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Catholic ed takes another hit

It was yet another article reporting the ever-shrinking institutional presence of American Catholicism till I read this:

"I was devastated," said Hyacinth Campbell, a retired communications worker who came to St. Thomas Aquinas School, a 19th-century brick building on the industrial fringe of Park Slope, Brooklyn, to pick up her daughters. "But what hurt me most to my heart is that my children started to cry. Where do you find children in any school anywhere crying about a school closing?"

Certainly not in the public schools.

More from the language police

NPR's "On the Media" has an interesting piece on the Chicago Tribune's pending revisions to their stylebook changing the term for third-trimester fetus to "unborn child." Then as if to wash themselves of the pro-life odor of the Trib's renovations, the show follows up with an idiotic conversation w/UC Berkeley linguistics prof George Lakoff, who insists that the Trib is falling prey to the right-wing truth-distorting "message machine." For him "unborn child" means nothing more than "a right-wing term corresponding to fetus." It's not that I don't believe that all language is social constructed and "framed" to a large degree. It's that these ho-humpfing academics think people care whether we call a fetus a "fetus" or an "unborn child." You can call it mud for all I care; it's human; it's sui generis; it's alive; and you can't kill it.

The host identifies Lakoff as a "prominent Democratic political strategist." No wonder they got whooped in November.

VeHEMenTly Pro-Earth

Check it out, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. After an intital WTF? it started growing on me. I'm actually quite amused by its honest extrapolation of population control ideology. Why not just extinguish ourselves if there's nothing all that special about human biological existence except being the material cause of environmental degradation and suffering? It's almost Christian except in VHEMT's liturgy the entire human species becomes the self-sacrificial Host on the Altar of Earthly survival. The only problem is that their Credo requires valuing the Earth in a special way that requires an apriori teleological belief about the Earth and it's not clear to me from where VHEMT is pulling that except from their own sardonic, nihilistic arse.

St. Sophia in DC at 100

Blessings upon St. Sophia on its 100th year of liturgy and ministry in DC! Just when I thought I was over my envy for the Eastern Orthodox...

All Christian churches and denominations share a common origin. But not all can say that a Christian time traveler from the 1st millennium would feel at home in a 21st-century worship service. That's exactly the assertion of Orthodox Christians, said [Archbishop] Demetrios, 76, who was born in Thessalonika, Greece, and celebrates Divine Liturgy the way he experienced it as a child and the way it was celebrated 1,500 years ago.

Why this isn't a good enough reason for American Catholics to give the traditional Latin Mass a li'l respect is beyond me.

The Eliting of Catholic education

This is where I get disturbed about the mainstreaming of American Catholicism. Even the neocons in the Church are not immune--orthodox theologically on everything except ecclesiology and social ethics. As Jesuit-high school teacher, I sensed it during faculty meetings where the president and development officers of the school stood up proudly and gave us reports on expansions and other aggiornamentos. I sensed it when we patted ourselves on the back for sending kids to the Ivys. Dallas Morning News gives us a birds-eye view on how this trend is transforming the traditional role of Catholic ed in their fair city. This isn't just about Catholic schools. It's infecting Catholic health care too.

Trinitarianisms

Neuhaus' online column on First Things rehashes some well-trodden insights into the poverty of Trinitarian discourse and practice in the modern Church. But I still have a problem with the late emphasis on "relationality," which seems to be the only way we moderns can get our heads around the dogma. For one thing, it sounds like a convenient spin-off on object relations theory, which begs the obvious question: so what? Why is the dogma of the Trinity so necessary if its main purpose is to teach us that our individual identities are determined by our relations? The strict monotheistic Hasidic and Orthodox Jews have vibrant communities of relationality (arguably more socially "trinitarian" in practice than Christians) without the unwieldy notion of a Trinitarian God.

My question does not refer to any personal discomfort with the dogma itself. And I've had my share of readings from the renaissance of Trinitarian reflection via Zizioulas, et al. I just think we should ease off on trying to find existential relevance for every supra-rational doctrine the Church professes.

Habermasian legitimation

Haven't read Habermas since college. Amazing admission from the great atheistic social theorist on Christianity's special place in the European legacy. Amazing also that I can actually understand what he's saying.

Between the likes of Ratzinger and Habermas, naturally, the distance remains intact. Habermas defines himself as, and is, "a methodical atheist." But to read his most recent essay translated in Italy, "A Time of Transition," published by Feltrinelli and available in bookstores since mid-November, Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization:

"To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Habermas says he is "enchanted by the seriousness and consistency" of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the opposite of the feeble thinking that pervades current theology:

"Thomas represents a spiritual figure who was able to prove his authenticity with his own resources. That contemporary religious leadership lacks an equally solid terrain seems to me an incontrovertible truth. In the general leveling of society by the media everything seems to lose seriousness, even institutionalized Christianity. But theology would lose its identity if it sought to uncouple itself from the dogmatic nucleus of religion, and thus from the religious language in which the community's practices of prayer, confession, and faith are made concrete."

On relations with other civilizations, Habermas maintains that "recognizing our Judaeo-Christian roots more clearly not only does not impair intercultural understanding, it is what makes it possible."

He contests modern "unbridled subjectivity," which is destined to "clash against what is really absolute; that is, against the unconditional right of every creature to be respected in its bodiliness and recognized in its otherness, as 'an image of God'."

In commenting on "You shall have no gods but me," he writes:

"From a philosophical point of view, the first commandment expresses that 'leap forward' on the cognitive level which granted man freedom of reflection, the strength to detach himself from vacillating immediacy, to emancipate himself from his generational shackles and the whims of mythical powers."

On the relationship between theology and philosophy, he observes:

"I don't resent it at all when I am accused of having inherited theological concepts. I am convinced that religious discourse contains within itself potentialities that have not yet been sufficiently explored by philosophy, insofar as they have not yet been translated into the language of public reason, which is presumed to be able to persuade anyone. Naturally, I am not talking about the neopagan project of those who want to 'build upon mythology.' Today, in the field of anti-rational postmodern criticism, these neopagan conceptual figures are back in fashion: a broad anti-Platonism carelessly spread by fashions inspired by late Heidegger and late Wittgenstein, in the sense of a definitive repudiation of the universalism that characterizes the premises of unconditional truth. I rebel against this regressive tendency of post-metaphysical thought."

He cautions against the anti-human consequences of a relativism without theology:

"The problem of how to bring salvation to those who suffer unjustly is perhaps the most important factor keeping discussion about God alive. If all the paradigms of seeing the world were equal, if the indifference so perversely widespread today took from the yes/no response of each individual's decision the seriousness that is proper to every claim of universal validity, then there must necessarily be the disappearance of the normative dimension that serves to identify the traits, seen as privations, of an unfortunate, deformed life unworthy of man."

And on the contribution of philosophy to the meeting between the Church and other religions, he says:

"In the dialogical dispute among competing religious visions there is a need for that 'culture of recognition' which draws its principles from the secularized world of the universalism of reason and law. In this matter, it is thus the philosophical spirit which provides the concepts instrumental in the political clarification of theology. But the political philosophy capable of making this contribution bears the stamp of the idea of the Covenant no less than that of the Polis. Therefore this philosophy also hearkens back to a biblical heritage."

RIP, Gerard Bugge (Serafin)

To know someone from nothing but a weblog still seems a highly dubious idea to me. Even the title of the blog couldn't be cheesier. Yet Gerard Bugge succeeded in communicating a real personal presence through his "Catholic Blog for Lovers" and his scrapbook dedicated to the "Praise of Glory."

How many could appreciate the raw beauty, grace, and power of Eastern Orthodoxy and remain a Roman Catholic? He showed me how to remain steadfast in communion with the theological and moral Neanderthals that dominate the Catholic Church, first by reminding me I'm one of them, then by robbing me of the orientalist fantasy I projected onto the Eastern Church, and then by keeping my sights on the true fantasies to be found at the heart of Catholicism. He always held St. Blog's to a higher standard on the way we should speak of our bishops and fellow Catholics. Most of all, he showed us that the Catholic Faith is all about heart, that pulsating Presence that keeps the world humming.

May the bells of Heaven toll for thee, Gerard.

Masterpiece Theatre in LA

Neuhaus' love for the absurd is just too funny.

The archdiocese not only announced that it would not turn away protesters but sent a message to the Rainbow Sash Movement saying that they would be warmly welcomed at the altar of the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Nobody with sashes showed up. What’s the point of going to Mass if you’re going to be denied a confrontation? I would not be surprised if some gay activists in L.A. are upset about the archdiocese depriving them of their right to be rejected. And just imagine the hurt feelings of an ever-so-welcoming archdiocese scorned. In the theater of gay agitprop, players should stick to their designated roles. In Chicago, the archdiocese had the satisfaction of being Catholic, and gay activists the satisfaction of being oppressed. It was a win-win proposition. In Los Angeles, it seems that everybody lost.

Chummy churches

Liturgies where the Sign of Peace becomes a mini-coffee hour never fail to send my eyeballs rolling towards the heavens. Neuhaus says it well, commenting on a classic warm-n-fuzzy line from America magazine:

“What can we do to show that the Eucharist is a communal activity? Greeting people at the door is a start. It alerts us to the fact that we are going to do something with others. . . . I have found some Catholics who think this whole ‘welcoming’ business is destroying our traditional sense of reverence and replacing it with some folksy, feel-good experience. This is a false conclusion. If you wish to invite a guest into your home, you must have space. To invite others into our hearts and our worship, we must make room for them. The enemy of reverence is not hospitality but arrogance.” Despite my being intimidated by the flat assertion, “This is a false conclusion,” I dare to wonder if the author, a professor of theology writing in America, might tolerate a modest dissent. Note the language: we are going to do something; our traditional sense of reverence; your home; our worship. Is there not something to be said for reverence for what God is doing in His house through the liturgy of the Church, the saints in heaven and pilgrims on earth? There are many conversion stories in which the narrator describes quietly entering a Catholic church, maybe even sneaking in, and being struck by the statues and candles, and, most of all, by the people kneeling in rapt devotion as the priest at the altar lifts the consecrated host and declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” There may be one, but I have never read a conversion story in which a person was drawn to the Catholic Church by the kind of chumminess that one might encounter at a birthday party or around the water cooler at the office. “This is a false conclusion,” rumbles our liturgist. I’m sorry, sir, but since I’ve had the temerity to go so far, I’ll go a step further and, at the risk of your wrath, suggest that it is really not so important “to show that the Eucharist is a communal activity.” That’s not the point. The point is what God has done, and is doing in the Mass, reconciling the world to Himself through the sacrifice of Christ. The eucharistic community is created precisely by our turning away from ourselves and toward Christ. The wonderful friendliness of our wonderful selves is really quite beside the point. And to think otherwise is, well, arrogance.

State of the USCCB

Fr. Neuhaus has come out with another excellent column, this time, that gives a more intimate and personal overview of the state of our nation's bishops. It strikes a refreshingly hopeful, even proud and august tone on where the Church is heading. Perhaps best is his coverage of Cdl. George, confirming my appreciation of his leadership.

What remains bothersome to me is the Church's dependence on the diocesan system to farm-raise our future bishops. In my mind, it leaves too much to the whims and winds of "the spirit" (in the modern gnostic sense of the word). The Eastern way of looking almost exclusively to the monasteries for their bishops seems to provide them with a much more consistent crop of bishops, whereas for us it remains hit or miss. But maybe there's some spiritual gift to be found there as well.

Athletes, politicians, & religious adherence

Arghh, I just hate it whenever Jews and Muslims, without even trying, show us how bad we are at being Christian.

Maybe it's because Jews still see themselves as a minority group that's never too far beyond the clutches of Mass Persecution. But Shawn Green's decision to sit out of the Dodgers' Yom Kippur game this weekend would be inconceivable if he were Christian and we were talking about a Good Friday game. Chariots of Fire notwithstanding, Christian faith rarely trumps the obligations, quasi-obligations, or even petty requests the world lays on us.

Most striking here is that Mr. Green does not consider himself to be a devout or even practising Jew. Yet even he can confess that "baseball, or anything, isn't bigger than your religion and your roots." So when Catholics who shoot from their arses about being practising, committed, or "spiritual but not religious" and then proceed to directly violate their Church's most sacred pronouncements without a blink, I have to believe that catechesis really is the problem. Now I don't know what sort of Hebrew shul Mr. Green attended, but the melamdim did a fabulous job. And I'm sure his parents weren't self-deluding buffoons about their faith either. Somewhere along the way, he learned that if a religious identity hasn't the spine to sacrifice some of the bling the world offers, then what good is it? If a Catholic Democrat can't accept the self-sacrifice required before abortion legislation, then what good is his faith? Shawn Green did not feel the need to whine or cry victim about his religious obligations, rather, he counted them as sunk costs--you just eat it and move on. It's the only honorable thing to do. The NY Times article has a nice mini-outline of Jews of the MLB who have risked World Series glory to uphold the faith of their fathers.

Cf. Mario Cuomo's latest self-rationalization over at Commonweal. The false distinction he'd make is that choosing to sit out of a baseball game does not impose Green's belief system onto others who don't share it; ie. it's a private decision versus the public ones Catholic Democrats have to make. And the analogy would fly right over their intellectual pinheads.

Tridentine-chic?

So far it's always been a good day when an archdiocese decides to grant an indult to the Tridentine Mass, but what happens when it's done as a form of religious marketing, a way of keeping up with the Lutherans and Episcopalians?

Nevertheless, he and St. Josaphat's pastor, the Rev. Mark Borkowski, have been impressed by successes at nearby Episcopal and Lutheran churches, where historic buildings have been revived by suburbanites driving downtown for traditional forms of worship.
....
"We're bringing in antique-looking vestments, too," he said. "We've done a lot of work to make sure that this looks authentic. This church was built a century ago for this kind of mass, and we want it to look that way again."
....
"Authenticity," he said. "If someone goes to Greenfield Village expecting to see petticoats, they don't want to find people making do with blue jeans."

Just when you thought the traditional Mass was impervious to bourgeois commercialism. Makes me think of MacIntyre's opening hypo in After Virtue about a society born after a revolution against science & technology, trying to piece it back together with no context, no cultural glue to hold the pieces in proper perspective.

Even more disturbing are the comments of Fr. Thomas Reese, editor of America magazine:

The only thing that could spoil the venture at St. Josaphat is too much success, Reese said.

"When the pope authorized bishops to allow this mass in 1984, the idea was that this was a pastoral response to older people who still are so attached to this older mass that they need it," Reese said Monday. "The idea was never to create a new desire in people for this mass."

Maida's decision to allow it at St. Josaphat seems in keeping with the spirit of Vatican rules, Reese said. But, "It would be counterproductive if too many people turn this into a marketing strategy to fill churches. The idea behind allowing this mass was that it could help older people in the later stages of their lives. The hope is that this mass eventually will fade away."

I've come to accept this kind of condescending crap from the liberal secularist literati, but from a priest-editor of a Jesuit magazine? And St. Ignatius does another roll in his tomb. Read more here.