Month: December 2015

December 8, 2015 Church

Tuesday Stuff

The Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy begins today. The Holy Doors are open in Rome; a small percentage of Latin Catholics will go to Mass for the Immaculate Conception; and Pope Francis’s legislation implementing “Catholic Divorce” comes into effect. In the United States, American Catholics are up to their usual business of behaving exactly the same as non-Catholic Americans, except for the Muslims. Recently, Hamtramck, Michigan became the first U.S. city to elect a Muslim-majority city council, leading to a small amount triumphalist rhetoric which has some worried about the future of the city’s non-Muslim residents. Maybe it’s just shallow fearmongering, but it wouldn’t be unlike a Muslim-dominated municipality to begin altering the area’s culture, norms, and laws. Is that what Rod Dreher means by the “Benedict Option”? There must be more than a few American Catholics of a traditionalist (or integralist) bent who are more than a teensy-weensy bit jealous of what the Muslim community in Hamtramck has managed to pull off. No, they can’t evade federal and state-wide rules which, by Catholic and Islamic lights, are immoral, but they can now take further steps to insulate themselves.

Contemporary Catholicism is a very silly religion, or at least I assume that’s what most devout believers of other religions conclude when they take a hard look at it. Here is this ostensibly medieval, retrograde, and impenetrable institution that has 2,000 of history resting behind it and the best it can do in a strife-ridden world where people need God more than anything else is go on about carbon footprints and immigration reform. I have referred to the institutional Catholic Church as the world’s largest, and most dysfunctional, NGO. Some folks didn’t care for that characterization, but I see no reason to walk it back.

The current Sovereign Pontiff—the one certain liberal and neo-Catholics (sorry I couldn’t think of a better term) claim the Holy Spirit handpicked in miraculous fashion—is an apparent megalomaniac looking to reshape the Church in his own image and likeness. Instead of genuflecting before the altar of tradition, he boldly struts by on his way to clown around with the secular media or wag his fingers at those who would dare take the deposit of faith seriously. Although it looks like some ranking churchmen have finally had enough, it’s not clear what they can really do at this point except pray—and pray, and pray, and pray—with the rest of the orthodox faithful that the Holy Spirit really does intervene at the next Conclave.

I don’t want to end on a dour note, so let me say this. Whether or not the ongoing crisis in the Catholic Church is the “worst crisis” she has ever seen is far less important than the truth that the Church will continue forth until the End of Time, regardless of what popes, bishops, priests, and laymen do to undermine her divine mission in the world. I find a lot of comfort in that, for it weren’t true, I would have probably given up on Christianity entirely by now. The fight to keep Catholicism alive in these times appears hopeless to human eyes; reexamine the matter in the light of faith and a radically different trajectory for the Church is revealed. That doesn’t mean that Catholics have any right to be complacent, mind you. Complacency is what helped give rise to this mess and complacency perpetuates it. I have no great insight into when things will get better. Despite having received Confirmation in the Faith many moons ago, I am not much of a soldier for Jesus Christ. I do know this tale of creation has a beautiful ending regardless of present appearances. And unlike holier souls who press ahead in full and happy submission to God’s will, I have to constantly remind myself what this is all for lest I lose my way before going hence and being no more.

December 7, 2015 Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church

Hart, American Catholicism, and Francis

Who knows? America is such an odd combination of Christian pieties and post-Christian habits of thought. What other country could produce persons, for instance, who believe it possible to be both Christian and libertarian (which makes me think of Enoch Soames, the “Catholic diabolist”)? With our occult belief in the possibility of limitless “wealth creation,” how do we dare acknowledge the limits of nature, human or cosmic? But Francis cannot ­really concern himself with our peculiarities and perversities. For all its economic power, American Catholicism is only one minor and rather aberrant party within the worldwide communion; and Francis is writing for his Church, not for America. Of course, it is possible that one day a Christian view of reality will take root even here, in this the first constitutionally and culturally post-Christian land in Western history. But—and, again, not being a Roman Catholic, I may have no right to say this—I do not think it is incumbent on the pope to hold his tongue until it does.

– David Bentley Hart, “Habetis Papam,” First Things

I confess that I am still in shock that David Bentley Hart’s simultaneous critique of American Catholicism and praise of Pope Francis wasn’t met with more commentary (just lots of Facebook shares). Hart, undoubtedly the finest Christian blowhard pontificating today, has a funny way of irritating Catholics almost as much as he vexes his Eastern Orthodox coreligionists. Whether he is flubbing the basics of natural-law teaching or childishly mocking natura pura, Hart just can’t seem to help himself, though in this instance at least he is right on the money when it comes to Americanist Catholic ideology. What he doesn’t seem to understand is why so many Catholics are truly frustrated with Francis. Yes, the peculiarities of American movement conservatism have something to do with it; but the core problem is that so many of Francis’s words and actions appear to be out-of-sync with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Some like to hold to the childish belief that Orthodox should not “meddle with” the affairs of the Catholic Church and instead tend to their own disheveled ecclesiastical nest. I disagree. While Hart perplexes me at times with the clumsy way he handles Catholic teaching, there can be little doubt that he is far more sympathetic toward Western Christianity than most Orthodox writers. More importantly, however, Hart (and other Orthodox observers of “things Catholic”) brings an outsider’s perspective to the table which — in a perfect world — could help temper Catholic chauvinism. The problem with Hart in particular is that his track record up to this time hasn’t been particularly good since he successfully needled a certain brand of American Catholics for their puerile dismissals of Terrence Malick’s film, The Tree of Life.

As for Francis, it might behoove Hart to reflect on what his fellow Orthodox think of the man as well and what, if any, positive ecumenical fruits can come from his papacy. As I have written elsewhere, while I do believe that Papa Frank sincerely desires East/West reunion, he fails to understand how his rhetoric, liturgical style, and seeming blindness to the problem of “papalotry” militate against positive relations with the Orthodox East.  It will take a far more broad-minded and circumspect pope (or series of popes) to make the possibility of reunion even remotely plausible. As it stands, world Orthodoxy is a mess, with patriarchates and autocephalous churches remaining at each other’s throats. It also doesn’t help that there is a contingent of neo-Orthodox out there who have basically adopted a Jansenist position with regards to grace outside of their narrow, heavily policed, borders. Francis cannot transcend those difficulties, and I have my doubts that he is even fully aware of them.