2021 Reflections: The Church Edition.
We've posted commentary here from time to time, but what we've never done is to post a commentary of the resolutions/reflections type.
Indeed, it's extremely presumptuous of us to do so.
We're going to take a stab at it anyhow.
First we might note that in this area there's always less going on that those with Überangst would like to believe, and those in the press seem to believe. That's important to note, and frankly this is true not only of stories involving religion, but stories involving most things.
Having said that, we're going to do that in part as this has been an extraordinary year in almost every way.
The Coronavirus Pandemic rages on although most of the mask mandates in the United States have stopped. A debate exists in society on the vaccinations mostly based on some people having erroneous views on the science of the vaccines (they are effective, they are not going to kill you, and they're necessary if we're going to stop this pandemic). Some people have interjected moral issues into it, however, taking positions valuing personal liberty over collective good, a classic item for philosophical debate, and some taking a position based on the DNA of long ago aborted fetuses in the vaccine, a moral issue. The United States switched Presidents bringing in a Sunday and Holy Day observing Catholic whose John F. Kennedyesque moral outlook somehow allows him to be a proponent of abortion, and tossing out what would appear to be a nominal Presbyterian serial polygamist who, on the other hand, took policy positions that very much advanced the cause of life. The country abandoned a two decade old war in Central Asia and left that land in the hands of absolute Islamic fanatics.
And that's just a start.
So we dive in.
We're going to start in an odd place, perhaps, that being. . . Latin.
Immaculate Conception Church, Rapid City South Dakota
This is Immaculate Conception Church (formerly chapel) in downtown Rapid City, South Dakota. This Catholic church is somewhat unique for the region in that it says its masses, one daily and one on Sunday morning, in Latin, using the Tridentine Mass.The church obviously once had another name, as the corner stone reveals, which appears to have been St. Mary's, but I do not know the history of this particular church.
Latin, we often hear, is a dead language, but its sure not dead in some corners of the Internet. Indeed, people who track such things inform us that in fact Latin is enjoying a bit of a revival in some ways as the Internet has brought people who like Latin together from far away corners of the universe.
That's one thing, but another is that starting with Pope St. John Paul the Great there was a revival of Latin in the Catholic Mass.
Most people don't track this, of course, but Pope Paul, during the Vatican II era, but not as part of Vatican II, as so often erroneously believed, decided that the Mass needed to be put back in the vernacular.
Did I just say "back"?
Yes, I did.
He did more than that, in fact regarding the Mass. A new Mass came out, which is the Mass that most Latin Rite Catholics know. And frankly, it was an improvement over the the old Latin Rite Mass that existed at the time.
Indeed, in my view, a large improvement.
Now, starting off with the history of this, the very first Masses in history were said in Aramaic. Some still are, for those in the Chaldean Rites of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Very soon thereafter, they were said in Greek, and some still are, rather obviously. Indeed, early in the Church's history, the Mass or Devine Liturgy was pretty uniformly said in the local language, whatever that might be. One of those languages was Latin, as the Church came early to the Rome.
The collapse of the Roman Empire was coincident with a huge expansion of the Latin Rite, which left the Church with a big problem. There were all sorts of new languages and peoples to deal with, and so the Church kept Latin, a language that came to be spoken by most learned people (it was the language of education for centuries) and which crossed borders and ethnicities. But by the 20th Century this was rather obviously no longer true. And at the same time, the need to keep the Mass limited in terms of the parts of the Canon of the Bible it used were no longer there as well.
So it was time for a New Mass, the Novus Ordo.
This seems simple enough, but something can't be done one way for a very long time and then have everyone accept the change right away, if at all. And at the same time, the "Spirit of Vatican II", rather than what Vatican II actually decreed, came into the Church in a major way in some places and predictably enough there was a reaction in some quarters. Indeed, depending upon what the reaction focused on, not all of it was invalid by any means.
This gave rise to a very strong, but quite small, dissention movement that started in France, the SSPX, which determined to continue to use the Tridentine Latin Mass. Never large, but nonetheless large enough to be a concern, and also on the edge of other radically conservative groups, Pope St. John Paul the Great worked to avoid having them go into full schism. Ultimately, a compromise developed, which Pope Benedict expanded on, allowing the use of the Latin Tridentine Mass, with a set of guidelines and requirements.
In the meantime, as the original flag bearers of the "Spirit of Vatican II" started to pass away, and as the Internet came in and made self Catechesis relatively easy, conservatism and traditionalism in the Church strongly revived. Abuses in the Novus Ordo, or as we would now say the "Ordinary" form of the Mass were corrected. Some traditional elements were reinserted. Translations were fixed where they had been hastily made.
All of which made Catholic "liberals", a now aging but still present group, unhappy.
Indeed, during this period a sharp divide between a minority "liberal" wing of the Church and the more conservative bulk developed. Beyond that, however, that began to focus with the development of not only strongly Traditional Catholics, but Radical Traditionalist, or Rad Trads, as they were termed. Rad Trads came close to having the same views as the now permitted SSPX in various ways. Over time, they started to reintroduce on a private basis things that had long disappeared, mantillas being an example.
This would be all more or less fine, but then came in Pope Francis.
Pope Francis has been termed a "liberal" or "progressive" Pope by those who don't like him, but its really not true. He's a South American Pope, and that shows. He's highly conservative in some ways, and not in others. On economics and environmental matters, he's upset American traditionalist and even simply orthodox Catholics who sometimes tend to confuse economic conservatism and an opposition to environmentalism, which are largely political matters, with religious ones. Added to that, American Catholics tend to be ignorant on Catholicisms traditional views in both of these areas, and would be surprised, for example, that the Popes have criticized capitalism on more than one occasion.
They're not the only ones to get confused, however, as "progressive" Catholics, also confused, ahve figured that they're back in vogue and have run with it whatever they can. As an example, even though Pope Francis has referred to homosexuality has been influenced by the Demonic, American Catholic liberals are constantly on the edge of their seats expecting the Pople to endorse homosexual coupling. That's not going to happen.
Anyhow, this long-winded introduction is for this reason. In the last couple of years the disaffected Rad Trads have been edging closer and closer towards schism, while the grump European progressives, principally lead by the German bishops, have done the same. The Pope, while it seems obvious to neither, is acting to reign them both in.
With Rad Trads, the Tridentine Mass went from being a beautiful license, to sort of a flag of opposition. At the same time, individuals who started off being loyal orthodox Catholics, like Taylor Marshall and Patrick Coffin, have edge up on allegations that Pope Francis is not a valid Pope, with Coffin being so suggestive in that area that its impossible not to basically attribute that claim to him, whether or not he really believes it. The Pope, having had enough, as determined to pretty much end the license for the Tridentine Mass in Latin.
He can't be blamed.
The Catholic Church is the Universal Church. The old form of the Mass, while beautiful, was poorly understood in modern times by most, and the Ordinary Form is actually more inclusive of the full faith. And hence our first set of reflections and resolutions
1. The Mass, more traditional, but not Latin.
It's time to really abandon the Tridentine Mass, but it's not time to bring back 1970s style Guitar Masses either. The direction we were headed, which reflected the perfection of the Ordinary Form, is one we need to get back to.
That means Rad Trads need to come back in. They have a place, but they can't be pushy about their views either. You can't make women, for example, who are there in their jeans feel that they're doing something immoral because they aren't wearing a full length skirt and a mantilla. And the Mass can, and frankly normally should, be in the vernacular, which people actually speak and know.
At the same time, the aging boomer crowed that saw alter rails come out in the 70s and the like needs o stop trying to change fundamentals, and even dogma. Converting the Catholic Church into a liberal branch of the Episcopal Church won't work for anything. It sure hasn't worked for the Episcopal Church, which is dying. Orthodoxy is the future of the Catholic Church because it is the Catholic Church. Traditional elements should be brought back in where they can sensibly be (where are those alter rails?), and beyond that, a real fundamental needs to be reinforced and accepted, which is:
Just because you have a deep attachment to sin, doesn't make it okay.
That's a hard lesson to learn, but its true.
I can no more put up wall to wall pinups and excuse it by saying that I have a deep attraction to women than those who have a deep attraction to the same gender, in the same way, can claim that "well, I'm born that way".
We've been warned by St. Paul, and we were always told that we were going to have to carry a Cross. We were also told that, in most places, in most times, most people aren't going to like us.
That's the way that is, and everyone, from Rad Trads to German Bishops, need to come to that realization.
2. Stop trying to change dogma and an appreciation of existential nature.
See above, I covered it there.
Still, once again, nobody said being a Christian was going to win you lots of popularity contests. Not so.
The oddity is, however, that the most observant people are the happiest. They simply are, and that's for a simple reason. As ultimately, we look towards a home that we don't have, as we lost in the Fall, we're happiest the closer we get to our true natures.
This is true, I'd note, of everyone in everything. Vegans ranting on street corners are miserable people as they're living artificial lives. Men and women living the Sex in the City lifestyle go home miserable and can't find solace in their lives as, at the end of the day, materialism and hedonism isn't our nature. The freest people are those who have conceded Devine laws and live close to them, no matter what their station in life may be.
3. Your economics shouldn't be your religion
This is something I've noted before, and while the upper two comments are mostly Catholic ones, this one is universal for all Christians.
I'm constantly amazed by how people confuse their faith with their economic well-being. They aren't the same. Not even close.
This obviously takes on the "health and wealth" Gospel, but frankly, it isn't Christian. Christ never promised anyone wealth, or health.
In modern terms, insisting, as some do, that capitalism is equivalent with Christianity is self delusional and harmful. Even more harmful is the economic version of the "made that way" line of thinking. Just as I'm employed as a Widget Maker doesn't mean that Widget Making must therefore be benign because I'm a Christian.
4. Sound science and Sound Christianity are not incompatible.
This should be obvious, and it's a traditional Catholic view, but if something seems very well established in science the chances of it contradicting Christianity are nill. If there seems to be a conflict, something needs to be looked into.
The best example of this is evolution, of course. Some Christians are absolutely insistent that evolution can't be true because of Genesis. Anyone looking into the original Hebrew version of it, however, will come away with the conclusion that it certainly can be.
Taking extreme positions such as this and making them hills to die are counterproductive.
At the same time, just because we can do it, scientifically, doesn't license it. There are lots of examples of his, and this too is a very of the "made that way" argument. I usually here this in the form of "well God gave me common sense and therefore (fill in personal sin here).
5. Holding co-religious accountable.
One of the warnings of the New Testament is that people can and do find their own personal gain so predominant that they'll choose it over their faith when difficult decisions come. Did the rich man go away and give his possessions to the poor? We don't know.
A current example of this is the example of political power. It's very clear that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, among other Catholics, are advocating something the Church regards as a gave evil. We don't know the state of their hearts on abortion, but their willingness to ignore the Church for political position is pretty abundant.
The Church has for too long been willing to turn a blind eye to this. It's time to stop.
Indeed, here we can take a lesson from the Protestant Churches which have very much turned a blind eye to numerous sins in order to seem to keep themselves relevant. It hasn't worked for them either. Here, they need to recover the ground they've lost by going back and reviewing what they did.
As part of this, however, a wider net needs to be cast, in my view. In one local Parish, there's a politician who has been deep in the lies about the past election being stolen. Perhaps he really believes it, but there's no reason that the sinfulness of telling lies can't be pointed out.
Here too, I suppose, is a place where lay Catholics have a role. The Catholic on Sunday, or Christian on Sunday, and "my own views the rest of the week" type of attitude have no place in the life of Christians. There's no reason to be in people's faces, but when encountered with something like this, there's no reason to simply ignore it by saying nothing either.
6. Smelling like the sheep
Pope Francis has repeatedly said that the pastor should smell like the sheep. He's right.
I don't have the same thing in mind that he does by noting this, however.
I'll note that while I fully understand why things everywhere were shut down early in 2020, I wasn't in favor of that in regard to churches. I've changed my mind and I think that step right. But closing the door of the Church doesn't mean closing the Church.
Different pastors handled this differently, but there's no reason whatsoever that every single parishioner or congregant in a church, mosque or synagogue, no matter what the faith was, shouldn't have received at least occasional calls of the "how are you doing variety".
Maybe some places they did. But, at least in so far as I know, that didn't happen here.
I think the reason that it didn't happen here is that the American Catholic Church is used to a strong parishioner base, and the parishioners have, in substantive ways, supported the Church in every fashion. This remains the case. It doesn't diminish the point, however. Priests (and pastors, and ministers) should have reached out. I'm sure some did, but many do not seem to have. They should have, with "how are you doing (spiritually and physically), do you need anything (spiritually and physically)".
For a long time, I've had that feeling about the clergy in general. I know that they live a vocation, which most of us do not, and that the demands on their time are monumental, but I fear that they fall prey to the same thing old lawyers do. We know all lawyers, and a few clients, we talk to lawyers, and that's our lives. That's part of the reason the law becomes disconnected from reality.
With Priests, in my view (and pastors and ministers), they ought to at least all do something that puts them out in the public, no matter how uncomfortable that may be, and not with the handful of people who go out of the way to be in contact with them. Go fishing. Go hunting. Go hiking. Go to a neighborhood bar. Take a class on English literature or European history at the community college. You get the point.
As part of this, and something I thought about making a separate item, any Church has to be both true to its faith and in the world of the parishioners as they really are. Throughout the pandemic it's been easier to find information on the Bishops' website here on Bishop Hart, who was bishop long ago, and the accusations against him, than what's going on with the Church and COVID 19. The Church should have been reaching out, as noted above, to its members, rather than putting up news items on a Bishop who served so long ago that most Catholics in the state today have no connection with him whatsoever.
7. Younger, more and more orthodox
I don't have the solution to vocations, but in the modern world what strikes me is that we need to find a way to have younger clergy, more clergy and more orthodox clergy.
If it was me, I'd retire all the Bishops, pretty much, who are older than 50. Time, technology, and events have moved on. And I'd look at a way of localizing, once again, religious instruction. I grasp that this helped give rise to the Reformation, but that was before the Internet, when everything local was much more local.
And while I am very traditional, frankly I think the prohibition on married clergy needs to be reassessed. We had them early on, and it lingered in many European localities, until the Middle Ages.
It should be obvious to all that sex is part of human nature, and it's a problem. Sure, it can be denied, just as a varied human diet can be denied. Everyone can deny it to the extent necessary to live an ordinary and moral life.
But not all Catholics eat a diet that comports with the original Rule of St. Benedict, and they never have. Periods of fasting are not anywhere near as numerous as they once were, but they were never every day. The average Parish Priest isn't subject to the Rule of St. Benedict in this fashion either, and if it were imposed clergy wide, I suspect some who have become Priests would have reconsidered as that sort of discipline isn't meant for everyone.
The original purpose of the prohibition on married clergy was to prevent the rise of a Priestly class. I.e, the Church worried about the sons of Priests becoming Priests, and so on. This does occur in the Rites that allow for married clergy, but it hasn't become a problem as the Priests in those Rites aren't closely associated with a ruling class. In the Anglican Church in England, however, it did become a problem as the clergy was one of the few categories of occupations that noble men could occupy, with the military being another. This lead to an anemic military officer class and a clergy that wasn't respected.
In the modern West, these problems aren't going to arise.
What did arise, in the mid 20th Century, was the Latin Rite becoming a refuge for homosexual men at a time that homosexuality was despised. It provided cover for not being married. Such individuals were always a minority of the clergy, but it lead to problems for a variety of reasons, not the least of them being that not all of those individuals probably truly heard a call.
In the movie Dr. Zhivago (I don't recall it being in the book) the character Laura is instructed by a Priest that flesh is strong and only marriage can contain it. Whether Sir David Lean inserted that into the story or not, it's true. There's a place for vows of abstinence and there always will be, but perhaps the time has come to end it as to diocesan priests.
8. Reunion
I've noted this before, but it's time to end the separation between East and West.
That will take overcoming a lot of pride and a sense that independence needs to be preserved. But that time has arrived and that should occur.
The Latin Rite of the Church is having a big synod right now. Personally, I think that the synod is designed to bring in the full voice of the Church in Latin American and Africa, and the result will be a strengthening of the orthodox and diminishment of European and American liberalism.
One thing I do wish, however, is that this process could somehow include the voice of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox. I think it's up to the West to keep inviting them in until they come in. And at some point, they will. It's time, in my view, to treat them somewhat like cousins who live across town and who are estranged due to a long over family argument. If you keep calling and say "well, that was a while back, we're having a gathering on Sunday . . . "
I'd also note that this is the case for some Protestant groups at this point who are really holding out based on tradition. It'll take a lot for them to get over this, but conservative Anglicans and Lutherans should come back in. There's really no longer any reason for them not to.
9. Proceeding in ignorance of history.
I concluded that last item by noting an item of Protestant history, but generally, some Protestants, and Protestant culture in general no longer have an excuse for a lot of the bogus historical items they cite and need to knock it off.
Everyone who stays to a Catholic "well what about Galileo" needs to go right back to grade school without passing go as they don't know what they're talking about. The same for any Protestant stating "well what about the Inquisition". These are Protestant position that were developed during the Reformation by people who had to justify the positions they were taking and demonize the Catholic Church. In an era when most people barely read, you could get away with this stuff. You can't now.
Likewise, ignorance on the origin of the Faith. Protestants can argue about the nature of their denominations if they wish, but nobody can cite a false history to excuse them. The works of the Church Fathers are easily accessible at this point. It's clear that there was one, and only one, Church at least up to the Great Schism. One, that's it. After that, that Church was in schism, but it was still one church. There were not multiple Christian denominations until the Reformation. A person can claim, if they can justify it, that their branch of Christianity is the correct one, or a correct one, but they can't claim it to be the original one if they aren't Catholic or Orthodox.
That's obviously a theological problem for Protestants, but it's the case. Various Protestant denominations which are close to the Apostolic churches have their own answers for it, but when people say this isn't true, they're wrong. In the modern age, we can't afford to be wrong.
This also stems, I'd note, back to the topic of inserting personal beliefs into your religion. No matter what a person may wish to believe, Christ drank wine, not grape juice, and the wine served at the Last Supper was just that. He would have eaten meat too. When Peter heard "kill and eat", he heard "kill and eat'. Besides that, he was a fisherman and fishermen kill fish.
10 The Americanized Exotic Faiths.
Taking a radical turn, but also along the same lines of knowing what is what, Americans adopting exotic, usually Asian, religions should know what they really hold.
This may be most evident in the case of Buddhism American Buddhism isn't very Buddhist. For example, American Buddhist tend to be self comforted by the thought that Buddhism doesn't have a Hell. . . except that real Buddhism does.
Things like this are one step above the "spiritual but not religious" line that some people put out, which means something completely different. All humans everywhere have a concept of God, even though there are people who claim they do not I've heard, for example, a person who claims to be an atheist discuss his encounter with a ghost. You can't get to ghosts if you don't have life after death, and if you have life after death. . .
Anyhow, what this really boils down to is that all religions have a structure. There is no unorganized religion, as the concept of the Devine implies order by its very nature. What people who claim they're spiritual but not religious, or people who claim to dislike organized religion are stating, is they don't like the "rules". This should suggest to them that the real inquiry is whether the rules, which are in the order, are of Devine or man made law, something that Christ himself discussed in regard to the Pharisees. An inquiry like that doesn't take you into Buddhism, however, which is tends to be a way for Americans to adopt something with some structure over a structure which actually expects something out of you.
Be that as it may, Americans tend to do these religions disfavors by implying that they basically boil down to "it's nice to be nice to the nice". Not so, there's a lot more to them than that.
11. Go to Church, the Synagogue, the Mosque.
Here's a final comment, or resolution.
Whatever faith you are, Protestant Christian, Apostolic Christian, Jew, Muslim, attend.
Modern life has made people sedentary, and it's working against us in every fashion. It's also made us isolated in ways that are bad. People sit alone at home, and then go to work with people who are just like them. Indeed, the more educated a person is, the more likely that they just work with people who are just like themselves, largely with the same ideas they have.
No church or faith is that way, to be sure.
Everything about our natures expects more out of us than we're inclined to deliver, if we can avoid it. Get up, go out, and go.
