Still using "a homosexual" as a condemnatory word? Bigotry?
Yes, that's correct -- Dr. Blosser is a Christian.
Am I to understand from St. Polycarp that being condemnatory is the same as being a Christian? Or is he saying that being a Christian is the same as being condemnatory?
It is easy to assume they are the same.
But if they are different -- if being condemnatory and being a Christian are not the same -- what are the intellectual principles that would serve to distinguish them? Going further, how does one employ these principles in a CONCRETE situation?
Or is this all about being anti-homosexual? And if so, how are we to establish relations with a homosexual? Are we to break relationships? Are we to adopt an attitude of superior morality? If so, what about reconciliation? What about love? As Joe O'Leary queries, what about bigotry? Is the entire burden placed on the other? Do I not carry some of the burden? Or are the relations to be simply severed until the other satisfies some behavioral requirement? Is it just about behavior?
Do I detect an anti-intellectualism at the heart of this condemnatory type of moral judgment (i.e., a Protestantism)? Do I detect an obsession with behavior independent of the full range of intellectual principles that must be applied to an analysis of any specific behavior?
What if the homosexual is one's wife? Does one then rest satisfied with condeming one's wife? Does one demand she change her behavior? If she doesn't, does one then take action to separate? Does one divorce? If one separates, what does one do to hold intact the spiritual integrity of the children within the context of the family? How about the quality of personal relations? Is it so very easy to decide what to do? Does one just condemn? Where does the Cross enter one's life? What does all this mean in the CONCRETE live of the person?
If we condemn, what have we left? Autonomous integrity? The integrity of the autonomous individual? And what is that if it is not akin to Hell?
Let's not forget how *OLD* Pope Benedict is. He needs rest--I thank God he's taking a long vacation this summer in the mountains with his brother. If he dies soon, those of us who love him will be smacking ourselves on the head for forgetting that the poor fellow is 78! Let him go at an easy pace, sustained by our prayers, and last years and years.
"Am I to understand from St. Polycarp that being condemnatory is the same as being a Christian?"
No, Jerry, you are to understand that Christians believe homosexuality is gravely disordered, such that men who suffer from same-sex attraction disorder are as a rule not suitable candidates for a celibate priesthood. In addition, you are to understand that priests who engage in homosexual acts are simply unfit for the priesthood, let alone being elevated to the episcopate. I don't know as much about bishops in other parts of the world, but here in the U.S. we've recently had a few bishops who, we have learned, had been engaging in homosexual activity. One was in Florida, another in Wisconsin, another in Illinois. I believe John Paul II approved the appointments of the homosexual bishops from Florida and Illinois to whom I am referring.
"Do I detect an anti-intellectualism at the heart of this condemnatory type of moral judgment (i.e., a Protestantism)?"
No, you do not, since there isn't any condemnatory type of moral judgment in Dr. Blosser's comments to which this commentbox is attached.
"Do I detect an obsession with behavior independent of the full range of intellectual principles that must be applied to an analysis of any specific behavior?"
No, you do not.
"What if the homosexual is one's wife?"
We're talking about John Paul II and his reportedly having refused to believe reports that certain candidates for the episcopate were active homosexuals -- some of which reports have since been found to be scandalously, shamefully true. At this point in time, only Massachusetts allows homosexuals to pretend to marry each other, but I'm not aware of any Catholic bishops pretending to marry each other in Massachusetts. Therefore we don't need to consider your hypothetical situation of Catholic men being "married" to homosexual Catholic bishops.
I'd love to know wonder where Jack Wheeler got his info from. One needs to know the source in order to assess its credibility. If true, the claim in question would explain much. It would also imply that John Paul II was negligent about an important matter because of a prejudice arising from his Polish milieu. But of course the same goes, mutatis mutandis, for most people, including many of the best.
I myself have been seriously harmed, and in more than one way, by homosexual priests. By the grace of God, that destroyed neither my faith nor my soul. Yet my own experience and that of other Catholic men I know who came of age in the 1970s has utterly convinced me that, for a long time now and in various ways, active homosexuals in the priesthood and their sympathizers have killed more discerned vocations than any other single factor.
Hi there. I have started my own blog, not at all as snazzy as this one, but you can have a look at it here: http://josephsoleary.typepad.com...d.com/
my_weblog. In my first message I stress the need of pastoral tact in discussing homosexuality. As to JP2's alleged laxity, I suggest we should remember that JP2 was himself a human being and a bishop, therefore capable of understanding the stresses his fellow bishops were under; his was not the hypocrisy of the first stone.
Polycarp, I noticed your subtle saving clause "as a rule" in " men who suffer from same-sex attraction disorder are as a rule not suitable candidates for a celibate priesthood" -- so I guess my postings have had some impact.
St. Polycarp says: No, Jerry you are to understand that Christians believe homosexuality is gravely disordered ..."
Yes, homosexuality is a grave disorder, as is pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lust. And Joe O'Leary was kind enough to remind us of bigotry! In fact, bigotry is a far graver disorder than homosexuality. Its reach is far greater and its impact is far more deadly. It has destroyed persons, races, and even nations.
A little aside -- I find it strange that sex has become the dominate issue among Catholics. Perhaps it is due to the scandal within the Church. But I don't think so. Abortion, contraception, stem cell research, gay marriage, and so forth dominate the public forum. Many of those issues have been around for a long time. I suppose sex is the sign of the times. But we should remember that sex is not the root cause of our current crisis. Spiritual alienation -- the fracturing of fundamental human relations -- is the root cause and its impact is simply horrible. Perhaps we should get back to the main stage where the central drama is being lived.
Anyway, O.K., I agree homosexuality is a grave disorder. But what am I to do with this judgment? Is my response, or the response of the Church, all that obvious? Is it all so easy? Is Ethics or Moral Theology simply an abstract calculus? No! How could it be? The human act is concrete. It is a locus wherein everything intersects, from compelling temptations to the quiet urgings of grace, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth. There a person stands -- right smack in the middle of all this mess. And how is a person to make sense of all of this -- in the post-modern age at that! Clearly, Mercy is demanded. Mercy is needed from God and from each of us to one another. How could it be otherwise?
Apparently, JPII didn't think the questions were abstract either. And why didn't he think so. Some speculate psychological trauma or failure to understand collegiality, as Dr. Blosser relates. Perhaps. But maybe he had a deeper insight into the mystery of the person. Maybe it had to do with the intrinsic nature of relations -- the very argument he would use against homosexuality. Maybe it had to do with something profound. Maybe his hesitance is a cue for each person to penetrate into the concrete nature of the phenomenon rather than to remain disengaged as observers to life. It may be that his unwillingness to resolve the issue was intended to be taken as a guide. Maybe there is a truth that radiates from his "weakness" that he never articulated. Or maybe this truth lies hidden in what he already wrote. Maybe there is a divine mystery hidden in this human weakness called homosexuality. I don't know. But perhaps.
It seems to me that Reconciliation must be the intended outcome of all human acts.
Joe O'Leary mentioned bigotry. Now that's an ugly word. I remember Selma. I marched down those streets. E
I remember John Paul II in Denver, on his first US trip, talking about "the grave moral problems faced by homosexual persons" -- surely a more sympathetic locution than anything we heard in the documents authored by Ratzinger? Perhaps, after all, there was a human touch about John Paul II that made him loved, despite his reactionary attitudes on so many fronts; perhaps his heart was in the right place?
For those of you who were tearing your hair out because I praised Martin Luther, here is a glimpse of my considered opinions on him: http://
josephsoleary.typepad.com...age_in_lut.html
I have also posted the following piece on Melanchthon as a critic of Origen: http://josephsoleary.typepad.com....com/my_weblog/
Unfortunately it is a typographical disaster! The essay needs to be supplemented by the following: "Insights and Oversights in Origen’s Reading of Romans 4:1-8", a brief communication delivered at the Oxford Patristic Conference two years ago and due to appear in Studia Patristica.
We can imagine the Christian tradition as a ship sailing out into a wild, uncharted sea. Seeking to orient itself, it looks back to the past, to the great lighthouses erected by the masters of its theological tradition. These are receding, and do not provide all the illumination that is required, but they remain priceless points of reference. After Scripture, Luther’s light is the one that shines brightest, the one that provides the most vibrant contact between tradition and modernity. Roman Catholic thinkers have sensed this in the twentieth century, and have gradually entered into dialogue with the Reformer. The first generation of sympathetic Catholic Luther scholars, led by Joseph Lortz, thought of Luther as one who had missed a good understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose thinking on grace and justification he would have found fully acceptable. A ripe fruit of this entente is Otto Hermann Pesch’s thesis on the theology of justification in Luther and Aquinas (1967). The new appreciation of Luther facilitated the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification accepted by both churches at Augsburg on October 31, 1999. Denounced by critical theologians such as Ingolf Dalferth as not worth the paper it was written on, rejected as a betrayal of the Gospel by many Lutherans, and having had as yet little impact on the life and thought of the Churches, the Declaration has at least the merit of allowing Catholic preachers and theologians to draw unselfconsciously on the riches of Lutheran thought, even if few have chosen to avail of this. Dissatisfaction with the apparently bloodless categories of Neo-Thomism opened another Catholic path to Luther in the sixties. The popularity among Catholic philosophers of Heidegger’s call for an ‘overcoming of metaphysics’ brought a new sympathy for Luther’s struggle with scholasticism and for the counter-metaphysical theologians in the Lutheran tradition, such as Schleiermacher, Ritschl and Harnack. At the height of this movement, in the seventies and eighties, it was not known that Heidegger’s project had been incubated in its very beginning by intensive study of Luther’s writings as well as of Harnack’s History of Dogma, with its thesis that ‘Dogma is a product of the Greek mind on the soil of the Gospel’. This has now been shown in detail by Christian Jaedicke-Sommer in a Paris dissertation. In a 1920 lecture Heidegger talks of der Weg zu einer ursprünglichen christlichen – griechentumfreien – Theologie (the way to an original Christian theology – free of Hellenism) (Gesamtausgabe 59.91). Had Heidegger devoted his talents to theology, he would undoubtedly have pursued this idea. That is why, as he said once or twice, the notion of Being – the quintessentially Greek concern to which Heidegger devoted his entire work – would not have figured in such a theology at all. But the platform on which Luther and Roman Catholicism have most warmly met is neither the doctrine of justification nor the critique of met
Here's something interesting, an alliance of liberal blogsites! http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?...lpb;
action=list
There is no room in the Church for homosexuality, which is a sin like any other. There is, or should be, no room in the priesthood for homosexuality or homosexuals.
However, there is plenty of room in the Church for homosexuals who wish to be a part of the Church, a desire they demonstrate by accepting its doctrine and living out the consequences of that acceptance. Many people, homosexual and otherwise, do not wish to do that. Many others may want to do that, but they are weak. These people avoid facing up to their faults by attempting to remake the Church in their own image -- a kinder, gentler, more lax and slothful Church, a Church where sin is not so much forgiven as wished away. Some of these people call themselves protestants. They go to places other than churches, sing songs, clap hands, and read scripture, and consider that sufficient. Others, less forthcoming, insist that they are Catholics -- the kind of Catholicism they envision only has the consequence of poisoning the well. One struggles to formulate a charitable excuse for their efforts.
"There is no room in the Church for homosexuality, which is a sin like any other."
Is one to read from this that there is no room in the Church for sin too? No room in the Church for intellectual pride or arrogance? Heavens! Wouldn't that exclude most educated people? Certainly it would exclude the ones I know. It probably excludes me, too.
Sounds a little strange, doesn't it?
Penance, charity, mercy, forgiveness -- are these to be excluded from the Church as well, since there is no room for sin? I always thought it was a little secret that everyone was a sinner.
Sounds like a fixation at work with all this talk about the evils of the homosexual. I'm sure glad my only sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, lust, gluttony, and avarice. I try very hard not to be a bigot.
http://www.johnmcdermott.net/200...nd-i-luf-
u.html
This is a familiar account of why Ireland has lost the faith. The author blames the Vatican.
As to gayness, it is part of nature. Here's a piece form Andrew Sullivan's website:
"There have been homosexually-oriented people in every society we know of, in every time. They are as much a part of the natural human landscape as anyone else. We're not talking about denying the basketball-challenged from playing basketball. We're talking about denying human beings close, loving, physical relationships on account of something over which they have no control. We're talking about denying them families. Happily, the "zeitgeist" is ahead of alleged Christians on this one. We're accepting and loving these families, going to PTA meetings with them, having their kids over to play. We're supporting them in fidelity as we support all our friends. When Brad next door freaked out and ran off for 24 hours, the neighborhood reacted protectively of Jeff, and held Brad to account. ("You nut, what do you think you're doing?!?") When Gabriel, Jo-Ann and Karen's kid, needs a ride, we car pool. We go to parties at their house. They come to dinners at ours. Pope Benedict doesn't like it. It frightens him. Luckily he lives in the Vatican, and doesn't need to confront the ragged edge of love. Love always has a ragged edge." - "Nancy," on Amy Wellborn's blog.
Jerry,
If you are unfamiliar with the Church's distinction of sin and sinner, I suspect you needn't worry your head about intellectual pride.
Fr O'Leary,
Saaay, it wasn't Andrew Sullivan who whispered in your ear about Cardinal Ratzinger's "sins of my youth", was it?
Today's first reading assures us that Abram (sic) was 75 when he set out from his homeland, called by God to walk by faith. The Pope is only 3 years older, so we can hope that he will learn to understand gays and women more trustingly even at this late stage. Abraham is the great counter-example to the defeatist proverb, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks".
Roister, no need to be so sophomorically insulting. Ratzinger's "sins of my youth" line is common knowledge in the Catholic theological world. Here is a reference you could have found yourself by simply googling. "One time at a meeting, I was standing in the hall during a coffee break, speaking with Bishop Walter Kasper, a bishop theologian from a German diocese (he is now Cardinal Kasper and president of the Holy See's Council for Promoting Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue). Cardinal Ratzinger came up to us (to speak with his German friend, to be sure) and I mentioned to the cardinal how much I had appreciated his writings during the time of the Second Vatican Council. A smile broke out on the faces of both theological giants and Cardinal Ratzinger looked at me and said, "Yes, so, now I must pay for the sins of my youth." I think Cardinal Kasper knew that line was coming."
http://www.thefloridacatholic.or...9-stp-
lynch.htm
Why take so seriously a comment that was obviously meant in jest?
Guess your taunting of Jerry above got under my skin.
I think Jews' experience of being expelled or ghettoized or baited, in jest, in the Middle Ages could have something in common with what gays feel today -- endless sermons on their sin-oriented deviance, offers of welcome on condition that they listen to those sermons and subscribe heartily. Ratzinger has never dialogued with gays, since he thinks that the closeted clerical experience is the whole story. It's a huge error in perspective!
Roister says,
"If you are unfamiliar with the Church's distinction of sin and sinner ... I suspect you needn't worry... "
If I were unfamiliar with the distinction of sin and sinner wouldn't it follow I would need to worry more? Without the distinction, either I would be the sin or the sin would be me. In any event, I suspect it would be pretty tough on me!
"I suspect you needn't worry your head about intellectual pride." Hmmmmmmmmm! I feel a little better. I think.
Does Mercy play any role in the daily life of the institutional Church? What part would it play in the recent Church scandal relative to the accused priests?
I was asked this question awhile back on national television relative to Hitler. How would God treat Hitler? It's an uncomfortable question, especially when you know few will understand the either the question or the response. I wonder if the Church didn't find itself in a similar predicament with regard to the sex scandal? Was it "squirm time" for the Bishops?
Fr O'Leary,
I suspect you are lost in one of my verbal thickets. Forget it -- now you know how the other guy feels.
Jerry,
Under those circumstances you would indeed have plenty to worry about.
"This is a familiar account of why Ireland has lost the faith. The author blames the Vatican."
Fr. O. That actually got an audible laugh out of me. In fact, I'm still chuckling. You are SOOOooooo funny! As much as I enjoy you, I'm sure you will take it well in stride if I tell you that the most adorable liberal is the one who is a caricature of himself.
"The author blames the Vatican." That's flippin' HILARIOUS! That's like my failing students blaming the teacher for being too demanding.
Keep the humor comin'!
This is kinda fun to watch. Someone get the Pontificator into the mix, too.
Jerry and Fr. O raise some important issues here that need addressing, and this probably isn't the place to do it, and I may not be the one to do it. But there are, on the one hand, serious considerations of charity and acceptance of people with same-sex disorders -- and, on the other hand, serious social issues involved in the mainstreaming and 'normalization' of active homosexual life-styles, with the implications that has for the rearing of healthy children. Touchy issue, without any need for pointing of fingers.
A lot of you aren't going to like this, but here's the concern. Take the drug addict. How do we best exhibit charity to the drug addict? How do we hate the sin while loving the sinner? How do we seek to cultivate his self-esteem when he has so little about which to feel proper self-esteem? Do we stop referring to "crack-heads" or "pot heads" and refer, instead, to the addiction as a gift of God's grace? Of course not. Neither should we with the homosexual or the pedophile.
Dale Vree caught hell by promoting what I call the Jack Nicholson school of homosexual reference. Remember his introduction of his two automobile passengers in "As Good As It Gets"? "Carol, the waitress. Simon, the fag." Be that as it may, a recovering homosexual member of Courage, Ron Belgau, responded to Vree with about as profoundly insightful an essay as I've seen on the plight of homosexuals today who wish to be faithful Catholics. This may make a number of you uncomfortable; but I can assure you, it isn't the pandering, self-indulgent drivel you'll hear from the partisans of Dignity either. You can find the link HERE.
To call someone "homophobic" is to assert that they fear homosexuals for no reason. As is normally the case, the burden of proof is with the accuser. Ron Belgau may be all that he appears to be, and God bless him regardless of whether or not that is the case. But homosexuality is a disorder with grave consequences in the real world, and fear of it is far from baseless.
If I am a parent, am I to trust my homosexual priest, or my son's homosexual gym teacher, or the homosexual man down the street who lets my kids play in his yard, that they are celibate, much less celibate-in-Christ? Homosexuality is not the only thing in the world to be afraid of, but, if you are a father, it certainly is one thing. I will put the safety of my family ahead of concerns for anyone's hurt feelings. This type of attitude is ridiculed and reviled by homosexuals and their defenders. Well, so be it.
Of course, the response will come, "but what if it was YOUR kid?" All I can say is that that would be a different problem, and I would have to face it with the same resolve with which I face the current set.
I should not have to emphasize this, and in fact it angers me that I do, but in the present context I suppose it is necessary. I'm not looking to break the knees of some harmless gay with a balpeen hammer, especially not if he is struggling with the sinful inclinations of his nature instead of giving in to them. But that does not mean that I will not be watchful. It does not mean that, for me, "homosexuals are just like everybody else". It does not mean that I will blindly trust in the goodness of men, and let my children pay the consequences. Neither the prayerful nor the predatory come with identifying marks branded on their foreheads -- and any man, at different moments, may be both. At the present moment, it seems to me that both social and clerical hierarchies in this country are more sympathetic to Ron Belgau's problem than they are to mine.
It is dangerous, sinful world we live in. I am trying to navigate myself and those I am responsible for through it as best I can. God help each of us.
Seems like the distinction betweeen "sinner" and "sin" has been lost again!
Fear in no way reflects the Spirit of Catholicism. It just doesn't. How does Roister's comments square with the requirement of Reconciliation, Mercy?
Cut and Paste Catholicism is what Luther created. It is not Catholicism. It simply isn't.
Does the duty to protect one's children from evil reflect the "Spirit of Catholicism"? When does "mercy" become merely reckless disregard of innocence in the name political correctness? Only the most agenda-driven zealot would argue that the proof of "mercy" is the willingness to coddle evil.
Gosh, I do pity anyone caught in the verbal thickets spun above, be they Jew, black or gay. Is this, then, the spirit of Ratzinger? Or have his disciples somehow got things wrong? And if the youth of Ireland have decided that this is repulsive (and not the gay youth of Ireland only, but very many others who were outraged by church homophobia) and walked away, are we to blame the victims (who saw the church as abusive) rather than the abuser?
But we liberals still cherish the hope that maybe Ratzinger is not so bad. He is calling for the beatification of Oscar Romero (http://www.zenit.org/show/visualize.php?
language=english&sid=72865), and he has put on hold the beatification of a nineteenth century French priest accused of anti-semitism. He badly needs to make similar gestures toward women and gays (he cannot rely on the masochism of his many female and gay supporters for ever!). His swaggering disciples won't be of much help to him in this.
"Today's first reading assures us that Abram (sic) was 75 when he set out from his homeland"
"Abram" is not a spelling error. It's Abraham's name before God changed it. As I recall, cuneiform texts from Ebla (Gebal, Byblos) show persons named Abramu.
There is a deeper truth to Mercy than is being recognized. Mercy is transformative. It alone heals spiritual alienation, the root cause of all behavioral dysfunctions -- including bigotry. it penetrates to the very bowels of sin. It is replete with Grace. It is not wise to diminish it.
Slogans like political correctness, zealotry, coddling evil only cover the need a person has to reflect at a deeper level of understanding. In and of themselves, such words say little about the object. They say much about the subject. Their use denotes an underlying Fear. But Fear is spiritual alienation -- a sign of fractured relations. A sign that healing is in order.
Mercy heals Fear for it builds relations with others and the Other. The highest form of knowledge is often called Love. Mercy. Love. The outlines of the future. Our inner calling.
JPII went to the prison cell to Forgive the man who shot him. Therein lies Mercy. A rather huge symbol for us all, I would think. JPII understood symbols. He understood Truth. He embodied Good. He radiated Beauty. The highest beauty is Love.
There are those who would smack a whole class of persons they don't know or understand because they are judged sinful. Perhaps they are. Sin is not rare. But, isn't there something wrong here? Can throwing stones ever rise above hedonistic and utilitarian temptations? Can it purify? Can it make safe our children?
I recall Selma. I marched there. I can still hear the dull thud of night sticks smacked across human faces. Fear was in the air then too. I remember hearing the haunting sounds of Billie Holiday, a drug addict, describe the ghastly images of black bodies hanging from the trees -- that Strange Fruit. I remember James Baldwin, despised for his blackness and homosexuality, using words like a knife to cut through American prejudice, as did Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. I knew Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland who painted the landscape of America through sounds we'll never hear the likes of again -- even if we live to a very old age. All these individuals were despised by others in their lifetime for dark reasons -- irrational reasons that could never be fully articulated. Yet because they and others took a stand, America stands taller today. America is still a light that shines into the darkness because of men like them.
And then, I can still hear in the far off distance that resounding call to arms: "I think we can do better!"
Wow, liberals are really the kings of spin.
The news says that "[El Salvador's President] added that Benedict XVI believes the cause for the archbishop's beatification 'must go forward, but he is opposed to the political use made of the archbishop over recent years'."
And that means that "is calling for the beatification of Oscar Romero".
As for the suspension of the beatification of Fr. Dehon, it is the irony of ironies. Dehon was a "social modernist", who radicalized Pope Leo XIII's words and was considered a great adversary of St.Pius X's and Cardinal Merry del Val's campaign to cleanse the Church of her impurities (a campaign which ultimately failed, as we notice daily).
Anyway, liberals should not be surprised if in 100 years, one of them has his/her beatification put on hold because of anti-Semitism. They usually go quite far in their anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian rhetoric -- farther than a mere dislike of the State of Israel.
Jerry speaks out of the best of America -- may America recover that spirit and daring of the fabulous people he recalls.
Jerry, you really pull out all the stops to tar your correspondents with the troglodyte brush. There I am, quivering with fear (or is it hatred?), huddled in my cave protecting the cubs, all because I recognize the presence of evil in the world and seek to protect my children from it. There you are, pouring out "mercy" like my son pours syrup on waffles, marching at Selma, testifying on national TV. You sure are one swell fella!
I can't argue with ego run rampant, so I will withdraw and let you pontificate on behalf of the wretched of the earth. But let me make a suggestion to you. Read "The Lame Shall Enter First", a short story by Flannery O'Connor, the theme of which is the consequences of "mercy" [or self-gratification?] run amok. I suspect Flannery O'Connor is not your favorite author, not as delicate a phrase turner as that feller Capote, but us troglodyte Catholics like her.
I read you comment: "You really pulled out all the stops to tar your correspondents with the troglodyte brush." The first thing that came to mind was that it sounded like a vague reference to the fallacy of the misplaced concreteness! But perhaps there's more.
Actually, my post was quite the contrary of what you say! It's just that I come from a different place than you -- a place you have disparaged as a ramshackled antediluvian tenement. And so the reasons for your discomfort will have to be found elsewhere. I may be an unwitting catalyst for your remarks, but the energy comes not from me.
Even so, it seems I may have hit a nerve, and for that I find no comfort. Actuallly, if the truth be told, I'm disappointed and pained that such a nerve exists. Nerves reflect an inner dimension. And look on what that nerve has unleashed. Mercy and syrup? Waffles? Ego run rampant? Swell Fella? And those wretched of the earth to which I empathize? What is that all about? What are the origins? Does it come from the light? Does it come from Truth?
Why is it necessary to find Mercy to be of such little importance? After all, it resides at the center of the spiritual life. Mercy is not some romantic notion, as you seem to make it -- a kind of drivel that flows from the mouth. It has transcendental origins and shapes life through prayer and openness to the Holy Spirit. It should be clear that control, fear and anger are never substitutes for Mercy. Mercy reconciles those weaknesses. And don't be deceived. They are weaknesses.
Many years ago, I had a close friend who was completing his master's thesis on the short stories of Flannery O'Connor. He always spoke of how this author rejected the conceptual separation of nature and grace in the lives of her characters. She always gave them the opportunity to submit to the transformative power of grace, he said, even at the last moment of an ego-centric, morally pompous, and spiritually void existence.
In her short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the somewhat overbearing grandmother, just before being shot to death by a fugitive killer, said to him: "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" Momentarily consumed by an outpouring of love, the grandmother gently reached out to touch the fugitive. Just as she did, he shot her three times in the chest. She died instantly. Later, the killer said of her: "She would have been a good woman if there had been somebody to shoot her every minute of her life."
What an angry and brutal thing to say, although his comment did contain an element of truth. Yet, unknown to him -- and just moments before her death -- there had possibly occurred a metamorphosis in the grandmother's life through her acceptance of Grace. To be sure, the circumstances that initiated this change were fear-ridden, violent, and unexpected. But one senses that at the last moments of her life she might have admitted Gra
(continued) But one senses that at the last moments of her life she might have admitted Grace into her existence through an act of personal freedom. One senses that she might have died in God's Grace.
Is that too much to expect for each person? Should we not be agents of Grace for others?
Finally, permit me to agree with you. Flannery O'Connor was a great Southern Catholic writer. She deserves to be read by all Catholics. And then re-read. For the wisdom she communicates has no limit. Her wisdom is that Grace is everywhere, calling us forth to Him.
But the presence of Grace in our lives isn't garish or showy. It doesn't issue a set of instructions. It doesn't speak loudly or forcefully. It doesn't set forth controlling demands or even universal requirements. It doesn't bark or threaten. Quite the contrary!. Grace awaits patiently our Freedom. It awaits in stillness our realization that personal Freedom can only be fulfilled in and through Love. It awaits us to freely choose, to freely imbue our acts with the gift of self. It awaits us to freely and more perfectly exist in communion with others.
And so, the presence of Grace in our lives is a Quiet Presence -- although not one that is inaudible. It is a presence that respects the intrinsic Dignity of the Person. It understands our Dignity to be inseparable from our Freedom. But to be truly Free is to Love, and the ultimate fulfillment of Love comes only through Grace.
As to "fear," Josef Pieper writes in Lothar Krauth's translation of Ueber das christliche Menschenbild about an ordo timoris -- a kind of hierarchy or prioritization of fears. He says "we take care not to fear things that are not truly and ultimately fearful, and to fear things that are. The ultimate fearful reality, however, is none other than the possibility that we may sever ourselves, willingly and culpably, from the very source of our being. The possibility of incurring guilt is the ultimate existential threat for every person."
Citing what he calls the "ultimate Christian answer for the matter at hand: the notion of fear of the Lord," Pieper writes: "The popular Christian mentality has virtually transformed this concept into something empty, unreal and abstruse. Fear of the Lord is not simply the same as 'respect' toward Almighty God but means a true fear in the narrow sense of the word. There is a common dimension in all fear, anxiety, dread, horror and terror," he writes.
So, Jerry, on the one hand, I agree you that Catholicism is not a religion of fear, at least in one sense. God tells us in Scripture: "Trust, and do not be afraid." But in another sense, I would argue that a profound fear lies properly at the heart of all genuine Catholicism and that it is a good and healthy thing to fear God, to fear incurring guilt, and to fear hell. Would you not agree?
http://www.archbishopofcanterbur...ches/
050210.htm
This is a discussion of Grace in Flannery O'Connor by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Yes, there is a hierarchy of fear. This is rooted, not only in Scripture, but in the analogy of being itself. The ultimate fear is a willful turning away from the source of one's being. This willful turning away from God is the essence of guilt. No problem. ("Ratio culpae consistit in voluntaria aversione a Deo." -- St. Thomas).
You then quote Pieper to say that the popular mind has transformed this ultimate concept of fear into something empty. Yes, that is also true. The modern concept of fear is empty. But then so are all concepts today. There are none that are not empty. Nominalism has had its impact on the popular and educated mind alike. So has Protestantism, which at its core is nominalistic and anti-intellectual. It is a mindless voluntarism.
So there stands America, and American Catholicism, and individual Catholics. Right smack in the mix of it all. American culture is nominalistic, anti-intellectual, and voluntaristic. American Catholics partake in this culture from birth. There is no metaphysical tradition in America. No intellectual tradition. American philosophy, whatever it is, is not embued with ontology. And so, it is very difficult for anyone to grasp the hidden significance of these terms. To be sure, everyone has a nominal understanding. They construct propositions using these terms all the time. But, aside from the term itself, they have little else -- little understanding. There rare individuals in America who have dedicated their lives to struggling against this weight, but they are few -- very, very few.
And so, the problem is much deeper than J. Pieper describes in your quote.
When terms like Fear, or Mercy, or Truth are used today, it is easy to see from the context they have very little meaning to the user. There is a shell that circumscribes their meaning, and their intrinsic content. Indeed, most individuals are not even aware that there is a notion of intrinsic relations. And so there exists an opaqueness that militates against a person exploring the deeper dimension of concepts.
If you were to take the concepts Fear, Mercy, and Truth and have the readers of your blog write an essay using those three words to explain the painting by Charles Munch -- The Scream -- I think the truth of what I say would make it's appearance.
Yet, many are willing to judge others, and condemn them, choosing sides that have no relevance to Truth, Goodness, Beauty, or Love. On what basis, and for what reason, they never say? One can only wonder what they are talking about, because little is ever made clear. There is a heavy caste of darkness over the entire scene. Read through the above thread.
When Benedict XVI speaks of the dictatorship of relativism it is commonly believed he is referring to moral relativism. Yet, this is a misreading. He is referring to the intellectual relativism that has been gaining strength since William of Ockham. Moral relativism is merely a consequence
(Continued) When Benedict XVI speaks of the dictatorship of relativism it is commonly believed he is referring to moral relativism. Yet, this is a misreading. He is referring to the intellectual relativism that has been gaining strength since William of Ockham. Moral relativism is merely a consequence of this deeper relativism.
Jerry: Well put. Not only do I agree, I especially like the notes on nominalism and the distinction between moral and intellectual relativism. Thank you.
Citing Andrew Sullivan for light on the nature of homosexuality is like citing Joe Bundy for light on the nature of marriage. See my post of May 4, 2005 on Sullivan, "The Vicar of Heterodoxy."
You're welcome. One further point.
Catholics intellectuals often craft strong moral arguments about a wide range of issues that affect public policy and statecraft. This is to be expected. There is a huge ongoing struggle for the soul of America.
Earlier you spoke of liberal totalitarianism and I interjected a counter notion of Christian Fascism. My point was not to say such Fascism exists. Rather it was to emphasize that the future of America must transcend all aspects of the current predicament. America's destiny must arise out of a more penetrating articulation of the transcendent notions of Dignity and Freedom as they are rooted in the Person. America's future should not be rooted in some historical past nor in the present. It should be rooted in transcendent Ideas. These ideas must be brought down to earth.
Thus, there is a need to engage a war of ideas in America. As for the culture wars, they should be allowed to die. They were ill-conceived from the outset. A culture war is a ping pong match that can only be decided by Power. In and of itself, it is a reflection of an anti-intelllectualism, a nominalism, a voluntarism -- an intellectual relativism. There is no conceivable foundation in a culture war that could effect a viable resolution of the disputes other than the use of Power. I challenge anyone to articulate such a basis.
Thus, intellectual relativism poses a grave threat to the long-term survival of America. It encourages factions without engendering even the remotest possibility of reconciliation.
To further the Catholic contribution to America, more emphasis needs be given to cultivating young people who can range far beyond moral disputation. There must also be an intellectual nimbleness and a nimbleness of imagination. For example, the logic and metaphysics of Aquinas must be married to the descriptive dynamics of phenomenology. A new language must be created to inspire a new generation of leaders. Having attended Duquesne, you will perhaps appreciate where I'm headed with this.
I'm speaking of an ontology of beauty -- a phenomenology that has an ontological significance. I'm not speaking of an aesthetic that allows one to ramble through the forest. This is not to be the Yelllow Submarine. Rather, I'm speaking of a rigor with a face that is compelling even to those who disagree because of where they stand in life's journey. Such an ontology would present itself as an invitation, even to the most intransigent.
At the present, moral arguments are trying to hold the barricades alone. They can't do it. What is at issue are the intellectual principles which underpin morality, i.e., logic and metaphysics. Few Americans have an intellectual facility today. Very few. And those who have it are nearing death.
The upshot of this long neglect of logic and metaphysics is that Catholic moral philophers are being swept into an ethos of moral pluralism -- not moral relativism,
(Continued)
The upshot of this long neglect of logic and metaphysics is that Catholic moral philophers are being swept into an ethos of moral pluralism -- not moral relativism, but moral pluralism. Moral pluralism is an arena in which Catholic moral philosophy can be housed on the same shelf along with empiricism and pragmatism or, more simply put, hedonism and utilitarianism. To put it another way, the ethos of moral pluralism is an ethos wherein all that exists is the Many. (Hurrah Heraclitus!) There is no One. (Poor Parmenides!) But, the basic problem still remains the problem of the one and the many. That problem has to be addressed. Contradictions have to be resolved. But moral pluralism has no architectonic structure. It has no intrinsic relations. In short, it adds nothing. The Many reigns supreme. And so, Power alone decides. And that is where the culture wars have brought us today.
Thus the real battleground today is ontology. Only when a fresh and reinvigorated ontology begins to assert itself with a renewed vigor will Catholic moral philosophy (and the Church) acquire the necessary strength to crack moral pluralism. Until that happens, Catholic moral philosophy will be just another view among many. And its relevance will be decided by a Darwinian struggle of the stronger against the weak.
Thus, what Pieper discusses is crucial. But, we must begin at the origins of the problem, namely, the nominalism, voluntarism, and anti-intellectualism which has dominated the West.
One last point. it is on the ground of nominalism, voluntarism, and anti-intelllectualism that rests what JPII calls the structures of sin. Sin is incarnate in every aspect of individuall and institutional life. It is it's very fabric. So, in fairness to all those who participate in your Blog, Fear is very real. It is very, very palpable. Meaningless is everywhere. It suffuses our lives. The lives of our children are at issue. People feel like they are losing not only the soul of America, but their own soul and the soul of their chldren as well. And, if the truth be told, they are quite right in being Fearful. But there is Hope. And Hope lies in addressing the ultimate intellectual crisis that has been slowly saping every vestige of human life since the death of St. Thomas, nearly 750 years ago.
My own thinking on ontology has been very influenced by Buddhism -- an ontology of the relative and the empty and of not-clinging to illusory projected substantial identities.
Fr. O'Leary,
What would that contribute to an articulation of the uniqueness of the Person, or Freedom, or Dignity? Anythiing simple to review?
Ontology generally has been weak on Person, Freedom and Dignity, it seems to me. Buddhism deflates the Ego, that projection of a falsely reified Self, in order to bring us back to the reality of who we are here and now. The central goal of Indian thought generally is Release (moksa) and this is a charter for spiritual freedom, which some Buddhists also invoke as a charter for social and political freedom -- there is a movement called Engaged Buddhism which is very concerned about that. There are many good books about Buddhist philosophy cheaply available in English, but I do not know what to recommend since that depends very much on where you are coming from and what you are looking for. Perhaps my friend John Keenan's book, The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology, Orbis Press, 1989 (which I reviewed in the Japan Journal of Religious Studies) might interest you. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism is a classic, although tending to Vedantize Buddhism -- it is the book Thomas Merton was reading when he died in Bangkok. David Kalupahana's History of Buddhist Philosophy is good, from the Sri Lankan (Theravada, early Buddhist) perspective as is Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught. Practice of meditation is essential to understanding Buddhism and I think it is not hard to find meditation centers in the USA. For Zen, I recomment Suzuki (not DT), Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and for Theravada I recomment Nyaponika Thera, The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. For Buddhist culture in the Far East I recommend D.T. Suzuki, Zen in Japanese Culture, often used as a textbook by US students, and Ruth Sasaki Fuller, Zen Dust. I think you will find that the Chinese Zen Masters, for example, had a lot of personality, dignity and freedom.
Hmmm...I added a topical comment to this thread on 6/19 in the hope of sparking discussion of the belief I expressed in my last paragraph. I appreciate Joe O'Leary's greeting and the intellectual substantiveness of his blog; but now I'd like to get back to the topic at hand rather than discuss Buddhism. (BTW, that is not because I disagree with Joe or Jerry about the importance of engaging a variety of philosophies. I did so myself in academia as a philosooher; I just think the Church needs to focus on moral and spiritual renewal right now, and the vast majority of people hungry for moral and spiritual renewal just aren't going to be motivated by that careful reworking of philosophical foundations which would engage the leisured few, of which I am not a member anymore.)
I said: "I myself have been seriously harmed, and in more than one way, by homosexual priests. By the grace of God, that destroyed neither my faith nor my soul. Yet my own experience and that of other Catholic men I know who came of age in the 1970s has utterly convinced me that, for a long time now and in various ways, active homosexuals in the priesthood and their sympathizers have killed more discerned vocations than any other single factor." I said that because I meant it. Actual sexual abuse of adolescent boys has nipped many potential vocations in the bud; the broader infidelity to Christ of which such abuse is symptomatic takes many forms. Among the clergy, inveterate intellectual dissent, insipid prayer lives, and overindulgence of normal human desires in ways other than the sexual tend to repel vocations, not attract them, as well as making sexual sin more likely. The problem is not about to go away either.
Over the last several years, at least half-a-dozen bishops have got themselves into public hot water—legal, financial, or both—for their homosexual activities. Though that might not be the tip of a veritable iceberg, it surely signifies a more deeply rooted problem that ramifies into the lower clergy. I observed some of that myself as a seminary adjunct prof in the 1980s as well as a student in the 70s. Several of my oldest friends became priests and say the same thing. My most recent boss in academia is a religious-order priest who not only says the same thing but has left active ministry because he can no longer stomach how the problem is facilitated, not combatted, by his own superiors. Again, the problem is not so much that there are numerous men in the priesthood with homosexual inclinations. That has probably always been so, but there is no evidence that the majority of such men have been active sodomites or ephebophiles. The problem that I see is the one Ken Skruba addressed in his Lavender Mafia article that Phil Blosser posted on May 1. My firsthand experience and second-hand knowledge comfirms what Skruba said.
Nobody who claims to be a faithful Cat
Oops, I didn't manage to paste the rest of my post. Here it is...
Nobody who claims to be a faithful Catholic can deny the seriousness of this problem without indulging in the same sort of denial that led many bishops who did not actively promote these things to turn a blind eye to them and thus foster them. The February 2004 report of the Review Board appointed by the USCCB makes clear that the link between ephebophilia and homosexuality in the priesthood is undeniable. Yet the very "progressives" so "sensitive" to homosexuals in the Church, and therefore in the clergy, are the ones who are most outraged by how many bishops glossed over, and how some even actively fostered, patterns of sexual abuse of minors. Given the link that the NRB report established, such an attitude is ironic indeed. It is another form of denial whose purpose, like that of the culpable bishops themselves, is to subconsciously avoid confronting the moral vacuum at the heart of their comfort zone. That vacuum needs to be exposed for what it is so that it can be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for your comments, Mr. Liccione. I concur with everything you wrote. As always, God is calling us to conversion -- if we'll only accept the grace He offers.
Michael Liccione says:
"I just think the Church needs to focus on moral and spiritual renewal right now"
I concur. We are in the midst of a moral and spiritual crisis. But I would argue that at bottom this is an intellectual crisis. For this reason, moral and spiritual renewal requires intellectual renewal for success.
Let me draw out the logic of what I mean.
JPII talks about the "structures of sin" that are embedded in society, culture, language, and so forth. These structures are given form by false ideas that have philosophical underpinnings.
Take, as a singular instance of these structures, the methodology of the social sciences. This method constitutes the universal language, as it were, of social science research. It is a mechanism that is being used to explain human behavior and to design policy initiatives. It is used by Liberals and Conservatives alike in the public forum.
Implicit in its use is a view of man -- devoid of all intrinsic content. Causes are reduced to correlations. All formal elements -- formal, final, and efficient causes -- are denied. Yet, this method shapes how all Americans -- not just the experts -- understand behavioral dysfunctions, e.g., homelessness, substance abuse, violence, risky sexual behavior, etc. And it shapes how we address such problems, in the public and private sectors alike. It even infects the sacred core and living dynamics of the family.
In terms of the government alone, nearly $1 trillion a year are expended at the Federal level on policies that are predicated on these assumptions. I not speaking here of wasting money. Not at all. What I'm trying to draw attention to is that such expenditure are a powerful force that shapes popular opinion, newspaper reporting, and, in general, the way all Americans understand themselves as human beings. It makes reductionist notions to be incarnate in the American consciousness, in the American moral and spiritual fabric. Its impact is at least as decisive as the rot that often comes out of Hollywood. At all levels, these notions shape and dominate practical decision making -- i.e., the moral dimension.
What is interesting is that these policies have consistently failed. Yet the philosophical assumptions that underpin this methodology has never been questioned in the public forum. As a result, eroneous ideas about man remain intact and operative throughout American society. Process dominates. Creative thinking is dead.
How do you combat such an intellectual force at a purely moral level, if moral does not also include the intellectual? The social sciences are deeply rooted in he assumptions of Hume. Nominalism, voluntarism. At the practical level, I fail to see how how moral urging alone can change the national discourse on such matters. Yet, these structures are shaping the way we think, act, and create. Soon there will be no turning back.
Indeed, the entire question of poverty has been addre
(Continued)
Indeed, the entire question of poverty has been addressed as though it were merely an economic problem. Perhaps poverty cries out for a deeper understanding, more consistent with the full dimension of human reality.
Finally, let me make one point clear. I am not denying that moral and spiritual renewal is necessary. It is absolutely essential. But there are intellectual dimensions to this spiritual crisis that need to be addressed at every level of social, economic, political, moral, and and spiritual consciousness. They need to be addressed. Members of Congress, for instance,need to ask new questions of expert witnesses. They need to explore and expose what it is we are doing to ourselves and to question where we are going. The list of possibie activities goes on and on. A new dialogue needs to emerge throughout the entire society. Otherwise the desired results will never come about. In short, the problems run deeper than we think. Isn't this at least a part of what the New Evangelism is all about?
One more thing. Authentic moral renewal in the context of St. Thomas involves practical reason. In other words, it hinges on Truth. The proper object of the intellect is Truth. So authentic moral renewal is at bottom an intellectual renewal. So it would seem.
His Holiness remarked more than once that the greatest crisis in the Church today is liturgical. It is so because the liturgical feeds the spiritual, and so on down the waterfall. Poisoned source --- poisoned plants.
1) Bring back the Tridentine Rite.
AND
2) Properly translate the Missal of Paul VI.
Dr. Marra once observed that he didn't want to condemn anyone -- but that he wanted the paraliturgical establishment to spend eternity carrying "I reformed the liturgy" around its neck.
Chris
Jerry:
If you look at my blog (click "Homepage"), you'll find that I can stack my Thomistic credentials up with anybody. My defense of Dr. Blosser against the criticisms of an Orthodox philosopher show how. I agree that the moral/spiritual renewal needed today logically requires an intellectual foundation. I believe such a foundation already exists in the riches of Catholic thought, especially the JP2's "theology of the body." But logic and psychology are not the same thing. What people ought, logically, to think is often not what they do think or even what motivates them if they do think it. That's why I place my emphasis where I do.
The kind of thing you're calling for is necessary for motivating intellectuals trained in a certain way. Since such intellectuals influence the Church at large, it is important thus to motivate said intellectuals. But I don't believe that the kind of thing you want is the only or even the most important way to influence the Church at large. She has so many other riches—mystical, liturgical, devotional, ascetical—to draw on, and it is those which function even more than the rational to reignite fervor in ordinary believers. Thus the kind of intellectual renewal you (and I) would like to see, though important, is only one factor in the equation.
Best,
Mike
Michael:
I appreciate you comment.
My concern is not about the Church. My concern is to have the riches of the Catholic tradition play a more formative role in shaping America's future. So I suppose we not about the same purpose in this discussion.
Regarding the post above, the anonymous is Jerry. I was using an alternate brower without the cookies.
Sorry about that.
Jerry:
I realize what your purpose was, but I made the perhaps mistaken assumption that you want to see a morally and spiritually renewed Church act as a leaven in American society. At any rate, that's what I think would be needed if "the riches of the Catholic tradition" are going to accomplish what you want for America.
Best,
Mike
The Church won't fulfill its duty to the world if it obsesses about things of the past such as the Tridenting rite. The Pope will show leadership in taking a step forward. See my new weblog entry on Benedict XVI and Catholic Fundamentalism.
"Things of the past such as the Tridenting rite".
Why are you in such a hurry to consign the most fertile and active part of the Church to the dustbin of history?
Don't you want to recapture the "Early Church" --- tables, house churches, no kneelers, etc.? Aren't those "things of the past" --- in fact wasn't that among the claimed aims of Vatican II? Ressourcement/Agioriamento.
Pope John is spinning in his grave.
Yes, I would like to see a vigorous Church. But I would also like to have a healthy intellectual discourse in the public forum, new forms of art and music, new foundations for law, new ways of thinking about economics, and new ways of thinking about behavioral disorders and poverty, new forms of political discourse and education, and so on. There is a Catholic dimension to all those things that awaits exploration. And isn't that kind of Dialogue essential to bringing about a vigorous Church in the world? The Church in the World -- this requires a concrete relationship to be developed.
Anyway.
When I warned about obsessing about "things of the past" I meant, of course, things of the past that are not also alive in the present. You would not hear me refer to the New Testament or the Nicene Creed, for example, as things of the past
What a silly argument! I'd better to back to Latin --
But Father O'Leary -- The Tridentine rite is alive and well in our day. It is well staffed, well attended and greatly loved. I attend a parish which allows both the reverent celebration of the Missal of Paul VI and daily celebration of the Missal of Pius V, with full knowledge and approval of our local archbishop. My young family and I go to Sunday Mass according to both rites. I make daily Mass as much as possible. My eldest son wants to learn to serve the Tridentine Rite, partly so he can then serve Mass at anytime in the parish. Currently he is limited to the 1970 Missal.
Looking for signs of life in the Church today, one should not mistake the super-activated "Spirit of Vatican II" parish for one which grows vocations, wins converts or spreads God's love. We need all of these things in today's world. My parish has produced 4 priests and at least two deacons for the archdiocese in the last ten - fifteen years. Considering that the parish was slated for closure, that's not half bad! Meanwhile, parsish called "liberal", "progressive" or whatever moniker you prefer continue to produce them at anemic rates.
"which grows vocations"...
I am not in touch with the world of seminaries and younger priests, especially in the USA, but I have heard mutterings to the effect that many vocations grown in ultra-conservative hothouses come to speedy grief when forced to deal with the complexities of real life. Priests who work in parishes will meet all the deviations and horrendous complexities of modern society -- or to put it mildly, they will meet the human heart in all its subtle variety. Simple certitudes will make the priest a destructive force in the confessional or in his counselling roles. And when those certitudes are set awobble he is likely to go through a period of confusion that can have equally destructive effects. A seasoned moral theology and sense of pastoral accommodation are not easily acquired. I refer you to the first two entries on my weblog, end of the archive for June 2005.
If you can point not to the number of vocations but to a record of serene, steady and fruitful pastorates, I will be more convinced. I have vaguely gathered that the drop-out rate among young priests of ultra-conservative leanings is very high.
There are also psychosexual aspects to this of which I am ignorant. Are they aired and discussed in a useful and wholesome way?
Eugen Drewermann has argued that the traditional channels to priestly vocation -- the role of the mother, and the narcissistic image of the altar boy -- conduce to attracting not only gay adolescents but particularly people likely to be pedophiles (narcissistically fixated on their self-image of angelic innocence) to the priesthood. How does neo-tridentism correct this tendency?
Jerry:
The fact that something is new in and of itself is not a good thing. The new thing may be good, or it may not be. That said, I'm perfectly happy admitting growth and newness in everything you advert except the foundation of law. What new foundation should the law have?
Fr. O'Leary:
My parish isn't conservative or traditionalist or ultra-traditionalist or rad-trad or any such thing. We appear on the local landscape as ultramontaine because of the flatness of many and the "off the deep end" wierdness of others. I mention this because you seem to think that the situation I'm describing is some kind of hothouse of ultra-conservatism. If you've been reading the Tablet, America, the National Catholic Reporter and similarly minded publications, these probably do describe the situation the way you mention, but they are not based in reality. Is there a certain amount of myopia among angry loyalists? Probably. No, certainly. However, I'm not measuring by the stick of orthodoxy in this case. I look at the community/social activist approach as against the drawing closer to God/social activist approach. The lives of those in our parish are changed for the better. Our confessional lines are long, even though we have at least three times a week for confessions. There are children everywhere, born to two-parent families. [My family, of four boys is small by parochial standards. The parish has an outreach for poor mothers with children and the poor and indigent genrally, and is in a "bad" part of town -- the "projects" are about 2 blocks away. Large numbers of our parish go to pray in front of an abortion clinic locally. We don't harrass anyone. We pray. Sure, there are nitwit protestants who scream at anyone and everything there, but the Catholic contingent, marked by its rosaries, haggles no one.
I suggested recently to the leaders of the group that we should consider having blankets and drinks available for the scared mothers -- so that any who choose to keep the children can physically feel the comfort they so desparately need in the depths of their souls. And yes, young families make up a growing proportion of the daily and Sunday Tridentine Rite attendees. The parish population has grown by leaps and bounds since the Perpetual Adoration chapel was established almost ten years ago.
The Catholic people in America are hungry for the truth. They need to be fed. At my parish, in the main, that happens.
What facts have you to support the assertion that the life-style you call rigid appeals to the Pedophile crowd?
OK, your response allays my concerns quite well. The last sentence seems to miss my point. I did not talk about a pedophile crowd but about young teenagers attracted to the priesthood on the basis of narcissistic identification with their own childhood image of angelic purity, the Altar Boy. It is obvious that the priesthood as traditionally imaged has attracted a huge number of people of pedophile disposition -- not a crowd, but isolated and suffering individuals. Even in advertisement for the priesthood one sometimes suspects that this aura is still present. Frankly, all this may be a sign that a radical rethink of ministry is called for. I even detect something unhealthy in the big fuss you and Polycarp have made about my clerical identity. I think that is an unhealthy platform on which to build the hunt for vocations.
Chris,
"I'm perfectly happy admitting growth and newness in everything you advert except the foundation of law. What new foundation should the law have?"
It may be that we're talking about two different things here. Perhaps you're talking about Church law. What I was referring to was American law. I'd like to see less utilitarian basis and more attention paid to the insights of natural law.
I suppose in some measure you might agree with that general proposition.
If American law were more in agreement with Natural Law, English Common Law, the Napoleonic Code or some similar established norm of law, that would be appropriate. Since the only thing which will come from overhauling American law now is that it will be based on the nonsense which afflicts so called "International Law", no such overhaul is to be desired.
We might benefit from the UN Declaration of Human Rights!
The UN, being largely the work of well-meaning clueless folk and eugenics proponents, can't serve as the basis for any improvement in America.
How could anyone disagree with what you say, unless they knew something about the UN?
Here you go again: anyone ... they?
One can know something about mass murderers without being one, true?
Of course.
One can know something about the French Revolution without worshiping the cult of the Supreme Being and without guillotining large numbers of innocent people, and even without adopting a 10-day week.
One can study the UN declaration on pretty much anything without, by that fact, deciding that the declaration is a good thing. Shucks -- people in the intelligence community and the media have studied the Al-Qaeda terrorists without flying planes into buildings.
Did you mean to say something that had content and merely fail to do so, or did you simply say what you intended so badly that I missed your point?
"Here you go again: anyone ... they?"
Anyone may join means that the admission is open to everyone. They are all invited.
There you go again!
Hey Jerry:
Did you know that all (every last one) of the traditionalists will be in heaven? All of those hate mongers.
Let's see if you're paying attention.
Are you saying there is no Hell? Or that it will be empty if there is a Hell? That's clearly the logic of what you're saying.
No, I'm testing to see if you have the ability to see that I'm poking fun at you. You despise the traditionalists, and therefore, as you demonstrated with your comment, you must conclude that since the traditionalists are in heaven, there is no one in hell. Absurdity is your strolling partner. Hell is not empty. You're a believer in universal salvation. Oh well. May God grant you the grace to see the absurdity of your position. You insist that "they" is a singular pronoun even as you accept my correction. EveryONE is still a singular pronoun. Your fuzzy thinking leads to absurd conclusions in other areas. Please try not to abuse the English language any more than absolutely necessary.
There you go again! Getting "new" on me.
Just when it appears you're beginning to use your wits, you undergo a strange metamorphosis and start acting from the dark regions of autocratic orthodoxy.
Hmmm. From casual observation, it would appear you're suffering from a not uncommon variant of pietistic self-loathing! Professionally speaking, however, the precise diagnosis remains uncertain. Further consultation is necessary.
Despite such wilting foundations, you make vain attempts to tower, as though to applause. Then you arrogate to yourself Papa Doc-like qualities, and make a pretense of terrorizing others with threats of eternal damnation. Your modus operandi is to call into holy battle crisp judgments and tortured condemnations that are obviously made in the fabrication facilities of your imagination.
For Heavens sake, man! Slow down. You're not on a roll. You're just suffering from dyspepsia. Try laying a wind-egg as an antidote!
The question comes to mind: why do you insist on trivializing intelligence?
Jerry:
I didn't realize I had. If I have done so, please let me know how. You may expect a public apology if I find your case convincing.
Chris,
You have deeply held beliefs. Such is to be commended.
My purpose in these dialogues is to encourage you to share with others the intrinsic logic of those beliefs, as much as you can. Reasons. Intellectual arguments. Principles.
To be sure, none of us can fully explain where we stand. It's not in the cards. But we can usually do better than we do.
And so, my questions and comments are not aimed at getting you to change your beliefs. Not at all. Were such twisting and turning to occur, it would not reflect favorably on you. Nor me. The change would come about for the wrong reasons and would be inauthentic. As St. Thomas says: "Not to observe the rules of action belongs more essentially to the concept of the misdirected step than does the failure to reach the goal." It's imperative to do things for the right reasons. The end does not just the means.
So, the aim of spirited dialogue is not to dissuade you of anything. The aim is to grasp the architecture and reasons that support your beliefs. In providing that, a generosity of spiritl and an intellectual rigor will accrue to all participants.
Jerry:
I'm a convert to the Catholic faith. It's much warmer, more inviting in here than it was in the shrill, icy world of protestantism into which Fr. O'Leary and his type want us boldly to go. Having been there, I don't want to go back. Aside from that, my point in mentioning that I'm a convert is to show that changing ones beliefs when one is in error is not a sign of weakness and doesn't reflect badly on anyone.
Indeed I do have deeply held beliefs, but unlike the proposition you and Father O'Leary insist on exalting, I recognize that the beliefs aren't important because they're mine, but rather they are mine because I accept that they are important independent of the fact that I accept them. Washington DC is the capital of the US irrespective of whether or not I accept that to be true. Similarly, some things are sins about which I knew little or nothing as a younger Catholic or as a Protestant. My ignorance of them didn't make them any less sins, but reduced my culpability. If I do those things now, they are undoubtedly mortal sins. Robespierre and Hitler had strongly held beliefs, but in neither case can these facts be said to be a good thing.
You observe that, if I may paraphrase, strong intellectual discussion can be edifying to all the participants. It can be. However, intellectual discussion when it is honest, is a search for the truth and/or a deeper understanding of established truth. Father O'Leary clearly believes that all the years and all the teaching documents of the Church which reject his version of the spirit of Vatican II [both before and since the Council] are merely retrogressive, unhelpful, unecumenical somethingortheother. Neither you nor he accepts the teaching office of the Church. This is, however, essential to the nature of a Catholic who is worth the name.
Being a big sinner myself, I know that if we beg His [God's] forgiveness in the sacrament of Confession, He will give it to us. Nothing feels better than knowing my many sins are blotted out. You and Father O'Leary are obviously lost in the fog of modernistic jargon. You would no doubt approve of or at least tolerate the killing of anyone whatsoever if your precious "conscience" were allowed to do whatever it wanted. And why not? After all, your conscience is supreme, and no one may be forced to do (or not do) anything to anyone else. THe problem is, this guarantees that Hitler is in Heaven. If he is there, he atoned for his sins in ways which I can describe but not understand. This was my point in observing that all the hate-mongering traditionalists must be in Heaven. If they are, you replied, Hell must be empty. Rational argument broke down because, in my judgment, you were promoting ideas which fly in the face of right reason.
Now that I have had time to calm down, I maintain the same point to be true.
Chris,
There are two assumptions running through your commentary that need clarification.
First, you assume to know my position on the issues we've discussed, for example, the nature and dynamics of conscience and how it is situated within the Thomistic framework.
Second, you assume to know why I hold the positions I do, i.e., the arguments.
Yet, neither of your assumptions have validity. Why? The answer is simple: I have never stated my positions here. Nor have I attempted to explain them. It would be impossible to sketch something that involved on this site.
You may have picked up impressions and hunches. But you so do without the support of logical context. At the same time, your criticisms almost invariably involve logical context.
Let me give an instance. You say I am "obviously lost in the fog of modernistic jargon." You have no basis for this judgment. Yet it is repeated over and over.
It would be convenient if true. It would make everything easy. To be sure, the straw man always supports a masquerade. But a straw man is a fabrication, just like a masquerade. It doesn't rest on truth.
to build your arguments on such sand is a waste of time and a disservice to truthful inquiry.
As time allows, I will go back over your posts to justify my comments from your own mout (or fingers ....)
Commenting by HaloScan
