"Caritas in Veritate: But is Christ Still King?" - borrowed from The Remnant Newspaper

This is a fascinating article on the hermeneutics of continuity and the Church's teaching on the social kingship of Christ...
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"Caritas in Veritate: But is Christ Still King?" - by Christopher A. Ferrara, The Remnant Newspaper
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2009-0715-ferrara-caritas_in_veritate.htm

(Posted 07/22/09 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) In Caritas in Veritate, his long-awaited encyclical on Catholic social doctrine, Pope Benedict XVI insists that “It is not a case of two typologies of social doctrine, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the contrary, there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new.” Caritas, n. 12.

The Pope’s application of his own “hermeneutic of continuity” to the Church’s social doctrine prompts a recollection of Church teaching on what Pope Pius XI, in Ubi Arcano Dei (1922), called “the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations.”

Recalling the Social Kingship Doctrine

Before the Second Vatican Council, the Social Kingship of Christ had been the paradigm of the Church’s social doctrine for centuries, especially evident in the long line of anti-liberal encyclicals issued by Pius VI, Pius VII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Blessed Pius IX, Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, and Pius XI.

But then came Dignitatis Humanae (DH), whose “on the one hand/on the other hand” ambiguity concerning “religious liberty” in contemporary political circumstances has produced endless contention over whether the Social Kingship doctrine “remain[s] still in full force,” as Pius XI insisted a mere 40 years before the Council, condemning the “moral, legal, and social modernism” of Catholics who suggested otherwise. Ubi Arcano, nn. 60-61.

Tellingly, DH itself begins by declaring that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ”—that is, the duty of men and nations to profess the true religion and submit to the authority of the Catholic Church. This duty is the Social Kingship in its essence. DH had to leave this doctrine “untouched” because it is not some piously “triumphal” sentiment of a bygone era, nor even a matter of faith alone, but rather a dictate of reason informed by faith.

Respect for the rules of thought without which reason is impossible requires that he who says A must also say B, if B follows logically from A. To accept the premise while rejecting the conclusion is simply to refuse to think. Thus, if one accepts the premise that Christ is God Incarnate then it follows—as B follows from A—that the Church He established is “the kingdom of Christ on earth, destined to be spread among all men and all nations.” So Pius XI declared only 37 years before Vatican II in Quas Primas (1925), echoing the words of the divine Founder Himself. Cf. Matt. 28:19-20.

Nor can it be argued logically that an omnipotent and infallible God would found a Church of unknown identity, or that it would lose its identity, divide into parts, or fall into error. The Church that God founded would have to be—and would declare itself to be—indefectible and infallible concerning what she actually imposes as binding in matters of faith and morals. Only one Church in human history answers to that description.

Moreover, if Christ is God then it follows—as B follows from A—that His kingdom cannot be limited by geography or the boundaries of human polities. Hence the kingdom includes, as Pius XI insisted, “not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.” Cf. Quas Primas, n. 18.

Nor, said Pius, “is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society.” Ibid.

In Him is the salvation of society. This is the doctrine of the Social Kingship in a single phrase. From which it follows—as B follows from A—that in the Church of Christ are the means by which not only men but societies are to be saved: the sacraments as channels of His personally and socially transformative grace; the Magisterium as the infallible preceptor of individuals and communities; and a hierarchy to govern a kingdom embracing all nations. For if Christ had failed to provide these means in His Church then He would not be God, but just another false prophet who left error and confusion in his wake.

From all of this three other conclusions follow as B follows from A, and all three were set forth by Pius XI in Quas Primas:

- First, that “the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ….”

- Second, that “she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state,” and

- Third, that “No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity,” but rather “the Church alone is adapted to do this great work” because she is “divinely commissioned to lead mankind” and thus “cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.”

A corollary conclusion—following as B follows from A—is that if men and nations reject the Social Kingship as exercised through the Church, the world will see all of the social, moral and economic problems Pope Benedict now seeks to address in Caritas. Pius XI lamented the resulting civilizational crisis:

The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them...

The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences…. bitter enmities and rivalries between nations… that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism… a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage… no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. Quas Primas, n. 24.

Whither the Social Kingship?

Where does the doctrine so conspicuously left “untouched” by DH stand today? It remains, of course, untouched, for the Church has no power to repeal her own doctrines, nor (as the First Vatican Council made clear) to reveal “new” doctrine contrary to “old” doctrine. Pope Benedict himself has insisted upon this since his pontificate began.

Yet the promises of Christ do not insure that Churchmen will forthrightly affirm the Church’s teaching on any given doctrine at any given time. So, in the face of “a rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ” that has reached a level not even Pius XI could have imagined, we are indubitably witnessing a timid retreat from the Social Kingship doctrine by the Church’s human element. The situation here is the same as with other “hard sayings” of Catholic doctrine contemporary Churchmen are loathe to mention for fear of the world’s mockery or persecution.

But what of Caritas in Veritate, which treats of the same civilizational crisis for which Pius XI prescribed the Social Kingship doctrine and which, moreover, insists upon the unity of faith and reason which underlies that doctrine? Cf. e.g., Caritas, n. 56-57.

First, it must be said that the encyclical is burdened by jargon the likes of which no previous Pope has ever employed, including “quotas of gratuitousness,” “a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation,” “new efforts of holistic understanding,” “a new humanistic synthesis,” and “a metaphysical interpretation of the ‘humanum’ in which relationality is an essential element.”

It is hard to believe such distinctly non-Magisterial locutions came from the Pope as opposed to the widely-reported drafting committee that clearly added words, phrases and probably entire paragraphs to the document. The facile objection “Well, the Pope signed it” hardly suffices to address the problems posed by poor draftsmanship, against which the Holy Ghost offers no guarantee. And it must be stressed that we have yet to see the official Latin text, absent which the English text must be viewed as tentative.

As it stands, however, the English text reminds one of an omnibus bill to which numerous congressmen have appended amendments. The encyclical covers everything from the Holy Trinity to microfinance and tourism in a long series of paragraphs which (especially in Chapter 5) combine unrelated subjects or jump from one topic to another without any logical transition.

Second, in the midst of all the verbiage, Caritas nevertheless presents important teaching on faith and morals concerning the sociopolitical effects of Original Sin, the natural law, the moral primacy of duties over “rights” (a long overdue statement), the sanctity of human life at all stages, “the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman,” happiness as the cultivation of one’s immortal soul, and—in a decisive setback for the propaganda campaign of “traditionalist libertarians”—a reaffirmation of the Church’s staunch opposition to the claim that the market economy is an “autonomous” entity exempt from the Church’s thoroughgoing moral scrutiny at every level.

Nevertheless, it must be said that the Pope’s teaching is weakened by an appeal to “human development,” “holistic development” and “the dignity of the person” as grounds for accepting these truths, with no reference to the eternal law, the divine positive law of Christ (and thus no mention of the radical evil of divorce), the Ten Commandments, or the eternal consequences of Original and personal sin. Original Sin is introduced with the almost apologetic phrase “in faith terms” (par. 37), as if it were slightly embarrassing.

Nor does there appear in the encyclical a clear offer of anything beyond human flourishing in this world as the fruit of “charity in truth,” when in the traditional Christian view “God’s eternity” is the goal that, as Charles Taylor observes in his monumental study A Secular Age, unites “ordinary time” with the “eternal paradigms” of divine revelation, giving humdrum earthly existence the “coherence we find in a melody or a poem,” the poem of Christian life with its liturgical year—a coherence that would be lacking in any attempt at “integral human development” only in “ordinary time” without a consistent theme of eternity and final beatitude. Which is to say nothing of the infinite value of beatitude versus the finite good of earthly “human development,” even if that development involves a certain noble cultivation of the soul. The mysterious post-conciliar boycott of the Four Last Things, admitted by John Paul II himself in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, continues. But what is more important to man’s progress and development than these very things?

Revelation itself is given a humanistic turn: “God reveals man to himself” says Caritas (par. 75), echoing Gaudium et spes. Of course this is true, if rightly understood, but is it not time to admit the utter failure of the Council’s verbal Jiu-Jitsu move in attempting to “flip” contemporary man into turning from his sinful ways by being “more human,” as opposed to simply repenting, being baptized, and receiving the grace of sanctification and justification? Was it not the Pope himself, writing as Father Ratzinger just after the Council, who accused Gaudium et spes of employing “a downright Pelagian terminology”? (Cf. Tracey Rowland, Culture and the Thomist Tradition, pp. 24-25). Might it not be prudent to remind a world on the brink of an apocalypse that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”? (Cf. Psalm 111:10).

Third, Caritas also contains numerous vague prudential prescriptions for economic and sociopolitical problems. Chief among these is the Pope’s astonishing call (in par. 67) for “a true world political authority” with the power to compel nations to obey its decisions on such matters as “manag[ing] the global economy…reviv[ing] economies hit by the crisis… integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace… the protection of the environment and… migration.” There is no use denying that the Pope has called for the establishment of a world government, be it a reformed United Nations (as suggested in the same paragraph) or some newly created body.

A Pope has no divine authority to bind Catholics to a fallible prudential judgment of this sort. Quite the contrary, Catholics have every right respectfully but vigorously to oppose creation of a “true world political authority” on grounds that it would only accelerate an attack on the moral order that has already reached apocalyptic proportions, undermine legitimate sovereignty, and persecute the Church and her members, as we have already seen with the UN and the EU. Moreover, the idea of a world government that would “observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity” (par. 67) seems very nearly a contradiction in terms.

Fourth, and most important for this discussion, candor requires one to admit that the Social Kingship doctrine is nowhere to be found in Caritas. Consider that Pope Pius XI’s first encyclical on the Church’s answer to the civilizational crisis, Ubi Arcano, is subtitled “On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ,” whereas Pope Benedict’s encyclical on the same crisis 87 years later is subtitled “On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth.” The radical change of terminology is as unsettling as it is revealing.

Caritas celebrates the teaching of Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (1967), which clearly reflects the “integral humanism” of Jacques Maritain. As the late great traditionalist writer Hamish Fraser noted during the reign of Pope Paul, “Giovanni Battisti Montini (the future Paul VI)… was so enthused and excited by Maritain that he volunteered to translate [Maritain’s] ‘Integral Humanism’ into Italian… Pope Paul is indeed a disciple of Jacques Maritain. So much so that when one reads a typically Pauline socio-political allocution, one might well be reading Maritain.” (Hamish Fraser, “The Kingship of Christ 1925-1975,” in Approaches n. 47-48 [February 1976]).

Maritain, writing just after the reign of Pius XI and during the reign of Pius XII, appeared to affirm the Social Kingship doctrine in advocating a “new age of Christendom.” But his description of this new Christendom is incoherent: “a ‘secular’ Christian civilization” in which the “Gospel leaven” will “penetrate the secular structures of civil life” while leaving intact a “personalist democracy” of “the pluralist type” in which “men belonging to very different philosophical or religious creeds… cooperate in the common task and for the common welfare of the earthly community” based on “assent to the charter and basic tenets of a society of free men.” (In The Social and Political Philosophy of Jacques Maritain, pp. 138, 189, 367).

Maritain was describing a “new Christendom” that is not corporately Christian but rather a pluralist democracy “leavened” in some vague way by Christian influences. The concept makes about as much sense as a “new square” that will have only three corners. Yet it sounds quite familiar today, when the “Gospel leaven” is failing catastrophically to produce the “new springtime for the Church” that both John XXIII and Paul VI (in their fallible prudential judgment) thought they were inaugurating by “coming to terms” with “the modern world” rather than preaching against it with grave warnings as every single one of their predecessors had done.

But, as Fraser observed at the time, “like Maritain, Pope Paul has the faith of Peter,” so that neither man was “a logical ‘integral humanist.” A logical integral humanist, Fraser explained, “rejects the social kingship of Christ and at least implicitly asserts that Christ’s empire does not include human society, and therefore that Christ is not omnipotent,” which amounts to “an implicit denial of the divinity of Christ, and must eventually lead to the transposition of the Catholic faith into the key of naturalism. Which is precisely what has already been done by the most logical ‘integral humanists’.”

Thus, as Fraser observed in 1975, “Paul is continually at war with himself. That is also why he is continually at loggerheads with the entourage he himself appointed. For though like him they too are enthusiastic ‘integral humanists,’ unlike him they are not similarly inhibited concerning ‘integral humanism’s ultimate implications.”

Hence it not surprising that Maritain ended up writing The Peasant of the Garonne to protest many of the “reforms” undertaken in the name of Vatican II, while Pope Paul “found it necessary to write Mysterium Fidei, the Credo of The People of God, Humanae Vitae, etc.” (Fraser, op. cit.). Both Maritain and the Pope he influenced so greatly wanted it both ways: an “updated” Church that remained nonetheless wholly orthodox. The tug-of-war between infallible Tradition and a fallible prudential accommodation to “the modern world” is the cause of the entire postconciliar crisis.

That tug-of-war is apparent throughout Caritas, which oscillates between “integral human development” as made possible only by divine grace, supernatural charity, Christian fraternity, and the Gospel as “fundamental” and “indispensable”—an indirect affirmation of the Social Kingship—and “integral human development” based on “fundamental values,” “universal values” and “reason open to transcendence,” all of which seem to be presented as available to non-Catholics and even non-believers of “good will.” Cf. Caritas, nn. 55-57.

Nowhere does the encyclical state clearly (although it faintly implies) what Pius XI and his predecessors affirmed explicitly: that only the Catholic Church can bring true peace, justice and charity to the world by uniting mankind in one faith and one baptism under Christ the King; that only Christendom, not any merely human alliance, can save a tottering civilization. From which it follows—as B follows from A—that those who say the restoration of Christendom is impossible are also saying that our civilization is in its death throes.

But, like Paul VI, Benedict XVI is not “a logical integral humanist,” even if Caritas employs integral humanist lingo throughout. One need only read the Pope’s closing exhortation to understand this:

Christians long for the entire human family to call upon God as “Our Father!” In union with the only-begotten Son, may all people learn to pray to the Father and to ask him, in the words that Jesus himself taught us, for the grace to glorify him by living according to his will…. May the Virgin Mary—proclaimed Mater Ecclesiae by Paul VI and honoured by Christians as Speculum Iustitiae and Regina Pacis—protect us and obtain for us, through her heavenly intercession, the strength, hope and joy necessary to continue to dedicate ourselves with generosity to the task of bringing about the “development of the whole man and of all men.”

We are within our rights as members of the laity to state the obvious: Caritas is a Janus-headed document that tries to speak in two different voices in two different directions at once—to the faithful and to an unbelieving world—in an effort to persuade both audiences to make common cause for the salvation of human society (whose imminent self-destruction is barely hinted at lest the audience of unbelievers be offended).

But a radical civilizational crisis requires a radical cure, and the only one that exists is the one that Christ prescribes in the Gospel. Which is why, in rejecting as utopian the very notion of a pan-religious alternative to Christendom, Pope Saint Pius X declared in 1910: “[I]n these times of social and intellectual anarchy… society cannot be set up unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. OMNIA INSTAURARE IN CHRISTO.” Cf. Notre Charge Apostolique.

Is Christ still King of all men and all nations? Reason itself tells us it cannot be otherwise, and nothing in Caritas is to the contrary. The answer to the crisis in the Church and the world lies, however, in what Caritas fails to say about the very doctrine the Fathers of Vatican II were at such pains to declare “untouched.” We will know the crisis is coming to an end when the untouched doctrine of the Social Kingship is proclaimed openly and boldly once again. The way things are going, humanly speaking it does not seem likely that that proclamation will occur before the world suffers the terrible witness of its rebellion against the King.

Sanctification and Salvation

I often choose topics that are too big to chew but I can't resist. I'm only briefly touching the tip of an iceberg which is gloriously large.

What is the fundamental mission of the Church? The answer is simple: the sanctification and salvation of mankind.

Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (Matt 28:19-20)

We often hear of the great things that the Church has done in the realm of social justice- alleviating poverty, ministering to prisoners, etc- and justifiably so! She has done her task well! And yet we hear nothing about the infinitely more important work which the Church fulfills in leading the Lord's flock to salvation. No other calling is more important. For,

...what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels: and then will he render to every man according to his works. (Matt 16:26-27, Mark 8:36*)

What profit do we have to be freed from poverty, to have the comforts of life, to be free from physical bondage, if our souls are still chained down by sin? All is dust but the soul is eternal. If we allow ourselves to replace the spiritual life with the charitable one, virtuous as acts of mercy and charity are, we put ourselve in grave risk of forfeiting our souls! And should we deny the priority of the spiritual life as Catholics over all other things without reservation, we effectively deny eternity and the salvation which is to come. Beware!

We have much to be thankful for and should be greatly inspired by the works of charity fulfilled by the faithful. Indeed, our Lord has commanded us to love our neighbor and to fulfill such works with zeal. And yet, the most important work that we as the faithful can possibly do is pray unceasingly. Pray for the faithfully departed. Pray to the saints that they may intercede on our behalf. Pray for the sanctification and salvation of mankind, for it is only by this that our Lord's Kingdom will come.

Remember the event in the Gospel according to Mark, chapter 2. The paralytic, gravely afflicted in the soul and flesh, is lowered down by four men through the roof before our Lord. In that moment, seeing the man ill from palsy, the Lord says to him, "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee" [italics added]. Witnessing this most grievous of physical maladies, our Lord Jesus Christ takes as priority the healing of this man's soul of its sins. This, likewise, is the mission of the Holy Mother Church.

My beloved priest once said in a sermon, "I only ever pray for one thing. You need only pray for one single thing: the sanctification and salvation of mankind." Should we pray for a lifetime and witness by that prayer the sanctification and salvation of one man, that singular act will be greater in weight than if we were to save 100 men from physical strife, only to see their souls condemned. So much so that we may come before our Lord and hear His glorious words: "Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." (Matt 25:21)

"By Grace You Have Been Saved"

I just finished reading an article so impeccably written and succint that I will not do it the injustice of paraphrasing. I will simply place a link here to a fascinating blog which I discovered called "Nicene Truth", written by a Reformed Protestant (Calvinist) convert to Catholicism.

The particular article of interest is called, "By Grace You Have Been Saved", an in-depth discussion on such oft-employed terms as "justification", "grace", "salvation", "faith", and "works". Are we saved by faith alone or by faith and works? What is the role of grace? This article aptly captures the truth of the Catholic teaching on these questions and is deeply enlightening.

Tolle et lege!

Besieged

For some strange reason the past several days have been fraught by religious discussions in which I have grown increasingly disillusioned by the errors that are out there. In one case I could sense the presence of the deceiver launching his attacks upon the Church. I have been deeply distressed to say the least.

It began this weekend when I found myself in a two and a half hour long conversation with a Protestant friend talking primarily about Calvinism, which she adheres to in the guise of "reformed theology". Whatever you call it, I was profoundly disturbed by the claims that were put out and made it clear. What a hopeless and concocted theology! It denies the entire loving nature of God and mires otherwise self-evident teachings in a "tulip"-laced morass of erroneous babble! I very effortfully defended our cherished belief in the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Faith, on the mystery of the Incarnation and of the Sacred Tradition which compliments the Scriptures among other things. And yet against the folly of Calvinism what can one do?

In addition to another chat about Calvinism two days ago, today at lunch I was sitting on the front porch of my workplace and overheard two guys "discussing" Catholicism, or their misperception of it, rather. In reality, one person was throwing out facetious, conjectural, and ultimately baseless claims about Catholic teaching and the other simpleton simply replied, "No way! I never knew that!" My blood was boiling and I regret not speaking up as I felt I should have.

Among the insanities uttered was the "Catholic belief" that by walking through the doors of St. Peter's Basilica, we're entering into a heaven-like place and thus are saved. There was the fascinating comment about how Catholics for 2000 years have completely missed the line in Matthew 23:9 saying that we must call no man on earth our father, and yet we call our priests "father", therefore the entire faith is a hoax. There was the profoundly disturbing statement that the Eucharist is just a symbol, that we're insane to derive from the Bible the belief that we can eat Christ himself, that it is ludicrous (at least he acknowledges that it is indeed a difficult teaching). His most erroneous claim was that there is absolutely no biblical basis for the doctrine of the Eucharist, which is absolutely unfounded. The list goes on. I felt like I was being fired at with spiritual cannon fire that was withering.

Now, I was actually taking detailed notes of the conversation because it was perfectly audible from where I was seated, as such I also noted their statements of erroneous Protestant doctrine. The most irksome and oft-repeated statements revolved around that most cherished of errors: the belief in sola scriptura. Here are the choice statements which I overheard:

"The Bible was written by God"
No. It was written by divinely-inspired men from the earliest Hebrews to the early Christians who devoted their lives, however perfectly or imperfectly to seeking God. They and their writing, however much inspired, was clearly affected to some extent by the context in which they lived along with the inspiration received.

"Everything that I believe is in the Bible"
The very belief of sola scriptura is nowhere to be found in Scripture. Thus this statement is false right off the bat. Belief finds its sources not just in written word but primarily from our life experience and that which we learn orally. Most importantly, our belief is also an effort in conformity to the true teachings passed down not just scripturally, but by the Holy Mother Church. That is, much of our belief is in fact extra-scriptural, which in its more refined form is referred to by Catholics as Sacred Tradition. It is exceedingly presumptuous to assert that one believes everything that is in the Bible, because our human flaws prevent us from grasping even so simple a command as "love thy neighbor".

"Keep reading, God will reveal things to you."
Using the logic of the above two quotes, I will contend that God has revealed everything that He has intended in the Bible. This is in accordance with sola scriptura. As such, any further revelation can not be possible, even that which may be stirred in us as we read Scripture. For God to continue revealing things in a extra-scriptural way must prove the existence of a sacred tradition rooted in and emanating from written and unwritten revelation.

What a vexatious past few days these have been. Lord have mercy. Pray for the conversion of those gone astray and for the unity of Christ's Church on earth.

Our Divine Mandate

As of late I have been asking myself the same question quite frequently: why is it so difficult for us to speak absolutely about our faith? We fall so easily into the trap of relativism because we live in its framework, we are educated to think in a relativistic way, and we are expected to accept multiple options, multiple lower-case t truths, etc. Even if we utter in word what we aspire to believe as absolutely true, often our actions and our subsequent words do not back up this seemingly impossible stance. And yet…

The more I contemplate, the more I am truly convinced that Christianity- read, Catholicism, the only full and true faith revealed to the Church- is the one and only religion with a truly divine mandate, a heavenly bond, a direct call from on High. Both logic and faith confirm this.

No other religion so encapsulates both the fullest reality of our being and the deepest aspiration of every human soul. That we are born deeply flawed and yet yearn every waking day for something better, for a taste of the divine. That to be righteous and to obey the moral law set down by our Creator is perhaps the most difficult thing we can do, bringing with it frustration, vacillation, and persecution, and yet what bliss to follow the narrow path! No clearer sign is there than this: “Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.”

What of the other major faiths? For the Jews, at the time of reckoning, when the Son of Man descended in the deepest humility and was then hung on the Cross for our iniquities, they rejected him, preferring to retain their worldly laws and loyalties to cling to a hope which, unbeknownst to them, had just been fulfilled. Muhammed, the Prophet of Islam, led wars and insurrections and ultimately died in peace like many a worldly king. The Buddhists promise personal nirvana through individual contemplation, and yet quo vadis for the rest? And so forth. And yet, the one true God is worshipped and adored through His Son, who alone gave himself up in the lowest humiliation, in the purest act of sacrifice, through his terrible death on the Cross and his subsequent Resurrection. Just as the soldier is the only person who has truly fought for our freedoms, so too our Lord, Jesus Christ, is the only one who has truly died for our sins.

He died in fulfillment of the Greatest Commandment: “that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, italics added). With what reluctance does humanity obey this call, with what vacillation! How difficult it is to fulfill, and yet how simple it is to fall to selfishness, self-fulfillment, impatience, and the like. Verily, this is a divine call, for such a mandate could not possibly have its origin in the selfish heart of man.

This was and is the revolution ushered forth by the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, that not by condemnation, nor isolation, nor hatred are we to live and serve our Lord, but by the heavenly grace that is love, the unconditional yearning for the good of another. And to this end we are to dedicate all in our being to seeing that our brethren be sanctified unto their ultimate salvation in the oneness of the Spirit, through the mercy of our Lord and King, from now unto the end of the world. Amen.

An intriguing thought experiment...

I entered into a cognitive reverie yesterday and the most delightfully revealing thought experiment entered into my head. It has to do with drawing moral lines. By using the liberal arguments for amorality against a hypothetical proponent of gay "marriage", our proponent ends up hitting a wall.

So here's the thought experiment: a pro-gay "marriage" lad, who happens to be called Bob in my reverie, is taking a walk through a park where he runs into a most intriguing personage named Fred. Their discourse went as follows:

BOB: Hey, Fred!
FRED: Hey Bob, what's up?
BOB: Not much. Hey, are you voting for that gay marriage amendment on Election Day, you know, the one defining marriage as between both heterosexual and homosexual couples? It will finally let people who love each other get 'married' and give them the 'rights' they've so longed for!
FRED: Heck yea, man. Freedom from bigotry. True equality! But I don't think the amendment goes far enough. What if, like, a buncha' people love each other? Like, a buncha' dudes? Why shouldn't they get married? That's not fair.
BOB: Oh, well...Yeah. I guess so. Yeah, maybe they should be allowed to.
FRED: Yeah. You know what used to be 'in' and should come back? That thing where one guy has a bunch of wives. Yeah, polygamy!
BOB: Uh, well... That's a little weird.
FRED: Why's that weird? If they love each other, why not? I mean, why should only gays get to marry? Are you saying polygamists don't have rights? Are you imposing your morality on me?
BOB: Well no, dude. That's just a little weird, don't you think? I mean, gays should get rights but the polygamy thing is weird.
FRED: Why's it so weird? One man, many women! Why limit people? We're a nation of liberty! Stop pushing your morals on me, dude! I mean, if I love my mom that much, well, dude, why not?
BOB: You're joking, right? You're talking about in-...
FRED: Yeah man! Nothing is greater than love! We should be more open and inclusive, and less divisive. Why should your definition of love be pushed on me?
BOB: Well...No...It shouldn't. But, that's disgusting.
FRED: If I think it's ok, it's ok! Don't tell me it's disgusting you bigot! It's just different!

As we can see, the Pandora's box that Bob initially opened ultimately swallows him whole, as he finds himself in a moral no-man's-land where he can't say why incest is taboo and polygamy is disgusting, etc. He finds that his initial moral judgment has opened a can of worms and that it comes back to haunt him. He learns that his moral judgment is arbitrary and that he can consequently make no real moral judgments.

It seems that the only moral judgment that is not arbitrary with regard to marriage is that most natural one: that marriage is between one man and one woman in a union of love which alone is capable of bearing new life.

Case closed!

The Perverted Eternal Perspective

Lately a great many things have been profoundly disturbing me. Granted, I live in a perpetual state of being disturbed by much that I see around me in the world, and yet, by the grace of God, I have much hope that such lunacy will not persist forever.

Perhaps the most troubling thing that I have heard recently came from reading a message written by someone who I don't even know, but who I do know is a "pro-life but pro-Obama 'Catholic'". Now, the expression "pro-life, pro-Obama, Catholic" is a rare case of a triple oxymoron, where it just doesn't make sense. It's about as sickening as a so-called "pro-choice Christian". Anyways, with regard to the preborn, our "pro-choice Catholic" began with the usual qualifier "while I am personally pro-life..." and then continued by saying: considering that the murdered preborn will go straight ahead to heaven and be with God anyways, we should focus our resources on alleviating the suffering of the post-born since, from an eternal perspective, this does the most good. It's a frighteningly twisted pragmatic argument that has a most perverted moral basis. It completely skirts every possible logical argument and defies all reason.

Why? Point-blank, you murder the baby to satisfy an end that is not remotely "eternal" but entirely mundane and sinister. It is inherently secular. Where does the word "secular" come from? It comes from the Latin word, saecula, "age" or "epoch", such that secularization means the elimination of the "eternal perspective" in favor of a now-obsessive preoccupation with the here and now. "Having this baby will ruin my career which I am planning for now." "I am not ready to have this baby now". The laundry list of excuses goes on. So, our "pro-choice Catholic" essentially negates her own belief system to begin with. More gravely, still, the logic can be applied in many troubling cases that we are already witnessing.

"We should put the old man out of his misery [through euthanasia] so he'll be with God now".
"I don't have the financial resources right now for this baby so leave it out to die [through infanticide] once it is born. Fortunately, he'll be with God."

This is a diabolical sugar-coating of the worst sort. The fact of the matter is that it is indeed virtuous to work for the alleviation of the living through works of mercy and charity. However, to sap the life of those who we believe may lead a difficult life, or who are leading difficult and/or pained lives, is the ultimate denial of hope, the most blatant expression of a eugenic desire to purify the world of all plight, and the most despicable perversion of Christian charity that I can think of.

"And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.
And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child.
And the Lord said to me: Say not: I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee: and whatsoever I shall command thee, thou shalt speak.
Be not afraid at their presence: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.
And the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth: and the Lord said to me: Behold I have given my words in thy mouth:
Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up, and to pull down, and to waste, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant. (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

Catholic Voters: The Moral Basis of Our Vote - PART ONE

The 2008 Presidential Election is fast upon us and I am choosing to take some time to address a very contentious topic that has been circulating, that of supposed single-issue politics on the part of pro-lifers, particularly many of my Catholic pro-life friends (which is a redundancy; all real Catholics are pro-life). We can take as axiomatic that nobody should vote for a pro-abortion/”right-to-choose”/pro-choice politician at all, least of all a CATHOLIC. I am actually not arguing for that point- it is crystal clear already. I am going to argue that there are many other issues, not as grave as the abortion one, that nonetheless must command a Catholic’s attention. While issues pertinent to life must be the primary reason motivating our vote, our moral framework does not exclude other important areas. I’ll address them by the catchwords by which we often hear about them in the news.

I’ll be referring heavily to Canon Francis Ripley’s definitive book, This is the Faith. This will be written in installments.

1) PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM

The Church has held, since time immemorial, the right to private property as essential for the good-functioning of society. As Moses states in Deuteronomy 19:14:

Thou shalt not take nor remove thy neighbour's landmark, which thy predecessors have set in thy possession, which the Lord thy God will give thee in the land that thou shalt receive to possess.

Because we are endowed with an intellect and free will, by our nature we must have private property by which to manifest these capacities and to achieve the work for which God has created us. We cannot work land unless we have a plot that is ours. And if it is not ours and we work on it, we are expected to receive a wage which is in itself a form of private property which can be converted into other things like food, land, an investment, etc. This too is a natural right, viz., to be able to convert our labor for a wage and vice versa.

So, enter socialism, which by its pure definition denies the right to private ownership of productive goods. Socialism to some minor degree exists everywhere. It could be argued that the tax system in its most fundamental form is a form of socialism in that the resources of the many (taxes) are pooled into a common, social depository which is the federal government. It then uses that money as it sees fit for the social good, as outlined in the US Constitution, primarily through national defense and the regulation of commerce. We must agree that, fundamentally, the system of taxation is a form of theft from the populace, but that a majority of people would agree that it is morally imperative for all to see after the means of their defense and the safeguarding of the conditions necessary for the economic welfare, i.e., unfettered commerce. These are necessities which we most certainly agree upon as vital and common to all.

And so arrive at our contemporary period where we often hear about such ideas as socialized medicine, welfare, affirmative action, government bailouts, and the like. Of recent interest is the government bailout of Wall Street which, perhaps surprisingly, warranted the ire of the American people. What was this bailout? Once we lift the political baggage, it is clear that the government took money that was given to it by the people for their good and given to corporations the owners of which abused their rights to private property with excessive risk-taking and ultimately menaced the whole economy. So who is to pay? By the simple premise of personal accountability they, along with their companies, must bear the responsibility for their actions. However, the government saw it more fit to take taxpayer money entrusted to it and to give it over to save these private property-owners. This is, by definition, socialism- more specifically, the privatization of profit and the socialization of losses. This goes against the personal accountability which forms the entire backbone for our moral fabric as Catholics. We must account for our own sins and nothing that anyone else save the Lord does can absolve us of this culpability.

Do you therefore take courage, and let not your hands be weakened: for there shall be a reward for your work. (2 Chronicles 15:7)

Logically, if we do not work, we will not be rewarded. Now, even if we work hard and reap fewer benefits than may be desired due to the misfortunes that are inevitably a part of life, the government can not be called upon to alleviate the difficult conditions which are a natural part of life. Firstly, these can be minimized to a degree but to eliminate them altogether is impossible. Such attempts have led to the utopian social projects which have been historically to blame for great suffering. Secondly, the belief that government can alleviate the difficult conditions of life imbues government with those qualities which can only be ascribed to God and to our Faith, and thus lead to the sort of atheistic and socialist ideologies which have so ravaged Europe’s moral fabric along with more extreme cases like North Korea, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 2425: “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’”.

History, particularly the history of the 20^th century, has shown that government promises to alleviate those vicissitudes which have always been a natural part of our existence have always transpired as: 1) a bold promise for change, 2) an attempt at a sweeping change with occasional success virtually always ending in, 3) great expectations (often met with disappointment) among the people vis-a-vis the government due to their desire for further change. The government may either be toppled, capitulate, or blame their failures or inadequacies on certain elements of the population or even other political parties as a pretext to continue its social projects. Often we hear of the "need" to press on towards the future. A fitting example from recent history is the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. In its attempt to unify the nations of Europe economically, the EU has sought to focus its energy on agricultural policy through a system of intensive subsidization. While ambitious and promising in the beginning, this socialist system has led to an exacerbation of the inequalities which were the original target. While the wealthier countries of the EU such as France, Germany, and Belgium enjoy considerable prosperity and cheaper food prices, less well-off countries like Italy and Greece suffer from stagnated development, artificially high food prices, and even major environmental problems. Subsidization has killed production.

Thus, as Catholics determined to work for a greater justice in the world, we must ask if it is better to allow our resources to be taken from us for the “common good” or if perhaps we ourselves are better stewards of these resources. As rightly-guided faithful, we would know better where our resources will be deposited in a moral sense than the government, which most often does not share our cherished beliefs. It is upon private property in the expanded sense of our controlling these resources personally that the Church has always placed its moral weight and confident approbation.

Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris: On Socialism

On the mystery of faith

The Spirit moved vigorously tonight as a group of my friends and I travelled down to Ocala once again to assist at the traditional Latin Mass. Today it was a sung Mass so we had the schola, of which I form part, perform the chants; it was mesmerizingly beautiful. Singing the Mass is a marvellous medium for prayer. But I would say that today's sermon was particularly exceptional.

The main theme of our priest's, Fr. Fryar's, sermon was actually a central epistemological question of our age: what is it know? Is faith knowledge? In today's Gospel, taken from St John, 4: 4-53, Our Lord states, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not." What is the meaning of faith? Faith is pure trust in the Lord, and hope is the fervent desire to be with God. The last remaining theological virtue is charity. Trust necessarily demands an a priori condition of ignorance, or of surrendering oneself to someone or something about which we are uncertain. To have faith in God is to trust in Him without prior conditions, such as having seen signs, or needing proof, or having understanding. It thus, in a way, demands that we relinquish our reason, our deduction,and our knowledge. To believe does not require that we understand. Indeed, to understand, or to seek to understand, eliminates the need for faith. If we have our science and our reason, we give up our faith, but it is by faith that we are bound to God. In today's Gospel, when Jesus tells the ruler whose son is sick in Capharnaum that his son is healed, and before even seeing that this is true, by faith the man believes it to be true, and it is so. Had he seen proof before the Lord had said so, he would not have needed faith because his understanding would have satisfied him. And yet right there he would have severed the necessary link between his son's welfare and the grace and divine charity of our Lord.

The question made me contemplate significantly. I often try to understand everything, to try to encapsulate everything in my mind, even sometimes when it comes to my faith. And yet Fr Fryar spoke verily in saying that if we seek to understand we satisfy ourselves with that understanding, which can only ever be faulty and incomplete, rather than submitting ourselves to the knowledge that can be had only by faith, which is that bond with the divine. The temptation to want to understand, to proof, to be able to argue is tempting, particularly in our day and age. And yet we can not enter the Kingdom unless we rid ourselves of this vice, which is what it really is in the end.

There are no easy answers and no complete explanations. It is only by the blind eye of faith that we can truly see and know. What a winding and mysterious path towards God!

What is the pro-life cause?

Pro-Life Week at the University of Florida is drawing to a close tomorrow and I feel compelled to offer a reflection the pro-life cause in light of a true blessing sent down to me from the Lord through one of his great servants.

While at a rehearsal of UF's Schola Gregoriana, a friend of mind told me that the campus pro-life group was doing a vigil before the local abortion mill and that I should come. Despite knowing I had a huge amount of very important work to do tonight, I strangely felt no hesitation whatsoever. Surely it was the Lord moving. So I went, and all I could think about before that dreadful building was "what is the cause for?" and "what should I do?" The only image running through my head was that of a murderous abortionist reaching into the sacred body of a woman to desecrate it with an atrocious act of murder and all I could think about was the bewildering paradox of everything surrounding its perverse justifications. The blatant injustice! The unmistakeable horror! And yet so few see it. I myself have suffered from the blindness and often still do.

So what is the pro-life cause towards which I have often gravitated with greater or lesser degrees of activity but have never flinched in supporting and loving in my heart of hearts? It is undoubtedly many things, but if we look at the history which predates its necessary emergence, it is a fight for the reclamation of our humanity, which is being ground up in the gears of modernity which we are so eagerly turning. Against a culture of control, domination, fleeting pleasure, the destruction of value and the human aesthetic, the pro-life activist, or rather the human pure and simple, champions submission before our beautiful and natural dignity, for true worth, respect, profound love of others, and a profound look at that which is Truth in a culture of lies. It is a fight against the death which has gripped us not just physically in the act- or lack thereof- of allowing abortion to continue, but also the death which grips the heart of modern man. In denying the burdens which have so colored humanity and seeking a life of base and valueless gratifications our culture has effectively murdered the human. We must reclaim it on every front, but the first must necessarily be in that place where we all first draw life- the womb.

The question remains: what then to do? Fundamentally, I believe the starting point is to work to lead those around us to a deep realization of their deep human worth and of the innate beauty of our divine purpose, which is to create, to sustain, to reverence. Anyone who truly acknowledges their own essence, who embraces their true humanity, can not possibly endorse the base act of murder which has gone unpunished so long in our land. Nor can they in any way tolerate the acts of euthanasia and contraception which are but indicators of our deeper despair and terror before the vicissitudes of life. And of course, the direct act of educating, reaching out, informing, and inspiring must play a major part.

For my part I have utilized my love of writing to a great extent, however failed at times, to try to be, at best, a voice. I confess my deficiency and deep cowardice, but deep down a longing stirs in me to devote myself ever deeply to this beautiful cause so inextricably bound up in our humanness.

Pange lingua gloriosi

Pange lingua gloriosi. Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory.

My most recent rumination may come across to some as odd, but I truly believe that it has much to do with what this blog is all about, which is seeking Christ in the depths of our existence. I will begin, as I often do, with a question.

What is language? There are manifold responses to this question, one of which, for my purposes, I will say is that language is truly a gift from God. Indeed, I think it is a stunning manifestation of the bewildering intellect of our Creator. What a beautiful treasure, that which we utter with our tongues! I have only come to appreciate this more and more as I undertake my studies of language and as I reflect upon the many doors that this pursuit has opened for me.

I feel that I can write volumes about this topic; truly I think it would take a lifetime or many lifetimes to delve into its profundity.

A language is a particularly magnificent faculty. We share our language with many others who, with no effort whatsoever, acquire its rules, its syntax, and its lexicon over the course of their youth. There are relatively few rules but many words, and we can fabricate utterances of limitless variety and degrees of expression with these modest tools.

What a moving experience to witness an orator deliver an eloquent address! What a profound stirring we feel in our heart upon reading the great works of literature. Likewise, what bliss to be moved to tears by the simple words of those who we love and who love us. Or to be reminded of the words of promise of the Lord, who Himself has been declared "the Word".

Undoubtedly there is something intangibly divine about our capacity to communicate, whether by word, by gesture, or even by music, the universal language. The most adept orator, the most fervent liturgist, and the most skilled playwright refine the art of language to strike a chord in a place deep in the heart of man that nothing else can touch.

Perhaps the Lord confounded the tongues of the builders at Babel not to sow division or confusion amidst mankind, but to teach a crucial lesson: that it is not by empty actions or purely material aspirations that we climb towards our Creator, but by the works of the spirit and of the tongue, by which we reach out to our fellow man in Christian love and approach the true face of God.

Chapelle de la Médaille Miraculeuse

Today I was blessed with the wonderful opportunity to go visit a Marian shrine right in the heart of Paris- la Chapelle de la Médaille Miraculeuse (Chapel of the Miraculous Medal). Most of the time when people hear the words "Marian shrine" and "France" they think of Lourdes, but lo, there is indeed one in Paris. Once upon a time the chapel was in a village in the countryside near Paris. It has obviously been swallowed up since then!

Anyways, it is a very powerful experience to go to a place where we know Mary was present. For me, I think my visit to the shrine marked a turning point in my Marian devotion. Oddly enough, being Hispanic, I heard the name Mary uttered all the time growing up- mostly in the frustrated interjection "Ave Maria!- however, even upon beginning to live the Faith, my religious focus has always been on Christ and Christ alone. With time I began praying to various saints. I have had trouble developing a profound devotion to Mary, which for years I have been told is highly beneficial and carries with it many blessings.

Why the obstacles? It may seem counterintuitive for some, especially in our protestantized culture, to picture how devotion to Mary is a profound expression of faith in Christ. And yet, today in the chapel of the Miraculous Medal, everything seemed to fall into place. Mary is, in and of herself, the embodiment of our spiritual journey and the physical manifestation of our metaphysical faith in the Lord. This is what the Rosary is all about- meditating on Mary to better understand Christ.

The altar in the chapel depicts very beautifully what I am talking about. Above the tabernacle is a majestic statue of Mary with arms outstretched. She stands upon the serpent and towers over the globe in a protective motherly manner. As I looked at the altar and the tabernacle, it was clear to me that Mary was and is the first tabernacle, the ark of the new covenant, which is Christ our Lord. She was the first to be saved, and her direct spiritual journey to the Kingdom of Heaven through her glorious Assumption is the perfection of what is for us an imperfect journey which we must all endure.


Mary is also an example of perfect submission to God's will, which in the end won her the greatest exaltation. This is what we are all called to as Christians. Such a profound paradox, as Pope John Paul II stated, is a sign of God's presence. By denying ourselves and accepting God's will, as well as the yoke of our mortal toils, we ultimately achieve the promised salvation. Mary gave herself up totally and completely to the Spirit, and in this way she became the living tabernacle of our Lord, just as we become, in a way, living tabernacles everytime we worthily receive our Lord in Holy Communion.

And just as Christ's body was pierced for our iniquities, Mary's heart was pierced by the most bitter sorrows of a mother viewing her son die for all of humanity. In this way, Mary, like Christ, shares in our deepest sorrows and understands them, such that she is our most trusted advocate before Christ.

The Miraculous Medal really is just that. It is such a simple thing, and yet reflecting on its symbols and meanings along with the overall meaning of Mary in our lives can bring us to a profound appreciation for our heavenly mother.

For my part, I have by no means reached any sort of summit in my devotion to Mary. I will say, though, that the journey ahead looks beautiful. If you find yourself frustrated in your Marian devotion or are unable to really immerse yourself in it, do not worry. All things transpire in God's time. Be patient in prayer and persevere knowing that, no matter what, our Blessed Mother smiles lovingly upon us.


About the Miraculous Medal

How dark were the Dark Ages?

How dark were the Dark Ages? We reply reflexively that, once upon a time, there were castles and lords and then there were peasants and their fiefs: ignorant, backwards country folk. Thus were the Dark Ages. Then came the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. I must wonder if anyone ever stops to ponder how it is that the Dark Ages were dark. My big question is: are we more or less ignorant now than we were back then in the Middle Ages?

I was inspired to ponder this question yesterday when I went to see the awe-inspiring cathedral of Amiens in northern France. As I beheld the splendor and breathtaking beauty of this architecturally immaculate wonder, I began to ask myself if people were really so ignorant back then in terms of their understanding of the world and their place in it. Just imagining the rationality and purpose behind every element of the cathedral revealed to me in stunning terms the intimate knowledge and profound respect for the sublimity of God that people in that epoch surely had.

As I prayed in the adoration chapel, I looked up and noticed a beautiful vertical panel of stained glass which, upon close scrutiny, I noticed depicted the entirety of the history of Christ's Passion. It was unmistakeable. The beauty of the illuminations reveal the simple truths of the Gospel, and yet leaves the spiritual impact of our Lord's self-sacrifice to the heart of each individual believer. Every single part of the cathedral had a purpose. The floors were paved with labyrinth patterns to reveal the mesmerizing and intangible path towards the divine. The sheer massiveness of the nave left me breathless, and yet it depicted but a microcosm of God's immensity! And in the sanctuary-the holy of holies- cordoned off by a jube and beautiful choir stalls, even the most ignorant of persons could gather that in that place the most sacred of events- the consecration- transpires at every Mass.

I could not help but ask myself and reconsider the meaning of the word "ignorance". From where do our intellectual pursuits originate and whenceforth are they to lead us? I do not feel that it was merely the impressive beauty of the cathedral Notre Dame d'Amiens that truly brought forth this question in me. Rather, it was the perception of the simple sense of ordered purpose in that space wholly directed towards one goal: the glorification and revelation of our Lord's essence, which is beyond us. It is beyond me to divine how that space was so elegantly erected. It is beyond me to understand what drove otherwise simple people to gather together and build it up from nothing. And yet, in that cathedral, I understood that somehow, even in that allegedly most ignorant of epochs, there was manifest a profound and reasoned understanding of the unintelligible. So much so that, even lacking what we consider in our modern times to be the signs of advancement and progress, there could be witnessed a true sense of direction and, most importantly, faith.

The central questions, which I feel are really quite simple to answer are: have we truly progressed since then? Are we more or less ignorant?

Link to album of Amiens, including beautiful shots of the cathedral. Below are shots taken from Google.

The Rock and Roll Morality

I am writing in great humility with regard to the writing of a great thinker of our past half-century in such a way as to render this text as a commentary more so than an actual personal production of real creative ingenuity. In fact, so humbled am I by the profundity of what I would like to discuss here that I feel a greater temptation to adulate the author rather than to dare comment at all. I will simply leave the commentary to the reader’s own spiritual turnings and disturbances.

At present I am reading a book which I have longed to read for quite some time called The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, as stated on the back cover, an argument that “the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis.” Thus far he has touched on a multitude of topics and approaches, from relativism to religion to music, the great works of literature, etc. The list is already endless.

Anyways, today I read the chapter titled, “Music”, and was stunned by the fluidity and coherence of Bloom’s argument and observation on our current moral state and how it pertains to our obsession with music. He states that the entire nature of music, as well as its purpose, has changed. If I may sum it up in my own (potentially incorrect) terms, where music was once a means of conveying meaning, a message, and only acutely a form of expression, music as it is manifest in its most popular form today- rock- is now mostly a means of expression with the end of creating an effect, a feeling, and a predominantly physical sense of pleasure.

Before I quote Bloom, I will ask, “Why does this matter?” It matters because music and our relationship to it are intimately tied, as Bloom argues, to our spiritual condition. This should come as no surprise to a Catholic, who knows the centrality of music to the liturgy. And yet, the flux which our musical and, consequently, moral expression has undergone has been virtually overlooked and its effect and reflection of our moral state for the most part ignored. What does all this have to do with “sex, drugs, and rock and roll?”

“Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.” (73)

“In alliance with some real art and a lot of pseudo-art, an enormous industry cultivates the taste for the orgiastic state of feeling connected with sex, providing a constant flood of fresh material for voracious appetites. Never was there an art form directed so exclusively to children.” (73-4)

This fosters a sense of rebellion against authority, that rebellion so emblematic of the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was the 1960’s.

“The inevitable corollary of such sexual interest is rebellion against the parental authority that represses it. Selfishness thus becomes indignation and then transforms itself into morality. The sexual revolution must overthrow all the forces of domination, the enemies of nature and happiness. From love comes hate, masquerading as social reform. A worldview is balanced on the sexual fulcrum. What were once unconscious or half-conscious childish resentments become the new Scripture. And then comes the longing for the classless, prejudice-free, conflictless, universal society that necessarily results from liberated consciousness—“We Are the World,” a pubescent version of Alle Menschen werden Brüder, the fulfillment of which has been inhibited by the political equivalents of Mom and Dad. These are the three great lyrical themes: sex, hate and a swarmy, hypocritical version of brotherly love. Such polluted sources issue in a muddy stream where only monsters can swim. A glance at the videos that project images on the wall of Plato’s cave since MTV took it over suffices to prove this. Hitler’s image recurs frequently enough in exciting contexts to give one pause. Nothing noble, sublime, profound, delicate, tasteful or even decent can find a place in such tableaux. There is room only for the intense, changing, crude and immediate, which Tocqueville warned us would be the character of democratic art, combined with a pervasiveness, importance and content beyond Tocqueville’s wildest imagination.

Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

This description may seem exaggerated, but only because some would prefer to regard it as such…” (74-75)

Bloom introduces a moral sociopolitical aspect to his critique of the new musical phenomenon a few pages later:

“It is interesting to note that the Left, which prides itself on its critical approach to ‘late capitalism’ and is unrelenting and unsparing in its analysis of our other cultural phenomena, has in general given rock music a free ride. Abstracting from the capitalist element in which it flourishes, they regard it as a people’s art, coming from beneath the bourgeoisie’s layers of cultural repression. Its antinomianism and its longing for a world without constraint might seem to be the clarion of the proletarian revolution, and Marxists certainly do see that rock music dissolves the beliefs and morals necessary for liberal society and would approve of it for that alone. But the harmony between the young intellectual Left and rock is probably profounder than that. Herbert Marcuse appealed to university students in the sixties with a combination of Marx and Freud. In Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man he promised that the overcoming of capitalism and its false consciousness will result in a society where the greatest satisfactions are sexual, a sort that the bourgeois moralist Freud called polymorphous and infantile. Rock music touches the same chord in the young. Free sexual expression, anarchism, mining of the irrational unconscious and giving it free rein are what they have in common. The high intellectual life…and the low rock world are partners in the same entertainment enterprise. They must both be interpreted as parts of the cultural fabric of late capitalism. Their success comes from the bourgeois’ need to feel that he is not bourgeois, to have undangerous experiments with the unlimited. He is willing to pay dearly for them. The Left is better interpreted by Nietzsche than by Marx. The critical theory of late capitalism is at once late capitalism’s subtlest and crudest expression. Anti-bourgeois ire is the opiate of the Last Man.” (77-8)

On politics and religion

It has been some time since I last posted an entry of interest. Hopefully this atom bomb of a post-combining two taboo topics in one- will not come as too much of a shock.

Why have I chosen to touch on this right now? Well, it is an election year, and a particularly volatile one at that. For weeks I have heard so much spoken about politics and religion side-by-side along with varying viewpoints on this relationship- some flawed, some spot-on, others distorted. I address this mostly to my fellow Catholic brethren in the hopes of enlightening them about this essential relationship.

The question of politics, religion, and their relationship to each other has been the defining question of my academic career as a political science student thus far. How do I reconcile my firm religious convictions with the necessity of engaging others who hold conflicting beliefs in varying systems and approaches? This is a FUNDAMENTAL question which we should all ask. Many Catholics, sensing the futility of political pursuits, simply shrug it off in frustration- my original temptation. This comes, perhaps, from a misunderstanding of what exactly the "political" is.

Hannah Arendt, one of my favorite philosophers, said that while philosophy is the study of Man, political theory is the study of Men, which is why the latter interested her much more. We live in the world not in isolation, but amongst others. All the same, we have moral decisions and choices to make each and every day for which we ourselves are held to account. How do we as individuals situate these obligations? Since the dawn of time, and I believe until the end of time, people will situate their existence in the framework of faith, faith in God, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, in a word, the summation of all things. To flesh it out just a bit, we could say that while philosophy and political theory exist relatively independently of one another, strictly speaking, religion is a unification (an essential unification) of the two.

The great tragedy of modernity, particularly of secularism, is the fatally flawed view that we can look at humanity through a lens that estranges, and ultimately discards, religion as a fundamental aspect of our existence. The same goes for the belief that religion must be divorced from our politics.

Every major political philosopher from Plato to Arendt has had to grapple, in some way or another, with the question of religion vis-á-vis the political. For Plato, the purpose of the political was to give mankind access, in some way, to the Good, which Christians later called "God". Augustine saw the world as divided and in tension between two "cities"- the city of God and the city of Man, out of which the former would ultimately triumph. Machiavelli and Rousseau proposed the idea of a "civil religion", the earliest ideas of state religion as legitimizing the governing order. Burke, the father of modern political conservatism, saw religion and the state as coinciding, with the state defending the church and the church sanctifying the state. Marx saw religion as "ideology" born of the fetters of man that sought to anesthetize man to the conditions of his existence. And so on.

So why must we not fear to let our religion guide us in the realm of the political? The word "politics" is derived from the Greek word polis meaning "city". The political is that which deals with the affairs of the city, of the people. How do people influence one another? How do they interact and make decisions that buttress their social order and manage their limited resources? That is the realm of politics. As you can see, everything that we do is to some extent political, and what we hold in faith through our religion is the source (hopefully) of our political impetus. In an age where religion is increasingly pushed to the side, we must engage our national polis all the more and assert the force of moral authority where it is severely lacking. We must not fear allowing God to guide us in our politics, that is, in our dealings with our fellow men. In a democratic society, the need for religion as a guide for our political decisions becomes all the more essential. Where once politics was reserved for the elite and far-off rulers, now the commonplace is political. As such we can not help but make our religion an integral part of our political decision-making, in large part because of the need for moral responsibility as individuals and as a society.

St. Augustine warned Christians to avoid over-involvement in public affairs as detrimental to the spiritual life. All the same, to sustain our democratic society as a righteous and morally-guided one, we must not fear to assert our faith in Christ and His Church and cherish the guidance that faith gives to our lives and to our dealings with others.