There is a limit to tolerance

This is like the Boston Tea Party for people fed up with silliness. (Here's some context for what happened if you are living in a bubble.)



Well said, Father.

The Cringeworthy Mantra

I've wanted to post this for awhile, and being that I have been very busy I have not set aside the time. But since my post last night sort of gave me the bug for blogging again, I figured I might as well use the momentum to fire this sucker back up.

Ohhhh, HECK YEAH!

Let me explain what the cringeworthy mantra is. I call it a mantra because I've heard it over and over. You can all decide whether it's cringeworthy or not once I explain what I am talking about.

First of all, some background on a quintessential example of this phenomenon. I had a very long hiatus from writing anything about Rod Dreher or his so-called Benedict Option between my "Main Dilemma" post of October 24, 2016 and my short, almost-joking post on September 11 of this year. So almost two years went by without me saying anything, except in this "meme-style" post wherein I stated that I didn't have much to say about the Benedict Option. It is worthy to note that during those two years Keith threw up several posts about the Benedict Option and I did 30 or 40 posts which do not mention Rod Dreher or the Benedict Option at all.

So this was a comment made after my aforementioned post on Sep. 11, 2018:

Whatever Dreher's many faults, "uncalled-for Catholic bashing" is not one of them. Rather than criticize Dreher for reporting on sexual abuse, McKerrick, Francis' inadequate understanding and response, etc., how about you and others here in this little anti-Dreher echo-chamber face the issues head on?

It was not a new sentiment, but it hit home in a new way because of my light blogging in general over two years and in particular light blogging on Rod Dreher. This blog is not syndicated, advertised or even updated enough to merit it being any kind of destination in the top ten million English websites; you have to try pretty hard to read this blog, or hit it from a web-search or back-link. You might not realize this, but when you only post an average of once or twice a week for two years, your hits go down to almost nothing. You stop even getting advertiser spam in the comments.

So when Mr. Pseudonym shows up, he has found something to pique his interest. From EmitFlestiKY (which is Time Itself spelled backward followed by the abbreviation for this, or maybe this) we get a lecture about what we should and should not be doing alongside a sermonette on why we should be doing this and not doing that. The assertions in this sermonette are (1) Rod Dreher is not a Catholic basher, and (2) You are not facing issues head on.

I caught this on Facebook several weeks ago — Diane will remember. A person quipped that "[a] better use of Catholic time would be strengthening the witness and reasons to stay rather than snarling at those who have left when faced with the same repulsive rot." When I surmised that he was spending more time on the topic than I, he replied that he was sorry that I felt ruffled.

The exchange basically followed the same pattern:

• Rod Dreher criticizes the Catholic church.
• A Catholic or two take umbrage about it and make a remark.
• A third party suggests that they should be doing something else, as if they have done something wrong.

The biggest problem I have with this mantra is that the ratio of our responses to something Dreher writes to his incessantly negative Catholic reporting is well below five percent. I challenge anyone to disprove this. The disparity is compounded when you include the fact that Dreher's megaphone at "The" "American" "Conservative" and his other media appearances dwarf anything that we do here or on our private social media platforms.

So now you know why I cringe. Please let me know if you find my reason valid. And stay tuned for a post entitled "How I Am Facing Issues Head On".

Catholic Priest to Rod Dreher: "Enough!"

It's a great word. "Enough!" A word of command, in my opinion. When I use it with my kids in a one word sentence I generally mean "too much, you guys are going overboard with [whatever], and I have been indulging you for [duration], but now you're done." Some examples might be "Enough of the Fortnight Dance demonstration", or "Enough of the collection of 'perfect snowballs' you stored in the kitchen freezer when it is 25 degrees outside."

So it is, I think, for Father Richard Munkelt in this open letter to Rod Dreher, regarding the latter's continuous, spiteful criticism of the Roman Catholic church twelve years after he left. I think from the tone and content of the article we may infer that Father Munkelt, like many of us at this humble blog, believe that when it comes to Mr. Dreher's coverage of everything bad going on in the Catholic Church, we have long since passed from abundance, to superabundance, and then on to super-duper-abundance....

...but ENOUGH! already of my commentary, and straight to the article. He begins:

Your recent articles in The American Conservative on "Catholic Triumphalism," constituting your latest broadside against the Catholic Church, were brought to my attention. After reading the articles, and in close connection with your remarks, I have some sobering thoughts concerning your departure from the Church and ongoing vilification not just of her abusive personnel (who are fair game) but of her very person. As such, I am not writing to you alone but also to those among your Catholic readers who may not be fully cognizant of your not-so-hidden campaign to turn souls away from and against the Bride of Christ. To them I say, there is nothing more unprofitable than to try to pick figs from thistles. It is my duty, therefore, to assist my fellow Catholics in not becoming unwitting purveyors of your Anti-Catholicism.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that some of what Father says makes my criticism of Dreher seem tame, at least to me. Perhaps not to purveyors of what I'm calling the cringeworthy mantra, but more on that later.

If you care to read on, brace yourself, for charity sometimes carries a stick, as St. Augustine noted. And I shall not spare it, especially since you boast of being irreformable. I promise you, therefore, something in the spirit of St. Jerome.

Right; I think the "you asked for it" is warranted, especially considering how many times Dreher has assured us that he will never come back to the Catholic Church.

[He does it again — hilariously — at the end of his response to this article with the remark that if he ever came back it would be in spite of horrible "rad-trads" like Fr. Munkelt.]

1) Catholic Moral Teaching? In the two articles in question, possibly the most astonishing statement you make is this: "More importantly, though, where are the other churches who allow in their teaching for the sexual molestation of minors?" [My emphasis.] In all my years of study in theology and in the history of the Church, this putative Catholic teaching permitting the molestation of minors has completely escaped me. To be frank, without a citation from an authoritative doctrinal source, and of course none can be found, your statement is not only evidence of your brazen malice, it is sinister.

Dreher has insinuated that the teaching magisterium of the Catholic Church is "OK" with horrible sexual predation of children on the part of clergy many times, and he finally comes out and writes it. In his response, he claims this was taken out of context. No, dude... you're busted.

2) Emotion vs. Reason. From your own words, all indications are that you left the Catholic Church not because you had any theological argument against it but because you had an emotionally charged reaction to the clerical scandals and only afterwards adopted a new theology. As you put it: "I had never really considered Orthodoxy until my Roman Catholic faith had turned to dust." This suggests that an irrational response then went in search of cognitive validation, rather than rational reexamination. While your initial revulsion and anger at the revelations of clerical misconduct are quite understandable (who couldn't feel the same?), you lost all mental proportion and threw the Christ child out with the bath water. Failing at self-control, you failed to distinguish between (moral) teaching and (immoral) practice, and thus incredibly and pervertedly equated the two, as we just saw in paragraph #1. Therefore, when rightly attacking the faults of various members of the Catholic hierarchy you regrettably resort to hyperbole and the fallacy of tu quoque, a fallacy Our Lord was careful to avoid when criticizing the doctors of the Law. Then, with your mind shot, there was nothing left but to create a fantasy of a religious paradise in the green pastures of Orthodoxy. Except you found, or rather others like me would find for you, that you had one foot in a cow pie and the other about to step in a second. With that, let's discuss reality rather than fantasy.

Brutal, but just wait. All these punches land, and they are well documented in this blog. I'm too lazy to link them, but not to humble to list them: emotion over reason, lack of proportion, search for cognitive validation, throwing the baby out with the bath water, creation of a non-existing Edenic Russian orthodox church in your mind (and your backyard), etc. We've hit on all of these.

Of course, in knowingly and purposely separating yourself from the Catholic fold, you are undeniably a formal schismatic. A situation aggravated, I should add, by your having made a career of assailing the Church, all the while absurdly preaching to Catholics how to live better lives as Catholics. Pertinent to this last point, you wrote a book called The Benedict Option and artfully curry favor with--and sales from--Catholics as well as Catholic communities and organizations, who in some cases have been foolish enough to throw you a party. Why didn't you call it The Orthodox Option?

The closest Catholic gift shop to me has a great stock of Catholic books. But they also carry The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. I am guessing the nice ladies who run the store have no idea that Dreher is an anti-Catholic, God bless 'em. But it was pushed out to Catholic stores by a publishing company who would never get the cha-ching they want from a book with the word Orthodox in it.

In addition, you make a declaration of your personal failings and seem to admit the superficial nature of your faith and spirituality while you were a Catholic, and then effectively blame the Church for your shortcomings! Strikingly, it is as if you stepped right out of the pages of the Gospel: your faith failed to take root, troubles came along, and you fell away. And now you proudly announce yourself practically immunized against any possible scandals in Orthodoxy by the device of downplaying the institution qua institution. Then why don't you try that back in the Catholic Church? Or how 'bout the Eastern Catholic Church? There you've got nice liturgy and no schism. That is not an "impassioned plea" for your return to the Household of Faith, for which I make no pretense. I am merely writing to direct attention to your penchant for subterfuge.

Told you it got more brutal. Penchant for subterfuge — bingo. Recently I've had to characterize this for a number of people unfamiliar with Rod Dreher's history of alternatively getting scandalized by Catholic scandals and not getting scandalized by Orthodox scandals. It works something like this: "I, Rod Dreher, looked at scandals in my own Catholic faith, and my faith was ruined! So I had to get a new one. So lucky that the Orthodox faith was there. And I learned my lesson: never report on scandals in my own faith community again. Only in others... and one other in particular: the Catholic Church. So convenient...." I know that is not exactly what Father is claiming that he does, but there is no logic in either characterization. Plus there is the added fact that there are very few people who leave the Catholic Church, attack it constantly, and still can be said to have any respect for it. That there are Catholics that don't realize this is the main reason for my bafflement about Dreher and why his condemnation is an ongoing necessity.

7) The Theological Question. It is in this area where you are most vulnerable, and so you tend to avoid it, preferring to whine that you just couldn't take the scandals anymore but still "honor" those who stuck with the Church. As you know and recall, I for one did, and could, as a newly ordained priest, reasonably claim to have undergone a greater conflict and ordeal than you went through. And so I thank you for your honoring and self-depreciation. I must admit, therefore, that in the context of spiritual warfare you remind me of the soldier that General Patton slapped in World War II.

"Don't know much about theology" has been one of Dreher's silliest cop-out lines. The guy has made his living in the world of religion writing.

In the wake of this theological adventure of yours (Protestant saints etc.), and in relation to your preposterous claim that you were "raised within historical Christian orthodoxy," I finally realized that your religion is not Orthodoxy at all. It is instead Pluralism, with devotion to all her pallid issue and slogans flitting about the walls of your cave...diversity, relativism, indifferentism, inclusiveness and the like. Either that or you are just invincibly ignorant of the massive break with historical Christianity that the Reformation represented, including Anglicanism, Arminianism, and Methodism. You should know that the Lutherans, in the sixteenth century, made an overture to the Patriarch of Constantinople and he rebuffed them on the central questions of justification by faith alone and the sacraments. But if you were raised as you say, why the need to become Catholic or Orthodox? Or is there some arcane difference between orthodoxy and Orthodoxy?

Certainly there is plenty of evidence to support Father's point in the 2013 book Little Way of Ruthie Leming, for which I wrote an early review. The faith of his sister which he praises so much can be easily seen to be really the "Moral Therapeutic Deism" which is so often derided by Dreher as the fake, Americanized version of the Christian Faith. And of course the Benedict Option is open to ALL Christians, and Jews, and Muslims....

"A figure like Pope Francis is unthinkable within Orthodoxy." Well, unthinkable until one thinks of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who is open to the ordination of women and same-sex marriage on the basis of "consensus," not excluding heretical communions. Ironically, Orthodoxy's continuous flirtations with Anglicanism and the heretical potpourri known as the World Council of Churches surely has, and will make, inroads into Orthodox teaching, especially in the moral arena.

That was just too easy.

All right, I'm just going to laze out the whole way and pull the ol' blogger standby: read the whole thing. There; I included a link for your convenience, O dear reader. I have to admit to be wondering whether or not Father Munkelt will be hit with the cringeworthy mantra. "What is the cringeworthy mantra you keep mentioning, Pauli?" In time, my friends, in time. As Robert Plant sang in Kashmir, "All will be revealed."

I will say one more thing for now. I've waited for something to come along like this, a long-form criticism of Dreherism coming from a member of the Catholic clergy and pointing out the tendencies which I and others have noted for some time. I have been impatient, I confess. It has taken a while for this to take place because this is the wise Catholic way. Many people are impatient for the church to act in small matters and great. "How long, O Lord" right?

I think that a quote from Pope Gregory VII pertains here: "It is the custom of the Roman Church which I unworthily serve with the help of God, to tolerate some things, to turn a blind eye to some, following the spirit of discretion rather than the rigid letter of the law." In following the spirit of discretion, silent reflection is often the correct choice.

But St. Jerome tells is that, at some point, silence fails the virtue of justice. He sums up his reason for overcoming his reluctance and finally writing his letter against Helvidius, whom he considered an ignorant boor: "But all these motives for silence, though just, have more justly ceased to influence me, because of the scandal caused to the brethren who were disgusted at [Helvidius's] ravings." And we have been disgusted at Rod Dreher's ravings. So thank you, Father Munkelt, for your erudition in presenting the errors contained within the ravings. The friends and supporters of Rod Dreher have already begun to nit-pick at your work, but your words are just and true in defense of the Roman Catholic Church, and we welcome them.

Maybe Patheos needs better editors

Mark Shea writes a very early post today in which he accuses "Christianists" of being a number of things: enemies of God, enemies of America and ... 36 comments? Have a look:

Whoopsie!

The core sin of American conservatives–and above all American conservative, “prolife” Christianists–is Pride. They cannot accept the fact that they were simply flat-out wrong. They have told themselves for twenty years that they are the *Real* Christians, the *Real* Americans, the *Real* Heroes. They are better than all their neighbors, better than the Pope, better, above all, than the Most Horrible Human Being in America, Hillary Clinton. And in their blindness, they have become everything they hate: enemies of America, 36 Comments, and enemies of God in their sadistic cruelty to children at the border. They began with delusional fears of persecution over coffee cups and Target employees not wishing them “Merry Christmas”. They have ended as sadistic persecutors jailing babies, causing abortions, celebrating the murder by thirst... 

The "36 comments" link takes anyone who clicks on it to a comment page for another post. This was obviously a mistake, and I can understand how it can be made. He is on the west coast and the article is dated today, so this was done before 6am. He was obviously checking the comments from the other page and accidentally copied that link, or something like that. Then he pasted this in and never read it over. Or maybe he did read it and missed it. This is why, I've been told, editors are needed. You often don't see your own mistakes.

I don't have an editor, so I have to make do with my own proofreading. But I also take pride (my "core sin", I am told) in taking my time at my work and self-editing. Is it possible that Mark Shea rushes into his blogging with armfuls of invectives he needs to hurl at these straw men he calls Christianists and does very little in the way of thinking until he has finished spewing everything which comes to mind? Is it possible that people like me might find him compelling if he toned his writing down from a constant screech? Can a person really be this caustic before 6:00 in the morning?

Mark Shea was banned from Facebook for
three days for being sarcastic.

The answer is yes, of course. Not just caustic, but also sarcastic. When he writes things like "the Most Horrible Human Being in America, Hillary Clinton" it turns out that the robots working for Facebook shut that stuff down. This is why Mark was banned for three days, according to him, during which he made 7,500 words worth of progress on a book he's writing about the Nicene Creed. So that might get chalked up to God using something as imperfect as Facebook algorithms to accomplish His good purpose in the same way he uses something as imperfect as Donald Trump to lower the unemployment rate for working class people.

I know several people who have unfollowed Mark Shea on Facebook in recent times due to his constant table pounding about Christianists, which roughly translates to Christians who voted for Trump. His description of people with whom he disagrees vehemently on politics has become such a caricature that many of the traits are not even recognizable to those of us at which the moniker is obviously aimed. For example, no one I know ever became upset over people not wishing them a Merry Christmas. Many of us were concerned that employers were forbidding the saying of Merry Christmas (can't remember if Target was one—people in Ohio, we say what we feel like saying), but no one considered this to be "persecution". We do not bang our chests and chant "We are real heroes! We are real Americans!" We are not people who generally think ourselves as "better than our neighbors" or "better than the Pope", whatever that even might mean. Accusations that we are sadistic baby-jailers who "celebrate murder by thirst" only make us shake our heads and roll our eyes at this point.

Yes, "murder by thirst". That's what we "celebrate".

Note to people who didn't vote for Trump: when we Trump voters give each other that look and say or think those five words, we do not consider that a celebration. A celebration is when we sit down with family and friends, have food, fun, drinks and laughs and do not even think or talk about politics for the next three hours. We know how to do that. And by the way, we know how to shut up the loud mouth fan-boys on the right in these instances, and we do it instinctively, all. The. Time.

I titled this piece Maybe Patheos needs better editors. It is highly likely; they definitely need some better bloggers. This stuff is so tiresome.

Oh, yeah. What are "those five words", you were wondering?

"This is why Trump won."

Benedict Option: The Main Dilemma

I have an acquaintance who is a member of Opus Dei, a very intelligent person and a devoted Catholic. I have heard him on more than one occasion make the assertion "It's a big Church," usually while he was giving an official talk as a member of Opus Dei. I call it an assertion, but measured in membership numbers, it could probably be called an accepted fact. What are we at now? One point two billion, give or take?

However whenever I heard my friend make this statement, he wasn't drawing focus mainly upon the quantitative measure of the souls on board the Ark, or the Bark, whichever you prefer, but on the qualitative ability of the vessel itself to accommodate every type of "creature", if you will. Obviously the birds who survived on Noah's big ship mainly needed a landing pad and a big bag of seeds whereas the camels and lions needed their own living quarters.

Looking both at Christ's analogy of many rooms or many mansions and at Saint Paul's proclamation that there are "many charisms, One Spirit" we can see what he was talking about. There is a place for everyone in the Church, both the activist and the contemplative, both the ardent intellectual and the extroverted charismatic.

All of these Catholic associations, religious orders, groups, subgroups, "small groups", etc. can be seen as the many rooms, the many gifts (charisms), the many colors of the rainbow — choose your analogy. The contexts in which my friend used this line were several. Sometimes it was in sort of a complementary way since many members of Opus Dei are active in groups like Catholic Worker Movement and Knights of Columbus. So it was kind of a "yeah, you can be in Opus Dei and do that also."

Other times it was in a more differentiating way; e.g., "this other group does this thing, we do not, that's okay, after all it's a big Church." St. Josemaria the founder of Opus Dei has a point in one of his writings about those who might seek to make the world into a cloister. On the other hand, the greatest respect is shown to the religious orders in Opus Dei and all Catholic lay groups I've ever encountered. Likewise I've never run into a religious sister or religious brother who dissed the sacrament of marriage or the local parish church even though they were given a completely different vocation than lay people.

A quote attributed to saint Therese of Lisieux is one way to summarize Catholic both/and thinking as it relates to the place of each individual Catholic in the mission of the Church: "Some give by going to the missions, some go by giving to the missions. Without both, there are no missions." Another example of how devoted Catholics are to this "both/and" concept for vocations, check out the Devotion to St. Martha. Even though everyone would agree that Martha ends up looking like sort of a loser compared to her sister in the Gospel story, she gets to kill the Ancient Serpent like St. George and St. Michael, making her kind of the Wonder Woman of the saints.

The Benedict Option, as I see it, has to represent one of two things. It has to represent merely another charism in the Church or it has to represent an absolutely indispensable part of each Christian's life, like prayer, the practice of the virtues, reception of the sacraments and weekly attendance of the Liturgy. There might be a third thing, a return to something which existed in the past within Christendom but which no longer does. However as a practical matter, that would still seem to place it into either the first or second category. Either it is truly only an option or it is a necessity.

Looking at the first case, and let's call it the Subgroup Option, what if the Benedict Option is one of many ways to live out one's life as a faithful Christian? It would mean living in a community with other like-minded people, celebrating the Sacraments together, praying together, eating together and celebrating together. Perhaps working together in a cottage industry and running a school for the children as well. These things exist already for both married and celibate people. It is true, more often these are for celibate people for obvious reasons, but there are groups of families living in close proximity. The forthcoming Benedict Option book could, in theory, become a good — perhaps even invaluable — instruction book about how to achieve life in this type of community for anyone aspiring to it.

What are the problems with this approach? As I can see it the problem is limited appeal which would translate into limited book sales. People wanting to do this stuff might want to have a lot of source material in one place and they might scoop this book up right away. My prediction is that they will. But the normal Joe Six-pack won't really "get" the Benedict Option as something to pursue. If you doubt this, talk to someone in any Christian subgroup about how hard it is to get people involved in existing groups. Add to that the conceptual, I would even say ethereal, nature of the Benedict Option as a separate charism and it is going to be hard for it to compete with concrete established groups like Miles Christi, K of C or Opus Dei in the Catholic world or Intervarsity Fellowship in the Protestant world.

The second case I would like to call the Apocalyptic Option. This is the way I see the Benedict Option marketed and presented most often by Rod Dreher himself, as Keith has noted here. Rod says in the quoted post,

"Sooner or later, religious conservatives will have to take the Benedict Option, or be assimilated. I know of no feasible alternative. The longer you put off the decision to start thinking and moving in the Ben Op direction, the harder it’s going to be."

This definitely presents the Benedict Option as an absolute necessity, and asserts that the results of not doing so are cataclysmic. The problems with this approach are many more and much greater. First of all, why is the architect of this last, best hope for an escape plan Rod Dreher, a man who left the Catholic Church over Papal Infallibility and contraception and who incessantly reacts to the kind of seedy gossip/news that most Christians turn their heads away from? Why has this plan been revealed now rather than during the sexual revolution in the sixties, or in 1930, or in 1917, etc.? Why does all the breathless hype over this still seem more like that around the new Robert Langdon movie, or one of the author's other book releases? I mean he has pretty much done the standard book thing, e.g., thrown out teasers, refused to reveal too much — that sort of thing. Kind of fishy if there really is impending doom around the corner.

(Just a bit of an aside. It always struck me that "prophets" like Harold Camping always predict that the world will end in the near future. I mean, I think Nostradamus was a bit kooky, but I'm not sure he even lived to see half his predictions come true or not. There is a difference in the ickiness factor between pure kookiness from a true believer and kookiness sold for filthy lucre to true believers. I have to believe that there is a difference in the punishments doled out on Judgment Day as well....)

Another question comes to mind when I read all the negative aspersions cast upon those who are skeptical of the Benedict Option. Can you blame any Christian for not "taking the Benedict Option"? Are missionaries who are sacrificing comfort, seminarians preparing to sacrifice married life and Catholic families willing to sacrifice European vacations to have lots of kids really dropping the ball if they don't drop everything to go "take the Benedict Option?" It seems like the Benedict Option entails doing a lot of extra material actions to the detriment of spiritual actions whenever it becomes an absolute necessity. It also seems to superimpose its own authority structure over the normal hierarchy of faith and family for "the normal, average Christian". Plus all the things I mention here are things which the architect of the Benedict Option has refused to sacrifice in the normal, average Christian world. So this Benedict Option seems to be a new way which is on par with celibacy and living conjugal unity.

I admit that most of my questions are rhetorical and that no one is going to convince me that the Benedict Option is any more than what our friend, Tom, stated about it long ago:

If you ever come across the term "the Benedict Option," there's really only one thing you need to know about: It's nonsense.

More precisely, it's a meaningless term, a cypher. The thing it refers to is a non-thing. As such, it can mean anything. And a term that can mean anything isn't worth talking about.

But the Benedict Option has a long and storied history of having rhetorical questions asked about it, and generally, the frankness experienced by Nicodemus when asking his sincere question of Christ about Baptism has been missing from the responses. Keith detailed some over a year ago:

Mike W says:
March 19, 2015 at 12:25 pm

A few questions. As a practical matter, how would the Benedict option look? What would be the general attributes of someone (or a community) following the Benedict option? How would you know if you were actually doing it properly? How do you “modernize” the approach to deal with 21st century pressures such as 24/7 media, etc. Who’s doing it now? How successful are they (and how do they define success)?

And the response...

[NFR: All great questions ... but ones I am not prepared to answer. All of them I have to explore while working on the book. -- RD]

Yes, well, we eagerly await this book and it will be read and reviewed at the time of its release. And lest anyone forget, here are some other questions the author was not prepared to answer from a colleague, Noah Millman who is also, as was Nicodemus, a wise, Jewish man.

Mark Shea on the Benedict Option

Since my friend Joseph is always bringing up the somewhat relevant Catholic author Mark Shea, I thought I should check out what Mark Shea recently had to say about the Benedict Option:

Instead of withdrawal from the world, how about sharing the fruits of prayer and contemplation with the world? God did not so love the world that he hunkered down in Fortress Katolicus seeking the perfect liturgy, scrutinizing people for heresy, and repelling everybody who sought him as an invader.

The world is to be loved, not feared or worshiped. Father Dominic got this.

Seriously. Who at this point hears Benedict Option and doesn't think "bunker"? If the so-called Benedict Option was truly a strategic withdrawal then no one would even know about it as I've said before. Conceding defeat in the war of ideas isn't strategic. How can you even purport to be a standard-bearer for Burkean ideals and leave the fight?

Shea and I disagree on many things and his reflexive moral equivalency in the political sphere is tiresome, but we agree (along with Tom) that the so-called Benedict Option isn't to be considered either because it isn't really Christian or it doesn't really exist. Or... maybe a bit of both.

St. Peter's Cross and the virtue of Hope

I obviously think the relentless captioning of the Joe Biden window photo is humorous. I wonder if anyone else has noticed what to me was the main feature of the picture. Joseph Biden is the first Catholic occupant of the White House since JFK, 51 years and a couple weeks ago. And here he is being presented with an image of St. Peter's Cross. That's a Catholic symbol. Most Protestant Christians don't use it in their art or architecture, thinking it's satanic or too Catholic. So I think that it is significant enough for a sort of meditation.

I imagine that Simon Peter had a look similar to the one in the photo on his face when he was told by the Resurrented Christ that he was going to be crucified. The Catholic Answer's piece I linked to notes "In the ancient world — particularly in the Christian tradition — “to stretch out one’s hands” was a common reference to crucifixion."

And yet it is possible that this thought of impending martyrdom may have given Peter some hope. He had denied his Lord in the most cowardly way just to get out of a little bit of uncomfortable questioning. I imagine that if the servant girl had a Twitter account she might have tweeted something like "That Simon dude is sooooo one of those #jesusfreaks and he smells like fish." As Peter wept bitterly, he may have prayed like mad to get a chance to make up for his denials.

And the answer came during he reinstatement after the Resurrection. You're going to get martyred, Peter. It will be excruciatingly painful, but then you get to spend Eternity in glory. You get the better end of the stick—no pun intended—so don't despair, persevere in Hope.

Despair is a sin against hope, and that appears to be the sin of Judas who hung himself when he became aware of his sin and the consequences. This picture of our Catholic VP and the contemplation of St. Peter's Cross should give hope to Joseph Biden and to other Catholics who have denied Christ by their words or actions, i.e., all of us to one degree or another. There would be nothing funny about a picture of Joe Biden staring at a donkey halter.

Some of you might say, "Hey! why are you grimmin' us out talking about Crucifixion and Resurrection in the middle of the season of Advent on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception?" Busted — smack me with a ruler, sister. But I did find out that even though the picture has just undergone a type of resurrection on Twitter, the picture was taken on September 18. That is, of course, the feast day of a saint named Joseph who wasn't very bright and had a quick temper. Maybe the Vice President will even learn to fly someday like St. Joe of Cupertino without his private plane and spare a lot of jet fuel.

Pope Francis on the Complementarity of Man and Woman

Here is the whole speech. Excerpt:

It is fitting that you have gathered here in this international colloquium to explore the complementarity of man and woman. This complementarity is a root of marriage and family. For the family grounded in marriage is the first school where we learn to appreciate our own and others' gifts, and where we begin to acquire the arts of cooperative living. For most of us, the family provides the principal place where we can aspire to greatness as we strive to realize our full capacity for virtue and charity. At the same time, as we know, families give rise to tensions: between egoism and altruism, reason and passion, immediate desires and long-range goals. But families also provide frameworks for resolving such tensions. This is important. When we speak of complementarity between man and woman in this context, let us not confuse that term with the simplistic idea that all the roles and relations of the two sexes are fixed in a single, static pattern. Complementarity will take many forms as each man and woman brings his or her distinctive contributions to their marriage and to the formation of their children -- his or her personal richness, personal charisma. Complementarity becomes a great wealth. It is not just a good thing but it is also beautiful.

We know that today marriage and the family are in crisis. We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment. This revolution in manners and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.

Sign of Contradiction

In a Crisis article, Bill Maguire lays out the problem for Bishops who would like to pass off a complete change in Church teaching with regard to marriage, divorce and remarriage as a legitimate doctrinal development. Excerpt:

The problem, then, for those bishops proposing Eucharistic communion for the divorced and remarried isn’t that there hasn’t been a development of Church teaching or that the subject hasn’t already been “thoroughly examined.” The vast body of Magisterial teachings—we could also cite John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (n.34) and Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (n. 29)—evidence 35 years of thorough examination and signal a significant development and deepening of the Church’s teaching regarding marriage.

On the contrary, then, the conundrum for the bishops is that the definitive examination of the subject and the development of the Church’s teaching on marriage have gone precisely the opposite direction they want it to go.

We will continue to see frustration and anger on the part of liberals who think along the lines "Man, there has simply got to be a way to let divorced and remarried people receive the sacraments! The sacraments are so important to Catholics!" Yes, the sacraments are important to Catholics, and that is why there is already a way for the remarried to receive them: practice complete continence, as the Catechism quoted in the article mentions. That sounds difficult, but since those people put themselves in a difficult situation to begin with, it is hardly unjust, though we are obliged to sympathize with them. Unfortunately this way of gaining access to the sacraments will often be ignored and left untried because it is difficult in fulfillment of Chesterton's timeless dictum.

Pope Paul VI has already given us the response for objections to unpopular beliefs in section 18 of Humanae Vitae.

It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction." She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.

Dietrich von Hildebrand: "Mein Kampf Gegen Hitler"

I am currently reading a great new book, My Battle Against Hitler, a collection of entries by Dietrich von Hildebrand in his memoirs translated and edited by John Henry Crosby with John F. Crosby. It's very intense and informative; it details von Hilebrand's intellectual war against National Socialism as well as the events in his own life which occurred around the time of Hitler's ascendancy. These events have to do with basically getting in the middle of fierce arguments and near-brawls with anti-Semites and fascists, having his wife get threatening phone calls, finding out the Nazis wanted to kill him and finally having to flee the country to save his life. And I'm only on page 60! Since I am not very far in the book I'm not ready to review it, but I will be excerpting sections from it here and in the weeks to come. This is from an introductory chapter titled "A Fateful Decision":

What might von Hildebrand have called this volume? We will never know, and given his humility he might have suggested a title which honored his collaborators rather than himself. But he did, unwittingly, provide the title. Searching the pages of his memoirs, we discovered that he had entitled an outline for part for part of his memoirs "Mein Kampf Gegen Hitler"—"My Battle Against Hitler". Thus was the present volume christened.

A lot of his intellectual lectures and argumentation which I've read so far have been against contemporaries who had an idea that collectivism of some type — usually national socialism but sometimes communism — can and should be compatible with Christianity and, in some way, the collectivist concept of community is actually a Christian idea and should be pursued for that very reason. Von Hildebrand referred to this misconception as an overemphasis of the notion of community at the expense of the individual. Here is his response to the erroneous idea:

My talk was the fruit of all the investigations which formed the subject of my book The Metaphysics of Community which had been published two years before. In the talk I sought to make very clear that every attempt to establish a community at the expense of the individual person is not only in itself false but necessarily leads to a misconception of the true nature of community. I pointed out the horror of antipersonalism and totalitarianism, showing their absolute incompatibility with Christian revelation, and I criticized the false thesis of Hegel who held that the state is a higher entity that the individual. Only the individual person is a substance in the full sense, while the state is only a quasi-substance.

At the same time, I stressed the reality and dignity of true community in contrast to every kind of false liberal individualism. All of this was philosophically grounded with great case, yet there was no chance of convincing the other members of the committee, who were not very acute philosophically and who had allowed themselves to be swept away by the Zeitgeist.

The spirit of the age in these encounters mirrors the intellectual bankruptcy and moral corruption in our own. And yet there was something much more threatening at that time because of the will to enact horrible evils in the form of direct violence upon individuals and institutions on the part of Hitler and his followers. I have a friend who invariably brings up Hitler whenever the two of us discuss Obama and his awful policies. Recently I took issue with him. I said "OK, I know what you mean, but you are going to lose at least 50% of the people if you compare Obama to Hitler. Obama isn't scratching people off left and right for opposing him." Hitler was elected, but years before he ever was made chancellor he was organizing fascist attempts at government takeovers. He was way beyond political dirty tricks; he was into violence, threats of violence and destruction to achieve his ends. Reading this book really reveals the fear of that time and place and brings it home to me in an incredibly personal way as a Catholic and as someone with a family.

Newsflash: Pope Still Catholic, will beatify Pope Paul VI

Jennifer Roback Morse writes the following for the Ruth Institute on her blog:

Ok, everyone, listen up.  There is no longer any doubt: Pope Francis is definitely Catholic! And completely orthodox on sexual morality!  At the end of the Synod, he will beatify Pope Paul VI, author of Humanae Vitae.  This action leaves no doubt at all where the Holy Father stands.  He absolutely does not have to beatify Paul VI. His doing so will be a major-league thorn in the side to the self-styled “progressives” and “reformers.” He is “sealing the deal” on Church teaching on contraception by beatifying Paul VI.

Besides all that, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI attended the ceremony.  The liberal world loves to hate Benedict, and has tried to create a “narrative” which opposes the “good guy” Francis to the “bad guy” Benedict. Actually, they are on the same team.  They may be playing “good cop, bad cop” as a strategy, as parents must sometimes do with recalcitrant children.  But there is no doubt at all that these Holy Fathers are united.

People, do not allow yourself to be triangulated by media games pitting Pope Emeritus against the current Pope.  Do not allow yourself to be sucked into the liberal spin machine vortex, by repeating their narrative.  They have enough outlets for telling their story, don’t you think?

Get behind Pope Francis. Spread this word as far as you can, in as positive a manner as you can. Church teaching is not changing. We still believe that human sexuality is a great gift from God, that it is deeply meaningful, and that we are not to demean that act by deliberately separating the unitive and the procreative aspects of the sexual act.

Thank the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we will continue to witness to this beautiful truth, when all the world is teaching the opposite: “A good society must strive to separate sex from procreation and both from marriage. Sex has no intrinsic meaning, only the meaning we happen to assign to it. We ourselves are nothing but meaningless atoms, bumping into each other at random in the cosmos, for no particular reason at all.”

If you have a Facebook page, you are a member of the New Media. If you have a blog, you are a member of the New Media. Use your microphone to make it clear: the Catholic Church will not be changing its doctrine on sexual morality.  If Francis had plans to do so, there is simply no way he would even mention the prophetic voice of Paul VI, much less take steps to canonize him.

BTW, if you are not sure whether Paul VI was prophetic, read paragraph 17 of Humanae Vitae.  Think about the “one child” policy in China, and realize that Paul VI predicted this type of human rights abuse in 1968.

I realize that Dr. Morse's viewpoint is not the only one out there. Some people are afraid that the Church is "giving way" by even considering certain questions. But I so see it that way. I'm more in line with Fr. Longnecker's take on the synod, and he has criticized the Pope's style in the past.

So please fire away in the comments, and don't hold anything back, man.

What does the so-called "Benedict Option" mean for Catholics?

Yeah, I thought that might get your attention. Serious post time. Put aside your FreeOCR translation of the book I got at a garage sale till next week and let's think this through.

Once again anonymous commenter Anonymous has pointed us to a topic for consideration, namely, what does the "Benedict Option" mean - apart, that is, from being a content-free marketing meme to lure rubes to line up at the booth to win a bear.

Now, as I've mentioned before, I'm not Catholic, just a bad Methodist who tries more often than not. And I'd just as soon as one of the faithful Catholics here had written this. But I don't think I need to be Catholic to think through what Rod Dreher's "Benedict Option" means. He "came up with the concept"; for better or worse, now, like Obama's Obamacare, he owns it, regardless of what it turns out to mean and how it may necessarily really turn out to work.

Let's start by asking the obvious questions: what does the "Benedict Option" seek, and when and under what conditions can it be realized?

To answer the first, the "Benedict Option" assumes we live in a time so fraught that a certain self-defined class of individuals - let's call them the BOs for short - cannot make common cause with the world they live in: in crucial ways, it fails to supply them with what they need. They therefore seek a different world, a world somehow beyond this current substandard one, a world in which what is missing now can one day, beyond today, finally be supplied or realized.

Implicit in this "Benedict Option" yearning is the projected assumption that the current world will collapse in some way, maybe apocalyptically, and thus with the current, unsatisfactory world broken and no longer resistant or a threat, the BOs will then function as carefully husbanded world-seed of whatever variety (morally better, religiously better, better beer makers, whatever) and re-sow the world into their own more appropriate fruitfulness.

The problem is, there are a whole host of implicit assumptions, many of them psychopathic, poking out like fractured bones sticking out of a rotting corpse which can't help but give us pause.

Set aside just the implicit schadenfreude, worthy of Dr. Evil himself: once the world is destroyed, the Master Race can repopulate it anew. How charitable of them.

What just happens to be already filling up the current morally/religiously/tastesnotgreatenough-toofilling world which first must pass away for the better, "Benedict Option" world to be realized?

Huh...let's see...a Vatican...oh, and a Pope and his Magisterium...and an entire catechistic world order...and a billion or so Catholics, give or take. They're all part of the deeply unsatisfying inertia of the currently deeply unsatisfying world which implicitly, necessarily, gets in their way and which must pass away before the happiness of the BOs can finally be realized.

Or forget the Catholics, if you want. You can run the same analysis on the Orthodox Church, or the Anglicans, or the Episcopalians, or even the constitutional republic of the United States. All must first pass from the scene.

The point is, implicitly all these institutions, their values and their rules and their communicants, implicitly all this current order fails the yearnings of the BOs.

All of these impediments must pass away before the BOs can satisfactorily have things the right way.

Their particular, customized way.

This is, pure and simple, collective infantilism; or, if you believe as I do that Dreher is the wannabe-guru I mock him to be, the infantilism of a wannabe shepherd and however many unfortunate sheep he can collect to sheer on the journey.

This is the petulant adolescent who can't wait till his daddy dies so that finally he can get things his way - without having to deal with all those tiresome things like growing up, becoming mature, engaging the world on its terms and prevailing within it.

But, even assuming this is the sort of petulant adolescent inability to deal with the adult world I describe (and even with a juggernaut like the Catholic Church rolling with you), what signs should we also look for to reveal it as a predatory psychological hustle as well?

A repeated insistence on urgency and need, to be specifically satisfied by what the vendor is selling. You can move shrink-wrapped pallets of freeze-dried foods and 5-gallon buckets of dried pinto beans only as long as you can keep your potential customers constantly anxious about a need to constantly be "prepping" for Armageddon.

This is standard Gold Rush marketing: the only ones sure to get rich are the map sellers and suppliers, the ones that sell the picks and shovels and provisions and the mules and wagons to move them; after that, whatever gold there may be is between you and God.

So to broker the goods of a "Benedict Option" - that is, to accomplish the only really important part, convincing others that your picks and shovels and provisions and the mules and wagons to move them are the only thing that will get your pilgrims to their future salvic "Benedict Option" - you need to repeatedly be harping on the unsatisfactory dirt hereabouts and, by comparison, the gold in them thar hills beyond, which they can only get to by buying your picks and shovels and provisions and the mules and wagons and following your special secret map to get there.

And, whatever you do, make sure your rubes pay no attention to existing means to achieve your moral/religious/hoppy satisfaction - like, oh, say, the Catholic Church there on the corner: that's the competition, pure and simple - or, if they do, you point out all the little ways it fails them. There's only one agency they can really depend on: the BOG.

So when it finally comes down to it, what fierce little cosmic ember burns in the heart of the "Benedict Option" Guru, hoping to one day fan itself into the flame of a grownup star?

A fierce psychopathic dissatisfaction with all that currently is, born of a congenital, defective inability to function as a mature adult within the world and the perfectly functional institutions of his time.

And above all - the eclipsing need to replace them with his own. To push Daddy out of the way and take his place. To push the Vatican out of its way and take its place. To replace existing institutions with his own, superior ones. To replace existing patterns of faith and morality with new, superior ones of his superior design and craftsmanship, even if they are built from the bones of the old.

Not just narcissism - solipsism.

To run the story of Genesis in reverse: out of the world, back through the Garden, back before there was a Garden, back to the only point that matters: back to where there is only his word, and the "Benedict Option" Guru finally sees that his word has become the new, replacement Good, give or take a vowel.

Now if it was me, I'd stick with the original options guy, the one who died on the Cross 2,000-plus years ago. But that's just me - because I've been to the carnival before.