“A climate in which belief may flourish”

Austin Farrer. (Image source: bbc.co.uk)

Recently, my friend Devin Rose, who works for Fr. Joseph Barron’s WordOnFire.org and runs St. Joseph’s Vanguard, posted this lengthy comment on his Facebook page (edited for format):

Have you ever had an idea, one that is strong and meaningful but tough to articulate, and then you stumble upon a quote that brings it into sudden focus? Such a quote flashes like lightning around the idea, illuminating it and allowing you to see it clearly for the first time.
I had the experience tonight after discovering a remark by Austin Farrer, an Oxford scholar and close friend of C.S. Lewis:

For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish. [in Jocelyn Gibb, ed., Light on C. S. Lewis (1966)]

I’ve spent hundreds of hours over the last couple years exchanging arguments with all sorts of unbelieving friends — atheists, agnostics, and other labels I didn’t know existed. Some fellow Catholics have warned me that, “Nobody has ever been argued into the Church,” or that, “Evangelization is more about the way you live than the arguments you give.” Neither sentiment ever rang true with me, at least not completely, but I couldn’t explain why.
Then I discovered Dr. Farrer’s quote, which affirmed two key convictions that have brewed within me during these many encounters. First, without arguments or good reasons to believe in God, most Christians will abandon their faith — especially while they are young. Religious experience and devotion can only carry people so far. Most of the atheists and agnostics I engage were raised in Christian homes, but ones that provided no intellectual support.
Second, Christianity is not even a viable option for most non-believers if, to them, it lacks respectable arguments. It’s not that they won’t find the Gospel compelling without good, supporting reasons; it’s that they won’t even consider it. Without a strong intellectual basis, they’ll pay Christianity as much attention as Scientology or Hinduism.

Pope Francis, Humanae Vitae, and Margery Eagen’s devastating fallacies—UPDATED ALREADY?

Filipinos at Pope Francis’ Mass in Manila, Jan. 18.
(Photo: AFP/Ted Aljibe.)

You would think that a writer billed as a “spirituality columnist” for a website that professes to cover “all things Catholic” would have some familiarity with Catholic teaching, especially the most controversial doctrines. However, Margery Eagen, writing for Crux, talks about Pope Francis’ recent speech at the Mall of Asia as though her only knowledge of Catholicism came from Planned Parenthood.

Although he has not lived it himself, I had thought [Pope Francis] understood something about good people living real lives in real marriages. I had thought he even understood something about the beauty of sex in marriage, the need for sex in marriage.

I was wrong.

In the United States, his words will have little practical impact. Most Catholic women have used birth control for decades. There are no more families with 12 and 14 kids in the Sunday morning pews. But his words do reveal a heartbreakingly backward perspective: that the highest calling of married women is sacrificing all to rear children, as many as come along, no matter those women’s talents or skills or dreams.

These aren’t the words of a person who’s well-educated in Catholic doctrine, let alone someone who should be discussing Catholic spirituality. These are the words of a journalist content to work with the straw-man “Catholic beliefs” constructed for her by second-wave feminism, the kind of nonsense which led Elizabeth Dias at TIME to write that “the mainstream media has nearly no understanding of the Church.”

In fact, Francis’ words reveal no such chauvinist nonsense. To be sure, he offered a doughty defense of the goodness of family and childrearing against “ideological colonization”, a branch of “cultural imperialism”. Eagen’s criticism presents us with the kind of false dilemma demagogues love: you’re either for contraception or you’re against women working outside the home.

Catholic Pharisees and the sin of rash judgment

The most dreaded implement of the Internet Inquisition:
the comfy chair. (© 1970 Python (Monty) Pictures, Ltd.)

That the accusations came in on a post dedicated to shoring up the tradition of worshiping on Sunday was bizarre as the accusations themselves. Said Kelly Lexy:

You seem to be an adherent to the Novus Ordo sectarian community. That is bad news. That means you are pro-abortion and a supporter of the engagers of the Sin of Sodom. …

One must say that you are obstinate. You are familiar with the sedevacante position [Indeed I am, especially with its similarity in flaws to Protestantism]. You have a familiarity concerning the heresies of the post-Vatican II claimants to the papacy. Baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation: the heretics you promote reject this Dogma. …

If you’re at all familiar with my writings of the last five years plus, the statement that I am “pro-abortion and a supporter of the engagers of the Sin of Sodom” must have had you howling with either rage or laughter. The bit about baptism is a bit trickier; let me just content myself for now with saying that this is willful misinterpretation of Pope Francis’ words on the part of Ms. Lexy.[1]

When I denied her charge and told her she’d committed the sin of rash judgment, she doubled down on it: “Your false religion recognizes pro-abortion politicians as having a  good standing. Your false religion celebrates the sodomites since you have sodomite ‘masses.’ You are therefore pro-sodomite and pro-abortion since you are in communion with this evil and all such persons. You are an apostate.”

Not even Bernardo Gui — the real Bernardo Gui, not the cardboard-cutout antagonist of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose — would have brought me to trial under such specious reasoning. In any event, since the inquisition is defunct and has been for a very long time (even in Spain), I’m not worried about an auto-da-fé just yet.

The times need to get with the Church — UPDATED

Fox News offered its unique perspective on the coming conclave, with a report entitled “What kind of new pope would America’s Catholics like to see?” I don’t know about you, but I’d be more interested in knowing: “What kind of American Catholics would the new Pope like to see?”

—Phil Lawler, Popular misconceptions IV in CatholicCulture.org, 3/5/13

“Roman Catholics in the United States say that their church and bishops are out of touch, and that the next pope should lead the church in a more modern direction on issues like birth control and ordaining women and married men as priests, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll,” reads the lede in the New York Times.

So okay, the story already has two strikes against it: 1) The poll was conducted by NYT, which is pretty much the closest thing American progressives have to a party organ like Pravda; and 2) the story is co-authored by Laurie Goodstein, who has her own axe — or rather, Jeff Anderson’s axe — to grind. But the sampling methodology looks as though they took reasonable care to get random picks, and I’m satisfied that the numbers reasonably reflect the current state of American Catholics. Here is the link to the full report.

The URL, however, tells the story as well as does the lede, if not better — POLL SHOWS DISCONNECT BETWEEN US CATHOLICS AND CHURCH.

For instance, while between 66% and 79% of American Catholics are in favor of such liberal action items as allowing priests to marry, ordaining women and using contraceptives, only 46% hold that the Pope is not infallible in matters of faith and morals, while another 14% don’t know or didn’t answer. This (seemingly) proves that there are Catholics who disagree with the Pope even though they admit he can’t be wrong, and who follow their consciences in opposition to Church teaching knowing that they can only err in doing so.

The Catechism and the Year of Faith

On Thursday, October 11, in his motu proprio Porta Fidei (“The Door of Faith”)[*], Pope Benedict XVI officially opened the Year of Faith.  Thursday was chosen because it marked the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, and because “[it] also marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a text promulgated by my Predecessor, Blessed John Paul II [Fidei Depositum, 1992], with a view to illustrating for all the faithful the power and beauty of the faith” (Porta Fidei 4).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is itself a remarkable achievement.  Originally promulgated in French in 1992, when the English version hit the bookstands a couple of years later, it quickly rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and remained there for some weeks.  Revised once since then, it has become, as JP2 intended, the “sure norm for teaching the faith” (FD IV), the first reference of choice (outside of the Bible) for many Catholic writers. 

It’s also virtually become the ultimate “argument ender”, which is something of a misuse of its function. 

Certainly, the Catechism is an admirably comprehensive synthesis of two thousand years’ teaching and thought; it’s almost (but not quite) safe to say that “If’n it ain’t in the Catechism, the Church don’t teach it!”[†]  At the same time, though, Michael J. Wrenn and Kenneth D. Whitehead rightfully point out that the Catechism doesn’t distinguish between doctrines that are de fide (formally defined as part of the revelation) and those that are merely sententia communis (not formally defined but generally accepted).[1]  Indeed, for all its comprehensiveness and depth, the Catechism is by its nature only the beginning of one’s education in the faith, and constantly points outside itself to Scripture, patristics, conciliar documents and writings of the saints.

Staying on message

Schadenfreude f (genitive Schadenfreude, no plural)

1.   Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else’s misfortune.

2.   Satisfaction derived when an individual has misfortune for disregarding rules or conventions.

Donald R. McClarey admits to having enjoyed the dismay and melodramatic anger with which various people, writing in the National Catholic Fishwrap, have reacted to the announcement that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has called for a reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  Certainly, Father Z has a talent for fisking, although the self-righteous blather of Sr. Joan Chittister and Jamie Manson is almost self-parody, so I can’t grudge McClarey for enjoying it.

For me, though, if there’s any satisfaction in the news, it’s sour.  Again with the fake-pious, self-serving portrayal of the LCWR nuns as tireless, holy workers for the poor and oppressed; again with the villainous, even libellous portrayal of the bishops as an evil patriarchy bent on keeping them down, keeping them intellectually enslaved. 

• “The Absolute Monarchy of the Roman Republican Church is ALIVE and not so well.”
• “By all means, let us stifle all independent thinking in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  How dare ‘these women’ help the poor, comfort the marginalized, and worst of all, use their brains. They should absolutely let the holy men of the church do all their thinking and talking for them.”
• “The rich and powerful bishops are riding high on the backs of the poor, with no one to stop them.”
• “Have [the hierarchical types] checked their calendars?  Do they know this is the 21st century, when all the issues of NETWORK are crying out for action?”

Sigh.  Any more tropes you care to regurgitate? 

Beef stroganoff and whine

There’s a reason I prefer writing out my opinions: it’s easier to control the flow of an explanation when you’re writing than when you’re discussing the matter with a clutch of contentious Irish-Americans after a heavy meal and three glasses of wine.

Sunday night was a case in point.  I was cast in the role of defending the responses in the revised liturgy against the complaints of my mother and older brother, with kibitzing from his wife (Methodist) and daughter (lapsed).  Such discussions never take place according to the rules of Lincoln-Douglas debate, and sometimes barely observe Marquess of Queensbury rules.  You can’t even get a good foundation for the affirmative case going before you’re dealing with the negative team’s objections and cross-ex.

Well, at least the beef stroganoff was good.  And the wine was a ’10 pinot noir (Hob Nob).

So it was with a rueful smile that I read Fr. John Zuhlsdorf’s savage fisk of Fr. Richard McBrien’s crab-fest over the revised liturgy.  People who write to be read by the general public — including Your Humble Blogger — set themselves up for equally public spankings, and Fr. McBrien’s errors of fact and logic practically beg for ridicule.  But wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall if ever the two had to share dinner at a rectory?  Not knowing either priest personally, I have no idea who would come out on top should the topic of the Mass revision come up.

Have you no sense of decency, Mr. Cuomo?

Here’s the lede on a story filed on LifeSiteNews on Oct. 26: “An employee with the New York Archdiocese warned of an ‘impending persecution’ after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called same-sex ‘marriage’ opponents discriminatory and ‘anti-American’ last week.”

October 26 … a week and a half ago. And this was on comments Cuomo made “last week”, i.e. two and a half to three weeks ago.

Where were we when this happened? Was nobody except the Archdiocese of New York awake when Cuomo let this appalling sentiment fly? Why isn’t Cuomo being raked over the hot coals of the religious conservative world?

I could understand if the New York Times didn’t pick it up; the editors of that fading rag have long since abandoned any pretense of fairness or objectivity. But surely such an assertion should be as damning as Rev. Samuel D. Burchard’s infamous “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” line that cost James G. Blaine the 1884 election!?

For the first time in many years, I’m truly surprised. Anyone my age ought to be at least dimly aware of what McCarthyism was, and how long a shadow it cast on American politics. Anyone claiming to be a liberal ought to be especially sensitive to it. That a politician with the national presence of a New York governor can utter the word “anti-American” without pundits making the automatic mental association to “House Un-American Activities Committee” is both bad news and worse news.

Why is the “old Church” coming back?

This is a "test chapter", if you will, of a book I'm in the early stages of writing, with the working title The (New & Improved) Catholic Why? Book (after a book written in the early 1980s by Andrew M. Greeley). The target audience of the book are Catholics in the middle ground between the "spirit of Vatican II" Church they grew up in and the resurgent "old Church" growing back up around them. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback.

*     *     *

There are two competing stories — meta-narratives, if you will — about the Second Vatican Council, the changes it made, and the main body of Catholic beliefs and practices that came from those changes.

One story has it that Vatican II made many substantive changes that led to a completely new and different Church, or would have if traditionalists hadn’t started pushing back. Oddly, this meta-narrative (the “hermeneutic of rupture”) is favored not only by liberal Catholics but by sedevacantists and many traditionalists as well.

The other story is that, while the Council authorized some changes in discipline, they made no substantive changes in doctrine but rather re-presented traditional teachings in more modern, more affirmative language. Many other unauthorized and unwanted changes were snuck into the life of the Church using “the spirit of Vatican II” as a Trojan horse, changes prompted by secular political and social theories dressed up in Scriptural language. This is the meta-narrative (the “hermeneutic of continuity”) favored not only by conservatives and most traditionalists but by Pope Benedict, who coined the phrases.

Hatred of homosexuals betrays Christ

On August 26th, Stacy Trasancos wrote “Can’t Even Go to the Park”, a modest little grump about homosexual PDAs that, due to some ill-meaning gay activists, suddenly went viral. It may not have been the most charitable thing ever written, but as gripes go it was pretty mild.

The same can’t be said for much of the international reaction. The forces of love and tolerance have inflicted upon her an international virtual blanket party, a worldwide vomit of unbalanced hatred completely unmerited by what she wrote.

As of this writing, the post itself has had 975 comments, the vast majority of them running from the merely pained to the viciously foul to the “Nurse, get me one hundred milligrams of thorazine STAT!” level of pure looniness. One charming example: “What a c**t. I hope her children are kidnapped, raped, and murdered. It would be better than having them grow up with such a twisted f**k for a mother!”

Worse than that, though, are all the LGBTQ apologists who have put on the mask of sober rationality to say, “Well, yes, such reactions are extreme and hard to condone, but you asked for it, you hateful b***h!” Or: “It’s only the natural frustration of people who have been oppressed by Christian bigots for two millennia.”

Startling revelation! Catholic Church against gay marriage!

You have to wonder what kind of bubble surrounds East Rutherford, New Jersey that manages to keep the city isolated from the news of the world. I could sometimes wish for such protective isolation for myself.

Wednesday, North Jersey.com staff writer Deon J. Hampton revealed that Robert Russell, the music minister at St. Joseph in East Rutherford for 22 years, has decided to give two weeks’ notice. On July 10th, Russell was surprised and dismayed to learn from a homily pastor Fr. Joseph Astarita gave that the Catholic Church doesn’t accept even the concept of same-sex marriage. And when he confronted Fr. Astarita to reveal that he is gay and has been with a single partner for 15 years, the pastor had the temerity to suggest that Russell could change his orientation through reparative therapy, and to express concern about his involvement with a yet-to-be-formed children’s choir (“allegedly [telling] him he would be a ‘poor example’”).

Wow, who would’a thunk it?

But besides announcing his intention to quit, Russell has also — wait for it! — retained the services of an attorney, David L. Wikstrom. Wikstrom stated that Russell “couldn’t properly perform his work because of his sexuality, thus creating a hostile and adverse work environment.” Either Wikstrom isn’t used to speaking to reporters or for posterity, or reporter Hampton butchered Wikstrom’s actual statement to cut the story down to size.

Of clocks, toothpaste and other dumb similes

Since I wrote about the altar girl flap in Phoenix yesterday, a couple more articles have come to my attention that demonstrate something wrong with certain liberal Catholics.

First, we have a quick blurb from Bryan Cones of US Catholic, a magazine destined to enter the Hall of Shame along with America and other “Catholic Lite” publications:

The main problem here, though, is baptismal: Does that baptism of girls and women not configure them for service among the people of God[?] So far Rome has said that it doesn’t for the ministries of priest and bishop—deacon still being an open question [no, not really]. But altar server? And just for practical purposes, how much longer will the parents of girls keep taking them to a church that now won’t even let them serve at the altar, much less eventually become priests?

If you’re not serving at the altar, you’re not doing jack squat for the People of God … is that it, Mr. Cones? I’m sure a lot of people, both men and women, working in non-liturgical ministries will be enchanted by your appraisal of their efforts’ worth. Think before you write, please.

As to your second question: A lot longer than you think. Like the women of the Women’s Ordination Conference, you’ve bought into the second-wave feminist premiss that “boys’ stuff is better than girls’ stuff”.

But for Wales, Father Bourgeois?

On April 10, I wrote an open letter to Fr. Roy Bourgeois of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. This was in refutation of a letter Fr. Bourgeois had written to his superior general, Fr. Edward M. Dougherty, published openly on the Women’s Ordination Conference website.

To give a little more background: Fr. Bourgeois, an open supporter of women’s ordination, has been a thorn in Maryknoll’s paw for a couple of years. In 2008, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent Maryknoll a letter advising them that Fr. Bourgeois’ opposition had incurred excommunication latae sententiae (that is, by the fact of the delict’s commission, somewhat comparable to a mandatory sentence) reserved to the Holy See. Since then, Maryknoll has warned Fr. Bourgeois at least twice that his refusal to recant would lead to his dismissal from the order.

On July 27, 2011, Fr. Dougherty sent Fr. Bourgeois a second canonical warning: if the latter did not recant within fifteen days, the superior general would start the dismissal proceedings [H/T Deacon Greg Kandra]. And yesterday Fr. Bourgeois sent back his own letter indicating his final Non serviam:

What you are asking me to do in your letter is not possible without betraying my conscience. In essence, you are telling me to lie and say I do not believe that God calls both men and women to the priesthood. This I cannot do, therefore I will not recant.

A heartless defense of children's dignity

In a society seemingly dedicated to killing children, it’s refreshing and delightful to find couples who have an always-room-for-one-more attitude. And it’s also heartbreaking when such a loving couple has difficulties in conceiving and carrying children to term.

For that reason, it’s hard not to feel like a heartless bastard when you have to explain the Catholic Church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization. It’s like telling your son or your daughter that they can’t have that dog in the window: no matter how well you explain it, you’re afraid all your child is going to get out of the explanation is that you’re a big meanie and that you don’t love him.

In 2009, Sean and Carolyn Savage were caught in a media storm when she received another couple’s embryo by mistake. After birth, the child was immediately handed off to his genetic parents. That very day, the Diocese of Toledo released a statement condemning IVF.

Now Sean Savage, a “cradle Catholic”, has written a post for CNN’s Belief Blog, arguing that the Church should change its teaching on IVF. As much as I sympathize with the Savages’ situation, I find it odd that they didn’t learn from the experience. You’d think giving birth to someone else’s baby might have caused some deeper reflection.

Winds of change blowing in Queensland—UPDATED

This press release has appeared on the Vatican website (here translated from the Italian via Google Translate, with refinement by yours truly):

APPOINTMENTS AND CANCELLATIONS, 02.05.2011

RELIEVING THE BISHOP of Toowoomba (AUSTRALIA)

The Holy Father Benedict XVI has relieved from the pastoral care of the Diocese of Toowoomba (Australia) HE Bishop William M. Morris.

In response, Bp. Morris, 67, retired from his episcopate (a bishop doesn't stop being a bishop when he's relieved of his see). [UPDATE: See Dr. Edward Peters' comments on the legal and ecclesiological implications of "privation" versus "removal". The post was written after Bp. Jean-Claude Makaya Loemba was forced out of the diocese of Pointe-Noire (Congo), but it may apply here.]

According to The Australian, "In his letter, Bishop Morris said the Vatican's decision was sparked by complaints to Rome about an Advent letter he wrote in 2006. In that letter, he argued that with an ageing clergy the church should be open to all eventualities, including ordaining women, ordaining married men, welcoming back former priests and recognising the validity of Anglican, Lutheran and Uniting Church orders."

That, however, wasn't the only cause. There were also concerns about general absolution, the material contained in diocesan school sex-education programs, and the diocese's appalling vocations record (virtually zero over the last few years). Nor was the relief precipitate: According to the bishop's own letter, the Vatican had been talking with him over the last five years, and Abp. Charles J. Chaput of Denver led an apostolic visitation to Toowoomba to investigate.

Jesus the Anarchist Revolutionary-BORING!

For centuries, Catholics have looked on the Corpus of the crucifix and seen there the awful price of their salvation, the cost of their sins: the torture and death of God. “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him’” (Ac 2:38-39).

Jamie L. Manson, writing for the National Catholic Fishwrap, wants us to look up and see another oppressed proletarian victim of the system:

When I read the passion narratives of the Gospels, I don’t hear simply that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. Rather, I hear the four evangelists very clearly say that Jesus’ suffering and death was the will of those who conspired against him—those whose political systems he had undermined, those whose religious convictions he had offended.

Jesus’ passion and death is a result of deeply-human intolerance, jealousy, resentment, hatred, and, most of all, fear.

Jesus’ death may have been the will of God, but it was also the will of both powerful people and ordinary people who preferred unquestioning loyalty to rigid, oppressive political and religious regimes to the profound challenges of God incarnate.

Jesus as a first-century César Chavez. How mundane.

How teaching James Joyce ruins appreciation of liturgy

Here we go again, he sighed. The “Spirit of Vatican II” has once more spoken against the new translation.

This time, it’s in the person of Fr. Joseph S. O’Leary, graduate of that Maynooth College seminary which Abp. Timothy Dolan of New York recently recommended closing, now a professor of English at Sophia University in Japan. (In case you have any doubts, Fr. O’Leary has “Spirit of Vatican II” posted at the top of his “About” page.) I assume he is still a priest in good standing, although neither his blog nor his profile at Sophia’s website say “Rev.” or “Fr.”

Here beginneth the rant:

The bishops of the English speaking world have disgraced themselves in their handling of the new translation of the liturgy. They have failed in their primary duty of ensuring that the faithful have access to a decent celebration of the sacraments. Their treatment of critics of the new liturgy is particularly disheartening — I refer in particular to how 300 US bishops snickered at Bp. [Donald W.] Trautman [of Erie], who had the bad grace to point out that only 5 of them had submitted any written comments on the texts they somnambulistically rubberstamped, and also to a shoot-the-messenger speech from one Bp. [Leonard P.] Blair [of Toledo].

Closing the Catholic "debate" on same-sex marriage

Thomas Peters (the American Papist) grumped yesterday, “It’s extraordinary to me how, in a Catholic community which has debated endlessly the morality of LiveAction’s use of false statements in exposing Planned Parenthood …, that there has not been more effort to condemn the claim of pro-SSM Catholics that the debate over marriage is closed.”

Funny. I just wrote about gay marriage the other day. I didn’t realize I needed to mention pro-SSM Catholics. I was hoping to leave the topic alone for awhile.

Frankly, I was a little taken aback. Peters generally has his finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the blogosphere; he should know as well as I that there’s been quite a bit in recent weeks for everyone to chew over. It’s not like we Catholic bloggers are all tied into a central system to get our orders: “Okay, today’s topic will be Planned Parenthood!” Don’t ask me to explain the dog pile over Lila Rose yet again; if you feel like you lost, Tom, don’t worry … we’re still with you on so many other things.

This fit of high dudgeon was brought on by a guest post in the WaPo “on Faith” blog by Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries. New Ways, if you’ll recall, is the “gay-positive ministry” that Cdl. Francis George of Chicago blasted last February for its criticism of Church teaching, saying that, “like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of Church teaching, New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”

What shall we do with the bishops?

What’s the point in having a “church”?

Well, part of it is to enable community worship of God. But only part. The other part is fully expressed in Jesus’ words to the Eleven: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20) ….

That’s “teaching them”, not “telling them to figure it out for themselves”. Jesus taught one gospel message, not six or seven billion.

Right from the Pentecost, the followers of “the Way” split into two separate groups: disciples and apostles. “Disciple” comes from the Latin for “student”; the student’s role is to learn. To execute that role faithfully, the disciple learns what is taught … not what he wants to learn, not what he thinks the teaching ought to be.

“Apostle” comes from the Greek for “one who is sent forth as a messenger”; the messenger’s role is to pass on the message. To execute that role faithfully, the messenger must transmit the message sent … not what he thinks it ought to be, not what suits the audience’s preferences.

Our Heavenly Grandfather and the BK Theory of Christianity

The National Catholic Reporter, that haven of mostly-dissident Catholics (with the saving exception of John L. Allen, Jr.), has a regular section called “Eco Catholic”. The most recent installment—a hysterical screed against the doctrine of hell—shows that writer Carol Meyer has trouble distinguishing conservation from nature worship.

I’m writing about hell because it is an unthinkable, horrible, destructive concept that can’t possibly be true. I frankly can’t even imagine how anyone came up with something so horrific. Could any wrong merit the terrible pain of burning in fire, while fully conscious, for a week or a year, much less eternity? What kind of a monster would inflict that on anyone? How could such cruelty and sadism be consistent with a God of love? I don’t buy it for a minute.

I don’t care if scripture mentions hell or Jesus talked about it, if saints had visions of it, or if it’s a time-honored Catholic teaching. It simply can’t be justified on any level. [Emphasis mine.—TL]

Sic volo, sic iubeo: the perpetual chant of what Kate of Australia Incognita calls “the Magisterium of Me”. So Martin Luther said when asked to justify throwing out certain epistles from the New Testament: “Thus I will have it, thus I order it, my will is reason enough. … Doctor Luther will have it so, and … he is a Doctor above all Doctors in the whole of Popery.”[1] We can call it the Burger King Theory of Christianity, where you can “have it your way”.