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The Certitude of Faith and Cardinal Newman (More Unsubstantiated Accusations From an Underinformed, Overconfident "Traditionalist")
[1 October 2008]
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...nal-
newman.html
Here is the brilliant "reply":
"That poor man has no idea what I'm talking about. But it's strange that he implicitly admits that he made some kind of mistake at first, then defends himself by quoting irrelevant material, then wraps it up by insulting me."
Right. In any event, I'm through with this person. Let him write whatever he wants. I have better things to do. It was good to explain what I meant, for those who have some faint interest in Catholic epistemology, but there is clearly no point in going any further.
Chesterton wrote:
"Socrates, the wisest man, knows that he knows nothing."
(The Everlasting Man, II-3)
Hey, don't let the turkeys get you down. At least this has given you the occasion to present some really fascinating and enlightening concepts that would do Catholics a lot of good to know.
Do you want an in-depth reply?
Not from you. I dialogue; I don't engage in "gotcha" histrionics and game-playing, as you do. As I said above, I'm through with interacting with you.
You say you love to dialogue not "debate" though it's obvious that you are a control freak. You're just pissed because I don't flatter you in one way or another. Dave, I think it's been so long that someone has checked you and that enormous ego hidden under a thin veil of "humility" that your fantasies about yourself have become pseudo-reality. I think your probably a likeable guy and probably have good intentions, but you need some serious work on some things, particularly how you formulate doctrine. And no, it's not an act of charity to mislead someone while trying to speak to the "common man." I suspect that most of the "common people" you interact with have an intellect equal or superior to your own. It just concerns me that you are passing yourself off as something you are not, as evinced by quoting all that irrelevant material. This is serious stuff Dave, you can't just dismiss it. Every word will be judged, as I'm sure you know. It's a call to responsibility.
Right. Well, thanks for at least not concluding that I am an enemy of Christ and His Church, like one of your buddies on your board did. You still psychoanalyze and read hearts, and proclaim that I am just a vain, know-it-all control freak pretender with an enormous ego. But at least I am still in the fold and not a lying, rotten scoundrel.
Real progress! This is what passes for charity and objectivity in your circles, I reckon. But the two owners of your board will have none of it, and have shown great understanding and class regarding true Catholic ethics. I hope and pray that their model of behavior and charity prevails in "traditionalist" circles and not yours.
Of course I wouldn't say that, but an examination of conscience is in order for us all. I see the greatest downfall of otherwise decent catholic men who have entered into the world of so-called popular apologetics is extraordinary pride and egoism that is almost a natural outgrowth of being in the public eye. The mentality of "saving the Church" and building a popular apologetics empire is a fundamental source of the grossest intellectual snobbery. The danger of giving oneself over to pride is so great that I think heroic virtue is needed to avoid these common sins. Add to this the will to profit from well-intentioned works of charity and the concomitant commercialization of sacred things the endeavor becomes certainly vitiated by vainglory and the evil that results far outweighs any possible good that could come of it. I see this phenomenon occur almost invariably among pop-apologists. When their face is shown on t.v. or their voices are heard on the radio, or their printed word is published for millions, the Devil has to engage in but little effort to corrupt the souls of these men for the foundation of his work is already accomplished because it is the natural inclincation of our corrupted wills that when we become the center of attention, we almost immediately become infected by the mortal disease of pride. If you don't believe me, the next time you're on the radio or t.v. note the secret thoughts that occur in your mind and you will see that they all tend towards pride.
Okay, Caminus. You're right. I should have thought of this. Based on your remarks and unanswerable observations, I shall resign my apologetics apostolate tomorrow and go back to my old delivery job. I'm sick and tired of feeding my enormous ego every day. It's time to get obscure again. There are lots and lots of folks defending the Catholic faith out there. No one needs my dumb clueless observations. Thanks so much for jolting me into reality. I'll be forever grateful to you!
SERIOUSLY, now . . .
I have never been on TV, only on radio about a dozen times; have never given a major lecture to a big audience (only ones to small groups); i.e., never went on the lecture circuit. I'm hardly known at my own parish. I've never been on a big luxury cruise that almost all of the apologists you have heard of have been on.
I haven't sought fame or popularity or power or money (or your stupidly-suggested "control"). I certainly have a very low income compared to the materialistic norm in this country today (with four kids and a wife who home-schools). We eat; we have shelter; we pay our bills. God has provided. I can give ample testimony to that. God is good!
All I seek is to fulfill my calling as an apologist: to defend Holy Mother Church and the Christian religion, generally speaking.
How much pride I may be burdened by is between myself and God. You think you see a great deal of it; fine. But you don't know this. Even if you did, you would have to go about it in an entirely different fashion to convince me of it (privately, with respect, rather than publicly, after mocking and disparaging).
Moreover, you clearly have an animus against apologetics. How can you be so sure that the things you think you see are present "almost invariably"? You don't know me; you don't know my history. I dare say you have read very little of my work. What have you read? You don't know what I've suffered on behalf of the faith. Men don't do that unless they are sincerely seeking to do an authentic calling.
If I'm so vainglorious and prideful and full of myself as you think, why in the world would I subject myself to the battery of lies that have come my way through the years (along with various other deprivations)? The person who is characterized by excessive pride and arrogance doesn't do that, because they can't stand it. That would puncture their ego and mess up the plan.
But because those things are not my motivation at all, they have no effect on what I do. You can run me down personally all you like. It has no effect on my apostolate. If anything, it makes me all the MORE determined to continue on even more vigorously. Opposition always has that effect.
But you have no basis to conclude the things you do. You're simply angry at me because I disagree with "traditionalist" beliefs and with some of your recent claims, and this is how you "shoot back": by going after supposed glaring deficiencies in my character under the cloak of charity and telling someone "hard truths".
My priest and wife and close friends and fellow apologists are more than sufficient for that purpose, thank you. At least they KNOW me and what motivates me. You do not. You don't even have the dimmest comprehension of the arguments I make, let alone knowing why I make them; for what ultimate motivation.
And I hasten to defend my apologist colleagues too, from this sweeping charge that pride is an overwhelming tendency. To the contrary, I have found that many of the known apologists are some of the most humble, decent, nice, delightful people I have ever met. Many of them are quite soft-spoken and gentlemanly: the very opposite of self-centered and filled with pride. None I have ever met strike me as flat-out intellectual snobs, the way very many secular professors and other "intellectuals" are.
I know almost all of them personally: Scott Hahn, Jimmy Akin, Pat Madrid, Marcus Grodi, Gary Michuta, Steve Ray, Karl Keating, Fr. Peter Stravinskas, John Martignoni and many many others. I don't know Peter Kreeft and Thomas Howard very well but I have met both of them, and know enough from observing them to know that they are the same sorts of persons: humble, quiet, not prideful at all to all appearances (I am going to a Kreeft talk in three days). I don't see these glaring faults in any of them. Quite the contrary.
I do agree that it is a temptation (all walks of life offer ample opportunity for that and pride is often a biggie for all of us), and I have indeed observed what I thought was a troubling degree of pride in certain apologists through the years. One would expect this. But as a sweeping characterization, as you have made? Absolutely not. I would say the true state of affairs is exactly the opposite.
I KNOW these men personally. You do not. I speak from firsthand experience: being in their community for 15 years now (I was first published in 1993). I don't see any more pride in apologists as a class than in any other class of men; probably significantly less so.
We apologists know, by and large, that we are simply poor and imperfect vessels for sharing God's truth and defending it, by His grace alone. Believe me, we know it, because this is a "front-line" business, and one has to be prepared for all the shots (rational and otherwise) coming one's way. If I have properly defended some Catholic doctrine, I know full well that it is only by the grace of God that I am able to do so. That's not a pride-inducing thing; it is a very humbling thing.
You're a very naive man if you think that a prideful man wouldn't dare suffer through hardship. Have you ever heard the spiritual master's warn against secret pride in the midst of scourging oneself? There is no such thing as a specific "call" to "apologetics." Just as there is no specific "calling" to work as a delivery man, baker, doctor or lawyer, as these temporal works all fall under the genera of indifferent natural goods. This is not the same as a vocation to the priesthood or religious life as those fall under a special providence. But you can keep telling yourself that if you wish. Convincing yourself that you are a light in the Church "defending the faith" is certainly a fruitful source of motivation. But you are indeed a blind man if you can't see that pride that is necessarily attached to that self-understanding. I've fell into the same trap in my own experience, confusing something that is deeply satisfying to my own will with the actual will of God. I suppose all I can do at this point is check your work for errors and warn you of the spiritual dangers of speaking for the Church. Our judgement will be much stricter when we de facto place ourselves in the position of a Bishop. And it's worrisome that you don't seem to realize this, especially in light of the errors found in your writing. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Caminus, you are one harsh sounding dude. How is it that you have come to such a place in your life that sees you so free with your judgement upon people-especially people you don't even know?
And let's say that you have indeed been Divinely informed about Dave's motives, sins and,...whatever, ...the way you are sinning against charity in this case is sobering.
But seeing that your declarations about Dave's motives and characther are false, you are also guilty of bearing false witness against a fellow brother in Christ.
Attend the Tridentine Mass, kneel at the consecration, say your Rosary, then turn around and display such blatant acts of uncharity?
I fear that you might be on shakey spiritual ground now Caminus. The question is are you the one who has been so infected with pride that you can't properly judge your behavior?
See that, Dave? Notice how you referred to being "published" and consequently initiated into some "community"? Notice how you called it a "business"? These are all very telling comments. Do you even realize the extraordinary damage that is caused by commercializing sacred things? You're so infected with an elitist spirit that you can't read the writing on the wall. And if you think being "soft-spoken" and polite are infallibe signs of humility, then I would strongly suggest you put down Newman and pick up St. John of the Cross.
Peter, don't oppose me for all opposition only serves to increase my zeal!
Sheer nonsense, as to there supposedly being no lay vocations or apostolates of teaching (as apologetics is). You are abysmally ignorant in this regard. That's not what popes have taught:
--------------
1. To intensify the apostolic activity of the people of God,(1) the most holy synod earnestly addresses itself to the laity, whose proper and indispensable role in the mission of the Church has already been dealt with in other documents.(2) The apostolate of the laity derives from their Christian vocation and the Church can never be without it.
2. . . . Since the laity, in accordance with their state of life, live in the midst of the world and its concerns, they are called by God to exercise their apostolate in the world like leaven, with the ardor of the spirit of Christ.
3. The laity derive the right and duty to the apostolate from their union with Christ the head; incorporated into Christ's Mystical Body through Baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation, they are assigned to the apostolate by the Lord Himself.
16. . . . There are many forms of the apostolate whereby the laity build up the Church, sanctify the world, and give it life in Christ. A particular form of the individual apostolate as well as a sign specially suited to our times is the testimony of the whole lay life arising from faith, hope, and charity. It manifests Christ living in those who believe in Him. Then by the apostolate the spoken and written word, which is utterly necessary under certain circumstances, lay people announce Christ, explain and spread His teaching in accordance with one's status and ability, and faithfully profess it.
(Pope Paul VI, 1965)
http://www.vatican.va/archive/
hi...sitatem_en.html
This makes more evident the role given to the laity in catechesis today . . . We must be grateful to the Lord for this contribution by the laity, . . . lay catechists must be carefully prepared for what is, if not a formally instituted ministry, at the very least a function of great importance in the Church.
(Pope John Paul II, 1979)
Lay people also play their part by consecrating the world to God, and many of them are coming to a deeper sense of their indispensable role in the Church's evangelizing mission. . . . lay people can and must be a true leaven in every corner of society in Oceania. Upon this, the success of the new evangelization depends in large part . . . There is a need too for a new apologetics in keeping with the words of Saint Peter: "Be ready to give reasons for your hope" (1 Pt 3:15). In this way, the faithful will be more confident in their Catholic faith and less susceptible to the allure of these groups and movements, . . .
(Pope John Paul II, 2001)
http://www.vatican.va/
holy_fathe...oceania_en.html
For sources and much more, see:
Apologetics and Lay Apostolates: Express Approval and Strong Encouragement From Popes Paul VI and John Paul II
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...es-
express.html
Catholic Church Teaching on Internet Evangelism, Catechesis, and Apologetics: Excerpts
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...n-
internet.html
Are you so uninformed as to claim that, e.g., G.K. Chesterton and Frank Sheed (both laymen) had no vocations to apologetics?
Pope Pius XII was praising American lay Catholic organizations way back in 1939:
12. Among the associations of the laity - the list is too long to allow of a complete enumeration - there are those which have won for themselves laurels of unfading glory - Catholic Action, the Marian Congregation, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; their fruits are the cause of joy and they bear the promise of still more joyful harvest in the future. Likewise the Holy Name Society, an excellent leader in the promotion of Christian worship and piety.
13. Over a manifold activity of the laity, carried on in various localities according to the needs of the times, is placed the National Catholic Welfare Conference, an organization which supplies a ready and well-adapted instrument for your Episcopal ministry.
http://www.vatican.va/
holy_fathe...etitiae_en.html
Again in the same year, Pope Pius XII called for a greater involvement of the laity in ministry:
87. At a moment when one is forced to note with sorrow the disproportion between the number of priests and the calls upon them, when one sees that even today the words of Our Savior apply: "The harvest indeed in great, but the laborers are few" (Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2), the collaboration of the laity in the Apostolate of the Hierarchy, a collaboration indeed given by many and animated with ardent zeal and generous self-devotion, stands out as a precious aid to the work of priests and shows possibilities of development which justify the brightest hopes. The prayer of the Church to the Lord of the Harvest that he send workers into his vineyard (cf. Saint Matthew ix. 37; Saint Luke x.2) has been granted to a degree proportionate to the present needs, and in a manner which supplements and completes the powers, often obstructed and inadequate, of the priestly apostolate. Numbers of fervent men and women of youth obedient to the voice of the Supreme Pastor and to the directions of their bishops, consecrate themselves with the full ardor of their souls to the works of the apostolate in order to bring back to Christ the masses of peoples who have been separated from Him.
http://www.vatican.va/
holy_fathe...ficatus_en.html
The Catechism has an extensive section devoted to the laity and their functions in the Church (#897-913,940-943).
#900 mentions the "duty" of laity to spread the salvation message.
#905 states: Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization . . ."
#906: Lay people who are capable and trained may also collaborate in catechetical formation, in teaching the sacred sciences, and in use of the communications media.
#910 "The laity can also feel called, or be in fact called, to cooperate with their pastors in the service of the ecclesial community, for the sake of its growth and life. This can be done through the exercise of different kinds of ministries according to the grace and charisms which the Lord has been pleased to bestow on them."
Dave, my advice is just to ignore Caminus. Every response you make just generates more nonsense from him. He’s been caught more than once in error, even by some of his compatriots, and your post delves into that very well. All you can do is laugh off his personal remarks and attempts to more or less appoint himself your spiritual director.
Convincing yourself that you are a light in the Church "defending the faith" is certainly a fruitful source of motivation. But you are indeed a blind man if you can't see that pride that is necessarily attached to that self-understanding. I've fell [sic] into the same trap in my own experience, confusing something that is deeply satisfying to my own will with the actual will of God.
I see. Lemme try to follow this reasoning:
1) You tried to do apologetics [I believe this follows from the above, but it is not completely clear] and fell into considerable amounts pride and vainglorying, causing you to cease doing so for the good of your soul.
2) Therefore, no one can exercise a call to apologetics without falling into the same spiritual peril. And virtually all who have tried, have in fact fallen in the same fashion.
3) Moreover, the Church doesn't recognize a call specifically to the laity for teaching (including apologetics).
#1 is your problem; you can't project it onto everyone else who did a better job of doing what you failed at.
#2 is clearly a fallacy. Your experience and shortcomings are not universal to such an extent that whole categories of ministry ought to be unfulfilled.
#3 is factually wrong, as I have shown. The Church does in fact recognize the apologetic ministry, which is currently overwhelmingly (though not exclusively) dominated by laypeople.
Lay apologetics apostolates are well-supervised by clergy and bishops. For example, the Coming Home Network, of which I am a staff member (completely run by laypeople) has the following advisors:
Most Rev. Gilbert I. Sheldon, Retired Bishop of Steubenville
Most Rev. Paul Dudley, Retired Bishop of Sioux Falls, SD
Fr. Raymond Bourque, O.M.I.
Deacon Dominic Cerrato
Fr. John McClosky, III, S.T.D.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa S.J.
Fr. Benedict Groeschel C.F.R.
Fr. Charles P. Connor
I know that this is also the case with Catholic Answers.
Patrick Madrid has listed many endorsements of his work from cardinals and bishops:
http://www.surprisedbytruth.com/...om/
comments.htm
My first book and apostolate in general was expressly endorsed by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., who was a close advisor to Pope Paul VI, catechist for Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, one of the most respected catechists in America, and whose cause for sainthood is now being considered.
Will that be good enough for you? I highly doubt it, because you are not thinking with the Mind of the Church. Your false premises and your personal experiences have overcome both your charity and correct logic.
You're right, Jordanes. Since he attacked the very validity of my ministry, I felt compelled to make some defense of that, for the sake of other apologists who hear this same stupid accusation (and it is quite common, sad to say).
Caminus will not be allowed to be a perpetual nemesis here, anymore than Ken was. If he wants to be obsessed with me, and continue to be as severely logic- and fact- and charity-challenged as he has been, he can do so on his own forum, where, now, three entire threads are devoted to bashing me, mostly personally (one has been viewed now over 2500 times).
Caminus has already violated my blog rules (listed on the sidebar) by making at least three posts in a row essentially devoted to personal attacks against me. I could ban him right now based on that, but I'll let him go a little longer to see if he can possibly get charitable and reasonable. I won't hold my breath.
Dear Caminus,
I was fully expecting a detailed refutation from you regarding what Dave had to say about development of doctrine and Cardinal Newman..
I thought you relish the opportunity of giving a detailed reply.
I wonder why you didn't take the opportunity?
I'll be taking the opportunity in the near future on my own website, not only as regards this question but others as well. It just goes to show what kind of man Dave Armstrong is when confronted with correction. Not only does he not correct the mistake, he goes guns blazing in the opposite direction and puts up a totally irrelevant defense. I suppose it's all those years of controversy that has him so jaded.
Dave, stop being so freaking defensive and take correction where correction is due. All that smoke and mirrors titled by you as pure exoneration is ridiculous. You are extremely quick to lash out and put up copious amounts of verbiage, but slow to listen.
Great. The next childish insult post you put up here will result in your banning. See (from the sidebar):
Purely Slanderous Posts
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2...ely-
purely.html
I wouldn't expect anything less.
Bye bye then. Your wish and self-fulfilling prophecy has been granted.
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