Continuing with the theme of yesterday’s post, “Some Options,” let me reiterate that I do not begrudge a single soul for trying, with the best resources they have available, to produce a response to the present state of affairs in order to ensure both the survival and transmission of what I will broadly call the Christian inheritance while also remaining cognizant of the Great Commission: “Go forth and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
There has been a lot of talk about “Options” around the Christian water cooler as of late. In an earlier post, “Projects, Seeing, and Options,” I offered some remarks on Orthodox journalist Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” which, as I understand it, calls for a retreat from the world in order to preserve what is left of Christian—and by extension classical—civilization. C.C. Pecknold, a professor of theology at Catholic University of America, has written over at First Things about what he calls the “Dominican Option.” Unlike Dreher’s proposal, Pecknold’s eschews retreatism in favor of engagement built on two pillars: “the right pattern of formation and evangelistic witness.” Which will win out? Or will both amount to little more than vacuous sloganeering?
Fortitude, which St. Thomas Aquinas places behind prudence and justice in his treatment of the cardinal virtues, is confirmed in us more fully through the exercise of God’s grace. For fortitude, as we should all know, is a gift of the Holy Ghost, and because this gift comes down from above, it can attain to heights unknown by mere natural fortitude. At the natural level, according to Aristotle, “Fortitude is the virtue of the man who, being confronted with a noble occasion of encountering the danger of death, meets it fearlessly.” Fortitude, as built-up in us by the Holy Ghost, does not lose completely this martial character, but is expanded supernaturally to instill courage against the spirit of the times and temptations for worldly success, along with the patience to endure one of the greatest trials in the history of the Holy Catholic Church. For all of us are faced with a battle, but it is not one destined to be settled with swords or guns; it is a spiritual battle, one that can only be won through prayer, repentance, and fasting.
The Josias has posted a translation of, and brief commentary on, Pope Pius VI’s speech, Qaure Lacrymae, which was delivered in response to the regicide of King Louis XVI of France. From the introductory note by Pater Edmund Waldstein:
Quare Lacrymae is mainly concerned with showing that King Louis XVI’s death was a martyrdom. Pius VI can appeal to Louis XVI’s moving last will and testament, but in order to prove the point he has to show that the cause of his death was odium fidei. In order to prove this, Pope Pius argues that the main thrust of the revolution was against the Catholic religion. In the course of his argument he makes a bold claim about the connection between Calvinism and Enlightenment philosophy—anticipating in certain respects recent arguments by the likes of Brad Gregory.
It’s not my intent to provide running commentary on Ethika Politika’s content; it just seems to be working out that way (see here and here). Hunter Sharpless’s latest, “New Seeds of Revolution,” prioritizes an internal, spiritual revolution before an external one since, according to Sharpless, “the injustice of the world finds its birth in the individual human heart[,] . . . not in systems and powers external to [him]” or, for that matter, all of us. While there is a loud ring of truth in that statement, it’s not the whole truth, or at least not one which captures that systems and powers external to all of us shape our lives in profound, and sometimes disturbing, ways.
On January 25, at the close of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, in the Eternal City of Rome, Pope Francis delivered these stunning lines during his homily (H/T Rorate Caeli):
Being uninterested in continuing to read commentary on the “rabbits” debacle and its fallout (see here and here) doesn’t mean my eyes weren’t drawn to Andrew Haine’s (Ethika Politika) critical response to Matthew Schmitz’s (First Things) reflection on the affair. Haines believes that Schmitz, and other conservative (and I’ll assume traditional, too) Catholics, are uncomfortable with Pope Francis’s various public pronouncements because they hold a “fascination with intellectual purity [which] remains unchecked” and are infected from some ill-defined “ideology that spawned from a consistent, rote repetition of talking points.” (Can we call this the ideology of “doctrinal clarity”?) It’s hard to figure out what exactly Haines is driving against except, perhaps, a certain rigidity in teaching which recognizes neither wiggle-room on the margins nor, apparently, the faithful’s “yearning for more clarity on matters of Church teaching[.]”
Matt Mazewski, in his debut article for Ethika Politika, asks “Would a ‘Catholic Party’ Be Bad For the Church?” In the end Mazewski is skeptical, and rightly so—but only because the vision he operates with is a liberal one. Granted, this is not clear at the article’s outset; scroll down several paragraphs, however, and this is what appears:
From the standpoint of the American [Catholic] hierarchy, the existence of a “Catholic Party” would be bad news for the same reason it would be good news: The bishops would be free to support a single party and its candidates without reservation. For anyone concerned about the politicization of religion, this would be a worrisome state of affairs.
What our dear Holy Father Francis meant, or might have meant, when he solemnly declared that good Catholics need not “be like rabbits” is, as per usual, difficult to say. Patrick Archbold, writing over at his personal blog Creative Minority Report, finds the Sovereign Pontiff’s words “highly imprudent.” I’ll say. Archbold goes on:
A couple of months ago, in one of my “Weekly Reading” posts, I linked to a piece by Rod Dreher where he describes a First Things (FT) conference “discuss[ing] the future of religion in the public square[.]” The three conference papers have now been published. They are as follows:
