Author: Gabriel S. Sanchez

November 26, 2016 Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Politics

If He Is Not Your King…

Over the course of the past few months I have been going in chronological order through the archived sermons of Fr. Patrick Reardon over at Ancient Faith Radio (AFR). The archive, which dates back over a decade, may be the most impressive audio collection of Eastern Orthodox homilies in existence. For though some have not always seen eye-to-eye with Reardon on certain subjects (e.g. the nature of Orthodox theology, liturgics, the role of the Old Testament in the life of the Church, sexual ethics, etc.), no serious person can deny that Reardon is one of the most learned Orthodox churchmen in the West and maybe the most Scripturally sound Eastern cleric in the world.

In a brief 2005 homily, simply entitled “Melchizedek,” Fr. Patrick makes the point that just as Melchizedek’s kingship cannot be separated from his priesthood, neither can Christ’s. And if we, as Christians, will not have the Lord Jesus as our king, neither can we have him as our priest. This is an unsettling lesson for modern man, being that we are so accustomed to rejecting both the need for a mediator and authority. Today, even those of us (Orthodox and Catholic) who are willing to accept the idea of a mediator tend to do so on our own terms; that is, in a largely private and circumscribed manner. Is it any wonder then that we see this play out as well with regard to Christ’s kingship? In the privacy of our homes and the silence of the pew, we may pay private homage to Christ the King, but not in public. In public we live as the world expects. Perhaps we try to be “nicer” than others, or take the Lord’s name in vain a tad bit less, but that is not enough. God does not call men to love and worship Him on their own terms; He calls us to total obedience, even unto death. How quickly we forget that.

If we live our lives as Christians, that is, in obedience to God, we will be rejected by the world. We will not “get along,” either in the workplace or at school or even among friends. This is a a truth that Reardon stresses — a truth most of us would rather not be reminded of. Look today at how Christians, specifically Catholics, are so eager to adopt the garments of capitalism or communism in order to win worldly approval and benefits while paying no mind to the divine teachings entrusted to the Church. See how Catholics chase after secular political leaders to be their kings or queens without paying any mind to Christ. We reject His Kingship and still believe we are entitled to his priesthood. We want His Grace, but not His Law. In the end, we love to be in the world and long to be of it.

November 16, 2016 Meta

Links Updated

Dear All,

I have finally gotten around to starting my overdue project of updating the Links sections on Opus Publicum. If you do not see yourself listed and think you should be, please shoot me a line. I am open to suggestions. I am just very bad at keeping track of such things.

For those interested, here are a few new additions I highly recommend you check out.

November 16, 2016 Ephemera

Ephemera XIII: Church Crisis Edition

Cardinal Raymond Burke is drawing a line in the sand over Amoris Laetitia. After news broke that Burke and three other cardinals had submitted five dubia in September to Pope Francis seeking clarification on some of the more controversial points of the papal document, Burke is stating that it may be necessary for at least some of the Church’s hierarchy to correct the Pope. I must admit that it is a bit surprising to see so many conservative and traditional Catholics supporting this course of action during a period when so many still hold to an absolutist model of the papacy. For instance, when the Eastern Orthodox suggest that it may be necessary at times for the Church’s patriarchs to correct an errant pope, Latins intoxicated with a high-octane conception of papal power will scoff. The Pope is the absolute head of the Church, they say, and the bishops are his highly honored (but practically powerless) helpmates. (These are the same Catholics who, for decades, have fought against the idea of any collegiality in the Church.) For my part, I see no problem with what Cardinal Burke is proposing; I just hope is that he can gather a strong band of hierarchical supporters before taking any official action. Of course, let’s not forget that Cardinal Burke is not the first bishop of the Church called to correct papal errors in modern times. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the saintly founder of the Society of St. Pius X, stood firm for the Church’s timeless teachings against the confusion sown during the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II. Indeed, Archbishop Lefebvre went so far as to submit his own dubia regarding Dignitatis Humanae in 1986 — dubia which were also not properly answered by either the Pope or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

According to news reported by 1 Peter 5, dear Pope Francis has said that “it is the communists who think like Christians.” John, who runs the Eastern Orthodox blog Ad Orientem, went understandable apoplectic over the statement. Allow me to quote him in full.

I’m done with restraint in expressing my views of this heretic. Communism occupies the exact same spot on the moral plane as Nazism. This Pope just spit on the graves of millions of martyrs.

Forget the Orthodox. How about the Catholics of Spain, Poland, Hungary, what used to be Czechoslovakia and Ukraine, especially the Greek Rite Catholics? “Scandalous” does not even begin to describe this pontificate. Where are the bishops and cardinals? Is there no one with courage in the Roman Church to call this man out? Is there no one who is willing to confront this man and demand for the good of their church his immediate abdication?

While it’s not entirely rare to find Orthodox Christians calling the Pope (any pope) a heretic, John’s indignation is spot on. Millions upon millions of Christians — Catholic and Orthodox — perished under the communist regimes Eastern Europe during the 20th Century and millions today still face persecution in China. What a shame to see Francis the Merciful once again speaking with so little tact or concern for his flock. No doubt these very foolish, indeed reckless, words will give comfort to certain Catholics who seem to think that Marxism, not the magisterium, provides the way ahead for “re-Christianizing” society.

November 15, 2016 Eastern Catholicism, Liturgy

A Note on “Unia” and Latinizations and Myths

It seems to me that it seems to be a commonplace tale around the (online?) Eastern Catholic water cooler which goes something like this. Up until the late 16th Century, Eastern Orthodox living in the area of what is now Ukraine and Belarus were living fine and happy with their perfect Byzantine liturgy, apophatic theology, and mystical spirituality before the big, bad Jesuits stormed in; duped bishops and laity alike; and inaugurated one of the greatest ecclesiastical heists in history, the Union of Brest (followed 50 years later by the Union of Uzhhorod). The inevitable fruits of the “Unia” — so the story goes — was a loss of the “pure Byzantine tradition” coupled with the onset of forced Latinizations. Without getting into the messy history surrounding Brest (which, I should add, was not orchestrated by the Jesuits nor aimed at destroying the Byzantine Rite), I wish so many of these contemporary naysayers of the “Unia” who love to spend their free-time disparaging Latin devotions which they seem to know very little about would spend a few minutes with Fr. Peter Galadza’s excellent study, “Seventeenth-Century Liturgicons of the Kievan Metropolia and Several Lessons for Today,” 56 St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 73 (2012).

In an earlier post, “The Ways of Greek Catholicism in the West – Liturgy,” I discussed Fr. Galadza’s article in some detail, highlighting in particular the messy business of trying to restore certain Eastern liturgical practices after they had fallen out of memory. Another important lesson from this study — one which I didn’t focus on previously — is the fact that it took nearly a century after Brest for what some might call “liturgical deformation” to set in — a deformation inspired in no small part by the limited educational opportunities available to Eastern Catholic clergy coupled with the rise of the Basilian Order which, at the outset at least, was comprised of a significant number of Polish clergy whose knowledge of Church Slavonic was sorely lacking. There then followed some regrettable centuries where the “Uniates” were treated as second-class Catholics by their Latin brethren and subjected to forced conversion at the hands of the Russian Empire (a practice that would be repeated under the Soviets in 1946). By the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the “Uniates” (now properly referred to as Greek Catholics) began a process of self-renewal in Galicia (western Ukraine), including reforming their liturgical practices in order to better reflect the form of the Byzantine Rite their forebears were familiar with. Was this a smooth and steady process? No. Political concerns during the time prompted certain suspicions towards those clergy who favored celebrating “like the Orthodox.” Moreover, many Greek Catholics had, by that point, grown accustomed to their “Latinized” rite; they weren’t interested in liturgical revisions which would make them feel less Catholic.

It is terribly easy to sit back today and scoff at such attitudes, as if the vast majority of Christians who have ever lived had ready-at-hand access to books, articles, and websites detailing the complexities of history and the numerous accidents that have occurred in the life of the Church (including her liturgical development). What is despicable about some of these ongoing discussions over a period of time which few today have any recollection of is their failure to account for the popular piety of the people who spent their whole lives immersed in an environment shaped (albeit haphazardly) by Western and Eastern ecclesiastical sensibilities. All of this has sadly given birth to a triumphalist myth whereby certain Eastern Catholics (or, really, Latin Catholics who stumbled onto Eastern Catholicism) proclaim their obvious superiority over those who have gone before simply because a century ago Greek Catholics prayed the Rosary rather than chased “uncreated light” with prayer ropes purchased off Mt. Athos. Distressingly little attention is paid to the reality that when Brest was consummated, the liturgical ethos of these reunified Catholics well reflected that of their estranged Orthodox brethren and that there is something admirable, indeed beautiful, about the fact that despite numerous obstacles, persecutions, and other hardships, these Eastern Christians found the road to Salvation. Even if we are now at a time when “Latinizations” are no longer taken a sign of Catholicity and our historical horizon has broadened far enough to recognize the Greek no less than the Latin tradition as part of the universal Church’s patrimony, there is no virtue in promoting the myth of a backwards and detestable past for the “Unia.” How much better we would all be if instead of sitting in judgment of past missteps, we find inspiration from the perseverance of our Greek-Catholic ancestors and the spirit of unity they fought so hard to preserve.

November 13, 2016 Church, Eastern Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church

Sunday Notes on Traditionalism

Traditional Catholicism, a magical land that appears to be home to a growing number of the faithful, has once again come under attack from no less a prelate than the Ordinary of Rome, Francis the Merciful. The outrage is palpable. As those who have bothered to pay even a smidgen of attention to Francis’s oftentimes reckless reign knows, he harbors little-to-no love for the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and finds traditional Catholics to be, well, weird—or, according to his most recent interview on the subject, rigid. To some extent, he’s right. Compared to the Modernist-inspired contemporary Catholic that Francis extols, any member of the Body of Christ who upholds the Church’s indefectible teachings has to come across as not only rigid, but extreme and fundamentalist. Francis, interestingly enough, has far less to say about conservative Catholics (or, as some prefer, neo-Catholics). Perhaps it’s because he knows that they are willing enough to play fast-and-loose with certain teachings to still be tolerable. Also, it doesn’t hurt that two of the central features of conservative Catholicism for the past 50+ years are defending the Novus Ordo Missae and the integrity of the Second Vatican Council. Sure, neo-Catholic fealty to the legacy of Pope John Paul II, specifically his teachings on family issues, might be a bit of annoyance, but it’s a small price to pay for winning the allegiance of quasi-universalists intoxicated with neo-ultramontanism.

I imagine the reason traditional Catholicism has been on my mind today is because I opted to skip the Divine Liturgy this week in favor of attending traditional sung Mass at St. Mary’s in Kalamazoo, MI (a parish I am wholly unfamiliar with). It occurred to me that it may have been only the second TLM I have been to this year that wasn’t low. Regardless, on the long, gorgeous drive home through rural Michigan under an unseasonably cloudless, sunny sky, I was bothered by small but noticeable sense that despite the advances made in expanding access to the TLM since 2007, it could all be taken away in an instant—and most Catholics would go along with it. That is to say, if Ecclesia Dei was abolished tomorrow, Summorum Pontificum repealed, and all talks with the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) halted, traditional Catholicism would largely disappear. Those who claim to love the old Mass and only the old Mass would seek out the least-worst new Mass available in their diocese. Some might poke their heads into an Eastern Catholic parish or two (assuming there are any near by), but really that would be that. Traditional Catholicism outside of the confines of the SSPX and a few pockets of (clandestine) diocesan resistance, would be effectively dead.

Some might object here and say that traditional Catholicism is more than the TLM and they’re right. It is. The problem, however, is that many attached to the TLM aren’t deeply invested in messy doctrinal matters. Dignitatis Humanae, for example, may not be consonant with tradition, but who cares? The Catholic state is never coming back and besides, if it wasn’t for religious liberty, wouldn’t Catholics living in an increasingly secular West be the ones to suffer? Similarly, while the Novus Ordo Missae may be abused, banal, and lacking the same doctrinal depth as the TLM, it’s valid. Why get worked up over “licety? I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Speaking personally, I feel quite divorced from this potential disaster and yet quite concerned. I believe Greek Catholics—indeed all Eastern Catholics—should hope and pray for the Latin Church to uphold her tradition in toto, even if it may not seem to be in our immediate best interest. Because while traditional Latin Catholicism is a mansion with many rooms and innumerable treasures, it also tends to store more than a fair amount of junk in the attic. Latin chauvinism has had a deleterious effect on the life, integrity, and mission of the Eastern Catholic churches for centuries, and it is largely thanks to certain mid-20th Century historical, theological, and doctrinal trends that Eastern Catholics have found sufficient room to be themselves in a Latin-dominated ecclesiastical environment. (To be fair, many of these trends have thoroughly traditional roots; they just took on a certain intensity after Vatican II.) Add to this a fairly nauseating tendency for certain traditional Latin Catholics to absolutize their tradition over all others and what you have is a certain, but resolvable, tension between Latins and Easterners.

I say “resolvable” because in the end there are more convergences than divergences between traditional Latin Catholics and faithful Eastern Catholics. There is also a lot of room open for mutual understanding and enrichment, not to the extent of blindly (mis)appropriating one tradition and trying to fuse it with another, but rather gaining a fuller understanding of what it means to be Catholic. To say that most of us have lost this understanding would be a gross understatement.

November 11, 2016 Ephemera

Ephemera XII: Donald Trump Edition

Unless 2016 has another surprise up its sleeve, Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States in January. His victory, which has left liberals weeping and gnashing their teeth, has to come as a surprise, even to some of his most ardent followers. While popular polling is often far from what some hold to be “scientific,” and even the best assumptions can be seriously flawed, the “sense in the air” is that Trump would not be able to pull in the requisite number of voters needed to overtake Hillary Clinton, particularly in states that had gone for Barack Obama during the last two elections. While various theories have been posited about why the pollsters were wrong and Trump was able to draw more support from black and Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney in 2012, it seems to me that up until the zero hour, there was still a significant contingent of Americans unwilling to publicly voice support for Trump. Coupled with that was the fact that a number of Bernie Sanders supporters, along with undecided moderates, simply could not buy into the Democratic Party’s open willingness to foreordain Clinton. Sure, other factors no doubt played a role, not the least of which being that the Democrats have glibly ignored the “uneducated white male” (read: blue collar) population for years—and now it has come back to bite them. It bit them most visibly with the election of Trump, but keeping Congress red sends an equally powerful message that the alleged achievements of the Obama Administration—domestic and foreign—were not unmitigated blessings for all Americans.

I do not follow contemporary American politics closely enough to predict confidently what Trump will do when he gets into office. However, it seems that the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) will be an easy target, as well nominating a fresh conservative to the Supreme Court. Should Trump follow through on his promise to reform (or scrap) the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we could see Trump doing something no Republican has even tried for decades, namely cultivate strong union support (and, by extension, support from those Democrats with large union constituencies). While I do expect to also see some immigration reform, such as increasing the budget for border security and imposing higher hurdles for entry into the country, I don’t think anyone seriously expects Trump to build a giant new wall along the U.S./Mexico border. With respect to foreign policy, I think we can rest assured Trump will not follow Clinton’s antagonist rhetoric toward Russia, but what that means in the concrete remains to be seen. If Trump can keep Putin happy by staying out of Syria, then so be it. Ukrainians, on the other hand, ought to be doing everything they can to curry favor with Europe; we won’t be doing anything in the immediate future to curtail Russian incursions into their land.

Many conservative and traditional Catholics are, naturally, overjoyed at news of a pending Trump presidency. This is largely because they believe that Trump will uphold religious freedom and take forceful steps toward curtailing abortion-on-demand access. Maybe. Catholics should keep in mind that Trump is not a true conservative, and he certainly isn’t a cultural warrior. If he does make good on his commitment to appoint pro-life federal judges and bring the abortion issue back to the states, that’s probably as good as it will get. Despite the Republicans controlling two branches of government, it is difficult to imagine that the party will be willing to risk serious blowback by defying the courts with open legislation and other regulatory measures intended to slow down abortion access. I am not getting my hopes up, but we’ll see. If anything I think Trump’s reign will help relieve some of the pressure that has been placed on Catholics and other conservative Christians since Obama took office. Maybe that’s enough for now.

In closing, let me say that while I did not vote for Trump or Clinton on Tuesday, I am less concerned about Trump holding the highest office in the land than Clinton. And yet I remain disgusted with those Catholics who attempted to bully their fellow faithful into believing they had a moral duty to vote for Trump, just as I am nauseated by those limousine liberals and champagne socialists who flatter secular democracy at every turn—until they don’t get what they want. This election cycle, like so many election cycles which preceded it, provided more than enough evidence concerning the shortcomings of democracy and the failures of liberalism. I hope and pray that my fellow Catholics who are pleased at Trump’s victory will not use it as an opportunity to draw closer to a liberal order the Church forcefully condemned in the past. If Trump’s presidency offers us a bit of a reprieve from official and open persecution, then let us take this time to strengthen our bonds and stand against the demonic spirits that still rule this age.

November 7, 2016 Church, Politics

2016 Presidential Election

While I harbor no illusions that Opus Publicum, a modest personal web-log authored solely by yours truly, has the power to influence that ghastly spectacle known as the 2016 United States Presidential Race, I wish to make clear that on Tuesday, November 8 I will be writing-in Michael Maturen and Juan Muñoz of the American Solidarity Party (ASP) for the Presidential and Vice-Presidential offices.

This decision is not an endorsement of the ASP as a whole. Although I have written favorably about its platform before, I believe the ASP has significant work left to do, particularly at the national level. However, I cannot in good conscience vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Additionally, I have come to find that many of the other third-party choices available this year are equally unpalatable. It has taken many months of reading, reflection, and internal debate for me to make this choice, and as many know, my initial instinct was to refrain from voting altogether. (This is a position I have defended before.) While I will not begrudge a single soul for opting to conscientiously refrain from participating in our woefully corrupt political system, I believe the time has come for Catholics in particular to look for ways to make the voice of the Church heard once again, even if it must start out as a faint whisper.

To my fellow Catholics, particularly those who do not agree with me, all I can say is please vote your conscience on Tuesday as informed by the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church and her doctrinally sound theological tradition. If you are uncertain about what that means, let me suggest you click over to The Josias and give careful attention to the recent article entitled “Catholics and the Ethics of Voting.”

If possible, make a point to attend Mass tomorrow and implore Almighty God to have mercy upon the United States during this tumultuous period in her relatively brief history. Spend some time with our Eucharistic King in the Tabernacle and find a way to do some small penance for the innumerable officially sanctioned sins committed throughout this country every single day. And above all, do not give into fear. Do not despair, but recall instead one of the opening petitions of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and pray fervently for the peace that can only come from Above and for the salvation of our souls. Господи Помилуй.