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December 15, 2015 Church, Politics, Theology

Katechon

In his posthumously published journals, entitled Glossarium, Carl Schmitt provocatively stated the following: “I believe in the katechon; for me he is the sole possibility for a Christian to understand history and find it meaningful.” The term katechon, which is found II Thessalonians 2:6-7, has been interpreted by theologians as the restrainer that holds back lawlessness or the coming of the antichrist before the Second Coming. Who or what the katechon is has been the subject of fierce debate for centuries, and it is possible this restraining force has never been static throughout history.

Why did Schmitt put so much stock into this (originally Biblical) concept? Henrich Meier, in his controversial work The Lesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction Between Political Theology and Political Philosophy pg. 162, offers the following answer with brief quotes from Schmitt’s writings:

The notion of the katechon achieves three things. First, it “explains” the delay of the Parousia, it offers an answer to the question of why there is still “history.” For that purpose, Paul’s expression was originally introduced. Second, it protects historical action from despondency and despair in the view of a seemingly overpowering historical process that is progressing towards its end. Third, and conversely, it protects historical action from the disdain for politics and history in the certainty of promised victory. Thus for Schmitt, the katechon is simultaneously the complement and correction of the “genuine, ever-present, and necessary eschatology.” For the “living expectation of the immediately impending end seems to rob all history of meaning and gives rise to an eschatological paralysis, of which there are many examples in history.” The figure of thought of the “restrainer” forges a link between eschatological faith and the consciousness of “historicity.”

It could be said that the concept of the katechon has receded from Christian memory, particularly in these time where “enlightened Christians,” most of them young and suffering from a nasty case of Weltschmerz, claim to either no longer believe in politics or, laughably, exist “above” politics. This phenomenon can often be detected in Protestant circles, though Catholics are hardly immune. Why demonstrate any political allegiance at all when the only thing that matters—the only thing worth living for—is the End of Time? St. Augustine viewed history as the great boredom before the eschaton, and he was partially correct. Compared to the Day of the Lord, what are the days of history? But that observation does not necessarily rob history of meaning and purpose, not if there is evil to be held back in the time that remains.

There is an obvious tension in belief in the katechon and it is this: Is not the “benefit” of restraining the antichrist come at the “cost” of delaying the return of the Son of God? And yet it might be argued that due to the perennial difficulty in identifying the antichrist will always compel serious men to seek that which they perceive contains any genuine outbreak of lawlessness rather than suffer desolation for nothing. That is anything but a comforting thought for Christians will thus be tempted to throw their allegiance behind all sorts of authorities (political, moral, theological, etc.) who seem to hold the promise of being a katechonical force in whatever epoch they happen to inhabit. Only the Pope can save us from Protestantism; only capitalism can save us from economic ruin; only Vladimir Putin can save us from cultural decadence; only Donald Trump can save us from the Islamic State; and so on and so forth.

December 14, 2015 Church

Happy Monday

At some point the Catholic indignation industry will implode, right? I thought that more than a year ago when Episode I of the Synod on the Family was taking place. Silly me. Things have gotten so much worse since then. Several new websites, and at least a dozen new blogs, have popped up to inform us just how bad things have gotten in the Catholic Church. The Pope is nuts; the bishops are heterodox; and the laity are left in a perpetual state of confusion. I can’t blame any observer of “things Catholic” for stating the obvious nor for losing their patience with mainstream Catholic writers who try to cover-up the crisis. What I sometimes wonder, though, is what these well-meaning (mostly traditional) Catholic critics are hoping to achieve. Yes, there’s the usual rhetoric about “restoring Christendom” and such, but I am at a loss for how increasingly angry ranting is actually going to do that. Part of me wishes that some of these people would just go full-blown sedevacantist and be done with it all. Or, better yet, just become Eastern Orthodox. They at least recognize the Pope; they just don’t listen to a single word he has to say.

I jest, of course. I can’t fathom the damage that would be inflicted on East/West relations if disgruntled Catholic traditionalists converted to Orthodoxy en masse, and I am not sure American Orthodoxy can handle the internal rumble of ex-Catholics sparring with ex-Protestants over what “real Orthodoxy” looks like. None of this changes the fact that I am still mildly perplexed why certain disgruntled (if not disillusioned) Catholics stay Catholic when the Orthodox seem to be offering everything they want: a beautiful liturgy; more rigorous fasting and Eucharistic disciplines; doctrinal orthodoxy; beards; and so on and so forth.

I know there are many good answers as to why someone ought to stay Catholic and I am not interested in challenging them. My confusion does not arise out of a lack of confidence in Catholic doctrine but a lack of faith in some of those who claim to adhere to it. At what point does the papal office simply because an ideal which completely ceases to manifest itself in reality? When do we finally start staying home on Sundays instead of mindlessly attending parishes that offer grotesque, if not sacrilegious, liturgies? When do we just acknowledge (not accept) that most of the Church is enveloped by heresy and that there is no longer anything substantive to covert people to?

Let me be frank. I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. What I do believe, however, is that something has to give eventually. The Church herself won’t collapse, but things cannot go on like this without the advent of schism (or worse). Sooner or later secular and ideological forces will push harder on the faithful, expecting all to conform to the ways of the world. Maybe that will be the Church’s refining moment.

Thus the world is like an oil press: under pressure. If you’re the dregs of the oil you’re carried away through the sewer; if you’re genuine oil you will remain in the vessel. But to be under pressure is inevitable. Observe the dregs, observe the oil. Pressure takes place ever in the world, as for instance, through famine, war, want, inflation, indigence, mortality, rape, avarice; such are the pressures of the poor and the worries of the state: we have evidence of them… we have found men who grumble under those pressures and who say: ‘How bad are these Christian times!’ . . . Thus speak the dregs of the oil which run away through the sewer; their colour is black because they blaspheme: they lack splendour. The oil has splendour. For here another sort of man is under the same pressure and friction which polishes him, for is it not the very friction which refines him?

– St. Augustine (quoted in Karl Lowith, Meaning in History)

December 11, 2015 Church

A Remark on the Gifts and Calling of God

If one wants a learned analysis of Christian doctrine on Judaism and supersessionism, then let me suggest you head over to Fr. John Hunwicke’s singularly excellent web-log. It’s timely stuff, what with the Commission on Religious Relations with Jews issuing a polarizing new document, The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable. For those who have been living under a rock for the last 24 hours, the document — which everyone and their brother is reminding us is non-magisterial — is the clearest official expression yet of the so-called “Two Covenants” theory. As a matter of policy (which a Catholic may or may not have to abide by), the document calls for an end to institutionally evangelizing the Jewish people while suggesting strongly that Salvation can come without confessing Jesus Christ. This is not a matter of drawing up exceptions for those suffering from “invincible ignorance,” mind you. This about doing an end-run around one the core tenets of the Apostolic Faith.

Now, some may say, in solidarity with the document, that the Jews “are different” for God gave them the Law and the Prophets; but Judaism rejects the One who came in fulfillment of the Scriptures. It would be wrong, nay, insulting to tell a devout Jew that his path is “ok” because mine, too, is “ok.” If he had a shred of self-respect, he would reject such a claim out of hand as gross. By the lights of a devout Jews, Christianity is an abomination for it is (allegedly) overrun with idolatry, impiety, and ignorance. The Christian believes, much to the horror of the orthodox Jew, in the Incarnation. Jesus, by Christian lights, is the Christ. He’s not simply a “nice guy” with some “good ideas.” How arrogant of the Vatican to try and whitewash over what devout Jews actually believe about Christianity by acting as if two religions with fundamentally opposed answers to the most important question in human history (“What think ye of Christ?”) are somehow capable of being equally true and existing in harmony with one another. St. Justin Martyr must be rolling over in his reliquary as St. Romanos the Melodist composes a lamentation in the Heavens.

The conservative Catholic establishment is trying to do some damage control here. They are stressing to all who would listen that this new document is not magisterial. Ok. But so what? The fact of the matter is that The Gifts and Calling of God will be treated by the vast majority of Catholics as quasi-magisterial in much the same way as some well-intentioned (though mistaken) Catholics believe the so-called “Balamand Statement” means that Catholics should never proselytize the Eastern Orthodox. Moreover, faithful Catholics are kidding themselves if they believe this statement is not the first (loud) step toward another doctrinal revolution, one which will attempt to relativize Christianity and the Catholic Faith while opening the door further to the false belief that there are “multiple pathways” into Paradise. Today it starts with Judaism; tomorrow it will be Islam, and so on and so forth.

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.

November 25, 2015 Church, Uncategorized

Shame on Patheos

Update: Just as I hit “Publish” on this brief post, Steve Skojec posted his own — far more detailed — account of the events noted below over at One Peter Five. I suggest you go read it: “Blasphemy from the Patheos Channel Manager“

I confess that Patheos is not a site I normally visit. Most of the content is rather pedestrian, if not poor. And so it came as no surprise when it was announced that Artur Rosman, author of the vapid web-log Cosmos in the Lost, would become the site’s channel manager. As one friend observed in response to the news, “Now the chief inmate is running the asylum.”

Rosman, who has a long history of picking pointless fights with those who refuse to share his strange worldview, recently attacked Rod Dreher over the latter’s well-placed indignation concerning the TV show Scandal‘s depiction of a woman receiving an abortion while the classic Christmas hymn “Silent Night” played in the background. Dreher referred to the scene as “diabolical.” Good for him. Rosman, never one to miss an opportunity to draw attention to himself, laid into Dreher for failing to approach the ghastly scene with a more sophisticated and ostensibly charitable hermeneutic. Rosman’s remarks were met with criticism from Steve Skojec, editor of One Peter Five. What followed next was an unedifying Twitter exchange where Skojec was accused by Rosman of being a Protestant, running a heretical website, and lacking intellectual credibility. Although Skojec asked Rosman to substantiate these false charges, Rosman continued to fire off insults and accusations, culminating with this blasphemous Tweet:

November 24, 2015 Church, Integralism, Politics

Tuesday Comment on Christ the King

Mattias A. Caro, writing over at Ethika Politika, calls on Catholics to detach themselves from the petty things of this world in order to better serve Christ the King. I couldn’t agree more. Quoting Pope Pius XI’s Quas Primas, Caro reminds readers that before Christ can reign in society, He must first reign in our hearts, minds, and wills. In most instances, Christ’s social reign begins in the home and then moves outward into the schools, workplaces, and seats of political authority. It is a pious practice for Latin Catholics to enthrone the Sacred Heart of Jesus in their homes, reciting this prayer nightly:

November 17, 2015 Church, World

Liberalism Will Not Save Us

A few days ago William Tighe, an Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College and frequent contributor to numerous Catholic publications, left the following extended comment on this blog:

As I wrote earlier today on another blog, as a comment to a post featuring Edith Piaf singing La Marseillaise:

Why should I applaud, or even listen to, some sluttish chanteuse singing a song that encapsulates and celebrates events that constituted the overthrow of France as “the eldest daughter of the Church” and enthroned “laicite” in it place?

If this is the “French heritage” that we are rallying to defend, my call would, rather, be “pereat!” The French Revolution was the first, and the bellwether, of subsequent revolutions aimed at overthrowing any Catholic Christian social order, and the Marseillaise, like the Internationale, is freighted with anti-Christian (and, indeed, savagely neopagan) ideas. Were I a Frenchman I would have no truck with “1789 and All That” and, indeed, would take some melancholy consolation in the fact that with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and now the Paris Slaughter it seems to be expiring from, as Karl Marx wrote, mistakenly, of bourgeois capitalism, its own “inner contradictions.”

And if I were to feel moved to show solidarity with the French, the flag that I would wave would be the drapeau blanc.

At the time this remark appeared, Owen White was on Facebook rightly snickering at his monarchist and traditionalist friends who didn’t think twice about distorting their profile pictures with the Tricolour. Perhaps these folks misguidedly thought that to stand with the French Republic at this moment in time is to take a stand both against Islam and for Christendom. But Christendom has been almost entirely wiped out and the country which suffered a terrible tragedy at the hands of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) played no small part in its demise. Now well-meaning Christians of all stripes are rallying behind Europe and the United States to “do something” about ISIS, as if the destruction of one highly efficient band of Muslim madmen will rid the world of Islamic terror. And even if ISIS falls and the false religion of the false prophet Mohammed is contained in the desert, what have we—good Christians of the West—left ourselves with? Unfettered secular liberalism which holds as much contempt for us as the sons of Ishmael do.

Liberalism will not save us. The self-interested forces of capitalism and sham democracy may find a way to temporarily push back the Islamic threat, but they will leave nothing for us to glory over. The time is not far off where the ostensibly protecting hand of liberalism claps us in irons for not submitting to its perverse and ungodly ideology. Watch well the stripes liberal-democratic polities deal out to the Muslims. They will be our stripes next.

November 15, 2015 Church, Meta

Paris II

There is a quite a bit of clamor on social media and other outlets that Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris are receiving a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to other high-casualty attacks in places like Kenya and Lebanon. The critical read of this reality is that (mostly white) Western Europeans and Americans don’t care about “dark people” from third-world countries. There is probably more than a ring of truth to this observation, though it ignores the fact that brutal, well-planned terrorist assaults are “not supposed to happen” in places like Paris, London, and New York. If Paris is susceptible to such organized violence by so-called extremists, what’s to top something similar from happening in Berlin or Rome or Chicago? Paris makes the threat of Islamic terror feel more immediate than bomb blasts in Beirut. A soberminded reflection reveals that terrorist violence is always abhorrent; but that doesn’t change how the popular consciousness will react to it. Remember: One of the (rickety) promises of liberalism, which finds its roots in Thomas Hobbes, is to keep the citizenry safe from violent death. Terrorism upsets this claim.

Terrorism upsets this claim not simply by the fact it kills people, but because it reminds us that there are still genuine enemies in the world, that is, those who force us to make an existential decision about ourselves. The problem is that liberalism itself is not a banner most spiritually healthy individuals which to march under, for there is really nothing “to” liberalism except a series of promises culminating in an unimaginative, hedonistic, and ultimately cowardly life—a life of “entertainment” as Carl Schmitt quietly, but powerfully, noted in his The Concept of the Political. Men are not willing to die for such things; they are only willing to put their power behind making sure that others die for them. Granted, America, more than its European neighbors, still presents a tale of transcendent meaning to prop-up the prevailing liberal ideology, but how long is that bound to last? At some point in the not-so-distant future the vacuousness of the so-called “American Experiment” will be as evident as the moral and spiritual emptiness of European-style liberalism. How long until we submit—as European is submitting—to the crescent moon?

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. The future is not written in stone. The great and terrible problem before us is that nothing appears ready to step-in and renew the West’s spirit, to reorient its existential self-understanding toward something higher than natural desires. The institutional Catholic Church, which has been gutted by the same liberalism which has already eroded the traditional bases of society, has little more to offer than a banalized rhetoric of intramundane peace. Instead of praying to Almighty God for protection from the infidels and their conversion, the shepherds scramble to setup “interfaith prayer services.” Instead of using large public gatherings to inform people that what they need in their lives above all else is Jesus Christ, the Pope himself dresses up fashionable political problems in light Christian garb. Although it is a false religion built on violence, perversion, and lies, Islam at least offers a spiritually robust alternative to the West’s cultural malaise. It may be grotesque, but at least it is something. When will the Church wake up to this horror and fight back? How long will God allow us to suffer these evils? Pray. Pray that our Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints, raise up His Church again, not only in the West but the longsuffering East as well. The fate of not just civilization, but millions upon millions of souls, depends on it.

November 6, 2015 Church

A Small Suggestion for the Year of Mercy

With the Year of Mercy fast approaching, allow me to make a suggestion. Use the sacrament of Confession liberally, and when you do, make sure it is with a priest of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).

In fact, let me be so bold as to suggest that you should only confess to an SSPX priest during the coming year. Given how eager faithful and orthodox Catholics are to show that they are 100% behind Pope Francis, what better way to demonstrate fidelity to the Pontiff than to embrace mercy from the only priestly society he singled out for it? Imagine. Instead of having to do a sit-down, face-to-face “confession” with a priest who will interrupt to say, “Oh that’s not a sin . . .” you can unburden your soul to a classically formed cleric willing to walk you through your struggles and apply an appropriate penance. And since you went through the trouble of going to a Society chapel to receive absolution, why not stay for Mass? Granted, there will be no guitars or extraordinary ministers present, but there will be the Holy Sacrifice; the Mystery of our Redemption; and Jesus Christ—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity—on the altar, waiting to be received by those who approach with faith, reverence, and fear.

Pope Francis has offered a great gift to all the faithful. He has unburdened the consciences of a billion souls concerning the trivial question of the validity/invalidity of absolutions granted by SSPX priests. The question is, “Will you embrace the pathway to mercy the Pope has provided?” Perhaps the Sovereign Pontiff himself will take time in the next year to make a visit to Menzingen or Econe to be shriven. And maybe, just maybe, social media won’t explode with reminders that the Society is “schismatic.” What a mercy that would be.

November 4, 2015 Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church, Spirituality

Comparison: Russian Orthodox Eucharistic Discipline

With Eucharistic discipline being on the forefront of many Catholics’ minds these days, I thought it might be helpful—for the sake of some perspective—to take a brief look at the normative prescribed practice of the Russian Orthodox Church and her heirs. Although the Orthodox do not embrace a “clean distinction” between mortal and venial sin, serious sin has always been an impediment to receiving Holy Communion in the East. This is why those who regularly receive the Eucharist are encouraged, if not directed, to make frequent use of the sacrament of Confession and to spiritually prepare themselves in advance (more on this in a moment). In previous centuries, the demands of preparation, coupled with popular Eucharistic piety, meant that few people, other than monastics and clergy, took Communion more than a couple of times a year. During the course of the 20th Century, this situation began to change as (primarily Russian émigré) theologians like Fr. Alexander Schmemann began promoting the centrality of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church. Even before Schmemann’s time, however, St. John of Kronstadt—perhaps Russia’s first religious celebrity to gain worldwide notice—had begun encouraging the faithful to attend the sacraments more frequently in order to nourish themselves on the long journey to Heaven. While conservative Orthodox critics bemoaned what they saw as an erosion of discipline in the Church, today regular (though not necessarily weekly) Communion is commonplace.