a slap, did not say: “Here is the other cheek”; but rather, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if well, why do you strike me?” Whereby he shows that the readiness of the other cheek is to be accomplished in the heart.</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rather than addressing my concerns about his abuses, of the liturgy and thus of us his parishioners (many of whom, admittedly, enjoy and applaud this kind of abuse), in conversation the pastor disappointingly just changed the subject, accusing me of being ‘divisive’ (“some people say you’re divisive,” he said) and asked rudely insinuating questions about my past, completely dismissing the legitimacy of my concerns. He had nothing to say in point of explanation of the actual significance of the gossip he had been participating in about my being ‘divisive,’ which obviously Our Lord also was (“do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth,” etc.), and seems to amount only to the thoroughly banal observation that he and I, and in general people in the parish (and out of the parish!), disagree with one another. He refused to address the question of what is the truth of the matter, or what is right and just and to be done, instead insisting that we should just “agree to disagree.” And while claiming to have a vision of an ‘inclusive’ Church, he suggested that my family and I go find a different parish, since evidently his inclusiveness falls short of including people who dare seek, in a spirit of open, honest, well-informed dialogue, to promote the authentic faith and practise of the Catholic Church in their local parish.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For your part, you (in person and via your administrative assistant) and your vicar Fr Wilbert Chin Jon have kindly assured me on several occasions that you would address the issue. But until now, almost a year and a half later, so far as I have been informed, it seems you have, rather like the second son in our Lord’s parable (Mt 21:28), in fact done nothing and said nothing. But </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">tacere est consentire</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. And as you know, if you say nothing to the wicked man under your charge, he will not only be condemned himself, his guilt will fall also on you. See, e.g., Ez 33: it is the bishop (</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">episkopos</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">), if anyone, who is in the position of sentry (</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">skopos</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">) which Ezekiel describes and to whom he gives fair warning. For my part, I know that my redeemer liveth, I know that “what is veiled will all be revealed, what is hidden will all be known” and that for every idle word that a man speaks he will be held to account on the day of judgement. But in the meantime I am left discouraged and disillusioned, asking “Where is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master can entrust with the care of the household”?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 14.1732pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To return, finally, to the comparison to Cardinal Collins, I will note that some fifteen years ago my wife and I went through a marriage prep course in Edmonton where Collins was archbishop at the time. There were some serious errors in the teaching presented in the course and when we brought these to the archbishop’s attention, he showed real concern and promptly arranged a meeting to discuss our experience, and actively worked to make the program faithful to Catholic teaching. Sadly, however, it is hard to escape the impression that most bishops will only address abuses occurring under the aegis of their authority if there is likely to be a public scandal arising from not addressing it, which is only the case if the issue is something that the media cares about. But the media will of course never care about faithful Catholic marriage prep any more than it will care about faithful Catholic liturgy and catechesis. At any rate, I am grateful for the experience of episcopal integrity we had with Collins. I hope that the current situation has been a matter of oversight, not policy, and that we can eventually find a similar experience of episcopal integrity with you.</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Respectfully yours in Christ,</span></p><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">David McPike</span></p></span>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-80919488582799054382020-12-22T13:16:00.000-08:002020-12-22T13:16:40.694-08:00Christmas Message 2020: Less 'intellectual understanding,' more 'personal relationship'The archbishop of Winnipeg, the Most Reverend Richard Gagnon, currently serving as the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has published a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Christmas Message</a>, wherein he tells us the following:<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>We celebrate the Sunday liturgies accompanied especially by the Gospel of Mark this year and in this too, we can find great solace. Mark’s Gospel has been called the Gospel of “Discipleship”. He shows clearly how the followers of Jesus struggled with uncertainty in recognizing Him as the Son of God as well as with their call to be Evangelizers in a culture very different from the Gospel ways. Mark records the words of the disciples after Jesus calmed the sea when they said: “Who then, is this?” This is at the very heart of Mark’s Gospel and Jesus affirms this when he says to them: “But who do you say that I am?” It is Peter who responds by saying: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Mark shares with us that it is not enough to intellectually understand our faith; we are to have a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus, above all.</blockquote><br /><br />So I realize that last sentence is what you might call pastoral boilerplate. The bishop is just reciting a common cliché: Intellectual understanding is not enough (as if intellectual understanding were something obvious that we can pretty much take for granted); what we need is to go beyond intellectual understanding (as if that's where people tend to get stuck: they clearly understand Jesus and the whole Catholic faith, but...!); what we need is the much more essential and ambitious thing: to have a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus. Allegedly that's what Mark shares with us. <br /><br />But think about what Mark's gospel actually says. It seems all the disciples (and crowds and pharisees, scribes and lawyers, priests and bishops, etc.) had personally encountered Jesus. They all had their own 'personal relationship' with him. And that's what wasn't enough. What they were precisely missing was an intellectual understanding of who he was, which Peter by the grace of God manages to grasp: "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." He doesn't just encounter Jesus and have a relationship with him, like all the rest. Moved by grace Peter's intellect is enlightened to understand God's revelation to him of who Jesus Christ is.<br /><br />So the bishop has it backwards. What "Mark shares with us" is that it is not enough "to have a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus"; what we need is "to intellectually understand our faith." The bishop's backwards claim is solidly grounded in the authority of the commonplace, the oft-heard and thoughtlessly repeated cliché. But perhaps we, including even bishops, should not rest content with repeating tired clichés; in truth what we first of all need is to take care to think about what our words really mean, so as, indeed, moved by grace like Peter, to intellectually understand "our faith." <br /><br />And indeed, "our faith" isn't even "ours," or rather it isn't even "yours," unless and until <i>you </i>have made the intellectual effort and done the intellectual work to appropriate and understand it. Resting content with the extrinsically accomplished "personal relationship" with God is the way of the hard-hearted Jews of John 8. When Jesus tells them that the truth - i.e., the proper object of intellectual understanding - will set them free, they take umbrage: "We are Abraham's descendants!" In other words, we're good! We are the chosen people! We already have our 'personal relationship' with God! Why are you telling us we need to be disciples of the truth? <br /><br />Why? Well if you really need a reason, here's one (and there certainly are others): Because Jesus, the divine logos incarnate, says so, and his word is truth.<div><br /></div><div>And an aside: You might well wonder about evangelizers, teachers, religious leaders who claim that it's really about personal relationships. As they say: "It's not what you know, it's who you know" -- also known as cronyism. And isn't cronyism a deep rot at the heart of much of the present corruption that plagues the Church? There's no reason why a commonplace religious cliché can't double as a tool of the devil, in this case by subtly insinuating the rightness of cronyism. In John 8 Jesus tells the above-mentioned 'personal relationship' Jews, "You belong to your father, the devil" and "it is because I speak the truth that you don't believe me." Some things to ponder.</div>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-63541318087705908482020-12-04T10:39:00.000-08:002020-12-04T10:39:01.332-08:00Paternalism and covid-19 hysteria<p>I was having a conversation trying to explain to someone that there isn't just one possible reasonable way to approach the coronavirus pandemic. It's rather like climate change, in that things are actually very complicated, and to pretend otherwise is unreasonable and often outright hysterical (usually <i>not </i>in the sense of being extremely funny). I think it could help a lot of people to understand this if they would watch this Jordan Peterson video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y564PsKvNZs">What Greta Thunberg does not understand about climate change | Jordan Peterson - YouTube</a>. While watching, consider what kinds of similar things we might need to say in a hypothetical video entitled: "What covid-19 alarmists don't understand about pandemic public policy."</p><p>So in the conversation I was having, my interlocutor says: </p><p>"ok then explain your libertarian approach. The only reason I didn’t accept your answer is because 'libertarian approach' means nothing to me. I can assume that it means that you don’t want to do anything about the spread of the virus. Keep the elderly and immunocompromised isolated. Let the healthy infect themselves and pray for some form of immunity. Correct me if I’m wrong."</p><p>He was wrong, so naturally I corrected him. Here's what I said:</p><p>"I actually don't think it is necessary to isolate the elderly and immunocompromised either. I think it's okay to risk dying (that's life, bro), and it's unreasonable for the elderly to become obsessed with not dying of covid, just as its unreasonable for anyone to become obsessed with not dying in general. There are always limits, but I think the default position should be to inform people as effectively as possible about 'the science,' such as it is, and let them decide how they want to handle that information. If you want some well-established 'science,' here's a bit to consider: if covid doesn't kill the elderly and immunocompromised, something else will. Haters gonna hate, and old people gonna die -- that's science, man, and that's why people are often afraid of getting old, but it can't be changed. So to be clear, if an old person wants to be isolated, go for it; but condemning an innocent old person to involuntary solitary confinement because you think it's for their own good is actually just wrong."</p><p>So what I'm talking about here is what is usually referred to as the issue of paternalism and it's one of the most basic issues in health care ethics (a.k.a. bioethics). And it's really important! Usually forced solitary confinement is considered to be cruel and unusual punishment! But I think the really interesting thing is that it apparently never even occurs to many people as a problem to be reckoned with, including many people who imagine that they're "just following what science says" or some such simplistic nostrum.</p><p>Here's a little rant from a real scientist, which is naïve in a number of important ways, but makes the point effectively enough about the rather stupid idea of "just follow the science": <a href="http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/09/follow-science-nonsense-i-say.html">Sabine Hossenfelder: Backreaction: Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say.</a></p>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-73864413038116270672020-12-02T16:30:00.002-08:002020-12-02T16:30:53.048-08:00Be not afraid!<p> "Why are people living in fear? 'Be not afraid!' That's what I live by. That's why I make sure my life is continuous unremitting joy and positivity. I spit in the face of fear."</p><p>Hmm. I have a suggestion: perhaps the only reason people feel the need to spit in the face of fear is because they're afraid (afraid of fear, usually among other things). But what did fear ever do to you that you should go about denigrating and casting aspersions on it? Oh, I know there's some bathwater involved, but that's no excuse for throwing out the baby. Sometimes fear is your friend! (And we all know this perfectly well, even if sometimes we forget and pretend otherwise.)</p>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-1679394984625536892020-12-02T15:22:00.002-08:002021-09-22T06:46:04.550-07:00Are medical professionals competent?<p> Are medical professionals competent? Well? Are they?</p><p>Or are they just normal, incompetent human beings? (Surely some deep-seated, fundamental transformation happens when a person is handed a certificate with her name on it: she has graduated, stepped up and out of the domain of the incompetents, the <i>hoi polloi</i>... right? Isn't that how it works?)</p><p>I think it's pretty obvious that the answer to these questions (both of them) is, yes, no, and it depends.</p><p>I think the basic tendency of many?/most? (I don't know about numbers here) medical professionals, however, without being explicitly asked the question, is going to be basically, "Dammit Jim, of course, I'm competent -- I'm a medical professional!" </p><p>But of course medical professionals are not as a group inherently all especially stupid people. And more especially, they're not all inherently incapable of self-knowledge. So when explicitly asked, I'm sure that they are mostly all perfectly capable of some simple reflection on the meaning of the question and on the reality of their own status as both medical professionals and human beings. And accordingly, if presented with the occasion to explicitly reflect on the question, I don't suppose that in general they're likely to have any special difficulty in arriving at a more nuanced answer than the initial straightforward "of course I'm competent!" </p><p>Okay, so far, so what? </p><p>We could of course say similar things about other professions, from engineers and scientists, to teachers and professors, to priests, lawyers, scribes, and pharisees. And we could even talk about people in the lowly so-called 'trades' -- although delusions of overarching competence is probably less of an occupational hazard in settings that require the very concrete no-nonsense kind of competence which is characteristic of the trades and which our society generally holds in less esteem than the so-called professions.</p><p>However, back to medical professions, since that's what I happen to be talking about. So when we say, "yes, medical professionals are competent -- but then again, maybe not, it depends," what distinctions do we need to make? </p><p>Primarily, we're likely to be referring to their competence precisely as medical professionals. Insofar as they are required to have a foundation of education and training in their field in order to be professionally certified, obviously they must have some level of relevant competence here. But of course since they are human, with imperfect powers of memory and understanding, as well as occasionally unruly passions, as are those who trained them in the first place, and since the knowledge field wherein they are trained likewise is, and always will be, an imperfect work-in-progress -- at times more egregiously imperfect than at others! -- obviously even their competence as medical professionals, in the field of medicine, is limited. It is limited in ways inherent to human nature and to the nature of the medical profession, as well as in individual ways, based on the strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, of particular individual practitioners.</p><p>The evident variability involved in this kind of properly medical competence would seem to be a pretty straightforward thing, since the whole institution of medical training and certification is -- ostensibly and ideally, at least? -- directed towards trying to achieve and guarantee this kind of competence. That fact ensures at least that it's not likely an issue that will entirely fall off the radar.</p><p>But we should also note what this whole institution of medical training and certification is not directed towards: it's not directed towards any general competence in understanding the nature and limitations of medical competence. In other words, medical training, and professional training in general, is always and inherently directed towards a specific domain of competence, which is to say: a relatively limited and narrow range of competence. It is not directed towards a general understanding of the world, of society, of the full range of goods and values, and the proper place of medicine within that full range, that larger context. That kind of general understanding is just not what medical training is for. </p><p>And similarly medical training is not directed towards giving the medical practitioner a sound general understanding of herself, whether as a human being in general, or as medical practitioner in particular, who has an important but certainly limited particular role to play -- commensurate with her particular important but narrow range of properly medical competence -- within the promotion of the general well-being of society. While it will always touch on and be related to broader issues, medical training is clearly directed towards a much more narrowly technical range of competence.</p><p>Now certainly I don't mean to say that medical professionals are always only narrowly competent, i.e., only competent insofar as they are medical professionals, as if for some reason being a medical professional makes it impossible to be also more generally competent, as a human being. In other words, it's not as if medical professionals can't, besides their medical expertise, also have a well-developed understanding of all of the interrelated aspects of human nature and the general well-being of society (a.k.a. the common good). It's just that as medical professionals, they have no special training and no special competence in understanding and assessing the bigger picture of what makes for human flourishing and of what needs to be done in any given complex situation in order to promote the goal of human flourishing.</p><p>The occasion for my offering this reflection is a recent on-line conversation I had with a medical professional. She made what I regard as some rather naive and formulaic pronouncements about covid-19 policies. But more interestingly she prefaced these pronouncements with the following <i>captatio benevolentiae</i> (i.e., a preface designed to capture the goodwill of one's audience -- this is a term from classical rhetoric, and just to be clear, I am using it ironically!): </p><p>"I know this is post is getting stale but I just want to leave this here in case anyone (including OP) would like to look at this situation using science and logic, instead of just pure emotions. Please don't @ me unless you actually have some credible science/health care related background, as this is where this comment is coming from. I have to say this because we nurses have much more experience with communicable diseases than the average person. And feel free, if you're in healthcare, to correct me if needed."</p><p>Hmmm, yes. What to make of that? </p><p>To begin with, no one had previously looked at the situation in question using "just pure emotions." To imagine that they even possibly could do so is, if you think about it, clearly just pure nonsense: it just literally doesn't even begin to make sense. So in the very act of claiming that she will examine the situation using science and logic, she fires off a silly and bald misrepresentation of the dialectical situation she is entering into, which in logical parlance is generally referred to as a straw man argument and is something which is precisely illogical to do. Later she also made some naive comments about ethics, so it's also worth pointing out that making straw man arguments is something that is also unethical (morally wrong) to do, since a straw man misrepresents the truth and such arguments certainly fall afoul of the basic principle of loving your neighbor as yourself and doing as you would be done by.</p><p>Secondly she also makes an obviously fallacious (i.e., not logical) appeal to authority. Her little preface is a silly and unethical attempt to intimidate and warn off most would-be interlocutors, that is, those who would dare presume to comment unfavorably on her authoritative pronouncements. Since one clearly doesn't need a specific background in the medical field to understand and discuss medical issues, this is clearly silly and dishonest. Consider: If you had to <i>already </i>understand medical knowledge <i>before </i>you were capable of intelligently and critically discussing it, then it wouldn't be possible for anyone to ever acquire medical knowledge so as to become a medical professional, because you would only be able to understand medical knowledge if you were <i>already </i>a medical professional. Fortunately that's not how learning and knowledge actually work. But hey, logic (and more particularly, epistemology)! It can be a tricky business, especially for the untutored and incautious. (Her argument here is on the level of "keep your rosaries off my ovaries" or "if you want the right to say anything about abortion, make sure you have a vagina and ovaries and stuff first" - and no, it doesn't matter if what you're saying is something that lots of women agree with and also say!)</p><p>So anyway, I think an important thing to notice and reflect on from this example is the conflation of medical competence with various more general competencies, in this case competence in logic and ethics and science -- not to mention public policy, which is what her analysis was actually about. </p><p>(For the record, none of her post offered any special logical, scientific, or ethical insight. Neither did she offer even a single piece of specialized medical information that would have been news to any remotely with-it person, never mind connecting such information to anything remotely resembling a reasonable attempt to comprehensively evaluate the import of such information in relation to the overall picture of the common good. Instead her overall argument amounted to just, "listen to me, because we medical professionals are the ones who know -- but also don't dare question me (unless you're one of us), because..." Well it turns out she didn't really offer any answer there, just the evidently illogical and unscientific assurance that hers was the logical and scientific point of view in contradistinction to the purely emotional point of view.)</p><p>I don't want to make too much of this one person and this one example. But although I think it should be perfectly obvious, I think it would be helpful for a lot of people to reflect on the fact that a nurse may be highly competent as a nurse, and at the very same time highly incompetent in fields in which she has no special training, like logic, or ethics, or understanding the general nature and limits of science and of processes of scientific investigation and justification, or general public policy -- or even just being a decent and humble kind of person who at least makes a real effort to patiently and reasonably communicate with others, even those she rightly or wrongly deems to be beneath her.</p><p>If what I've just claimed about the compatibility of competence with incompetence is really so obvious, you might wonder, why bother about reflecting on it? It's because, as the example I mention shows, it evidently is not obvious to many people in their own concrete situations, and it only becomes obvious in virtue of taking some time to intentionally reflect on it. And that reflection on the competence as well as incompetence of medical professionals also has some rather obvious implications, which are also worth reflecting on, implications about how medical professionals worthy of the name ought to conduct themselves in conversation with non-medical professionals (e.g., be not a butthead, know thyself, recognize thy limitations!) and vice versa, for non-professionals talking to professionals (be not a butthead thyself, but also be not overawed by blustery medical professionals who fallaciously appeal to their own authority in matters wherein they may in fact prove to be at least as incompetent as the average Joe).</p>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-8472699734961442652020-11-23T12:05:00.000-08:002020-11-23T12:05:19.576-08:00True for you, true for me, truth about truth<p>I have a friend who is friends with an old lefty Catholic former professor of his. The professor doesn't believe some of what the Church teaches and of what my friend does believe. So he tells my friend, "what you believe is true for you" even though, he also claims, it's not true for other people. So for other people the opposite "truth" is true, that is, it's "true for them." But here's the truth about truth and this kind of "truth" talk<span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif;">:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="font-family: times;">"It's true for you" almost always really means "you think it's true; but in reality it might be false." (And it almost always means this as a matter of semantics, i.e., the logic of the language, regardless of the speaker's explicit intention, or attention, or advertence to this logical reality.)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="font-family: times;">So "it's true for you" doesn't mean "it's true" at all. In regard to truth itself, it really just means "either it's true or it's false."</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">If that is well understood, then "it's true for you" can be an innocent </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">facon de parler</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> (a "so to speak" kind of thing).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="font-family: times;">But in its usual usage, it's deployed as a way of ignoring (or pretending to ignore and attempting to bury) the real meaning of "it's true for you," and thus as a means of ignoring (or pretending to ignore and attempting to bury) the real distinction between "it's true" and "it's false" (i.e., between truth and falsity). So "it's true for you" is usually really a means of ignoring (or pretending to ignore and attempting to bury) the real distinction between reality and fiction, the real distinction between the truth and a lie, and the real distinction between what is good and what is evil. And so usually when you hear someone pull out the claim "it's true for you," be forewarned: what you're dealing with may be innocent confusion, but is likely duplicity and hypocrisy at a deep-rooted level. It is effectively, if not intentionally, a foundational attack on our ability to rightly understand anything. It's a faux-inclusive rhetorical move that actually excludes everybody, because it systematically misconstrues everybody's claims, that is, the claims on all sides of a given debate.</span></span></p>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-3398790432961161422019-12-18T11:39:00.001-08:002019-12-18T11:39:13.484-08:00Beware Prophets of Doom!<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In last Sunday's homily (Gaudete! - Rejoice! Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent), the priest took the opportunity to dismiss the "prophets of doom." Rejecting "prophets of doom," for those unfamiliar with the term, is originally a Pope John XXIII thing (albeit in a questionable translation), and has since become a key "spirit of Vatican II" thing (i.e., a </span>favourite<span style="font-family: inherit;"> slogan of those who want to promote a "progressive" </span>remake of the Catholic Church<span style="font-family: inherit;">). According to Pope John:</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">"At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure [<i>prudentique iudicio</i> (and prudent judgment)]. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">prophets of doom [<i>his </i></span><i>rerum<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>adversarum vaticinatoribus (</i></span><span style="text-align: justify;">these prophets of adversity, opposition, hostility)</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">] </span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">who are always forecasting disaster [</span><i>deteriora</i> (</span><span style="text-align: justify;">deterioration</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">)<span style="font-family: inherit;">], as though the end of the world were at hand. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">In our times, [in which] divine Providence is [seems to be] leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">" (</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3233" target="_blank">Opening Address To the Council</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sure, okay. But the problem with this claim is that (a) it looks like decidedly false optimism (especially the last bit -- which is, however, a bad translation of John XXIII's words, whether in the Latin or the Italian version); and that (b) who exactly those are who "lack a sense of discretion and measure" is open to highly divergent and conflicting interpretations, so that the claim in itself about "prophets of doom," especially taken out of context (as it almost always is), becomes more or less empty verbiage, just waiting to be abused precisely by those who "lack a sense of discretion and measure" (i.e., most people, perhaps including on occasion John XXIII himself -- for further examples just read the whole address at the link above, though again with the caveat: it's a bad translation).</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 20px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
The priest on Sunday, in any case, insisted that the Second Coming of Christ is a time of joy, not a time of Armageddon as the "prophets of doom" would have it. In other words -- he implied -- we should pay no heed to Holy Scripture (that's where the Armageddon stuff comes from, John's Apocalypse, the Book of Revelation). Indeed, we should pay no heed to Christ! For in the Christian faith it is Christ himself who is the foremost among the prophets and who is unquestionably himself a "prophet of doom." (See Matthew 24 & 25, for example, noting that "doom" is an old English word for "judgment" -- i.e., precisely what Christ promises will take place at the Second Coming.) And so it goes! Such "in our times" is "the new order" (although frankly it's gotten a little stale by now).David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-86076213297966761802019-03-08T10:57:00.000-08:002019-03-08T10:57:10.452-08:00Jacques Philippe on God's love of deficiencies<div class="MsoNormal">
My wife was telling me that other day that the buzz in her
Catholic mommy crowd this lent is about some book on peace by Rev. Jacques
Philippe. Philippe is a member of the Community of the Beatitudes in France and a very
widely read author of works described as “<a href="https://frjacquesphilippe.com/about" target="_blank">classics of modern Catholic spirituality</a>.” We don’t have the peace book but we do have his <i>Interior Freedom</i>. I’d picked it up
before, read about a quarter of it and lost interest, but inspired by the
reported buzz I took another look at it last night. There I read this
fascinating doctrine:</div>
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“We find it so difficult to accept our own deficiencies
because we imagine they make us unlovable. Since we are defective in this or
that aspect, we feel that we do not deserve to be loved. Living under God’s
gaze makes us realize how mistaken that is. Love is given freely, it’s not
deserved, and our deficiencies don’t prevent God from loving us – just the
opposite!”</div>
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Ah yes, just the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">opposite</i>:
that means deficiencies actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allow</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cause</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">encourage</i> God’s love in some way, evidently, that would otherwise be
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prevented</i>! So the Catholic doctrine
of merit? That’s probably a bit complicated, so maybe some other time. For now
just remember, our deficiencies actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allow</i>
God to love us more, and thus a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lack</i> of
deficiencies actually somehow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prevents</i>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inhibits</i> God’s love for us,
apparently because God is our Father, and as any father will tell you, it is the
deficiencies in our children which allow us to love them all the more. (Right??)
Thus, by Philippe’s logic, while everyone may like a peaceful, happy baby that
makes no trouble, if we have a colicky crying baby that wails inconsolably hour
after hour for no discernable reason, much more will our weary hearts
spontaneously well up with love for that one! And we may love a child who is
cheerful, affectionate, obedient, caring, and conscientious, but how much more
does the heart of a father lovingly rejoice in a child who is, say, sullen, selfish,
and given to violent tantrums. And the same applies to friends or spouses: we
all love someone who is, say, oversensitive, selfish, unreasonable, hypocritical,
habitually drunk and disloyal or unfaithful, more than someone who embodies the
opposite alternatives – especially if these defective qualities mirror our own.
One might have believed that God knows and loves* what is good, and knows and hates
what is evil – but no, Jacques Philippe tells us; if anything, it is just the
opposite! [*One might consider one of the Latin words that commonly translates ‘love’
in the Vulgate, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">diligere</i>, meaning to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">di</i>stinguish from among others and choose
(elect, e<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ligere</i>) in preference to the
others.] So you may have imagined that God loved (and so chose) the Blessed
Virgin Mary and her Immaculate (i.e., deficiency-free) Heart more than any
other creature; but no, just the opposite: if only she had deficiencies, this would allow God to
love her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">more</i>. So think of the most
deficient person you know – I always say it’s a three-way tie between Hitler,
Donald Trump, and Satan – and apply Philippe’s logic: these villains with their
mega-deficiencies clearly have done nothing that would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">merit</i> love, but opposite-loving God therefore loves them most of
all!</div>
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On the other hand, there’s God himself, speaking through the
prophet Isaiah (if you buy into that whole ‘divine revelation’ thing): “Woe to
you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for
darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Something to ponder. Anyway, notwithstanding
the buzz in the mommy crowd, I obviously have doubts about the soundness of Philippe’s*
doctrine of divine love. [*Just to be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that this
bleary ‘opposite’-doctrine is original (to Philippe) or unusual. The question is, why is it so popular? Nietzsche offered one intriguing answer: <i>ressentiment</i> (for a brief description see my previous post <a href="https://davidmcpike.blogspot.com/2019/02/not-everything-is-grace-and-on-danger.html" target="_blank">here</a>).]</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-84216198467632892022019-03-07T11:33:00.000-08:002019-03-07T11:35:02.596-08:00Aquinas on the use of reason vs. authority<div class="MsoNormal">
From the lapidary mind of Thomas Aquinas [<i>my translation, and minor interpolation; for Latin original see <a href="http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/q04.html" target="_blank">here</a></i>]:</div>
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Quodlibet 9, Qu. 4, Art. 3: </div>
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<i>Whether a
teacher determining (or deciding) theological questions should make use more of reason,
or of authority</i>.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems that the teacher determining theological questions
should make use of authorities rather than reasons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Argument</i>: For
in any science, its questions are best determined by the first principles of
that science. But the first principles of theological science are the articles
of faith, which are known to us through authorities. Therefore theological questions
should be mainly determined through authorities.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sed contra</i>: But
against this it is said in Titus I, 9: “that he might be able to encourage
others in sound doctrine and refute those contradicting it.” But those who
contradict are better refuted by reasons than by authorities. Therefore, it is
more necessary to determine questions through reasons than through authorities.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>I respond</i>. It should be said that every act should be
carried out as befits its end. Now a disputation can be ordered to a twofold
end. For one kind of disputation is ordered toward removing doubt whether
something is the case; and in such a theological disputation, those authorities
should most of all be used, which are accepted by those with whom one is
disputing. For example, if one disputes with Jews, it is necessary to introduce
the authorities of the Old Testament; if with Manicheans, who reject the Old
Testament, it is necessary to use only the texts of the New Testament; but if
it be with schismatics who accept the Old and the New Testament, but not the
teaching of our saints, as is the case with the Greeks, it is necessary to
dispute with them using authorities from the Old or New Testament and from those
doctors which they accept. If, however, they accept no authority, it is necessary,
for the purpose of refuting them, to take recourse to natural reasons. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And – Thomas forgot to mention – if one is
disputing with a woman, who accepts neither authorities nor reasons, and relies
only on her emotions, it is necessary to discreetly withdraw from the
disputation, lest she upbraid you and slap you in the face</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Relax, I’m kidding! – obviously that's not
true of all women. Still, would that it were true of fewer!)</i>]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But another kind of disputation is for the purpose of teaching
in the schools, not for the purpose of removing error, but for instructing the
hearers, that they may be led to an understanding of the truth towards which it
points: and then it is necessary to rely on reasons which search out the root
of truth, and which make one to know in what way (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quomodo</i>) what is said is true; otherwise, if the teacher were to
determine the question on the basis of bare authorities, the hearer would be
assured that the matter is thus, but he would acquire no knowledge or
understanding and would depart empty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And from what has been said, the response to the objection
is clear.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-51130104049533635662019-02-28T10:01:00.000-08:002019-03-01T09:52:08.029-08:00Not everything is grace, and on the danger of “little-flower”-ism<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="" data-file-height="1900" data-file-width="2533" decoding="async" height="98" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg/130px-A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg" srcset="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg/195px-A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg 1.5x, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg/260px-A_Perfect_Pair_Daffodills_%28Narcissus%29_-_8.jpg 2x" width="130" /></div>
<br />
I had a moment of discouragement and lassitude the other
day. A B12 deficiency maybe? (B12 is the cobalt vitamin; it’s essential, you
can’t live without cobalt!) Or perhaps the being so beset by falsehoods, for
the most part depressingly unoriginal, mere trite clichés, but still so
stubbornly defended by people who seem never to tire of kicking against the
goad if you dare offer them something different from what they’re accustomed to
hearing. How tiresome!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
And then there was Peter Kreeft!
And St Therese! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Et tu</i>? (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Et vos</i>?)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I came across this sentence from the pen of Kreeft:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
“Everything is grace”, said Saint
Thérèse. This is neither pious exaggeration nor false humility; it is utter
realism, the confession of clear and certain fact. (Kreeft, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Prayer for Beginners</i> (Ignatius, 2000),
p. 116.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s what he was referring to, reportedly spoken by
Therese four months before her death:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
If you should find me dead one
morning, be not troubled: it’s that Papa the good God would have come quite
simply to get me. Without doubt, it’s a great grace to receive the Sacraments;
but when the good God doesn’t permit it, it’s good all the same, all is grace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
[“Si vous me trouviez morte un
matin, n'ayez pas de peine : c'est que Papa le bon Dieu serait venu tout
simplement me chercher. Sans doute, c'est une grande grâce de recevoir les
Sacrements ; mais quand le bon Dieu ne le permets pas, c'est bien quand même,
tout est grâce.” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Carnet jaune</i>, June
4, 1897)]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Commenting on the passage, in the introduction to his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everything Is Grace</i>, Joseph F. Schmidt
writes:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
By her comment that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is grace</i>, she was sharing her
spirituality of the Little Way – the spiritual way of accepting with loving
surrender and gratitude all the happenings of life as sent by divine
providence. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All</i> the happenings of
life? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sent</i>? Not just permitted but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sent</i>?] If the experiences of life, even
the ordinary and trivial, are received in this attitude of surrender and
gratitude as gifts of God, then not just appropriate religious devotions and
sacramental activities communicate grace, but surely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is grace</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
(Joseph F. Schmidt, FSC,
Everything is Grace (2007).)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, maybe. The first thing to note here is that that’s a
pretty big “if”: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If</i> the ordinary and
trivial experiences of life (this applies <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i>
to the Sacraments, by the way!) are received <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in the appropriate manner</i>, then in a sense <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is grace</i> (or rather: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">an
occasion of grace</i>). But unfortunately people – including people who are
highly religiously and spiritually motivated and devoted – tend to skip right
over the “if” and run instead with just the nakedly false claim: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is grace</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This “utter realism,” this “confession of clear and certain
fact,” as Peter Kreeft would have it, in fact looks like a plain contradiction
of Catholic truth. Consider, for example, the following passage from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dei filius</i>, Vatican I’s Dogmatic
Constitution on the Catholic faith:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Unhappily, it has yet further
come to pass that, while this impiety prevailed on every side, many even of the
children of the Catholic Church have strayed from the path of true piety, and
by the gradual diminution of the truths they held, the Catholic sense became
weakened in them. For, led away by various and strange doctrines, utterly
confusing nature and grace, human science and divine faith, they are found to
deprave the true sense of the doctrines which our holy Mother Church holds and
teaches, and endanger the integrity and the soundness of the faith.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hac porro impietate circum quaque grassante, infeliciter contigit, ut
plures etiam e Catholicæ Ecclesiæ filiis a via veræ pietatis aberrarent, in
iisque, diminutis paullatim veritatibus, sensus Catholicus attenuaretur. Variis
enim ac peregrinis doctrinis abducti, naturam et gratiam, scientiam humanam et
fidem divinam perperam commiscentes, genuinum sensum dogmatum, quem tenet ac
docet sancta mater Ecclesia, depravare, integritatemque et sinceritatem fidei
in periculum adducere comperiuntur</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now the claim <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything
is grace</i> implies either that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nature
just is grace</i>, or that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nature is
nothing</i>. In other words, the unqualified claim <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything is grace</i> seems to “utterly confuse nature and
grace.” <i>Pace</i> Kreeft, it is anything but a “confession of clear and certain fact.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So should “little” Therese (apparently she was actually
quite tall!) – for many the doctor of the 20<sup>th</sup>/21<sup>st</sup>-century Church <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">par excellence</i> – be
condemned as a heretic? Hardly. But some of her writings and sayings – as also in
the case of St Paul, so not necessarily in bad company! – are certainly
easily liable to be misleading for “unlearned and unstable” minds (see 2Pet
3:16). And this observation about the theological caution required in
approaching St Therese is not restricted to this one reported saying. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Everything Is
Grace </i>book Schmidt notes that Therese was not extraordinarily gifted, as
many saints have been. If anything, she was extraordinarily ordinary (if that
makes any sense!). In fact, as Schmidt writes, “The one capacity Therese
possessed is actually often an obstacle to holiness rather than a contributing
factor – namely, a capability to be self-preoccupied and self-reflective.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let
that sink in: Therese’s outstanding character trait, that for which is admired
and loved, is actually often <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">an obstacle
to holiness</i>, namely: “a capability to be self-preoccupied and
self-reflective” – which is very near to saying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a tendency to be narcissistic</i>. (In the myth, Narcissus falls in
love with his own self-reflection… and is transformed (go figure!) into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a little flower</i> – as in the case of Therese, the question of <i>how</i> little is debatable.) Schmidt continues:
“Therese noticed everything about herself, and she was willing to share that
not as a display of ego-centeredness, but as a manifestation of God’s work in
her.” <i>However</i>: “The difference
between these two attitudes constitutes a very fine line, and the temptation to
cross the line is always lurking.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
It seems that Schmidt’s observation here would imply that
devotion to St Therese <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">may</i> be
spiritually dangerous, especially for those with narcissistic tendencies – not
necessarily in a clinical sense, of course, but just in the sense of a tendency
to self-centeredness. But since most people indeed have a tendency to
self-centeredness, it follows that St Therese may be spiritually dangerous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for most people</i>. And this implies also
that (widespread) devotion to St Therese (“the little flower”) may be as much a
symptom of a (widespread) tendency to narcissism (“little-flower”-ism, we might
say), as it is of a sign of the extraordinary sanctity of Therese herself –
even if it is true, as Schmidt writes, that “Therese’s glory is that she did
not give in to that temptation,” that is, the temptation to cross the line from
self-preoccupied and self-reflective to self-centered (and narcissistic).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Little-flower”-ism (compare the recent term “snowflake” –
as Schmidt writes of St Therese, “she suffered a great deal from her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">excessive sensitivity</i>” – ah yes, don’t
we all: <i>je suis Therese</i>!) may also be a manifestation of a sick form of Christianity (or more
generally, a sick form of relating to the world) fueled by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ressentiment</i>, a phenomenon the real existence of which Nietzsche
rightly identified, but which he mistakenly thought was essentially Christian. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Max Scheler (a philosopher admired by
John Paul II) was taken by Nietzsche’s insight into the phenomenon of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ressentiment</i> and developed an extended,
more insightful discussion of it, wherein he argues against Nietzsche’s
artificial, animus-filled attempt to make of it a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">specifically</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">essentially</i>
Christian phenomenon. Against Nietzsche, Scheler argues that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ressentiment</i> is neither <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">proper to</i> nor <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">characteristic of</i> Christianity. Instead it is an endemic human
tendency and not what Christ or Christianity is really about. Nietzsche, in any
case, argued that the Christian ethos was nothing other than “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">le fine fleur </i>[the delicate <i>flower </i>again!] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">du ressentiment</i>” – an ingeniously insidious way for all that is
base, weak, ugly, deformed, sick, inhibited, downtrodden, and needy (“blessed
are the poor and hungry!”), and moreover envious and vengeful, to subvert all that shows
up it baseness and aggravates its envy, that is, all that is noble, beautiful,
strong, self-sufficient, free, powerful, flourishing. The weak and ignoble does
this through the artifice of an essentially nature-despising claim to moral
superiority. What is naturally good must be despised, and suffering,
self-abnegation, and death must be embraced – claim those who are ignoble and powerless
by nature’s standard – in order to pass beyond nature to the kingdom of God. The
supposed goodness of nature has been swallowed up, according to this form of
moralism, by the depravity of sin, and so nature must be rejected. If there is
no goodness in nature, nature must be eliminated. By nature, man is totally
depraved (Calvinism, anyone?), so grace becomes everything, that is, “everything
(good!) is grace.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But of course Nietzsche was right to condemn this view, just
as the Catholic Church always has – even while individual Catholics remain ever
susceptible to confusion on this point, with the result that “they are found to deprave the true sense of the doctrines which our holy
Mother Church holds and teaches, and endanger the integrity and the soundness
of the faith” (see above, Vatican I's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dei filius</i>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So to conclude: No, not everything is grace! <i>Nature</i> is not
grace, although nature is <i>good</i> and necessary in its own right, within the plan
of divine providence. Grace <i>presupposes</i>
nature, and nature is <i>perfected</i>, not
eliminated, by grace. And if you're going by the teaching of the Catholic Church, <i>that</i>, I take it, is a “confession of clear and certain fact.”</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-75167680012525642262019-02-28T08:58:00.000-08:002019-03-08T11:17:26.979-08:00Fisher of men? Or fisher of people? On Canadian Catholic Fem-speak<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
At a recent RCIA meeting I attended, we read the following
from Luke’s gospel: “Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on
you will be catching <i>people</i>.’” (Lk
5:10)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the RCIA candidates sniffed out something fishy about
this. She mentioned that she seemed to remember a more classical reading of
“fisher of men.” The leader mentioned something about different translations
and one person piped in something about the passage used to apply to just men
(male men, that is), but now it applies to women too (including female postal
carriers)! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course the expression “fisher of men” always did apply to
‘catching’ males and females, and until feminism came along no one was misled
into thinking otherwise by the use of the generic term ‘men.’ As philosopher Michael
Levin writes (my comments in square brackets):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
We may dismiss the idea that
masculine pronouns [or masculine nouns, used in a generic sense] are misleading.
Words are misleading when they mislead. If nobody is misled by a turn of
phrase, it is not misleading, and there is no one over the age of three who has
been fooled by “he” [or “fisher of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">men</i>”]
into thinking that women are unpersons [or into thinking the Jesus intended
Simon Peter’s mission to be to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">adult</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">males</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i>]. It is not possible to produce a woman who believed (until
feminists cleared things up) that “He who hesitates is lost” did not apply to
her. It is universally understood that “he” is used with the intention of
referring to both men and women, and that this intention has settled into a
convention. Nothing more is required for a purely designative expression like
“he” [or “men”] to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mean</i> men and women
both. (from Michael Levin, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Feminism,
Freedom, and Language</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, now that feminist ideology is increasingly being
insinuated into our language, and thence into our thinking, people (apparently!)
really are increasingly getting confused about some of the basic intentions and
conventions that find expression in the English language, and on the basis of
the linguistic confusion we are (apparently!) in danger of passing on to some quite
farcically naïve suggestions about the scope of the Church’s mission, past vs.
present, as noted above. (I say “apparently,” because one should be cautious
about reading too much into what were perhaps mere idle remarks.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The RCIA candidate responded to the vague comments about
different translations by saying, in a somewhat uneasy tone, something like,
“Okay, so the Church decided to change the translation.” To which some of the
leaders responded with something like, “quite so, and indeed it’s important to
remember that the Church is always changing.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, something like that. It might have been more accurate,
however, if the RCIA candidate had said (still in a somewhat uneasy tone), “So in
formulating the lectionary readings for use <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in
Canada</i>, the Church <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in Canada </i>has
decided <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to follow the advice of feminist
ideologues</i>.” Whereas, by contrast, we find in the US lectionary – a
lectionary apparently less under the influence of feminist ideologues (see
usccb.org) – “Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be
catching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">men</i>.’" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now you might still wonder what happened to the classic
“fisher of men” expression. In fact that’s the expression used in the parallel
passage in Matthew’s gospel (see Mt 4:19), but in Luke the expression is just
“catching men” (the generic ‘men,’ of course – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anthropous</i> in Greek and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">homines</i>
in Latin).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You might think that ‘people’ vs. (generic) ‘men’ is perhaps
an issue for felicity of expression, for poetry, for tradition, etc., but not
necessarily a strictly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">translation </i>(i.e.,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">accuracy</i>) issue. Granted. So to take
a more blatant example of fem-speak in the Canadian lectionary, consider the
gospel reading for March 3. From the US bishops’ website we get the following
(accurate) translation:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Why do you notice the splinter in
your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brother's</i> eye,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
but do not perceive the wooden
beam in your own?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
How can you say to your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brother</i>,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">'Brother</i>, let me remove that splinter in your eye,'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
when you do not even notice the
wooden beam in your own eye?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
You hypocrite!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remove the wooden beam from your eye
first;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
then you will see clearly</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
to remove the splinter in your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brother's</i> eye.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the Canadian lectionary we find the following:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Why do you see the speck in your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neighbour's</i> eye,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
but do not notice the log in your
own eye?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Or how can you say to your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neighbour</i>,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">'Friend</i>, let me take out the speck in your eye,'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
when you yourself do not see the
log in your own eye?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
You hypocrite, first take the log
out of your own eye;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
then you will see clearly</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
to take the speck out of your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neighbour's</i> eye.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> brother</i> is
clearly stronger, richer, than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neighbour</i>/<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">friend</i>. Still, slight differences of
meaning, surely! Which might invite the question: Isn’t the advancement of
feminist ideology more important than fidelity to the revealed word of God? And
really that is the question, and those answering it, unfortunately, are divided.
In any case, the CCCB seems to have gone with a “yes.” But this “yes” to the
advancement of feminist ideology has consequences. We might consider in this
connection clericalism and ecumenism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, I think the Canadian lectionary is an embodiment of (bad)
clericalism. Scripture has been manipulated and filtered by the clerics before
being presented to the laity. This is inevitable in a selective lectionary,
because it is selective. But what is selected should at least be presented
faithfully. Instead the authentic language of the revealed word of God is effectively
hidden, seen only by the diligent few who dare to look behind the veil the
Church (in Canada) has drawn over the scriptures read at mass. The clerics, and
those who advise them, have taken it upon themselves to bowdlerize the word of
God and then, at mass, to dishonestly proclaim this feminist redaction as “the
holy gospel according to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Luke</i>” (for
example) – that is, the hypothetical incarnation of Luke as a 21<sup>st</sup>-century
feminist, who has been enlightened about the prejudicial, exclusionary import
of his original language choices in the composition of his gospel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
This issue matters also from the standpoint of ecumenism.
This feminist policy/practice, one may suppose, is helpful for ecumenism with
other Church communities whose version of Christian faith has (also) been
influenced by feminist ideology. For those separated brethren who are actually
closer to the authentic Catholic faith, however, who actually have a deep love
and respect for the revealed word of God, for the “full gospel” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(notwithstanding their flawed
understanding of it), this practice is surely a stumbling block. It must remind
them of the old canard about the Church chaining up scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically churches used to chain up
the scriptures because, given their great value, they wanted to prevent their
being stolen. It was about protecting a treasure. Now that treasure of the inspired
word of God has been distorted by feminist ideologues (in the Church in Canada,
anyway) and is handed out in missalettes like cheap candy! Better, perhaps,
were it still chained! But the question is whether ecumenism – or more
generally evangelization – should be about catching flies with honey (feminist-devised
or otherwise) or about seeking authentic Christian unity through true faith in
Christ. And the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catholic</i> Church
(notwithstanding various <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">national</i>
aberrations) of course teaches that it should be the latter.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-63507228963209454822019-01-11T12:29:00.001-08:002019-01-11T12:36:44.013-08:00Put away childish ways<div class="MsoNormal">
Parenting brings new challenges as time passes. My oldest (or older ones!) is increasingly bright and knowledgeable. He has a good memory and is beginning to have sound basic reasoning skills. One
result of this is that he is able to recognize when the younger ones have
said something nonsensical and he is apt to pounce on it when this happens. (My favourite, he once replied to something his brother said with, “That is not grammatical. I will not answer.”) Which
is good in a way (he’s exercising his capacity to be rational), but not insofar
as it’s unkind. So now part of what I have to help him to learn is that they
are young (in particular, younger than him), they haven’t had a chance to
acquire the same basic reasoning skills yet, and so it’s silly and mean to
expect them to think and understand and reason at his level. It’s okay to
gently correct them, but they will only ever learn through the benefit of time
and patience and loving encouragement from those who are already further along
in their intellectual and moral development. You can’t simply point out their
errors to them, because they simply are not old enough to have intellectually
developed enough to be able to understand and benefit from that kind of correction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To some extent I often find myself in an analogous situation to that
of my oldest son when I am faced with arguments from adults. But the
difference, of course, is that these people aren’t little children who are
simply too young to have achieved a mature level of intellectual and moral
development, they’re ‘full-grown,’ ‘adults,’ who to look at physically you might
expect to be mature intellectually also. But in fact they’re pretty clearly
not. Their moral understanding and reasoning skills are often an embarrassingly
bad combination of ignorance, arrogance, complacency, irrationality, and lack of self-awareness. (Any of these may not be so bad on its own, but when you put them together...?) So
what to do? Should I just tell myself something like I tell my son when dealing
with his younger siblings? Should I tell myself to treat such people like
they’re three-year-olds or seven-year-olds, tell myself it would be silly and
mean to try to interact with them as if they were mature adults in their right
minds, who have a reasonable basic grasp of differences between true and false, rational
and irrational, good and bad, right and wrong, and a grasp of the basic rules
and procedures for making those distinctions in practice? Little children,
especially if they’re tired, are prone to bursting into tears if they can’t
right this second have that random doodad they happen to see their brother
playing with. Should this be our default setting for dealing with adults who are
attempting to discuss adult topics: speak as if you are speaking to a little
child at nap time, who might well be on the verge of a tantrum, or who is simply incapable of sitting still for one minute to ponder and think something through? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the problem with such an approach is obvious: you can’t
speak with little children about adult topics, so when you’re speaking to someone
about an adult topic, you can’t address them as you would little children. Insofar
as it’s an adult topic, you have to discuss it in an adult way. And anyway, it’s
not (as a rule) silly or mean to do so, because there comes a point in a
(normal) child’s development (that is, as soon as it is possible!) when you have to become firmer and when tantrums –
behaving as if the only thing in the world that should matter to anyone is
pandering to my present passions – can and should be treated firmly as being no
longer acceptable. Older children and certainly adults deserve and need to be treated as if they are past
that point. Otherwise they won’t feel any need to act as if they are past that
point, and instead they will forever remain more or less stunted in their
intellectual and moral development. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Because we live in a ‘dictatorship of
relativism’ – a culture wherein non-relativistic views are often derisively
dismissed or angrily shouted down – people are generally very complacent and
self-satisfied and inclined to be shocked and offended by the very notion of ‘stunted
intellectual and moral development’ – as if there exists any real standard,
beyond some vague, implicit appeal to currently fashionable conventions, by
which to judge our intellectual and moral state as stunted or not! But this is,
of course, just a symptom/evidence of that very arrested intellectual and moral
development that I’m talking about, and which is precisely characteristic of a
‘dictatorship of relativism.’)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
So adults are not little children and we should not attempt
to nurture and indulge adults in the way we would a little child. It’s hardly
even possible to do so – you can’t order them to have a timeout – but since adults are not little children, it
would be wrong anyway to treat them as such. (Adults who abuse positions of power (e.g., in academia, in making policy/law, in media, in preaching, in politicking, in law enforcement, etc.) by treating other adults like children are pretty despicable people.) We have a responsibility, as adults, to
respect others, including strangers, including those whose views we find strange, and to try honestly to understand the views of others when
commenting on them. In spite of the childish bursts of outrage and self-righteousness with which we
might sometimes be overcome , we remain under the obligation to think and
behave in a mature way. If all we are is tolerant of childish behaviour, that's not kindness. If we are afraid ever to enter into debate or risk offering a reproof to someone for his self-righteous tantrum, or even for a very sweet and kind person's willful ignorance, that's not kindness. It's spineless. It's negligence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That said, if a man remains like an infant needing milk, go ahead and give him some milk; but also try to impress on him that he should be moving on to solid food (see Hebrews 5). “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood
as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man I put away childish
ways.” (1Cor 13:11)* Awake sleeper! Put away childish ways!<br />
<br />
*(Note, St Paul’s remark here comes right in the middle of his encomium to – surprise? – love. People love to talk about love, but they seem seldom to consider that love <i>requires</i> (of ourselves and of others) learning to speak, to understand, to reason in a mature way. Love is not a pure formless reaching out of the will but calls for discipline and training of the <i>intellect</i> so as to <i>know the truth</i> so that love may be indeed <i>true</i> love and not a mere blind passion.)</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-50508837167084831302018-11-11T14:56:00.002-08:002018-11-11T15:06:16.683-08:00"Thar she blows!" - The Surprising Spirit of Vatican II<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
Mass notes – Sunday, September
30, 2018 – 26<sup>th</sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“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!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet Vatican II teaches that the Eucharist is the
“source and summit (or fount and apex) of the whole Christian life” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lumen gentium</i>, 11) and that Lutherans
are among those who “have not retained the proper reality of the Eucharistic
mystery in its fullness” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unitatis
redintegratio</i>, 22). So clearly, according to Vatican II, the Lutherans are missing out on something,
something important – and thus, also clearly, so is Father.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">un</i>-ecumenical remark that it’s arrogant even
to think the Lutherans are missing out on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything</i>.
(Presumably he would think arrogant also anyone who thought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> was missing out on anything?) But
Father’s claim is clearly an example of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">false
irenicism </i>–<i> </i><o:p>in the earthier paraphrase of <i>South Park</i>'s Cartman: </o:p>“God-damn hippies!” – of which Vatican II says:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
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. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unitatis redintegratio</i>, 11)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead of showing concern for the “purity of Catholic
doctrine” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anathema sit!</i>), 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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Sacred theology and other
branches of knowledge, especially of a historical nature, must be taught with
due regard for the ecumenical point of view, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so that they may correspond more accurately with the truth of things</i>.
It is of great importance that future shepherds and priests should have mastered
a theology that has been <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">worked out accurately</i>
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. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unitatis
redintegratio</i>, 10, emphasis added)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="http://davidmcpike.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-parish-liturgy-as-communal-meal.html" target="_blank">here</a>), 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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">say</i> that, in those words. It’s just that that was an obvious logical implication of what he did say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But to be fair, maybe he’s just not good at logic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This fact about logic is well illustrated by Father’s
preaching: because he is apparently not good at (or more likely, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">willfully ignores</i>) 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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logos</i> who became
flesh, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the faith of the Church. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[Objection: Is it that he is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">incapable</i> of these things, or that he just doesn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">want</i> 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.]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just</i> 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).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logos</i>: 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
<i>instead</i> 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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>
seems pretty arrogant, and moreover hypocritical. Sure. But is it surprising? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> surprised!
So (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sous-entendu</i>?) if anything Father
says surprises you (shocks, disgusts, scandalizes, bemuses, confuses you),
that’s God speaking! Well. Maybe. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But</i>, 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!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/cmc01.html" target="_blank">comments</a>:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
It was not as moved by jealousy
or ill-will [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or </i>merely<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> by surprise, for that matter</i>] 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 “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ut unum sint</i>” (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.’” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
[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.] </div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">free</i>
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.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-76762798705687422912018-10-04T10:54:00.002-07:002018-10-06T09:22:02.115-07:00Stage center, Richard Rohr, OFM<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
Mass notes: Sunday, September
23, 2018 – 25<sup>th</sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <a href="https://www.aquinasandmore.com/blog/why-we-dont-and-wont-ever-carry-richard-rohr/" target="_blank">new-age heretic</a>.
“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 <s>scandalous</s> fine collection of
Sister Joan Chittister books displayed in the church lobby.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 2<sup>nd</sup>
reading from James and from the gospel, Mark’s, as his points of departure: “Where
there is envy and selfish ambition [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">contentio</i>],
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)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">subversive</i>,
certainly, but not insidious. But of course reality may not be quite what he
thinks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hope
Against Darkness</i>, a book allegedly about “the transforming vision of Saint
Francis in an age of anxiety” (poor actual Saint Francis, his name is so
abused!):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
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. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A
hint of “Hegel for Dummies” here perhaps?</i>]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
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. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For example,
no longer kneeling for communion? As Rohr and (presumably following Rohr) our
deacon say: when you receive communion, you </i>are<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> what you eat, and surely it’s a bit silly to go down on bended knee to
worship your</i>self<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> (your own (Richard
Rohr’s own) ‘True Self</i>’<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">)?</i>] They
don’t need to worship the institution; neither do they need to throw it out and
react against it. [<i>Of course it never once occurred to people before ‘today’ that these were not the only two options!</i>] This is a great advance in human maturity. Only a few years
ago it was always [<i>yup, it was always!</i>] 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. [<i>“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”!</i>]</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
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 <i>always</i> welcome
the “other” [<i>so what about pests and disease? or, say, sexual predators, heretics, charlatans? or </i><i>“the world”</i><i>? (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?”) </i>–<i> hmm... we might also welcome some nuance, eh Father?</i>] and learn to see [<i>see? not love?</i>] 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, <a href="https://cac.org/diversity-in-community-2016-04-22/" target="_blank">here</a>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i>
welcome the “other.” Why? So that we are strong and not susceptible to
invasion by the ever-threatening “<i>other</i>
other”! That is, for Rohr (<i>tolle! lege! </i>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, <i>including</i> the teachings of Vatican II), as well as against the first principles of philosophy and theology. At least, so it seems!</div>
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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 <i>The Spirit of the Liturgy</i>, 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 <i>Spirit of the Liturgy</i>,
p. 80 and my previous related comments on Ratzinger’s thesis <a href="https://davidmcpike.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-parish-liturgy-as-communal-meal.html" target="_blank">here</a>).</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-6518073661815465132018-10-02T16:51:00.000-07:002018-10-03T10:00:19.354-07:00Mass notes: All about Uncle Ted?<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
Sunday, September 16, 2018 – 24<sup>th</sup>
Sunday in Ordinary Time</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
A whole homily about “Uncle Ted”
Cardinal McCarrick and sexual abuse scandals in the Church? Is that really what
my family and I need to hear about? I’m not saying ignore it, I’m not saying
don’t address it, but isn’t the adversary perhaps quite happy that we’re so
focused on this sensational news story and thereby distracted from worthier
topics of contemplation? Oh well, I’m not in charge: Uncle Ted it is, but let’s
not overdo it! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
So yes, on this Sunday, visiting
at another parish, we got to hear a bunch about “Uncle Ted” and related
scandals. It was not very edifying, I thought, but in particular it seemed
ironic that in his impassioned homily against abuse and abusers and protectors
of abusers, the priest – following the Alberta bishops – elected to quote none
other than Pope Francis in denouncing these evils. Heaven forbid that bishops
and priests just go ahead and speak out against evil in their own voices, instead
of needing to quote the pope!<br />
<br />
At the climax of his homily the priest made the
emphatic point: “Make no mistake: Jesus stands with the victims, not the
abusers!” Oh? But didn’t Christ come to save sinners? Hurt people hurt people. Victims
make new victims. Victimizers are/were themselves victims of abuse. So at what
point, exactly, does Christ cease to “stand with” a sinner (with me, for
example)? (Only) when my sins become a sensational news story? (Only) when they
take on an overtly ‘political’ dimension?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, complications about the problem of evil, the
perfection of God’s merciful love, etc., aside, we may well accept the rather
banal point that Jesus does not stand with the abusers, at least in the sense
that he warns them rather pointedly, “it would be better for you to be thrown
into the sea with a great millstone around your neck” than to carry on as you
do. But also we might note that Pope Francis – the guy the priest had just been
quoting – actually has been standing with, defending, promoting the abusers (right
up until it becomes overwhelmingly obvious in a given case of patronage that the
political cost has become too heavy). And it’s very easy to condemn sexual
abuse – it’s like when world leaders step up after an act of terrorism and reassuringly
announce to the wondering world that they (still) unequivocally condemn such
acts of non-state-sanctioned violence – but as Jonathan V. Last <a href="https://www.weeklystandard.com/jonathan-v-last/vigano-letter-mccarrick-wuerl-and-pope-francis-are-breaking-the-catholic-church" target="_blank">writes</a>, there
is a bigger picture:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
The abuse itself is terrible, of
course. We should say that out loud, because while the details are unspeakable
they must be spoken of. Without the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury
report, we would know much less about the evil inside the church. (It is also
instructive to note that authorities within the church opposed the release of
this report.) But individual priest-abusers aren’t catastrophic to the church
in any structural way. Predators will always be among us. It is a human
pathology from which not even priests are immune. But the remedy for predation
is straightforward: Whenever and wherever such men are discovered, they should
be rooted out and punished.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
The institutional damage is done
not by the abusers but by the structures that cover for them, excuse them, and
advance them. Viewed in that way, the damage done to the Catholic church by
Cardinal Wuerl—and every other bishop who knew about McCarrick and stayed
silent [e.g., Pope Francis?!]—is several orders of magnitude greater than that
done by McCarrick himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So at this point surely Pope Francis makes a rather poor
choice as a go-to for quotes about standing against abuse and not sheltering
and promoting abusers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
In order to tie his homily to
the day’s gospel, the priest used Jesus’ admonition to Peter, “Get behind me
Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as humans do.” The preacher claimed
an analogy here between Peter and abusive clergy. But it seems to me that sexually abusive clergy
are not thinking “as humans do” in the way Peter was; they are thinking as
vicious, pathologically perverted humans do, that is, they are thinking in a
way that is really inhuman. Peter was not doing this. The rejection of the
cross is human. Even Christ prayed that this cup be taken from him, because he
was human, he had a real human nature and human will, and to embrace the cross requires a grace-powered act of will to
<i>transcend</i> the merely human, that which is naturally human, that is, that which, at
a strictly natural human level, is <i>good</i>. Sexual predators of young men, by
contrast, are not acting in a way that is properly human, naturally human, in
accord with human nature, that is, in a way that is humanly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good</i>. Suggesting an equivalence here
between Peter and the abusers confuses the important distinction between the
natural and the supernatural good. Grace both heals wounded nature and elevates what it heals. Peter’s desire to save his friend, our Lord,
from suffering and death was naturally good; Peter just did not yet understand
and was not ready to embrace the greater, supernatural good which it was
necessary for him to take into account. In contrast, McCarrick’s perverse
desires and actions to corrupt young men and in the process to do grave damage
to the Church are far from any kind of good, natural or supernatural.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The priest also quoted the morally and intellectually rather
more impressive authority of Thomas Aquinas in his homily. He noted that justice,
according to Aquinas, is “rendering to each his due” (something to that
effect). Great! But then the priest also claimed, I guess on his own say-so,
and without further ado: “And what we need is not retributive justice, but
restorative justice!” Excuse me? So is the priest claiming that retribution is
not anyone’s due? Sexual predators should only be ‘restored,’ not punished? But
is that not the very disastrous policy that he had been railing on against: “don’t
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">punish</i> abusers; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">restore</i> them to ministry in some other parish!”? So I wonder what
he could have meant. Jesus, anyway, along with common sense and a host of other
witnesses too numerous to list, seems to teach us that justice requires
restitution, that retributive punishment is indeed what is due to criminals and
sinners. Aquinas too clearly teaches that punishment is retributive, so if the
priest, after quoting Aquinas on justice, has some other view, I think he owes his
listeners an explanation. And before attempting that explanation he might do
well to read some of the Ed Feser’s exceptionally lucid work on the subject
(see <a href="https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/09/justice-or-revenge.html" target="_blank">here</a> for
example), so that he is aware of what it is he needs to respond to if he really
wants to maintain his anti-retribution position.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-46535475536020507972018-09-27T22:22:00.000-07:002018-09-27T22:37:56.099-07:00Mass Notes: Ephphatha!<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
Sept 9, 2018—23<sup>rd</sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For today’s mass our deacon preached on Jesus’ healing of a
deaf and “speech-impedimented” (i.e., dumb) man. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, he noted that the man who was healed is not named in
the story, and that this was because he represents all of us, who are all deaf
and (generally pretty) dumb, and need to “be opened” (“ephphatha!”). This claim
might be surprising insofar as it seems to ignore and perhaps undermine the
primary, historical sense of the text (is the deaf and dumb man <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">merely</i> representative?). I guess he
probably read this interpretation in a book and ran with it, fair enough, but
given that it clearly is an interpretation of the text and not something actually
derivable from it, he might have done well to clearly present it as such.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, most of us actually can hear and speak, so obviously
the deacon was talking about not the literal sense of the reading – again, to
my recollection he pretty much ignored that – but one of its spiritual senses.
And in itself that’s fine. Reading for a spiritual sense has always – since at
least, say, Jesus? – been a standard Catholic way to read scripture. The
standard, traditional distinction is four senses: the literal/historical sense
plus three spiritual senses: the allegorical (connecting the Old and New
Testaments), the moral (teaching us how to act and live), and the anagogical
(teaching about the world to come).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we turn to Thomas Aquinas’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catena aurea </i>(“Golden Chain” of patristic commentaries) for the
day’s reading (see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lectio 4</i> for Mark
ch.7), we can see plenty of examples of spiritual readings. Chrysostom talks
about Christ’s use of his body – fingers and spittle – as indicating the divine
power which followed from the union of his human body with his divine nature
and as showing forth in Christ the true perfection of human nature that had
been wounded in Adam and his descendants. Bede says that Christ looked up to
heaven when healing the man to show that it is from above that the healing of
all our infirmities is to be sought and that he sighed not because he, who is
the giver of all things with the Father, needed to ask anything from the
Father, but to give us an example of how to invoke divine aid. Chrysostom says
he also sighed out of compassion for the miseries into which human nature has
fallen. Bede says: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
The one who is deaf and dumb is
he who has neither ears for hearing the word of God, nor opens his mouth in
order to speak them; for such as these it is necessary that those who speak
already, and have learned to hear the divine utterance, bring them to the Lord
to be healed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And according to Jerome: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
But the one who merits to be
healed is always led apart, from turbulent thoughts, and disordered acts, and
disordered conversation. And the fingers, which are put in his ears, are the
words or gifts of the Spirit, of whom it is said: ‘the finger of God is here.’
And the spittle is the divine wisdom, which dissolves the fetters on the lips
of the human race, so that it may say: ‘I believe in God the Father almighty’
and the rest. And looking up to heaven he sighed, that is, he taught us to
sigh, and in heaven to set up the treasures of our hearts: since through sighs
of inmost compunction the worthless joy of the flesh is purged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Returning to our deacon’s preaching, he presented a somewhat
different, more earth-focused interpretation of Jesus’ healing. He focused on
the word “ephphatha” – “be opened” – and unfolded to the congregation what he
took to be the real message of the reading: not so much, ask Christ to open our
ears so that we can hear, and maybe even hear and take in and receive and
accept the word of God, etc.; but rather be open to people, to all kinds of
people, whatever they’re like, however different they are, whatever they think,
however they live. Be open and welcoming to the world. Don’t criticize or speak
negatively about anyone or anything. That’s the point, according to our deacon,
that Mark was trying to make with this story about Jesus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unfortunately I think this interpretation fails three
important tests: first, the consistency/hypocrisy test; second, the what-about-Jesus
test; and then finally, the basic where-are-you-getting-this-from test.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, it seems clear enough that the deacon was saying that
it is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wrong</i> to be closed-minded, to
not welcome everyone unconditionally. So he was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">criticizing</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">speaking
negatively</i> about certain people who are not properly open-minded and
unconditionally welcoming. That is, he was enjoining others to do one thing
while himself doing the opposite, which is a form of inconsistency called
hypocrisy. (It also seemed an especially gross admonition to level at the
congregation, given the big (elephant-in-the-room!) public scandal featured in
the current news cycle involving misguided policies and decisions and long
series of malicious acts of pressuring people not to speak out, negatively and
critically, about sexually abusive clerics, etc.!) It’s necessary to understand
the laws of contradiction and excluded middle here: When you say one thing,
anything, you are implicitly negating its opposite. And even if you want to get
clever and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deny</i> that you mean to
affirm one thing and deny the opposite, and instead claim that you can and do
affirm some proposition as well as its opposite, or without denying its
opposite, as if there’s some middle way, then you’re still obviously denying
and criticizing the claim that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you can’t
do that</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Second, Jesus obviously (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tolle,
lege!</i>) spent lots of time criticizing people and speaking negatively about
things. So our deacon used his opportunity to preach on the gospel to
effectively condemn the Jesus of the gospels and substitute his own superior
form of righteousness. Preachers do this pretty commonly and no doubt mostly
unwittingly (or should I say, witlessly?), but still, it’s wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And third, what the deacon said simply had no basis in any
actual intelligent, open-minded, receptive reading of the gospel. He just used
a word from the gospel, ‘open,’ and then said what he wanted to say. He ignored
the text while pretending that he was explaining to us its meaning. If you’ve
actually listened to the gospel, paid attention, and care about what it says, that’s
just irritating – although again, he has the excuse that it’s a pretty common
practice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I could also mention that proclaiming a blanket condemnation
of anyone who is critical or speaks negatively looks rather like the dirty
trick of poisoning the well. [For an example of this trick being used against
Jesus, see John 10:20: “Many of them said, He must be possessed; he is a
madman; why do you listen to him?” For an example of a pope using this trick... do your own research!] Anyone who might have been inclined to be
critical or speak negatively about the deacon’s claim (i.e., the blanket condemnation
of criticism) would be automatically condemned according to the standard of
that claim, regardless of his reasons and regardless of the legitimacy of his
criticism. So the idea would be, “Don’t listen to that guy – he’s being
critical!” To which the rejoinder would be, “Right, I’m being critical, and so
are you; but unlike you I’m not claiming there’s something wrong with that, so
I’m not being <i>hypocritical</i>.” And if
we’re trying to be followers of Christ, Jesus criticized lots of people for
lots of things, but it seems to me there’s no one he teed off on more than
hypocrites (see especially Matthew 23), so hypocrisy should probably be high on
our list of things to try to avoid.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-91571800522159861622018-09-21T14:28:00.000-07:002018-09-22T07:04:46.904-07:00Mass Notes: Inside Out<div class="MsoNormal">
Mass Notes for Sept 2, 2018 (22<sup>nd</sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this Sunday’s mass, the gospel reading was from Mark and
the preaching focused on the following passage:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Then Jesus called the crowd again
and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing
outside a person that [by] going in can defile them [sic], but the things that
come out of a person are what defile them [sic].” Mark 7:14-15</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it’s really apparent, that the lectionary’s grammar’s
errant. Anyway. In Greek and Latin:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: 12.5pt;">14</span> <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.5pt;"> </span>κα<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὶ</span> προσκαλεσάμενος πάλιν τ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὸ</span>ν
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὄ</span>χλον
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἔ</span>λεγεν
α<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὐ</span>το<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ῖ</span>ς:
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἀ</span>κούσατέ
μου πάντες κα<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὶ</span> σύνετε. <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.5pt;">15</span> <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 15.5pt;"> </span>ο<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὐ</span>δέν <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἐ</span>στιν <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἔ</span>ξωθεν
το<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ῦ</span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἀ</span>νθρώπου
ε<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἰ</span>σπορευόμενον
ε<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἰ</span>ς
α<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὐ</span>τ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὸ</span>ν
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὃ</span>
δύναται κοιν<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ῶ</span>σαι α<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὐ</span>τόν: <span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἀ</span>λλ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὰ</span>
τ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὰ</span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἐ</span>κ
το<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ῦ</span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἀ</span>νθρώπου
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἐ</span>κπορευόμενά
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἐ</span>στιν
τ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὰ</span>
κοινο<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ῦ</span>ντα
τ<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ὸ</span>ν
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ἄ</span>νθρωπον.<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
14 Et advocans iterum turbam,
dicebat illis: “Audite me omnes, et intellegite. 15 Nihil est extra hominem
introiens in eum, quod possit eum coinquinare, sed quæ de homine procedunt,
illa sunt, quæ coinquinant hominem.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So a better translation (certainly better grammar):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: -.55pt;">
And again
calling the crowd, he said to them: Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
There is nothing outside a man entering into him that can defile him (or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">make him common, bring him into common use</i>),
but what proceeds from a man, those things are what defile a man.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next verse, 16 – omitted in many editions – is perhaps
worth mentioning: “If someone has ears for hearing, let him hear.” In other
words, pay attention, think: the meaning here might not be obvious, as indeed
it was not to Jesus’ disciples, as we can read in the ensuing passage.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Preaching on the passage above, Fr. D put up his gloss on
the overhead, which read something like: “Holiness is not about what is
outside, it’s about what is inside.” That, he assured us, is what Jesus was
saying in the day’s gospel reading. But is that right? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He went on to apply his claim to liturgical postures – the
rubrics, the red print in the missal. He talked about how the postures
prescribed have changed from time to time – he reminisced about the battles of
the 70’s – but assured us that it’s really not something to be concerned about:
We should just do what we’re told to do and understand that it really doesn’t
matter, because what matters is holiness and, again, “Holiness is not about
what is outside, it’s about what is inside.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there are serious problems here. First, some questions
about the liturgy: Is Father saying that there is no rhyme or reason behind the
postures? that the postures don’t actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mean</i>
anything, aren’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">meant</i> by their
nature to express anything? that in themselves they are meaningless and that by
assuming them we are merely (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">supposed</i>
to be?) carrying out acts of blind obedience to arbitrarily prescribed ritual? That
seemed to be what he was implying. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But are a man’s worship postures something that “enters into
him,” or something that “proceeds from him”? In a sense they may be the former
– they are received by him as prescriptions – but as enacted they are certainly
also the latter, something proceeding from him. So are they really supposed to
proceed from him merely as acts of blind obedience to the inscrutable,
arbitrary prescriptions of whimsical liturgical legislators? I think not. I
think such an attitude is in fact a corruption of the meaning of liturgy. And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">preaching</i> so as to encourage an
anti-intellectual, anti-understanding, nominalistic view of the liturgy may
well be something that “proceeds from a man and defiles him [the preacher].”
And when this preaching is received, it defiles also the understanding of those
who receive it, as well as defiling their consequent participation in the
liturgy, rendering it vain, empty, inert, mindless, heartless. I think <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> is the actual claim that Jesus is
making in the gospel, about the scribes and Pharisees’ vain worship through
observance of the precepts of men, while their hearts are far from God.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Fr. D announced that Jesus was telling us that holiness
is about what is inside, not about what is outside, it seems he failed to
consider a very obvious question: So what is the relationship between what is
inside and what is outside?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we look at what Jesus actually says, it seems clear that
Father’s simplistic dichotomy won’t do at all. Jesus is not talking about what
is inside versus outside a man, he is talking about what enters a man – through
his mouth – versus what proceeds from him. What really matters is what proceeds
from him, Jesus says, or as the lectionary translates it, “things that come <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">out</i> of a person” – so Jesus says pretty
much the opposite of what Father claimed! Of course what is inside the heart
matters too, but it matters precisely in that it is from the evil thoughts of
the heart that all kinds of evil come <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">out</i>:
v.20: “what goes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">out</i> (L. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exit</i>) of a man, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> defiles him.” Jesus mentions (vv.22-23) fornication, theft,
murder, etc. – and (ironically) also <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foolishness</i>
(<span style="background: white; font-family: "arial unicode ms"; font-size: 10.5pt;">ἀφροσύνη</span>,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stultitia</i>), for example, the
foolishness of saying “what’s inside matters and what’s outside doesn’t.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Omitted from the lectionary reading are v.18-19: “Do you not
understand that nothing outside a man entering into him can defile him? Because
it does not enter into his heart…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Thomas Aquinas’s ‘golden chain’ (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catena aurea</i>) collection of patristic commentaries on Mark’s
gospel, he gives the following gloss:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
It is said “into his heart,” that
is, into the mind, which is the principal part of the soul, from which the
whole life of man depends; wherefore it is according to it that it is necessary
to esteem a man clean or defiled; and thus those things that do not enter into
the mind cannot produce defilement. [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And
likewise, it would seem, those things that do not enter into the mind – like a
sound understanding of the liturgy or of the scriptures – cannot produce
holiness.</i>] Foods, therefore, since they do not enter into the mind, by
their nature cannot defile a man [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or make
him holy</i>]; but the inordinate use of foods, which comes from disorderedness
of the mind, pertains to a man’s defilement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, in regard to foolishness (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stultitia</i>), I think it worth noting the two interpretations Thomas
lists. Foolishness is “injustice towards neighbor.” Or it is when someone “does
not discern rightly about God: for it is opposed to wisdom, which is a grasp of
divine things.” Now it’s not often (maybe ever!) you’ll hear preaching against <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foolishness</i> – more often, perhaps,
you’ll hear preaching that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>
foolishness – but it’s important to recognize that foolishness really is one of
the things that we are required to avoid, by a concerted effort of the will.
Indulging in it is unjust towards our neighbors and alienates us from God. It is
one of the things that defile us from the inside out.</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-70642499088670882272018-09-14T16:51:00.002-07:002018-09-14T17:21:59.842-07:00New Parish – Liturgy as communal meal?<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
My family and I have been at our new parish in the Calgary
diocese for around a month now and I guess the culture shock is starting to
wear off. For the past couple of years we had been at a small parish in the
Ottawa area where the pastor’s focus was on being a faithful priest and
celebrating mass reverently and obediently. His homilies weren’t brilliant,
sometimes rather ham-fisted, but he at least really did aim to humbly and
frankly preach the truths of the Catholic faith. There was no music, which meant
we didn’t have to put up with the usual, liturgically inappropriate music – bad
Catholic hymns from the 70's or dumb contemporary protestant P&W pop songs
– that is standard at most parishes, and instead there was a healthy amount of
silence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At our first mass at our new parish, by contrast, it felt
like the priest was doing his best ‘priestly’ impression of Rockin’ Rob (or
whatever his name was) the rodeo clown, whose groaner jokes and antics we’d
semi-enjoyed the preceding afternoon at a local rodeo. Communion was
reminiscent of the wild-cow milking – do they really need so many
(extraordinary) ministers of (Holy) Communion? – and just prior to the
conclusion of mass, advertisements are displayed on the overhead projectors
while the priest unfailingly (so far!) wanders around in search of visitors,
asking them “Where y’all from? Did you come to see our smoke? It’s not ours, y’
know, it’s from BC! YUK YUK!” He's a nice guy, as people say, but not my style,
so adjust we must (or go in search of a less-convenient better-pastored parish?
– ‘tis an option of course).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On a theological note, during our first mass the priest made
some fuzzily heartwarming comments about the Eucharistic liturgy as the
celebration of a ‘community/communal meal.’ I guess some people think that’s
what Holy Communion is, or is supposed to be, even though it’s obviously not
that. It seems to me that anybody who thinks it is that has clearly never been
to a real community meal. At a real community meal you get a plate, you fill
it, you probably also get a drink and a fork and a seat, often a second helping
and dessert, and you mingle and chat while you enjoy your meal with your
community. Holy Communion is just nothing like that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any case, the idea of the Eucharistic liturgy as a
communal meal evidently has some currency. In his book <i>The Spirit of the
Liturgy</i> (Ignatius, 2000 – see ch. 3), Joseph then-Cardinal Ratzinger argues
that this common view is a fruit of the extremely prevalent post-Vatican II
reorientation of the celebrating priest “toward the people” (versus populum),
“in such a way that priest and people looked at each other and formed together
the circle of the celebrating community.” Ratzinger notes that Vatican II itself
says nothing about the priest “turning toward the people,” but also that this
reordering of liturgical worship “brings with it a new idea of the essence of
the liturgy – the liturgy as a communal meal.” He claims that the embrace of
this view of the liturgy is based on a misunderstanding of its alleged
historical precedents in the Roman liturgy and on an inaccurate view of what
ancient communal meals, including the Last Supper, were actually like.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
More importantly he notes that “the Eucharist that Christians
celebrate really cannot be adequately described by the term ‘meal’” – a point
which, as I claimed above, is obvious! “True, the Lord established the new
reality of Christian worship within the framework of a Jewish (Passover) meal,
but it was precisely this new reality [of Christian worship], not the meal as
such, that he commanded us to repeat.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ratzinger then describes how the real significance of the
Eucharistic liturgy became obscured and fell into oblivion, so that it is “the
meal” which has become “the normative idea of liturgical celebration for
Christians.” But if we get beyond this implausible normative idea, which
priests and others still try to sell, the reality of what has happened with the
priest’s “turn-to-the-people,” Ratzinger argues, is quite different:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“In reality what happened was that an unprecedented
clericalization came on the scene. Now the priest – the ‘presider’, as they now
prefer to call him – becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy.
Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be
involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not
surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all
kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the
‘creative’ planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are
supposed to, ‘make their own contribution’. Less and less is God in the
picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet
here and do not like to subject themselves to a ‘pre-determined pattern’. The
turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a
self-enclosed circle. [Fittingly, our new parish also features a sacred garden
with a (self-enclosed, circular) labyrinth!] In its outward form, it no longer
opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So says Ratzinger. Now to be fair, there’s more than one way
for a group to become closed in on itself, but it strikes me, unfortunately,
that liturgy is critically important, and that Ratzinger’s description here is
all too accurate for many a parish.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
To conclude, community meals are great. The Eucharist makes
for a lousy community meal. But that's okay because, whatever your priest might
say, that's not what the Eucharist essentially is or is essentially supposed to
be anyway.</div>
</div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-6032169814142672592018-04-23T12:14:00.001-07:002018-04-23T12:14:47.387-07:00Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart: Do you will only one thing?<em>What then must I do?</em><br />
<em>The listener's role in a devotional address</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>...</em><br />
The talk asks you, then, or you ask yourself by means of the talk, <i>what kind of life do you live, do you will only one thing, and what is this one thing? </i>The talk does not expect that you will name off any goal that only pretends to be one thing. For <u>it does not intend to address itself to anyone with whom it would not be able to deal seriously, for the reason that such a man has cut himself off from any earnest consideration of the occasion of the address</u>. There is still another reason: a man can, to be sure, have an extremely different, yes, have a precisely opposite opinion from ours, and one can nevertheless deal earnestly with him if one assumes that finally there may be a point of agreement, a unity in some universal human sense, call it what you will. But if he is mad, then one cannot deal with him, for he shies away from just that final point, in which one at last may hope to find agreement with him. One can dispute with a man, dispute to the furthest limit, as long as one assumes, that in the end there is a point in common, an agreement in some universal human sense: in self-respect. But when, in his worldly strivings he sets out like a madman in a desperate attempt to despise himself, and in the face of this is brazen about it and lauds himself for his infamy, then one can undertake no disputing with him. For like a madman, and even more terribly, he shies away from this final thing (self-respect) in which one might at last hope to find agreement with him.<br />
<br />
The talk assumes, then, that you will the Good and asks you now, <i>what kind of life you live, whether or not you truthfully will only one thing. </i>It does not ask inquisitively about your calling in life, about the number of workers you employ, or about how many you have under you in your office, or if you happen to be in the service of the state. No, the talk is not inquisitive. It asks you above all else, it asks you first and foremost, <u>whether you really live in such a way that you are capable of answering that question, in such a way that the question truthfully exists for you</u>. Because in order to be able earnestly to answer that serious question, a man must already have made a choice in life, he must have chosen the invisible, chosen that which is within. He must have lived so that he has hours and times in which he collects his mind, so that his life can win the transparency that is a condition for being able to put the question to himself and for being able to answer it -- if, of course, it is legitimate to demand that a man shall know whereof he speaks. <u>To put such a question to the man that is so busy in his earthly work, and outside of this in joining the crowd in its noisemaking, would be folly that would lead only to fresh folly -- through the answer</u>.<br />
<br />
(Soren Kierkegaard, <em>Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing</em>, trans. by Douglas V. Steere (Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 183-184.)David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-9204256383999092242016-12-03T05:39:00.001-08:002016-12-03T05:39:38.300-08:00Santa is not real, so maybe stop lying about it already?<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It's that time of year again, when our thoughts turn to Christmas preparations, so perhaps this would be a good time to break the news: <em>despite what you may have been told</em>, <em>Santa Claus is not real</em>. That's right: people have been <em>lying</em> to you about this!</span><br />
<em><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><em>Lying about Santa </em>can be a sensitive topic. For some
people, this sensitivity has something to do with the figure of Santa himself: for them Santa is sacred, a bit like God, or
the government: a basically magical entity that lives far away and gives them
free stuff, and forms part of the basic fabric of culture and life without
which the world would be a rather colder, nastier, more inexcusable kind of
place. Others are sensitive about it because it concerns their own parenting decisions, and since parents naturally want to do well by their children, it can be
uncomfortable to consider that certain treasured elements of one’s parenting
practises might in reality be morally suspect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>In any case, sensitive issue or not, I think it's an interesting one, morally and sociologically. Morally speaking, we generally recognize that it's wrong to lie (and yes, wrong to lie <em>even</em> <em>to your own children</em>). And yet in our society we have a generally accepted practise of lying - entirely gratuitously, I might add - to our children about Santa. So <em>why</em> do people intentionally deceive their kids into believing stories about the jolly fat man with the beard and the reindeer? It seems obvious that the primary reason they do it is simply because "everybody's doing it" (it's a 'tradition') - and <em>practically</em> speaking, that is reason enough. </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>But if you ask parents the straightforward question, <em>so</em> <em>why do you lie to your kids about Santa?</em>, you might find - as I have - that they are surprised and offended that anyone would even say such a thing; and they might even deny that it <em>is</em> lying - even though it perfectly obviously is. (They knowingly assert falsehoods to their children with the intention of inducing them to believe that those falsehoods are in fact true - in other words, it's very straightforward: they lie!) </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>But I guess <em>most</em> people would not care to outright <em>deny</em> that they are lying to their children, so instead some justification needs to be offered for such an abuse - I'm just saying!<em> </em>- of their children's confidence and naïveté. </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>The primary <em>reason</em> why people actually do it (lie about Santa) in the first place is, as mentioned: <em>everybody's doing it</em>; and this reason might well be offered by some people also as a <em>moral justification</em>. But "everybody's doing it" is a pretty <em>lame</em> moral justification (obviously!), so in spite of the call of the herd, they need to appeal to more than just that.</o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>So what more is there? There are a series of rather vague notions: it's harmless, it's fun, it's part of childhood, it's good for children to have vivid imaginations, to believe in magic, etc. And because everybody's doing it, they don't want their kids to miss out on the fun. In general, then, the idea is: <em>I don't want to deprive my children of living this (lie-based) fantasy</em>. <em>So sure, I'll lie in order to give it to them</em>.</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>Now I love fiction. I think it's mostly harmless, often beneficial, fun, part of childhood and of having a vivid imagination, and yes, everybody exposes their kids to fiction, and I wouldn't want mine to miss out on that. But still: If my son asks me, say, <em>is Narnia real?</em>, I answer him truthfully. When a child <em>asks</em> <em>for</em> the truth, I'm pretty sure that is a sign that he <em>wants to know</em> the truth and is <em>ready to be told</em> the truth (in a way, obviously, that is appropriate to his level of maturity and understanding, and doesn't simply denigrate the value of imagination). So I don't worry about whether I'll be stunting his imagination by revealing the truth to him when he asks about it, and I certainly don't think that any such concerns could justify outright <em>lying</em> to him about it. And I don't think there are any <em>good</em> reasons for thinking that the same doesn't apply when it comes to truthfully answering questions about Santa (not to mention introducing your kids to Santa in a truthful way to begin with). But it should go without saying: if there are any such reasons, please, I'd like to hear them!</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>Nonetheless, there is <em>one</em> obvious 'justification' for lying: <em>I need no justification, because lying isn't wrong. If <u>you</u> don't like lying, then don't do it! But mind your own business: you have no right to arrogantly impose your moral views on others</em>. Given the evident brazen hypocrisy of saying stuff like that, you would hope that no one would ever actually take such a position. But in the real world, unfortunately, shit (i.e., post-modernism, psychological trauma, nihilism, narcissistic personality disorder, bad parents and teachers, etc.) happens, and people all too commonly do have this kind of angrily puerile reaction when their views are challenged. In other words, the issues in this case are likely deep-seated psychological ones, not simply matters of confused thinking - and sadly I'm not much of a psychotherapist.</o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>However, for those not overly hampered by arrested psychological development (such as - dare I say? - myself), it's often helpful to think about what a bright guy like Thomas Aquinas had to say about the subject. So put <a href="http://newadvent.org/summa/3110.htm" target="_blank">this</a> (<em>Summa theologiae </em>II-II, q.110) in your pipe and smoke it (in honor of jolly old Saint Nic). Some quick highlights</o:p></span><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p>:</o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Article 1: Whether lying, as containing falsehood,
is always opposed to truth?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">In general yes; but "the essential</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> notion of a lie</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> is taken
from <em>formal</em> falsehood, from the fact namely, that a person</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> <em>intends</em> to
say what is false</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">;" thus "if...one utters falsehood <em>formally</em>, through having
<em>the will</em></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><em> to deceive</em>, even if what one says be true</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">, yet
inasmuch as this is a voluntary</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> and moral act, it contains falseness essentially</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> and truth accidentally</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">, and
attains the specific nature</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"> of a lie</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;">.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Article
2: Whether lies are sufficiently divided into officious (useful), jocose
(pleasing), and mischievous (injurious) lies?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thomas says that the kinds
of lies may be divided in various ways: but in regard to their <em>object</em>, the lies about Santa would primarily be lies that go<em> beyond</em> the truth; and in regard to their <i>end</i>, they are <i>jocose</i> lies, meaning their end is <i>pleasure</i> (they are
told "with a desire to please"), as opposed to aiming at <i>usefulness</i> or <i>mischief.</i> In comparison to these others kinds of lies, they are less bad than <em>mischievous</em>
lies, but worse than <em>useful</em> lies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Article
3. Whether every lie is a sin?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes. "[Since]
words are naturally</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">
signs of intellectual</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">
acts, it is unnatural and undue for anyone to signify by words something that
is not in his mind. ... Therefore every lie is a sin</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">." - Straight up. (You might need to ponder that one.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Article
4. Whether every lie is a mortal sin?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-CA;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No. "If
the end intended be not contrary to charity</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, neither will the
lie, considered under this aspect, be a mortal sin</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, as in the case of a
jocose lie, where some little pleasure is intended, or in an officious lie,
where the good</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> also of one's neighbor is intended. Accidentally a lie may be contrary to charity</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> by reason of scandal</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> or any other
injury resulting therefrom: and thus again it will be a mortal sin</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, for instance if a man
were not deterred through scandal</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">
from lying publicly."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-50479316327554374732016-09-14T07:15:00.000-07:002016-09-14T07:16:41.491-07:00Some views on Pope Francis' approval of the Argentine proposalRobert Royal writes a very good piece here: <a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/09/14/a-bizarre-papal-move/" target="_blank">A Bizarre Papal Move</a>.<br />
Jeff Mirus writes an interesting piece here: <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?ID=1413" target="_blank">Not Heretical</a>.<br />
Ed Peters responds to Mirus here: <a href="https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/may-i-demur-re-mirus-this-once/" target="_blank">May I Demur...</a><br />
I would add this response to Mirus: <br />
<br />
Mirus writes: <span style="font-family: inherit;">"The key question is: Which is more important, the
potential scandal which could weaken the commitment of others to the Church’s
teaching on marriage, or the need for the (venial) sinner (caught in a no-win
situation) to be spiritually nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a false dichotomy. One is <em>not</em> spiritually
nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ <em>only</em> by receiving them sacramentally
under the species of bread and wine. <em>Spiritual</em> reception of Christ does <em>not</em>
require <em>sacramental</em> reception of Christ. These are very different things. Indeed sacramental reception can be
the opposite of spiritually nourishing (obviously that's a central point in this whole discussion). So in fact one can be spiritually nourished by the Body and Blood of
Christ precisely by one's conscientious actions to honor the Body and Blood by
refraining from sacramental reception in order to avoid scandal (such as
that caused when receiving sacramentally while one is in an objectively sinful state, even if
there is some reason to believe it may be only venially sinful). So this action of refraining
can in fact be a win-win (not 'no-win,' as Mirus alleges). What Mirus's analysis seems to ignore is the fact that
<em>sacramental</em> reception of Christ is not an end in itself. Sacramental reception is supposed to be - it <em>ought</em> to be - a means to the end of spiritual reception. But again: sacramental reception is in fact largely
independent of - indeed, sometimes, and perhaps often, positively <em>opposed</em> to - spiritual reception.</span>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-39212367192124050952016-09-12T10:55:00.002-07:002016-09-12T13:36:32.155-07:00God Forgets<div data-contents="true">
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yesterday our pastor declared that, quite unlike us, God doesn't just
forgive; he forgets! I'm like, WHat?! So we forgetful human beings actually
have a faculty of memory superior to that of God Almighty?! Hold up just a
minute there.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you think that God forgets, that means God isn't eternal (or
omniscient). If you believe in a God who is not eternal, you don't believe in a
God who is the Creator of the world. In other words, your belief is not even
theistic. It's not Christian, let alone Catholic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So why say such a thing in a homily at mass? A friend suggested an
allusion to a story she’s heard about Catherine Laboure (you know who I mean: 'laboo-RAY'). Supposedly a bishop
wanted to authenticate Catherine’s visions of our Lord, so the bishop asked her
to ask our Lord what he the bishop confessed at his last confession (perhaps forgetting
our Lord's words, "it is an evil and adulterous generation that asks for a
sign" and “it is written, thou shalt not put the Lord your God to the test”).
When Catherine had her next vision she asked the bishop's question and Jesus's
response was, "I forget." </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now that's a lovely pious story (I guess - I'd like to find a source for
it and read it in whatever the original form of it is), but what would it
prove? It would prove one of two things: (1) Jesus has a sense of humour (or
sarcasm, perhaps); or (2) the vision was not of divine origin.</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yesterday’s gospel, which apparently inspired our pastor’s reflections,
was Luke 15, the parable of the lost sheep (one out of 100) and the parable of the prodigal
son. According to our pastor, the latter could well be called the parable of
the prodigal father: “this powerful story contains the essence, indeed the
heart of Jesus’ message. It is the ‘Good News’ par excellence. It reminds us
that ‘God loves each one of us, as if there were only one of us to love,’ and
that when we go astray, He goes all out in search of us and that when
eventually He finds us, nothing can stop Him from showing mercy and
forgiveness.” </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And this sounds like very nice, bland, late 20<sup>th</sup> century
universalism (basically: “all shall be saved, because God wills it”). </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">But surely it’s really repulsive nonsense, if we think about it. In
James, ch. 1, we read: </span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Only you must be honest with yourselves; you are to live by the word,
not content merely to listen to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
who listens to the word without living by it is like a man who sees, in a
mirror, the face he was born with; he looks at himself, and away he goes, never
giving another thought to the man he saw there. Whereas one who gazes into that
perfect law, which is the law of freedom, and dwells on the sight of it, does
not forget its message; he finds something to do, and does it, and his doing of
it wins him a blessing. If anyone deludes himself by thinking he is serving
God, when he has not learned to control his tongue [whereby he expresses his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">understanding</i>], the service he gives is
vain.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now, we don't live by an entirely different, disconnected 'word' each week. When we read Luke 15 (or think about some saint story we may have
heard) one week, we mustn't forget that in previous weeks we also read, for example, Luke 14: “I tell
you, none of those who were first invited shall taste of my supper”; “none of
you can be my disciple if he does not take leave of all that he possesses. Salt
is a good thing; but if the salt itself becomes tasteless, what is there left
to give taste to it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is of no use
either to the soil or to the dung-heap; it will be thrown away altogether.
Listen, you that have ears to hear with.” Or Luke 13: “you will all perish as
they did, if you do not repent”; “Fight your way in at the narrow door; I tell
you, there are many who will try and will not be able to enter”; “But he will
say, I tell you, I know nothing of you, nor whence you come; depart from me, you
that traffic in iniquity. Weeping shall be there, and gnashing of teeth, when
you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets within God’s kingdom,
while you yourselves are cast out.” This is all part of the <em>one</em> word which is the gospel of Christ, the word incarnate (and we can note that, for rather obvious reasons, the notion of <em>gospel</em>, Greek <em>euangelion</em>, is really not well translated as ‘the Good News’ (see Benedict XVI's "Jesus of Nazareth"), despite what our missals say).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now it’s not likely that our pastor simply forgot these
passages from the immediately preceding chapters of Luke’s gospel when he
prepared himself to preach on Luke 15. So why did he ignore them, and speak as
if he’d never heard of them? I’m not sure. Could it be that he just sees the ‘Good News’ gospel as a series of therapeutic-moralistic teachings to be opened up like so
many fortune cookies, but not something we’re tasked with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">understanding</i> as a coherent whole (he prefers psychology to philosophy - which doesn't excuse neglecting the latter).
Perhaps he believes in “the Holy Spirit of surprises” (shout-out to Pope
Francis) who surprises us by blandly contradicting himself from chapter to
chapter (or from week to week), even in the divinely inspired gospels. Perhaps he doesn’t
believe in the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge and understanding. And perhaps he doesn’t
believe that he has a sacred pastoral duty to guide and form in his
congregation a genuine, coherent knowledge and understanding of the apostolic
faith handed down. It’s just, peek in the mirror each week, and forget about
what we saw there any other week (and imagine God – and the inspired gospel-writers – as in the habit of doing the same thing!). When you open one fortune cookie, you don’t
bother thinking about what your last one said, and how the different fortunes
fit together and complement one another. Why not approach the gospel the same way? <span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">(“Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” - “But God forgets; so why
shouldn't I?”)</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Or maybe it’s not that. I don’t know! But I find it really bizarre. How
can a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christian</i> be so indifferent to believing
and preaching sound, coherent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theology</i>?
-- to believing in and preaching the one true God (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theos</i>) who is revealed in the gospels as the Word (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logos</i>) made flesh? Why do pastors sometimes say in a dismissive tone, “Well, that's theology...”? “Woe upon you,
scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites that encompass sea and land to gain a
single proselyte, and then make the proselyte twice as worthy of damnation as
yourselves.” Woe upon you pastors, who preach every week without showing care
for true understanding of the gospel of Christ, then make your congregation
twice as worthy of damnation, teaching them to scorn both natural and
super-natural intellectual virtues even more than yourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The old (how old, I wonder?) saying comes to mind: “God doesn’t call the
equipped; he equips the called.” Oh really? But how do you think he does that,
reverend sir? Just magically??...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-35295749464547523032016-07-14T09:28:00.004-07:002016-07-14T10:54:17.317-07:00Against Racism: empathy or love?<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><a href="https://mattstauffer.org/257/please-remember-my-black-son/">https://mattstauffer.org/257/please-remember-my-black-son/</a></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">So what we need is empathy? ("Our problem is that we don’t empathize with Black people.")</span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">CCC 1767: "passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will." </span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Empathy is entering into and sharing in the passions/feelings of another. It is a passion (a feeling, an emotion, a reaction). It is "neither good nor evil" (etc. - see above). When empathy has the effect of encouraging one to <em>dis</em>engage reason, to <em>disregard</em> facts, it is evil. (Consider: "I have a lot of empathy for serial adulterers." Sure - but that's not a good thing!)</span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><a href="http://qpolitical.com/1-heres-one-thing-obama-wont-tell-dallas-shooting-police-officers/">http://qpolitical.com/1-heres-one-thing-obama-wont-tell-dallas-shooting-police-officers/</a></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Love drives out hate.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Empathy may be useful, or not. <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody">Empathy may just mire a person in another person's irrational passions. Empathy in itself is not a strength. </span></span>Empathy is different from love. And it is l</span></span>ove, not empathy, that drives out hate. Empathy alone may lead a person to wallow in vain passions. Love leads to - it demands! - forgiveness, reconciliation, understanding. But only because genuine love is a participation in the love of the one God, who is justice, mercy, truth. Empathy is only a participation in the fragmented and contradictory world of individual passions.</span></span>David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-85873839357672959932016-07-12T10:17:00.002-07:002016-07-12T11:59:13.150-07:00The Good Samaritan, a parable of latter-day saintliness?<span style="font-family: "calibri";">The preaching that was preached to me this past Sunday was ostensibly about the parable
of the Good Samaritan. The preacher took the opportunity to share with us some
history which he believed we needed to understand in order to understand the
Gospel reading, namely Lk 10:25-37. He reviewed the basic story of the Jews’ Babylonian
exile, the introduction of the Samaritan people into the vacated land of Israel
and their development there of a syncretistic religion which included
significant Judaic elements, followed by the return to Israel of the exiled
Jews and their subsequent hostility towards the Samaritans and towards the
Samaritan corruptions of the Judaic faith. In this context he described in
particular the Pharisees – a name meaning ‘set apart, separated’ – as a
manifestation of a particular attitude towards the Samaritans – the ‘corruptors
of true religion’ – which prevailed among some or most of the Jews of Jesus’s
time, but especially among the Pharisees. The preacher’s take on Jesus’s
parable of the Good Samaritan was that Jesus was engaging in a kind of expanding
of religious consciousness, challenging the Pharisees’ negative stereotypes of Samaritans
and Samaritan religion, and the Pharisees’ practice of valuing and cultivating separateness
from the corrupting influence of their neighbors. Instead, it seemed the preacher was suggesting,
Jesus rejected such separateness. Jesus wants to be a friend to all, and thus to destroy
separateness. His mission, and so ours too, starts with relationship, and this
emphasis on relationship is incompatible with the separateness of the Pharisees.
He also threw in some bland remarks about the need to avoid being either 'all head and
no heart' (presumably like Jesus’s interlocutor in the Gospel reading?), or 'all
heart and no head' (it’s unclear to whom this was meant to refer).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This analysis struck me as superficial and misleading. It
was what the preacher wanted to say, and probably sat well with most of the
pew-sitters; but it wasn’t what Jesus said or implied in the day’s Gospel
reading. In the Gospel, an expert in the law – a ‘lawyer,’ who may or may not have
been a Pharisee – asks Jesus <em>about eternal life</em>, and Jesus directs him <em>to the
law</em> – the law of Israel, the law revealed by God, the law by which God chose
and set apart and sanctified a people for himself. (If you’re not familiar with
these concepts, by all means read the Old Testament!) The ‘lawyer’ then asks
Jesus about the meaning of the law, and Jesus tells him a parable about love of
neighbor, wherein a Samaritan shows love to a stranger in need: to a Jew, that
is, with whom he has no prior relationship and with whom, we may well assume,
he does not go on to have any subsequent relationship. That is to say, in
despite of those who wish to read into it certain views about evangelization
that are trendy in these latter days of Christianity, it is not a story about
the connection between mission and relationship. (If we consider the example of
Jesus himself, his public ministry – his Gospel mission – lasted only three
years and touched the lives of many thousands of people. There is no indication
that ‘personal relationships’ were the essential element of his mission and
every reason to think that they were not, since, simply practically speaking,
that model would have been impossible.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">What about the business of the ‘separateness’ cultivated by
the Pharisees, and criticized by Sunday’s preacher, ostensibly speaking with or
for Jesus in doing so? I gather that that kind of thing is a popular line among
Christians of these latter days. We all believe (of course!) in a ‘universal call to
holiness’ – whatever we take that to mean. It suits many people just fine to be
told that they shouldn’t separate themselves from others, and that others
should not feel separated from them. Thus, for example, a lot of people believe
in a universal call to receive Holy Communion. This call is for everyone, that is, for whomsoever
shows up to mass, whensoever and howsoever often they happen to do so – unless
they’re too young (don't have an official 'first communion certificate') or prefer not to – but then they should still be universally encouraged
to come up to at least receive a ‘communion blessing.’ Why? Because this minimizes 'separateness.' Jesus may, or may not,
have been serious about the separation of the sheep and the goats on the Last Day
when he shall come in glory, but surely that kind of thing has little to no application
to us now. The ‘universal call to holiness’ means that we should recognize that
everyone is holy – ‘everything is grace,’ as some so sweetly say – and that
Christ has destroyed all enmity between the sheep and the goats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Except that that is anything but what Jesus Christ preaches.
(By all means read the New Testament, in its integrity, if you doubt this!) So
far as I recall, Jesus never criticizes the Pharisees for their separateness. He
does criticize them for their hypocrisy, their lack of integrity. (Seven times
he calls scribes and Pharisees hypocrites in Matthew 23; in Matthew 5 he says
we must <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exceed</i> their righteousness,
and be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, loving even our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enemies</i> – which seems different from pretending
we don’t have any, or that we’re all already <em>righteous and perfect enough</em>). But
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hypocrisy</i> is not even remotely the
same as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">separateness</i>. Hypocrisy is as
different from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">separateness</i> as it is
from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">holiness</i>. In fact ‘holy’ (Hebrew
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">qodesh</i>) means pretty much the same as
‘Pharisee’ – set apart, sacred, consecrated. (Jeremiah 1:5, for example, reads:
“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth
out of the womb <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I sanctified thee</i>” (i.e., "<em>made thee holy</em>"), also
translated as “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I set thee apart</i>.”
Paul’s letter to the Romans begins: “Paul, servant of Jesus Christ, called an
Apostle, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">set apart</i> for the Gospel of
God (Latin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">segregatus</i> (segregated); <span class="bible-latin">Greek <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aphorismenos</i> (at
least reminiscent of the Hebrew to Aramaic derived <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pharisee</i>)</span>).”) The Pharisees cultivated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">separation</i> because they believed in the call to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">holiness</i> – like Abraham, Jeremiah, the blessed virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Peter,
Paul, etc., and like Jesus Christ: “be holy” (see Leviticus 20:26: “And ye
shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other
people, that ye should be mine”; cf. 1Peter 1:16; etc., etc.!). They read the Psalms, as we
should too (Psalms 1 and 119, for example), and so believed in the connection
between loving God, loving the law, and loving holiness. For a preacher to disparage
<em>separateness</em>, then, is effectively for him
to disparage <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">holiness</i>. And this suggests
that he may not know what holiness is, at least from an authentic
Judeo-Christian perspective; and even though he may well be rightly ajudged a rather exemplary preacher of latter-day Christianity – which is interesting, isn’t it?</span></div>
David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1856952540393560477.post-77078619257188602152016-06-21T07:02:00.001-07:002016-06-22T10:09:04.482-07:00Grateful to Pope Francis"It is just that we should be grateful, not <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="25"></a>only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="26"></a>expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="27"></a>by developing before us the powers of thought." (Aristotle, <em>Metaphysics</em>, Book II)<br />
<br />
Fr. Zuhlsdorf (<a href="http://wdtprs.com/blog/2016/06/pope-francis-latest-remarks-on-the-majority-of-marriages-being-invalid/" target="_blank">here</a>): "Last night I read a surprising account of some off-the-cuff remarks offered by Pope Francis on marriages. He opined that most marriages today aren’t valid because people don’t understand very well what they are entering into. Of course <strong>we know that people who don’t understand very well what they are entering into can and do validly contract marriage</strong>. [<em>Similarly, we know that people who don't understand very well what they are entering into can and do validly receive baptism, for themselves or for their children (notwithstanding the obligatory baptismal dialogue: "Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?" "I do. (I think I do. I sort-of do. I really don't but I just want to get this over with.)")</em>.] And so the Pope’s remarks give us pause. We pause and reflect seriously about the sort of catechesis (the lousy catechesis) we have given people for decades and the less than optimal marriage preparation so many couples receive. We are, hence, ready to get our noses to the grindstone and improve the situation because, as we know, people can and do enter into valid marriages without knowing fully what they are entering into. After all, validity is one thing and having the graces that come with the sacrament of matrimony are another." <br />
<br />
So reflecting on Aristotle's words and Fr. Z's comments, we should be grateful to Pope Francis, even when he expresses superficial views, insofar as he affords us the opportunity of <em>developing our powers of thought</em>. Even if he isn't intentionally encouraging us to do so (and to some extent we can assume that that actually <em>is</em> part of what he is trying to do), <em>if we are rightly disposed</em> that should be the effect upon us: if we are struck by the superficiality and <a href="http://wdtprs.com/blog/2016/06/pope-francis-v-pope-francis-about-indissolubility-and-marriage/" target="_blank">inconsistency</a> of his views (as we should be), we should be encouraged to reflect more deeply so as to avoid such superficiality and inconsistency in our own thinking.<br />
<br />
[Of course the problem with Francis's remarks is that most people are <em>not</em> rightly disposed towards reflecting carefully and deeply on the truth (nor are they intellectually well-equipped to do so), and unfortunately Francis's example (as too-often manifested in his problematic statements) hardly seems likely to serve as an encouragement for them to become better disposed towards love and care for the truth (or better-equipped intellectually) - it is rather the opposite danger that seems likely. But still: grace works in mysterious ways and God is able to bring about good even from evil.]David McPikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04997702078077124822noreply@blogger.com0