The Virtual Abbey

Whatever else you do today -- and I would point out that Friday is a particularly good day for observing the Stations of the Cross -- be sure to read this essay by Russell Shaw at The Catholic World Report.

I am reminded of Prince Faisal's line in Lawrence of Arabia, "He treads heavily but he speaks the truth." The numbers that Mr. Shaw brings up are shocking, even for someone as pessimistic as me:

Since American Catholics are supposedly not only the most highly educated ever but are also loyal to the essentials of the faith, let's look at what these exemplary Catholics believe. American Catholics Today (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), a book by Professor Davidson and three other sociologists, sheds light on that.

A survey in 2005 found that 76 percent of the Catholics of the United States thought someone could be a good Catholic without going to church every Sunday. Other elements of Catholic belief and practice also fared poorly. Three out of four said good Catholics needn't observe the teaching on contraception; two-thirds said the same of having their marriages blessed by the Church and accepting the teaching on divorce and remarriage; 58 percent took the same view of giving time or money to the parish and also of following Church teaching on abortion. These numbers have gone up dramatically since Davidson and his colleagues began collecting them in 1987. And, by 2005, nearly one in four held that a good Catholic needn't believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

In 2003, the researchers tested American Catholics' views on the Catholic Church and other religions. Some results: 86 percent agreed with the statement "If you believe in God, it doesn't really matter which religion you belong to"; 74 percent said yes to "The major world religions are equally good ways of finding ultimate truth"; and 52 percent accepted the proposition, "The Catholic religion has no more spiritual truth than other major religions."

In case you might be, like the American Catholics mentioned in the report, under any illusions as to what the Catechism actually teaches, I'll give you a shorthand version. A Catholic ought to believe:

1. Attendance at Mass on Sunday and Holy Days of obligation is mandatory.

2. Artificial contraception is sinful.

3. Catholics must have their weddings blessed by the church, and may only marry once, unless the spouse dies.

4. Catholics are obligated to support the Church.

5. Abortion is murder.

6. Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

7. All religions are not equal; only the Catholic Church contains 100% of the truth.

I will be the first to confess, at one time or another, to having doubted, questioned, or outright disbelieved all of these things.

Before about eighteen months or so ago, I probably would have yielded ground on any of them in an argument, to preserve peace, or to behave decorously in public.

No longer.

I look at the terrible slide into relativism and immorality of our culture, and I am convinced that it is my obligation to proclaim the word of Christ, and to embrace the teachings of the Church as His truth. I may elucidate and elaborate on any of these points; I may phrase things more politely and less tersely, but I will no longer hide my beliefs, because I am convinced that to do so is to cooperate in our cultural and moral decline.

I will embrace any name I am called gladly -- extremist, fanatic, reactionary, Ultramontanist, or, God forbid, Catholic.

And I will respond in kind, by calling my enemies apostates, heretics, pagans, immoralists, and depraved.

Actually, I will use those terms only sparingly. But occasionally people do need a slap in the face to restore them to their senses. American Catholics are among the first who need to be woken up. The Church is in trouble, and if you have nay love in your heart for her, you will take action.

More importantly, you will pray. Because if you act without praying first, your actions will most certainly be foolish ones.

I'll tell you what my project has been in the last eighteen months -- it has been to become a good Catholic.

And not a good Catholic in terms of how most Americans today might view the term "good Catholic." I was already that.

I mean a good Catholic in the sense that someone like Theresa of Avila or St. Francis of Assisi or St. Ignatious of Loyola, or St. Dominic Guzman, or St. Benedict of Nursia would recognize me as a good Catholic. I mean a good Catholic that would be recognized as such by any person raised in the last twenty centuries of the Church -- not the past twenty years, where "Catholic" has descended into being a term of derision like 'naif' or 'rube', or a brand name like Nike or Pepsi (for example, in the sense that Georgetown is a Catholic college.)

I haven't been extemely outgoing in my proselytization. I've hardly been fulfilling the Great Commission in any meaningful sense. I've mainly tried to reform my own moral life and enter into a meaningful amount of prayer with God. I've attended Mass every week for more than thirteen months and have not missed a Holy Day of Obligation. I have gone to confession regularly, averaging no less than once a month. I have tried to keep to the hard discipline of the Liturgy of the Hours and the daily rosary. I do a fair amount of Scripture reading and other Lectio Divina.

In other words, my course of reform has been aimed almost entirely inward.

And I'll tell you where I stand after putting all of these things in place.

I feel terrible.

I feel like the worst Catholic on the planet, and the worst reprobate on Earth. I finally have a sense of myself as what I truly am -- a base man, consumed by passions, a glutton, and a drunk. I have few kind words in my vocabulary and even fewer kind thoughts. I am slothful to the point of near immobility. I am ungenerous to the poor and unsympathetic to the suffering. I don't lift a finger to help the unborn. I'm short tempered, impatient, and envy the success of others.

That's the bad news.

The good news? I now know it.

It's a little like the rather crude joke about the old woman who goes to the doctor, complaining of a problem. "Doctor," she says, "I have terrible gas. All day long I feel myself breaking wind. But the good news is, I do it silently, and there is no smell whatsoever, otherwise I would die for shame. But I'm still concerned. Is there something you can give me?"

The doctor looks at the old woman sympathetially, takes out his pad, and writes her a prescription for some pills.

A week later, she's back to visit the doctor. "Doctor", she says, "This is terrible medicine. These pills don't work at all. I still am passing gas, except now, my farts smell absolutely terrible -- like rotten cabbage. Fortunately, they are still silent, so I can usually slip away without anyone attributing them to me. But please, Doctor, can you give me something else?"

Once again, the Doctor smiles at her sympathetically, and takes out his prescription pad.

"Certainly," he says. "Now that we've got your sinus problem cleared up, we can start work on your hearing."

OK, a crude, and admittedly, a somewhat cruel joke. Now you see how mean spirited I truly am. But my point is this. American Catholics regard themselves like the old lady in the joke. They have plenty of self-esteem, but they are blind to their flaws. All of us, without the grace bestowed on us by God, are blind to our flaws. The medicine, if we dare to take it, will make us feel far worse before it makes us feel better. Because the first thing God needs to get across to us is what we really are.

We're reprobates. Criminals. Murderers -- if not from the beginning, then certainly from early on.

When we read the Gospels and encounter Christ healing a leper, we're only understanding the surface if we read it and say "How kind of Christ to heal the leper." Because we are the lepers. If we read the Gospels and encounter Christ giving a blind man sight, we are only getting the surface if we say, "How kind of Jesus to give the man sight." Because we are the blind man -- and now that our sight is restored, we will probably have to find work. If we read the Gospels and we feel angry when the Pharisees object to Christ healing a lame man because he did so on the Sabbath, we need to understand -- we are both the lame man and the Pharisee -- we partake of God's grace, while all the while crtiicizing the way in which he gives it.

We all the while fail to see Christ, and fail to understand him. We are either confused Magi bringing him gifts for an earthly king, or Herod trying to kill the child who threatens his station. We are either John the Baptist, who even as Christ's Herald still questions who he is from prison, or Salome asking for the Baptist's head on a platter to suit our notions of family pride. We are either Peter, who, even though his faith is strong, still fears the waves more than he trusts the Lord, or we are Judas, gladly selling him for silver to suit our greed.

And we have no excuse. Most of us have known of Him from birth, many of us have been raised within walking distance of a Church. Even unbelievers have a Bible on their bookshelves, or have at least seen one in the nightstand of our hotel rooms.

And we see Him every day. He is the poor man who wanders the street whom we see every day. He is the man in prison whom we simply assume is guilty, and along with the crowd, we cheer when he takes up his cross. He is the child in the womb, whom Elizabeth and John the Baptist recognize even by his mere proximity, but we see only as a burden and a cost.

But we put out our eyes so that we may not see. We block up our ears so that we should not hear. We stop out tongues, lest we give Him a word of praise.

If you are a Catholic, try to be a good Catholic for a year. You will then see more like He sees. You will begin to see with the eyes of faith rather than with the eyes of men. I have only begun to have my own eyes opened. I see myself for something like what I truly am -- though even that is tempered by His mercy, for like the kindly Doctor in my joke, he has only revealed by condition to me in stages -- and while you think that it might leave me mortified, I am reassured by something far greater.

I see a little bit of what He might yet let me become.

The Pope's three non-negotiables, from Rorate Caeli.

UPDATE: But this one is not a non-negotiable. Catholics may disagree on this.

Called to Communion, written in the early 1990s by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now, of course, Pope Benedict XVI), is a short work on the topic of ecclesiology. Like all of Joseph Ratzinger's arguments, it is scholarly, well-researched, polite and considerate of other views, Scriptural, and, ultimately, an educational experience. It is a series of lectures compiled into a book that makes a solid Catholic argument for a traditional, hierarchical understanding of the Church, and which discusses the meaning of Apostolic Succession, the primacy of Peter, and the sacrificial priesthood. In the course of the work, Cardinal Ratzinger also takes on Libertaion Theology, and two competing models of ecclesiology -- a congregational model and a model that sees the Church as being self-contained under a bishop -- which could be construed, in a shorthanded way, as arguments against the ecclesiology of much of Protestantism and of Eastern Orthodoxy. As always, though, Cardinal Ratzinger is non-confrontational and generous in his approach.

I am deeply impressed by the Pope's theological works, though one senses, in all of his short books, written when he was overseeing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a great frustration in that he simply does not have the time to go into greater detail. I truly believe that he wanted to retire and just write books in 2005, when he was instead chosen to be Pope. But I think that he was chosen Pope for a greater reason -- and in reading his works of theology, I am beginning to appreciate why. Unlike a lot of modern theologians, Pope Benedict writes in a way that demonstrates that a) he is deeply respectful of tradition, and b) his writing is informed by faith. While his arguments are clever, there is no sophistry in them. He also demonstrates that while he is very knowledgeable of the modern historical-critical methods of Scriptural interpretation, he does not subscribe to the notion that one can "deconstruct" the Bible. He accepts some of the somewhat archaeological character of modern Scriptural criticism, while simultaneously also holding onto the concept of Scripture as a divinely written book, and while having a thorough understanding of typology and the use of recurring themes in Scripture. He thus demonstrates a flexibility and depth of mind that few modern writers have.

I would describe his style as being "Augustinian" rather than "Scholastic" -- if you handed me a work of his in a brown-paper wrapper and told me that he was a conservative Lutheran theologian, I would have no trouble believing it in most of his writings (though naturally, Called to Communion would definitely reveal his identity as a Catholic). I think his work is very approachable by Protestants, especially because he always tries to work in a Scriptural angle to buttress his arguments. He seldom, if ever, argues from the edifice of Catholic theology, and his arguments have very much of a human face and scale to them.

I think a lot of people regard Benedict's election as Pope regard the election as a working of the Holy Spirit; but I think as with all workings of the Spirit, while we can sometimes see the surface reasons, we do not see and cannot understand the Spirit's full depth of motives. I think that one of those motives may well be a desire to give Benedict's theological writings a wider audience than they might otherwise receive. If you told me, two centuries from now, that Benedict was canonized as a saint and named a Doctor of the Church, based on my small exposure to him so far, I'd have to say I wouldn't have much difficulty believing it.

On a few of my posts I have had to close commenting due to the post be latched onto by comment spammers pushing various dubious nostrums. If you find you can't comment on some of my posts, this is why. Shoot me an email if you find a closed post you'd like to discuss.

Leila from CWN's Off the Record links to a story about the Wisconsin Friday tradition of the fish fry, and how the article points out that "you don't have to be Catholic to eat fried fish."

Leila's wistful observation struck me as being pretty insightful:

Some people think that culture is something super refined that you find in a museum, like a big oil painting, and some people think that it’s something you think hard about and get a government grant for, like learning liturgical dance. Actually, culture is the deeply satisfying stuff that “we have always done” – and it comes, unawares, from people either celebrating or, interestingly, not celebrating (like giving up meat on Fridays). If you think I’m wrong spend a minute thinking about what you admire about other cultures.

When things are done the same way for a long time, with families (meaning that somehow everyone from children to old people have to find their place), that’s when you get traditions, and that’s when you get a culture.

Now maybe a fish fry isn’t everyone’s idea of culture, but I’m getting a little wistful reading about this, and proud that Catholics gave this little bit of meaningfulness to the people of Wisconsin (especially because you don’t have to be Catholic to enjoy it), and wondering what our present loophole-finding approach to religion will leave the next generation, in the way of fun.

That's very true. I think that we lost, or simply threw away, a lot of our unique Catholic heritage in the 1960s. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the Vatican II document on fasting and abstinence, Paenitemini, just to see what it actually said -- as opposed to what we were taught it said. Like many of the Vatican II documents, it reads far better than it has been interpreted.

Christ, who always practiced in His life what He preached, before beginning His ministry spent 40 days and 40 nights in prayer and fasting, and began His public mission with the joyful message: "The kingdom of God is at hand." To this He added the command: "Repent and believe in the Gospel."(33) These words constitute, in a way, a compendium of the whole Christian life.

The kingdom of God announced by Christ can be entered only by a "change of heart" ("metanoia") that is to say through that intimate and total change and renewal of the entire man—of all his opinions, judgments and decisions—which takes place in him in the light of the sanctity and charity of God, the sanctity and charity which were manifested to us in the Son and communicated fully.(34)

The invitation of the Son to "metanoia" becomes all the more inescapable inasmuch as He not only preaches it but Himself offers an example. Christ, in fact, is the supreme model for those doing penance. He willed to suffer punishment for sins which were not His but those of others.(35)

In the presence of Christ man is illumined with a new light and consequently recognizes the holiness of God and the gravity of sin.(36) Through the word of Christ a message is transmitted to him which invites him to conversion and grants forgiveness of sins. These gifts he fully attains in baptism. This sacrament, in fact, configures him to the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord,(37) and places the whole future of the life of the baptized under the seal of this mystery.

Therefore, following the Master, every Christian must renounce himself, take up his own cross and participate in the sufferings of Christ. Thus transformed into the image of Christ's death, he is made capable of meditating on the glory of the resurrection.(38) Furthermore, following the Master, he can no longer live for himself,(39) but must live for Him who loves him and gave Himself for him.(40) He will also have to live for his brethren, completing "in his flesh that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ...for in the benefit of his body, which is the church."(41)

In addition, since the Church is closely linked to Christ, the penitence of the individual Christian also has an intimate relationship of its own with the whole ecclesial community. In fact, not only does he receive in the bosom of the Church through baptism the fundamental gift of "metanoia," but this gift is restored and reinvigorated in those members of the Body of Christ who have fallen into sin through the sacrament of penance. "Those who approach the sacrament of penance receive from the mercy of God forgiveness for offenses committed against Him and at the same time become reconciled with the Church on which they have inflicted a wound by sinning, and the Church cooperates in their conversion with charity, example and prayer."(42) And in the Church, finally, the little acts of penitence imposed each time in the sacrament become a form of participation in a special way in the infinite expiation of Christ to join to the sacramental satisfaction itself every other action he performs, his every suffering and sorrow.(43)

It doesn't seem to me that Vatican II intended to back away from fasting and abstinence at all. In fact, Paenitemini seems to encourage it, while simultaneously warning against "pharisaism".

Against the real and ever recurring danger of formalism and pharisaism the Divine Master in the New Covenant openly condemned—and so have the Apostles, Fathers and supreme pontiffs—any form of penitence which is purely external. The intimate relationship which exists in penitence between the external act, inner conversion, prayer and works of charity is affirmed and widely developed in the liturgical texts and authors of every era.(54)

CHAPTER III

Therefore the Church—while it reaffirms the primacy of the religious and supernatural values of penitence (values extremely suitable for restoring to the world today a sense of the presence of God and of His sovereignty over man and a sense of Christ and His salvation)(55)—invites everyone to accompany the inner conversion of the spirit with the voluntary exercise of external acts of penitence:

Here's where the document left itself open to interpretation:

In the first place, Holy Mother Church, although it has always observed in a special way abstinence from meat and fasting, nevertheless wants to indicate in the traditional triad of "prayer—fasting—charity" the fundamental means of complying with the divine precepts of penitence. These means were the same throughout the centuries, but in our time there are special reasons whereby, according to the demands of various localities, it is necessary to inculcate some special form of penitence in preference to others.(60) Therefore, where economic well-being is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given in order that the sons of the Church may not be involved in the spirit of the "world,"(61) and at the same time the witness of charity will have to be given to the brethren who suffer poverty and hunger beyond any barrier of nation or continent.(62) On the other hand, in countries where the standard of living is lower, it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians—while they seek in every way to promote better social justice—offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ.

Therefore, the Church, while preserving—where it can be more readily observed—the custom (observed for many centuries with canonical norms) of practicing penitence also through abstinence from meat and fasting, intends to ratify with its prescriptions other forms of penitence as well, provided that it seems opportune to episcopal conferences to replace the observance of fast and abstinence with exercises of prayer and works of charity.

In other words, there are poor people suffering in the world, and if you choose to replace works of penitence such as fasting and abstinence with works of prayer and/or charity, you may, but where observing traditional fasts and abstinence can be observed, it ought to be.

Perhaps my reading comprehension skills are not what they ought to be, but I often have trouble seeing the coded, subliminal content in the documents of Vatican II.

The document continues with the specifics:

In order that all the faithful, however, may be united in a common celebration of penitence, the Apostolic See intends to establish certain penitential days and seasons(63) chosen among those which in the course of the liturgical year are closer to the paschal mystery of Christ(64) or might be required by the special needs of the ecclesial community.(65)

Therefore, the following is declared and established:

I. 1. By divine law all the faithful are required to do penance.

2. The prescriptions of ecclesiastical law regarding penitence are totally reorganized according to the following norms:

II. 1. The time of Lent preserves its penitential character. The days of penitence to be observed under obligation throughout the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday, that is to say the first days of "Grande Quaresima" (Great Lent), according to the diversity of the rites. Their substantial observance binds gravely.

2. Apart from the faculties referred to in VI and VIII regarding the manner of fulfilling the precept of penitence on such days, abstinence is to be observed on every Friday which does not fall on a day of obligation, while abstinence and fast is to be observed on Ash Wednesday or, according to the various practices of the rites, on the first day of "Grande Quaresima" (Great Lent) and on Good Friday.

III. 1. The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat.

2. The law of fasting allows only one full meal a day, but does not prohibit taking some food in the morning and evening, observing—as far as quantity and quality are concerned—approved local custom.

IV. To the law of abstinence those are bound who have completed their 14th year of age. To the law of fast those of the faithful are bound who have completed their 21st year and up until the beginning of their 60th year.

As regards those of a lesser age, pastors of souls and parents should see to it with particular care that they are educated to a true sense of penitence.

V. All privileges and indults, whether general or particular, are abrogated with these norms, but nothing is changed either regarding the vows of any physical or moral person or regarding the constitutions and rules of any approved religious congregation or institute.

VI. 1. In accordance with the conciliar decree Christus Dominus regarding the pastoral office of bishops, number 38,4, it is the task of episcopal conferences to:

A. Transfer for just cause the days of penitence, always taking into account the Lenten season;

B. Substitute abstinence and fast wholly or in part with other forms of penitence and especially works of charity and the exercises of piety.

2. By way of information, episcopal conferences should communicate to the Apostolic See what they have decided on the matter.

VII. While the faculties of individual bishops of dispensing, according to the decree Christus Dominus, number 8b, remain unchanged, pastors also for just cause and in accordance with the prescriptions of the Ordinary may grant to individual faithful as well as individual families dispensation or commutation of abstinence and fast into other pious practices. The superior of a religious house or clerical institute enjoys the same faculties for his subjects.

VIII. In the Eastern rites it is the right of the patriarch, together with the synod or supreme authority of every rite, together with the council of hierarchs, to determine the days of fast and abstinence in accordance with the conciliar decree on the Eastern rites, number 23.

IX. 1. It is strongly desired that bishops and all pastors of souls, in addition to the more frequent use of the sacrament of penance, promote with zeal, particularly during the Lenten season, extraordinary practices of penitence aimed at expiation and impetration.

2. It is strongly recommended to all the faithful that they keep deeply rooted in their hearts a genuine Christian spirit of penitence to spur them to accomplish works of charity and penitence.

X. 1. These prescriptions which, by way of exception, are promulgated by means of L'Osservatore Romano, become effective on Ash Wednesday of this year, that is to say on the 23rd of the present month.

2. Where particular privileges and indults have been in force until now—whether general or particular of any kind—"vacatio legis" [suspension of the law] for six months from the day of promulgation is to be regarded as granted.

We desire that these norms and prescriptions for the present and future be established and effective notwithstanding—inasmuch as is necessary—apostolic constitutions and regulations issued by our predecessors and all other prescriptions, even if worthy of particular mention and revocation.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, February 17, 1966, the third year of our pontificate.

PAUL VI

As I read it, the old law was, indeed, abolished, but it was to be superseded by guidance from the bishops, and where the fasting and abstinence was done away with, it was to be replaced by works of charity and exercises of piety.

Now perhaps there has been an extraordinary outpouring, since Vatican II, of charity and piety. As for piety, I frankly do not see it. While the rules of fasting and penitence may have been "pharisaical", I would suspect that there was also a good deal more piety among the average people back in the 1940s and 1950s.

As for charity, I'd like to see someone make the case as to whether we Catholics are more charitable now then we were, as a group, in the 1950s, in terms of percentage of income. Certainly we write bigger checks now than our parents did -- but there has also been an explosion of wealth in our country.

While my father was, relatively speaking, a more successful man than I am -- he owned his own business and was well known in the community -- as a glorified corproate clerk with a small degree of mad computer skillz, I live a standard of living that I think my parents would envy. I entertain myself with cable television broadcast in HD, I can read news from around the globe in electronic format, I can eat steak several times a week if I want, I have a small wine cellar, and do a fair amount of traveling. I want for nothing.

But if I had to consider myself in comparison to my father, I'd say I am only now approaching the degree of rectitude with regard to the practice of my faith that he maintained for much of his life. He lived a better life spiritually than I did until very recently; I have no doubt that if we both attain heaven, his home there will be more richly appointed than mine -- like the rich man in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16:19-31, I've gotten much of my reward already, and will have to very careful that I do not suffer the rich man's fate. Although we know Christ taught with some humor -- the irony in this story is that Christ's friend Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead, and whose name he gave to the poor man in the parable, was actually a well-off man -- I really don't think he was kidding at all when it came to parables such as these. I think there is a hell and there is a heaven, and that the rich have a special obligation to acts of charity.

But penitence and prayer have, in my view, been neglected. I'd love to see a bishop, on his own authority, reinstitute the old rules of fasting and abstinence, in view of the fact that we have not been nearly as generous as we could be, and have certainly neglected, in the years since Vatican II, penitence and prayer. If I were a bishop whose diocese had priests implicated in the sex abuse scandals of the 1990s, I would certainly impose the rules on myself and my clergy.

And were I a real Abbot, fasting and abstinence would be the rule. I might well institute the Carthusian practice of bread and water on Fridays if I had my way.

We could all do with a little more penitence.

Here's what I am going to try to do this Lent.

1. Read the Liturgy of the Hours, all seven daily hours (though not necessarily at the appointed hour, due to work), in Latin.

2. Forsake all alcohol.

3. Forsake red meat (pork and beef) throughout Lent, and all meat on Fridays. When given the choice, I will forsake all meat throughout Lent, and will observe, if eating alone, a diet of bread and water on Fridays.

On this last rule, I expressed to my wife that I wished to give up all meat during Lent, and she insisted that it would be too difficult both from the point of view of practicality (vis a vis what is already in the freezer) and socially (my faith has frankly become a point of concern among my friends and family, and to avoid causing them concern, I will, when eating with them, eat whatever they are eating, while sticking to the normal Catholic rules of no meat on Fridays).

Lest you think these observations to be too "pharisaical" and harsh, I would point out that I am actually well known to be a glutton and a drunk, so they are definitely "on point". I also medically suffer from mild diabetes and high cholesterol, so observing a much plainer diet and including more fish also will have some health benefits. It's not all being done just because I think myself Holier Than Thou (which will be my new blog tagline for awhile).

I will report, on the other side of Easter, how my observance went.

UPDATE: Joseph Fromm at Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit has what the Vatican is doing this Lent. I sure wish I had thought of "Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit" as a site name.

(A new category, in which I give the Pope some unsolicited advice. A bit tongue in cheek, but only a bit.)

Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P.

He seems to want the job, and he knows what needs to be done.

The "politically correct" refusal to speak about the conversion of England for fear of offending ecumenical or inter-faith sensibilities as well as arousing humanist-secularist irritation takes its rise from a misreading of the documents of the Council. Those documents furnish a mandate for courtesy, respect and the seeking of common ground in dialogue with such different constituencies as separated Christians, adherents of other religions, humanists. But they do not understand dialogue as entailing the cessation of mission, or as putting into cold storage the universalist claims of the Catholic Church.

The obscuring of these imperatives, on the ground that in a pluralist society to refer to them at all would be bad taste, has damaged the Church, not only by insinuating doubt as to what our message is and how committed we are. It has also, I believe, created what the scholastic theologians call an obex, an "obstacle" to the development in us of the graces of baptism and confirmation. These graces are not given exclusively for the purpose of personal sanctification. They are given for the insertion of individuals into the common mission of the Church, which continues that of the Apostles, who continued that of Christ, whose own mission was the prolongation of his eternal procession as the divine Son - all with a view of bringing back a world lost and wandering to the Father in its entirety As the present Holy Father put it in his encyclical on mission, "faith is strengthened when it is given to others". When the Church in England slapped a self-defying ordinance on converting those outside the household (for that is the widespread perception), did. it not in part bring upon itself the decline recent statistics have charted?

My favorite line in it is the bit about "misreading the Documents of the Council." If I had a dime for every time that though has crossed my mind, I'd be on my way to riches. Has there ever been a Church council more willfully misread than Vatican II?

Give Fr. Nichols a hundred mendicant Dominican preachers and a few million Challoner Douay-Rheims Bibles and get out of his way. . .

UPDATE: He lays out the full strategy here.

Firmer doctrine in our teaching and preaching.
Re-enchant the liturgy.
Recover the insights of metaphysics.
Renew Christian political thought.
Revive family life.
Resacralise art and architecture.
Put a new emphasis on monastic life.
Strengthen pro-life rhetoric.
Recover a Catholic reading of the Bible.

And guns. Lots of guns.

Just kidding . . . I know a few of you out there are fans of the Chick tracts, so I thought I'd put that in for a few paranoid laughs.

Those nine items are good not only for England, but for anywhere in the Western world. If you read this, Holy Father, you might want Fr. Nichols's nine points printed on 3X5 cards, laminated, and sent to every cardinal, bishop, priest, deacon, monk and nun in the world.

If I were to add two more, they would be Eucharist Adoration and the Rosary. But that list is a fine starting point.

My application is in, and the folks at CDU are just waiting for my transcript.

I'm also going for their Catechetical Diploma so that I will have a certificate in Catechesis.

I wanted to pursue a double major like my mentor, but CDU doesn't offer geometry.

And suddenly, Lent is upon us.

The seasons turn in the Liturgy before they turn in the world.

And so we have come to another great turn.

At the beginning of it is darkness.

At the end of it is daylight, and an empty tomb.

Tomas at An Empty Cave posted this quiz.

Which kind of monk are you?

Dominican

You have a deep love for God that manifests itself by a single minded devotion to His truth. You tend to be well educated and have a way with words. For these reasons, Dominicans often make gifted preachers. You tend to be results oriented, which is why the phrase ''the end justifies the means'' often applies to you. You are a frequent practitioner of tough love, and although you sometimes question your own methodology you know it is necessary for the salvation of mankind

I would point out (in a true Scholastic manner) that Dominicans do not call themselves Monks. They call themselves Friars.

:-)

I think the quiz was apt for me.

I'm going to be busy today, so I thought I would provide you with some entertainment.

If you've never seen anti-Catholic paranoia and conspiracy theories before, you may find this a little shocking.

Alberto

The premise is that Alberto Rivera was a Jesuit priest who somehow escaped the clutches of Society of Jesus, and LIVED TO TELL about it.

The problem with the comic -- besides its childishly simplistic view of history, dubious biblical interpretation, considerable errors in presenting Catholic doctrine and practice, and exceptionally paranoid tone, is that it turns out its hero has certain credibility problems.

When someone tells you lurid tales about a plot to rule the world, you can do one of two things. You can listen with slack-jawed credulity and become a disciple of the person, or you can put your hand gently on the person's shoulder and say "Seek help".

In this case, the latter would have been the wiser course.

Carl Olson at Ignatius Insight, who is one of my favorite Catholic bloggers, is a former Evangelical Protestant who was once a member of a house church that was an experiment in returning to Apostolic Christianity. He has a long, "must read" post on Evangelical Christians who become Catholics. Here are the quotes that jump out at me.

The irony, to me, is that my experience—and the experience of many former Evangelicals I know—is quite different from the description given by Weber. For example, I was raised in a Fundamentalist setting in which our group (initially meeting in homes) was formed for the simple reasons that we wished to emulate the New Testament church as closely as possible and to return to some form of first-century Christianity. This desire, however sincere and well-intentioned, was naive in many ways, especially since we tended to read the New Testament with little regard to the greater context of first-century Judaism or with scant attention given to the Old Testament. And we had no interest (or knowledge, from what I can recall; I was quite young at the founding of our "Bible chapel") of the Apostolic Fathers; even if we did, it wouldn't have mattered much, since we believed, in general, that the early church had apostasized within a few decades of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension. Put simply, this was "primitivism" in all of its 20th-century, American fundamentalist glory. And it was, in hindsight, a natural and even somewhat logical conclusion to Reformation principles, especially the basic notion that each believer in Christ has the right, even the responsibility, to follow Christ as best he can, as his conscience dictates, guided by his prayerful understanding of Scripture.

He goes on to quote an interview he had with Dr. Francis Beckwith, who was a cradle Catholic who became an Evangelical Protestant, only to return to Catholicism, who in turn quotes R.R. Reno (another favorite writer of mine over at First Things):

IgnatiusInsight.com: You've mentioned, in past interviews, that Dr. Mark Noll's book, Is The Reformation Over? (Baker, 2005), was a helpful work for you to read. Do you agree with Noll's assessment that "the central difference that continues to separate evangelicals and Catholics is not Scripture, justification by faith, the pope, Mary, the sacraments, or clerical celibacy ... but the nature of the church"? How significant is the issue of ecclesiology in current and ongoing Catholic-Evangelical dialogue?

Dr. Beckwith: I partly agree with Noll. I think he is right that logically that once the authority question is answered, the other issues that he mentions fall into place. However, practically, the process is more organic, as it was in my case. Once I saw that the Catholic view of justification could be defended biblically and historically, and that the sacraments, including a non-symbolic understanding of the Eucharist, have their roots deep in Christian history prior to the fixation of the biblical canon, the authority issue fell into place.

Something else concerning authority factored into my internal deliberations as well. But I do not think I can conjure up the words to properly express it. So, I will just rely on an elegant insight offered in First Things by a recent Catholic convert, R. R. Reno, which perfectly echoes my own sentiments: "In the end, my decision to leave the Episcopal Church did not happen because I had changed my mind about any particular point of theology or ecclesiology. Nor did it represent a sudden realization that the arguments for staying put are specious. What changed was the way in which I had come to hold my ideas and use my arguments. In order to escape the insanity of my slide into self-guidance, I put myself up for reception into the Catholic Church as one might put oneself up for adoption. A man can no more guide his spiritual life by his own ideas than a child can raise himself on the strength of his native potential."

I sympathize a lot with Evangelical Protestants because I believe that they have experienced Christ truly and viscerally in reading the Scriptures. The process of conversion begins with hearing the Word; a process which I have myself experienced but have some difficulty explaining. You hear, and all of the sudden, something clicks, something makes sense. One of the reasons I like reading Protestant converts to Catholicism is that they often start with Scripture and then have to reason themselves into the Church.

That route to the Church often goes something like this -- you read the Gospels, you then read Acts, and you begin looking for the Church that is described in Acts. It's not immediately obvious where that Church is. So you begin something of an archaelogical expedition. You start reading the Church fathers -- Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Origen, John Chrysostom -- and in reading them something leaps out at you.

The Eucharist.

All of these writers believe that the Eucharist is real -- not symbolic, not a metaphor, not a mere remembrance. A few generations from the Apostles (Irenaeus, for example, was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the Apostle John), and all of these writers, disagree though they will over theology, all believe that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ.

And then you start looking for Churches that believe that.

You find two. Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

And you also confront the odd fact that though Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism disagree with each other on small (but not inconsequential) matters of theology, they recognize the validity of each other's Eucharist.

And when you ask why, you discover the doctrine of Apostolic Succession. Apostles lay hands on their successors. They pass the gift that was given by Christ to his Apostles, the breath of the Holy Spirit.

And once you accept Apostolic Succession, a few other things fall into place. Scripture, while still an infallible guide, is an infallible guide because she was a product of the Holy Spirit acting through the Church. The books of Scripture were chosen because they had no conflicts with the Nicene Creed, defined in Ecumenical Council.

At this point, you have to ask yourself the question: door number one or door number two?

If I grew up in the former Soviet Union, or in Greece, or in the near East, I would likely have been born into Orhodoxy. But in the West, you find that the vast majority of churches are Catholic, and Orthodox churches are often the churches of expatriates, whose language you usually don't understand.

Then you realize that there is a Catholic church practically on every street corner.

You're home.

Article from the Washington Post.

As faith recedes, superstition -- and other things -- take its place.

One of the recruits is the Rev. Wieslaw Jankowski, a priest with the Institute for Studies on the Family, a counseling center outside Warsaw. He said priests at the institute realized they needed an exorcist on staff after encountering an increase in people plagued by evil.

Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said.

"This is a service which is sorely needed," said Jankowski, who holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. "The number of people who need help is intensifying right now."

If you read much on the history of the Church, you will find that when Europe and the near East were first converted, one of the first orders of business for the evangelists was a duel in which the local religion's idols were overthrown -- for instance, the Irish had to be spiritually liberated from Crom Cruach. Today, of course, these stories are treated like mere colorful folklore, or symbolic stories, or Christian propaganda against the supposedly benevolent "old religions". As Europe reverts to paganism -- or to atheism that is itself a form of paganism, with man himself as the idol -- it can only be expected that the Church will have to return to first principles. It will need to re-evangelize, throw down idols, and cast out demons.

We in the West live in a garden. One need only look beyond the garden's walls to see the wilderness beyond. But if we do not tend the garden, then the garden goes wild and becomes like the wilderness. We should not be surprised to see lions and tigers and bears in the garden if we have let it go wild, even if we have spent out whole lives in the garden and never experienced a lion, a tiger, or a bear, except in books. If a book sits on a shelf long enough, we often believe its contents to be mere folklore, even when the book's authors were trying to write history.

There is no institution on Earth with a longer institutional memory than the Catholic church. Even when I did not believe in Christ, I, as a student of history, venerated the Church for that reason. It is more ancient than anything we know.

So if there are strange occurences in your life, or you feel the unmistakable reptilian touch of evil, or see something in the garden that really oughtn't to be there, it might pay to get one of those old books off the shelf and see if the founders of the garden had any advice on how to treat it.

And we need to remember that if we abandon the faith, we leave ourselves open to the idols of men, and to all the ills that the faith treats.

UPDATE: I wasn't aware there was a Pagan blogosphere, but I guess it shouldn't surprise me -- there are blogs for everything. At any rate, Jason Pitzl-Waters at The Wild Hunt, has weighed in on the Post article with a post entitled "Pagans Need Exorcisms". It is always a little amusing to me that professed non-Catholics still feel obliged to weigh in on what the Catholic church is doing. He seems a little bit aggrieved (or perhaps I'm just reading that into it) that the Church might actually be out there offering exorcism:

"Typical cases, he said, include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk, he said."

In other words, Pagans need exorcisms!

Actually, yes -- that is precisely what the Church believes, and always has believed. For example, here is a passage from the 1964 edition of the Rituale Romanum from the sacrament of Baptism:

P (to each): N., what are you asking of God's Church?

Sponsors: Faith.

P (to each): What does faith hold out to you?

Sponsors: Everlasting life.

2. P (to each): If, then, you wish to inherit everlasting life, keep the commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

{The next ceremony and all the following exorcisms in the rite are designed to free the subject from the power of Satan, who has this power in view of original sin. The signification is accomplished by an exhaling of breath, as to blow away something, or figuratively, the act of dispelling the evil spirit.}

3. The priest thrice breathes softly in the face of the child (each one singly), and follows up the gesture with these words:

Depart from him (her), unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.

{By the cross Christ takes possession of the mind and heart of the child, fitting him to become a temple of the Blessed Trinity, and imposing on him the obligation of belief and observance of the commandments. The sign of the cross used here and throughout the rite is indicative of the essential fact that the sacrament has its efficacy from the paschal sacrifice of Jesus.}

4. With his thumb the priest traces the sign of the cross on the brow and on the breast of the child, saying (to each):

Receive the sign of the cross on your brow and on your heart. Put your whole trust in the heavenly teachings. And lead a life that will truly fit you to be a dwelling place for God.

The Church assumes that any person not yet baptized may, indeed, be possessed, so the ritual historically proceeded from that assumption.

Now, certainly, the Church does not believe that demonic possession is common, or that anyone not baptized is out of necessity possessed, but it does not ignore the fact that the person may, indeed, be possessed -- even if that person is an infant.

This may seem like a strange notion, but there is a good deal of theology behind it. Catholics believe in Original Sin, transmitted through each of our parents from Adam and Eve, and believe that Baptism, made effective through Christ's death on the Cross, removes that original sin. Baptism is a way of reclaiming a person from sin. We start from a default position of "suffering from the consequences of original sin, and therefore subject to death." If we are in the power of sin to begin with, well, at that point, anything is possible.

The ritual of Baptism traditionally included the exorcism just to make sure.

Now I do not believe that Demonic possession is common, even among professed Pagans. Or even among professed Satanists. But possession is not unheard of, and if the exorcists say they are in demand, and that demand, as a trend, is growing, then I believe them.

My own two cents?

I'd say no to this.

I'd say that while pointing out that I consider myself a devoted, though poor, servant of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I usually say more than one Rosary per day. I'd say that while acknowledging the many, many graces I have received through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and knowing that if I have a place in Heaven, it may be only due to her prayers for me now and at the hour of my death, as my merits are so few, my sins are so great.

My reason is a simple one. Mary only is who she is because of her Son, the Redeemer. She is the Immaculate Conception because of the death of her Son on the Cross, a miracle made possible only through the divine foreknowledge of God.

I think the title, no matter how narrowly defined, will be misused by every critic of the Church to the detriment of the salvation of souls. We will be accused of elevating Mary to the Godhead, no matter how carefully we explain it.

It will also add a barrier to unification with the Orthodox, with whom there are so few barriers remaining.

Better to leave the mystery as a mystery in some cases; as it was not revealed in Scripture or held definitively in the first twenty centuries of the Church, I do not see the need to define it now.

I will, of course, accept whatever the Holy Father says, as I accept his authority and that of the Church as being binding on all Christians.

I'm available.

You know. If there's a deadlock in the Curia and you need an outsider.

What's the buzz, tell me what's a happenin' . . .

I've seen this at a number of places, including my friends The Llama Butchers:

Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the "Christian Ramadan" in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity.

The Catholic charity Vastenaktie, which collects for the Third World across the Netherlands during the Lent period, is concerned that the Christian festival has become less important for the Dutch over the last generation.

"The image of the Catholic Lent must be polished. The fact that we use a Muslim term is related to the fact that Ramadan is a better-known concept among young people than Lent," said Vastenaktie Director, Martin Van der Kuil.

I have commented before on the state of the Church in Holland -- apparently even normally reliable orders like the Dominicans go soft when confronted with the intransigent apostasy of the pagan Frisians.

I have to think that the hash bars have something to do with it (strong language warning).

I believe that we need a new St. Willibrord to go preach the Word to them.

The Telegraph article goes on for a few more paragraphs about religion, such as it is, in Holland, before becoming listless, losing faith, and, eventally going to go look for some brownies to eat or something.

"The agreements are more striking than the differences. Both for Muslims and Catholic faithful the values of frugality and spirituality play a central role in this tradition," said Mr Van der Kuil.

True enough, I suppose. It is a point of agreement.

Head-chopping? Not so much.

UPDATE: The Venerable Bede weighs in.

CHAPTER X

WILBRORD, PREACHING IN FRISLAND, CONVERTED MANY TO CHRIST; HIS TWO COMPANIONS, THE HEWALDS, SUFFERED MARTYRDOM. [A.D. 690.]

WHEN the man of God, Egbert, perceived that neither he himself was permitted to preach to the Gentiles, being withheld, on account of some other advantage to the church, which had been foretold him by the Divine oracle; nor that Wictbert, when he went into those parts, had met with any success; he nevertheless still attempted to send some holy and industrious men to the work of the word, among whom was Wilbrord, a man eminent for his merit and rank in the priesthood. They arrived there, twelve in number, and turning aside to Pepin, duke of the Franks, were graciously received by him; and as he had lately subdued the Hither Frisland, and expelled King Rathbed, he sent them thither to preach, supporting them at the same time with his authority, that none might molest them in their preaching, and bestowing many favors on those who consented to embrace the faith. Thus it came to pass, that with the assistance of the Divine grace, they in a short time converted many from idolatry to the faith of Christ.

Two other priests of the English nation, who had long lived strangers in Ireland, for the sake of the eternal kingdom, following the example of the former, went into the province of the Ancient Saxons, to try whether they could there gain any to Christ by preaching. They both bore the same name, as they were the same in devotion, Hewald being the name of both, with this distinction, that, on account of the difference of their hair, the one was called Black Hewald and the other White Hewald. They were both piously religious, but Black Hewald was the more learned of the two in Scripture. On entering that province, these men took up their lodging in a certain steward's house, and requested that he would conduct them to his lord, for that they had a message, and something to his advantage, to communicate to him; for those Ancient Saxons have no king, but several lords that rule their nation; and when any war happens, they cast lots indifferently, and on whomsoever the lot falls, him they follow and obey during the war; but as soon as the war is ended, all those lords are again equal in power. The steward received and entertained them in his house some days, promising to send them to his lord, as they desired.

But the barbarians finding them to be of another religion, by their continual prayer and singing of psalms and hymns, and by their daily offering the sacrifice of the saving oblation, - for they had with them sacred vessels and a consecrated table for an altar, - they began to grow jealous of them, lest if they should come into the presence of their chief, and converse with him, they should turn his heart from their gods, and convert him to the new religion of the Christian faith; and thus by degrees all their province should change its old worship for a new. Hereupon they, on a sudden, laid hold of them and put them to death; the White Hewald they slew immediately with the sword; but the Black they put to tedious torture and tore limb from limb, throwing them into the Rhine. The Chief, whom they had desired to see, hearing of it, was highly incensed, that the strangers who desired to come to him had not been allowed; and therefore he sent and put to death all those peasants and burnt their village. The aforesaid priests and servants of Christ suffered on the 3rd of October.

Nor did their martyrdom want the honor of miracles; for their dead bodies having been cast into the river by the pagans, as has been said, were carried against the stream for the space of almost forty miles, to the place where their companions were. Moreover, a long ray of light, reaching up to heaven, shined every night over the place where they arrived, in the sight of the very pagans that had slain them. Moreover, one of them appeared in a vision by night to one of his companions, whose name was Tilmon, a man of illustrious and of noble birth, who from a soldier was become a monk, acquainting him that he might find their bodies in that place, where he should see rays of light reaching from heaven to the earth; which turned out accordingly; and their bodies being found, were interred with the honor due to martyrs; and the day of their passion or of their bodies being found, is celebrated in those parts with proper veneration. At length, Pepin, the most glorious general of the Franks, understanding these things, caused the bodies to be brought to him, and buried them with much honor in the church of the city of Cologne, on the Rhine. It is reported, that a spring gushed out in the place where they were killed, which to this day affords a plentiful stream.

CHAPTER XI

HOW THE VENERABLE SWIDBERT IN BRITAIN, AND WILBRORD AT ROME, WERE ORDAINED BISHOPS FOR FRISLAND. [A.D. 692.]

AT their first Coming into Frisland, as soon as Wilbrord found he had leave given him by the prince to preach, he made haste to Rome, where Pope Sergius then presided over the apostolical see, that he might undertake the desired work of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, with his licence and blessing; and hoping to receive of him some relics of the blessed apostles and martyrs of. Christ; to the end, that when he destroyed the idols, and erected churches in the nation to which he preached, he might have the relics of saints at hand to put into them, and having deposited them there, might accordingly dedicate those places to the honor of each of the saints whose relics they were. He was also desirous there to learn or to receive from thence many other things which so great a work required. Having obtained all that he wanted, he returned to preach.

At which time, the brothers who were in Frisland, attending the ministry of the word, chose out of their own number a man, modest of behavior, and meek of heart, called Swidbert, to be ordained bishop for them. He, being sent into Britain, was consecrated by the most reverend Bishop Wilfrid, who, happening to be then driven out of his country, lived in banishment among the Mercians; for Kent had no bishop at that time, Theodore being dead, and Berthwald, his successor, who was gone beyond the sea, to be ordained, not having returned.

The said Swidbert, being made bishop, returned from Britain not long after, and went among the Boructuarians; and by his preaching brought many of them into the way of truth; but the Boructuarians being not long after subdued by the Ancient Saxons, those who had received the word were dispersed abroad; and the bishop himself repaired to Pepin, who, at the request of his wife, Blithryda, gave him a place of residence in a certain island on the Rhine, which, in their tongue, is called Inlitore; where he built a monastery, which his heirs still possess, and for a time led a most continent life, and there ended his days.

When they who went over had spent some years teaching in Frisland, Pepin, with the consent of them all, sent the venerable Wilbrord to Rome, where Sergius was still pope, desiring that he might be consecrated archbishop over the nation of the Frisons; which was accordingly done, in the year of our Lord's incarnation 696. He was consecrated in the church of the Holy Martyr Cecilia, on her feastday; the pope gave him the name of Clement, and sent him back to his bishopric, fourteen days after his arrival at Rome.

Pepin gave him a place for his episcopal see, in his famous castle, which in the ancient language of those people is called Wiltaburg, that is, the town of the Wilts; but, in the French tongue, Utrecht. The most reverend prelate having built a church there, and preaching the word of faith far and near, drew many from their errors, and erected several churches and monasteries. For not long after he constituted other bishops in those parts, from among the brethren that either came with him or after him to preach there; some of which are now departed in our Lord; but Wilbrord himself, surnamed Clement, is still living, venerable for old age, having been thirty-six years a bishop, and sighing after the rewards of the heavenly life, after the many spiritual conflicts which he has waged.

Outstanding.

25 Sayeth the pilgryms to Bishop Rowan,

26 "Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin'.

27 You know we are as Lefte as thee,

28 But of layte have beyn chaunced to see

29 From Edinburgh to London-towne

30 The Musslemans in burnoose gowne

31 Who beat theyr ownselfs with theyr knyves

32 Than goon home and beat theyr wyves

33 And slaye theyr daughtyrs in honour killlynge

34 Howe do we stoppe the bloode fromme spillynge?"

35 The Bishop sipped upon hys tea

36 And sayed, "an open mind must we

37 Keep, for know thee well the Mussel-man

38 Has hys own laws for hys own clan

39 So question not hys Muslim reason

40 And presaerve ye well social cohesion."

I never read First Things wthout coming away with something of benefit -- or, perhaps to be more honest, something I can steal. It may well be a crime to steal the thoughts of thinkers greater than oneself, or it may be the true definition of "education" -- I will let you decide.

At any rate, not to channel Abbie Hoffman, but upon reading this essay by Fr. Oakes, my first thought was "Steal This Post"!

Accordingly, Newman was not even remotely naïve about the future of the Church of England. (Although I think not even he, with his remarkable gifts for sociological prophecy, could have imagined an Archbishop of Canterbury calling the introduction of Islamic law in the United Kingdom “unavoidable.”) For him its doom was already inscribed on the walls of history with Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy of 1534, when the Church in England became the Church of England by divorcing itself from papal authority. Even as early as his 1845 Essay on the Development of Doctrine , written while he was still an Anglican but already more than halfway out the door (he became a Catholic while the book was still in the printery), he was defending the idea of infallibility, and precisely as a bulwark against infidelity in all its forms:

A revelation is not given if there be no authority to decide what it is that is given. . . . If Christianity is both social and dogmatic, and intended for all ages, it must humanly speaking have an infallible expounder. Else you will secure unity of form at the loss of unity of doctrine, or unity of doctrine at the loss of unity of form; you will have to choose between a comprehension of opinions and a resolution into parties, between latitudinarian and sectarian error. You may be tolerant or intolerant of contrarieties of thought, but contrarieties you will have. By the Church of England a hollow uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution and have ended in scepticism. The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or of charity. It secures the object, while it gives definiteness and force to the matter, of the Revelation.

The subtlety both of Newman’s thought and his prose—together with his personality, so naturally attuned to subtlety in all areas of psychology, life, and thought—has provoked an enormous range of reactions, from almost hyperdulic adulation to deep loathing (a point I once drew attention to here). But all too often, the emotional reaction obscures the underlying theological point Newman was trying to make. Why, for example, was Newman so scathingly critical (even sarcastic) of the Established Church in Anglican Difficulties and yet so genuinely (if moderately) appreciative of the genuine graces given to him during his days as a member of the Church of England in the Apologia? There is an answer to that question, but to find it one must first look at a question more fundamental to his thought: the tension between his defense of the exclusive (and entirely legitimate) claims of the Catholic Church and his recognition of the presence of grace outside her boundaries.

Although this recognition of “extraterritorial grace,” so to speak, is another feature of his thought that so remarkably anticipated Vatican II, I don’t think it is sufficiently appreciated by Newman scholars, who tend to focus, for understandable reasons, on his ecclesiology and religious epistemology. But in fact Newman’s significance sweeps wider than that, for he throws much light on that burning issue which now goes under the umbrella label of “relativism,” an often vaguely used term that I tried to define here.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Any of us who watch as the bulwark of faith that was the Anglican communion, which I have traditionally viewed as an ally of Catholicism aganst the forces of Mordor (Rohan, perhaps, to the Church's Gondor) collapse under the issues of human sexuality and the role of Scripture, cannot help but feel sorrow.

I am hoping, with Father Oakes, that Cardinal Newman will be beatified soon. I am hoping that he will guide many Anglicans to the bulwark that is the Church.

UPDATE: Father Oakes is one of the good Jesuits. He is the kind of Jesuit that engages the world, rather than simply being seduced by it.

The kind that gave the Jesuits their terrifying reputation among the simpleminded . . .

(I really do get a laugh out of the Chick tracts).

I saw this article linked over at Ignatius Scoop, and thought it was too good to pass up. Be sure to read the whole thing.

A few highlights:

The Buddha said that the world is like a house being consumed by flames, and that we are inside it. I remember when I first read that, almost forty years ago. I thought, someone has stared into the depths of suffering and has told what he has seen.

To me, his statement seemed ironically to contrast with and to confirm a truth most evident about Catholicism, in which I had been raised. It appeared to be burning up in front of me, but, at the same time, it could no longer recognize the flames. I wouldn't have put it this way then, because I vaguely welcomed the changes that were occurring in the Church, but as I look back on it now, I believe we were losing our nerve. We refused to appreciate how deeply into the very particles of matter and spirit our suffering and sin were implicated, and how vain were our attempts to engineer a new Church, a new society, a new human being, and a new age. We saw evil, but it was outside us, we thought, in "structures of oppression."

We made felt banners and no longer talked about Hell or sin or guilt or penance. We no longer knelt much, or fasted, but feasted instead. We gathered around a table and held hands or played guitars. We sang about happiness and love. We did street theater to speak Truth to Powers and Principalities. We pretended we were already in Heaven. We supposed we were as gods, and as The Whole Earth Catalog put it, that we might as well get good at it.

We were no longer serious. The only real sin seemed to be to believe that one was a sinner. So why be Catholic—or Christian—at all? Why bother going to church or to confession? Judging by the decline in church attendance over the past decades, I was far from being the only one who asked those questions.

Kierkegaard has a parable in which a clown, not having time to take off his makeup, suddenly appears onstage and shouts "Fire," but the audience thinks it is part of a comedy. They laugh—but soon they perish in the flames. While I sat on my living room couch and read the Buddha's sermon, however, I saw that the flames onstage were real.

As I continued my study, Buddhist Tibet became part of that stage. China had set it afire and it was burning during the 1960s and 1970s. People were fleeing and telling about the conflagration in such vivid terms that it seemed to have sent its smoke all over the world. As Tibetan Buddhist elementary logic texts put it, the existence of smoke, seen on a mountain pass, entails that fire is present there. I could see that smoke from where I was and so I could understand the existence of the fire. Anyone can still catch a glimpse of it, even from a living room couch, just by paging through some books on Tibet.

The omnipresent felt banners make their appearance. I vow that if I ever become a bishop, I will ban the use of felt in my diocese.

Long story short, the author, John B. Buescher, becomes disillusioned, and becomes a Buddhist. After some years, though, he becomes disillusioned with it, too:

That Tibetan Buddhism suffers from sectarian violence came as a revelation to many in the West, where in the post-1960s era the religion has often been portrayed as the very exemplar of gentle tolerance. This perception reverses a common 19th-century Western view of Tibetan Buddhism, with its rosaries, monasteries, strict clerical hierarchies, robes, chants, elaborate liturgies and set prayers, as a pagan counterpart to Papistry.

But if many in the West at that time saw Tibetan Buddhism as having supposedly corrupted the simple, pure message of the Buddha, freethinkers and liberals often saw it as a living fossil, surviving in the mountains while Buddhism elsewhere was either diluted or, as in India, annihilated by Islamic invasions and Hindu opposition. They saw Tibetan Buddhism not only as a rarity in itself but also as a base from which they could launch a critique of Christian orthodoxy.

In other words, many Westerners admire Buddhism not for the thing itself, but because it is not Christianity. If you are a radical who wishes to attack Christianity, any cudgel will do.

I am neither a Buddhist nor a prophet. I have reverted to the Catholicism that gave joy to my youth. How did this happen? Buddhism focuses on the life of the monk and nun, who have renounced the world in an effort to achieve enlightenment and thereby climb out of the cycle of suffering transmigration through rebirth. Compared to Christianity, it has only a rudimentary teaching on the governance of society or on the value of the family. Throughout Asia, Buddhist clerics usually have a lot to say and do at funerals but little or nothing at weddings and births. This sensibility has found fertile ground in the West, where we have spent the last few centuries attacking the principles that encourage the regeneration of the given structures of society—especially of marriage and the family.

Several years ago, after spending more than a decade researching the early history of Western interest in Buddhism and seeing how it was tied into the growth in the West of radicalism and atheism, I realized how thoroughly these views are themselves historically conditioned and are therefore neither necessary nor ultimately given. Whatever "Progress" is, it is neither linear nor inevitable nor irreversible. That applies, I concluded, to the modernist revolution itself, the uncritical acceptance of which, I further came to see, had drawn us toward chaos, into what John Paul II called "the Culture of Death." This led me to admit the existence of natural law, which asserted itself despite the massive efforts in our culture to deny it. This law pointed to the existence of a Legislator. And the institution that held most unwaveringly to what I had concluded was the truth of human nature was the Catholic Church. How had it done that in the face of so much in the culture that denied it? It could not be through the individual merits of its members or its clergy—their sins and failings were manifold and were often on display in the newspapers. As with smoke and fire, I concluded that if it was not the individuals in the Church, then the institution itself, in a way that was mostly hidden to me, benefited from intelligent guidance beyond its mortal capacity.

As a result, I achieved an odd kind of enlightenment. Or a number of small ones that added up to this: I realized that what I most urgently needed was repentance. Not for the sin of holding on to an infantile form of faith, but rather for turning away from the Faith and looking to myself for salvation. After almost forty years, I saw the smoke on a mountain pass. God, I felt very strongly, had lit the fire. And the trail of smoke led back home. All these inferential steps I am describing make it sound like a series of trap doors shutting, but really it felt more as if, in the dark, a person I knew was drawing closer and closer to me in silence—"anthropomorphic" though that may be. I made the sound of one (closed) hand clapping (the breast). Mea maxima culpa. And I began the "yoga" of genuflecting before Him at whose name every knee shall bend.

Bewildered at my turning back to the Church, someone asked me why I had chosen Catholicism, of all religions (Could there be a worse one? was implicit in the question). I could only answer that I did not have that kind of choice. When the door opens onto the truth, you can walk through it or you can walk away from it, but in honesty you cannot just look for another door.

In religion it is not enough for people to do the best that they can. That can never be enough. Our life is more perilous than that. Everything is on fire. We cannot put out the flames, for we too are engulfed. I pray to Jesus Christ not because he was the teacher who showed us how to do the best we can, but because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Miserere mei, Domine.

At least two of us have found our way into this pew. Paul Williams, author of The Unexpected Way: On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism, is a former practitioner and continuing scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also a relatively new Catholic. He writes about why the two religions are irreconcilable. Buddhists are not theists. And, despite talk about the unknowable "Other," Christians most certainly are theists—at least those who have not decided that God is a projection of a limited mind. Williams also argues that reincarnation cannot ultimately provide a basis for religious practice because it reduces the significance of individual lives to a vanishing point.

Buddhism has always needed to shore up "conventional" truth—including moral truth—because it is undermined by the doctrines of selflessness, impermanence, and emptiness. This is why Chesterton wrote that Buddhism was not a creed but a doubt. It is plain to me that Buddhist sages are similar to Christians in their capacity to sin. Buddhism, however, by locating our suffering in ignor