Hinged and Unhinged

In a video produced by Word on Fire, actor Shia LaBeouf discusses main points of his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism with Bishop Robert Barron. I think it is very much worth watching and I have embedded it below.

I am happy Shia Labeouf found the Holy Church. I always liked his acting, and some of the crazy stuff he was involved in during his past life showed me that he was searching for something, not unlike the rest of us. Hopefully he will keep his newfound faith, but no matter what happens with Mr. LaBeouf in the future, this video has value. Because it shows someone in the midst of discovery, turning his life around and pursuing God with the sort of relentlessness which we are all suppose to aspire to.



Shortly after this video was released we got this gem from Cardinal Arthur Roche. Displaying all the normal reticence of churchmen to speak directly, we get this strange line of argumentation:

The head of the Vatican's liturgy office says he would welcome a conversation with Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf, who recently cited the traditional Latin Mass as motivation for his conversion to Catholicism.

"I'd like to know why he thinks that, what is his experience of the celebration of the Mass," said English Cardinal Arthur Roche. "That's what priests do; we try to talk to people."

"Reform of the liturgy was an enormous, long preparation prior to the council and the council is the highest legislation that exists in the church," he said. "Once that legislation comes into effect, it's a very serious matter."

"You disregard that and you're really putting yourself sideways towards the edges of the church," he added.

Roche warned against those reluctant to embrace the reforms of Vatican II, describing them as "not only dragging their feet but stubbornly opposing what the church has decreed."

"And that's a very serious matter," he continued. "In the end, people have to ask themselves, 'Am I really a Catholic or am I more of a Protestant?'"

Yes; every Catholic at the Latin Mass needs to ask themselves "Am I a Protestant?" You know, I used to say about the SSPX that they were more Protestant than they realized, but then Pope Francis slapped me down on that idea. "They are Catholic. They love the Church," he exclaimed in 2016. Well, then! I stand corrected.

But back to Cardinal Roche. When he states that Tradition lovers are putting themselves "sideways towards the edges of the church", it sounds like he is saying that we're out on the margins or peripheries, right? We most definitely have heard that kind of language before. I wish at least one of these Churchmen would work on a pastoral strategy of accompaniment for us weirdos who like tradition and Latin. Oh, wait... one of them did.

The title of Cardinal comes from the Latin word for "hinge" as most Catholics know, and a lot of what happens in Church government hinges on what they say and do. If Cardinal Roche really wants to talk to LaBeouf I'm sure it is merely a matter of contacting Bishop Barron and getting his contact info. Then he could provide LaBeouf with all the teaching and mystagogy he would like to. It seems to me like this calling out of a public person is merely being used to express a contrary opinion, and I really do not have a problem with simply doing that per se. It just seems like he could accomplish this discussion rather easily, and so stating publicly that he is trying to talk to someone means he is using this situation to push his own messaging.

Speaking of hinges, we got another article from NCR Online about Shia LaBeouf which is a little more unhinged a few days after the article about the Cardinal. The Shia LaBeouf conversion interview: A portrait of masculine aggression. Oh, man, do I love that headline. The author, Madison Chastain, is one of those Catholics who was sad about the overturn of Roe v. Wade. And she is not shy at all about expressing how she feels about Mr. LaBeouf:

LaBeouf also says, before his conversion, he did not initially feel compelled to have a relationship with Jesus because he only knew the "soft, fragile, all-loving, all-listening but no ferocity … meek" Jesus (Barron immediately offers the word "feminized"), and it was only when LaBeouf encountered what he considered to be "masculine" — "cape, dipped in blood, sword" — that Jesus felt "appealing."

We should be concerned about anyone who finds the Gospel most compelling in its violence or who is put off by the femininity of Jesus. If we are to understand Jesus as the savior of all, we must embrace his full divinity that has no gender, and we must confidently identify the goodness of both the masculine and feminine in the incarnation.

Throughout the interview, LaBeouf cites a number of tropes and returns to them often: cowboys, cavemen and gangsters. He repeatedly expresses gratitude for the men who accompanied him and "masculinized" his journey, "the hero's journey."

... At the time of his initial engagement with Catholicism, LaBeouf's mother wasn't speaking to him and his career was flatlining. LaBeouf shares about experiencing suicidal ideation and total lack of hope. Once he embraces the Gospel, he feels God calling him to let go of his egotistical striving for power. He finds the safety he was looking for in "non-transactional" relationships where he isn't expected to do anything besides contemplate how best to use his gifts for others. It is a beautiful narrative of acceptance.

And yet still, the concerns about the attractiveness of Catholic violence and secrecy cannot be downplayed, as they directly relate to LaBeouf's troubled past. LaBeouf minimally addresses the accusations made against him in the last few years, referring to them only as "the news." Barron never asks.

The money line: If we are to understand Jesus as the savior of all, we must embrace his full divinity that has no gender, and we must confidently identify the goodness of both the masculine and feminine in the incarnation. This is language which Miss Chastain probably heard from a liberal priest or theologian. Jesus is both God and Man; He is God throughout Eternity and he became a human male in space and time. He embodies masculine goodness and masculine gentleness and not aggression. And in Christianity, Divinity most definitely has a gender: masculine.

In fact, the idea that aggression need be masculine is faulty, and I would argue that this article is written with a great deal of feminist aggression, making needless assumptions about LaBeouf's guilt and insinuations that Bishop Barron is negligent for not probing into his Hollywood scandals.

Read the whole Chastain piece and tell me it is not a perfect occasion for playing Buzzword Bingo for members of the intersectional feel-feels contingent. We get to hear all the standard terms and phrases mentioned: Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, bigotry, sexism, racism, cultural appropriation, platform, Catholic violence, powerful men, etc.

Back to the Cardinal's concern about the Traditional Liturgy. I would advise him to read a really well-considered and well-written article by Rebecca Weiss called The Traditional Mass is not the problem with Traditionalist communities. I don't know if that would help, however. It might be that Mr. LaBeouf will never get any respect or trust from certain quarters. After all, he does mention that he is friends with Mel Gibson and that might explain all the reactions, both hinged and unhinged.

The Real Sexual Revolution

The real "sexual revolution" took place in the early Church, and the one people talk about in the sixties was just an attempt to undo it. Many people who have rediscovered the restoration of the beauty and integrity of the human person are converts to the Catholic Faith, and a number of them (130 to be precise) have delivered what I think is by far the most gracious, balanced and respectful letter voicing the concerns of the Catholic faithful with regard to the Synod on the Family. Excerpt:

With respect to the bewildering diversity of contemporary opinions about the human good, especially where questions about the human body are concerned, we understood that the radical nature of the Christian claim − that God, the Son, had taken up all flesh into Himself − was at stake. Christ “revealed man to himself” (Gaudium et Spes 22). He thereby “made clear” the meaning of our humanity – and with it the meaning of the body, of sexual difference, of sexuality, marriage and the family. He did this, for example, when the Pharisees asked him about divorce, and he turned them (and his own disciples) back to “the beginning,” to human nature as it was created. What is more, he brought something new to that same humanity, bestowing on it, mercifully, a share in His own fidelity to the Church. It was not by accident, then, that early Christians were drawn to the Church through the radiant humanity of His followers, manifest, for example, in their unique attitudes toward women, children, human sexuality, and marriage. And it was not by accident that, for the same reasons, we too were drawn to the Church many centuries later.

We are keenly aware of the difficult pastoral situations that you will be confronting at the Synod, especially those concerning divorced Catholics. We also share something of the burden you carry in confronting them. Some of us have experienced the pain of divorce in our own lives; and virtually all of us have friends or close relatives who have been so afflicted. We are therefore grateful that attention is being paid to a problem that causes such grievous harm to husbands and wives, their children, and indeed the culture at large.

We are writing you, however, because of our concerns about certain proposals to change the church’s discipline regarding communion for Catholics who are divorced and civilly re-married. We are frankly surprised by the opinion of some who are proposing a “way of penance” that would tolerate what the Church has never allowed. In our judgment such proposals fail to do justice to the irrevocability of the marriage bond, either by writing off the “first” marriage as if it were somehow “dead,” or, worse, by recognizing its continued existence but then doing violence to it. We do not see how these proposals can do anything other than contradict the Christian doctrine of marriage itself. But we also fail to see how such innovations can be, as they claim, either pastoral or merciful. However well meaning, pastoral responses that do not respect the truth of things can only aggravate the very suffering that they seek to alleviate. We cannot help but think of the abandoned spouses and their children. Thinking of the next generation, how can such changes possibly foster in young people an appreciation of the beauty of the insolubility of marriage?

Our current Holy Father is quoted in the letter:

"Today, there are those who say that marriage is out of fashion….They say that it is not worth making a life-long commitment, making a definitive decision, ‘forever,’ because we do not know what tomorrow will bring. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, I ask you to swim against the time; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes you are incapable of responsibility, that believes you are incapable of true love." - World Youth Day, 2013

Here's the concluding statement, but I hope everyone goes and reads the letter in its entirety: "It is our hope that our witness will strengthen yours so that the Church may continue to be the answer to what the human heart most deeply desires." That's why I became a Roman Catholic. I discovered that it is the only religion which answers the longings of the human heart.

To me, the details surrounding the process of annulment-granting is not really interesting at all. Loosening the requirements or tightening them are not even the point. I just feel a deep sadness thinking that people could go through so much pain and then realize that, if indeed their marriage was null, they didn't get one bit of grace from it. What a complete waste of their time and of themselves. Unless maybe they learned something from the experience and can actually make a sacramental marriage the second time around.

I heard a woman casually discussing her annulment with another woman in line for confession one time and I thought that it's no big wonder people think it's Catholic divorce. They treat annulments with more respect than their own marriage.

The list of people who signed the letter contains a great list people whom I deeply respect: J. Budziszewski, Jeff Cavins, David B. Currie, Dawn Eden Goldstein, Scott & Kimberly Hahn, Marcus Grodi, Austin Ruse, Tim Staples, etc. I'm humbled and happy to be a small follower in their larger footsteps.

Emily Stimpson replies to Rod Dreher

Emily's piece is titled "Why I'm never leaving the Catholic Church." Although she doesn't mention Rod Dreher by name, she links to the same TIME article which we did. Her response is excellent; excerpt:

In 2002, as one horror story after another emerged, I never once questioned the truth of my Catholic faith. I’d already done the questioning and found the answers. There was no going back. Once you see that two plus two equals four, you never ask yourself if it equals five.

Don’t get me wrong: As the scandals unfolded, I mourned for the children horrifically abused by sons and daughters of the Church. I still do. I also mourn for all the men and women who are still being cheated, who are still being hurt.

Today, far too many Catholics live as the culture tells them to live and think as the culture tells them to think. They wound others as others wound them. Likewise, in far too many places, the Church’s sons and daughters are helping them do that by continuing to proclaim the Milquetoast “Be Nice” Gospel I learned in school.

That doesn’t just make me sad; it makes me angry.

But it doesn’t make me want to leave the Church.

Rather, it makes me want to work harder to give others what I’ve been given. I want them to find the healing, peace, and joy that comes from knowing the truth, loving the truth, and living the truth.

I can’t do that, however, if I deny the truth. And that’s what leaving the Catholic Church would be—a denial of the truth.

Popes and priests come and go. So do good moments and bad in the life of the Church. If our faith rests in those people or is a product of one moment, it will be a faith without roots. It will never grow strong. It will never mature.

So Emily Stimpson decided to work harder instead of deciding to give up and leave. If she had left, she admits that it would be equivalent to denying the truth. So it might actually demand more work to constantly be writing article after article explaining why she left and keeping all her stories straight. It's sort of one of those paradoxes.

"To whom shall we go?" She's doing the right thing; may she be rewarded on Earth and in Heaven.

Loved this one from Disputations

Our friend, Tom @ Disputations, has some insightful thoughts on the brouhaha being raised in some quarters over the Vatican's outreach to Anglicans.

I do, though, have an opinion about the sort of reaction to yesterday's news exemplified in this comment by Michael Sean Winters:

But, I worry, too, that some of these newcomers will also be nostalgists, anti-feminists, and anti-gay bigots.

Some have suggested this translates to worrying that some of these newcomers will profess Catholic doctrine. But even granting that some Anglicans may join the Catholic Church out of sheer cussedness, I say:

So what?

I joined the Catholic Church out of sheer helplessness. When I was baptized as an infant, I not only lacked a good reason to become Catholic, I lacked any reason; I flat lacked reason altogether.

A Church that practices infant baptism is not a Church with demanding membership requirements.

I thought that part was brilliant, and he anticipates the next objection and deftly answers it:

I get, of course, that someone who has reached the age of reason ought to join the Catholic Church if, and only if, he believes the whole of the Catholic Faith. By the same token, though, parent ought to have their children baptized if, and only if, they believe the whole of the Catholic Faith, and I've heard no one grumble about the children of nostalgists, anti-feminists, and anti-gay bigots joining the Church.

Full communion with Christ's Church is a big deal. Too big, I'd say, for us to screw with it much. Let the Church welcome those who demonstrate the wish to be a part of her, and leave the personal judging to God.

You see, this is the same problem as you see in the hate crimes legislation. People can't just look at intent by asking "is this person going to be a good Catholic?" they just have to suspiciously probe motives. So they put their suspects under a microscope and pick apart their entire thought processes. And this provides us with... what exactly?


I converted from a very "conservative" Protestant denomination, so I didn't have the same axe to grind as some of those now under Mr. Winters's microscope. But I can imagine someone thinking to himself the following in a completely sensible manner, without a hint of prejudice or yen for nostalgia: "I'm watching progressive types whack away at my traditions, I'm listening to angry feminists howl about male domination, I'm seeing gay bishops parade their sins for all to see and the head of my church is conceding to Islamic Sharia Law. I'm just not sure there is much continuity with the historical Christian church here anymore. Maybe I'll look into Roman Catholicism." Those last two sentences describe my journey to the bark of Saint Peter. And the fact that the first part was neither experienced by me as a 20-something, nor Tom as an infant, nor Michael Sean Winters as an open-minded guy with a middle-name is completely irrelevant.

Chris Cuddy's Inspiring Conversion Story

I just finished reading the conversion story of Christopher Cuddy, a Catholic convert whose blog I recently linked to in the sidebar. His story bears a lot of resemblance to my own... well, it sort of does if you ignore the absence in his story of heavy drinking, late nights playing in a rock band, badly botched romances, a multitude of traffic violations and dropping out of college. What I mean is that we were both in the same geographical location when we converted, we were both Presbyterians and both were greatly influenced by Dr. Scott Hahn. Excerpt:

All of these feelings of anxiety and angst were quickly laid to rest. Scott Hahn was a tall man with warm eyes and a hearty laugh. He took the three of us out to eat at a local McDonalds, and we talked theology for about three hours.

I found Dr. Hahn to be very humble, non-threatening, and a real pleasure to talk with. And because our backgrounds were so similar, we had no problem finding common ground to build upon. The first half of our conversation was spent sharing stories about our experiences with authors and theologians who were influential in our theological formation. I was impressed with Dr. Hahn’s breadth of knowledge, and the sincere respect he had for many of his former (Protestant) mentors. Far from harboring feelings of animosity and contempt towards his Protestant professors, he regarded them with deep and sincere admiration. I was really touched by the gratitude and appreciation he had for them and their work.

I listened closely to everything that he said – carefully examining his every statement for traces of anything that could potentially be Biblically malignant and theologically dangerous. In the end, however, I was surprised to find that there was very little that I could make a legitimate fuss about. He patiently listened to my list of typical objections to the Catholic faith, and he systematically responded to my questions with clear arguments from both Scripture and Church history.

I was blown out of the water. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that it would be possible for someone to provide Biblical reasons for Catholicism – arguments from “man-made traditions,” perhaps, but never from the Scriptures.

It turns out that Mr. Cuddy and I have a lot of mutual friends so maybe I'll have the pleasure of meeting him someday. He also has a new book out of Catholic conversion stories which he co-edited.

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