I'd been listening to Whittaker Chambers' book Witness recently. And last night, I first got into some of the coverage of the new HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Both give a glimpse into the nobility and sacrifice inherent in the Russian character, as well as the insanity, lies, and slaughter at the heart of Communism.
In light of Our Lady's clear warning at Fatima about Russia and the toxic intellectual pollution that was and would emanate from the ancient country, there is something perfectly symbolic about Chernobyl. There is something perfectly symbolic about a series of lies, of acts of insanity and/or carelessness, of hubris, leading to a tragedy of historic proportions. And there is something symbolic about the further lies told in order to save face, in order to protect the reputation, the influence, the misplaced trust in the Communist Party, in the Soviet system, in man and his ability to control all things, to replace God.
Our Lady warned us:
... If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. ...
Like the toxic cloud arising from the exposed core of Chernobyl, those many errors have arisen and spread out of Russia these past 100 years. And chief among them is "anything in the name of."
Anything in the name of the worker.
Anything in the name of justice.
Anything in the name of our party, or our state, or our country, or my family, or national security, or...
Anything in the name of the true, the good, and the beautiful, including telling a lie; doing evil; creating ugliness.
Anything in the name of, which inevitably leads to betraying the thing in whose name you have been acting.
Everything in the name of--yes, do everything in the name of God! Do everything with your eyes fixed on the good, the true, the beautiful, and do everything for love of them.
But anything in the name of is a fast track into the lowermost depths of hell.
J.R.R.Tolkien did a masterful job of dissecting this temptation in Lord of the Rings. Gandalf, Galadriel, Sam, Aragorn, Faramir--all are tempted to take up the One Ring, the Master Ring, in order to defeat the Dark Lord Sauron, and all refuse it, knowing that they could win, but in the winning, would lose everything. Denethor, Boromir, and Saruman were not so wise.
So it was at the root of Communism, and before, in Tsarist Russia. Anything in the name of the state; anything in the name of the preservation of our system; anything in the name of the Revolution; anything in the name of Soviet Communism; anything in the name of Comrade Stalin; anything in the name of defeating the Nazis; anything in the name of winning the Cold War; anything in the name of putting down counter-revolutionary forces; anything in the name of political correctness; anything in the name of...
So the tsars and their Okhrana helped give birth to the Revolution and to the many iterations of an internal security apparatus that eventually became the KGB, and then post-Soviet FSB, and the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Anything in the name of helped spawn anything in the name of once again. Oppressors and oppressed switched places, and set in motion the next cycle of revolution; switched places again, or perhaps merely reshuffled the cards for the next hand.
Anything in the name of gave us Chernobyl. Anything in the name of gave us the Cold War.
Anything in the name of justified the culture of the lie in the Soviet Union so well exposed and so aptly criticized by Chernobyl. Anything in the name of creates the People of the Lie dissected by M. Scott Peck, George Orwell, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Vaclav Havel, and St. John Paul II.
Anything in the name of is the dominant mode of politics and economics tempting us across the world today.
Time, once again, to say: Pray the Rosary daily for peace in the world. Make the First Saturday devotion. Learn about the Blessed Virgin Mary, and do the devotions to the Immaculate Heart.
T'Challa: You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much! Divide and conquer the land as they did!
Killmonger: Nah, I learned from my enemies. Beat them at they own game.
T'Challa: You have become them! You will destroy the world, Wakanda included! (Black Panther, 2018
Here is the secret that should no longer be a secret.
Here is the truth about the state of the world today.
We are ruled, many of us, in our hearts and in our minds, by the "errors of Russia"--by the errors that Russia unleashed on the world, beginning in 1917. We know this because Our Lady of Fatima told us so. Those errors are many, and have spread across the world, causing the destruction of many nations. They continue to poison our world to this day, and are perhaps the dominant cause of conflict right now.
You can see them on full display in Marvel's Black Panther--that is, you can see those errors detected, exposed, and left out for all to see.
What are those errors?
We can detect them and their slimy trail by examining Russia's history shortly before 1917 through 1929 and by looking at the errors' first great historical effect: causing World War II.
Briefly, here are some of the errors:
"Anything in the name of." That is, being willing to do anything, no matter how evil, in the name of a cause or entity. Even the Jesuits, famous for their absolute obedience to their superiors and to the Holy Father, have always had a caveat to that obedience: They are not bound to commit mortal sin under obedience to a superior. Nothing and no one is worth losing our souls, not even God. God calls us to give everything to Him, not be willing to do anything without limits in His service. He is a God of order, a God who gives rules and binds Himself with covenants. He is not the unfettered, lawless, willfull bully in the sky. The heart and core of the errors of Russia is this: "anything in the name of." We see this in Black Panther in Killmonger's willingness to kill indiscriminately in the name of justice, to do anything in the name of liberation, even take away liberty; to do anything in the name of justice, even to commit injustice; to do whatever it takes to set the African diaspora free, even by subjugating the rest of the world and whatever Africans might be loyal to T'Challah.
Communism. This is one of the clearest errors of Russia, and one of the deadliest. But Communism is not one single idea. It is a complex web of ideas, consisting of a number of errors intertwined with some truths. The best way to discern its errors and sort out what is true is to go deeply into the life and writings of Pope St. John Paul II, a man of long experience in living under the terror of Soviet Communist rule, as well as an intellectual man of faith who could pick out the truths that swayed people to become fellow travelers with the Communist system. The errors contained within Communism include:
Atheism. As has been clearly pointed out in works such as de Lubac's The Drama of Atheist Humanism, atheism destroys human dignity in the name of human dignity, stripping away the religious understanding of the meaning of humanity and history, and replacing it with a howling void. Catholicism's answer comes in Gaudium et Spes, 22.
An idolatrous approach to history, and ironically, an ahistorical one. Marx replaced the "day of the Lord" with the Revolution in his system, expecting historical processes to somehow produce a day of perfect justice without an eternal, omniscient just judge. He expected, really, everything to sort itself out in the end. History would right every wrong.
The two most important realities in human history are political power and economics, or money. These are the prime movers of all of history, and necessary and sufficient explanations for every motive, every action, every aspect of human history. You can see this error on full display in every political party's campaign strategies and in every news network's broadcasts. What truly matters? What truly rests behind every shift of culture, every human act? Power and money get "serious" coverage. Everything else is practical (the weather; traffic), entertainment (sports, movies, TV shows, morning shows, etc.), or human interest puff pieces. Hence, the media both is certain that entertainment is just entertainment, never to blame for a change in morality or any serious consequences. At the same time, advertising is a multibillion dollar business. And of course, the press just doesn't GetReligion
There are more, and there is much more to discuss in Black Panther, and indeed, in all the Marvel movies, some of the greatest proclamations of the Gospel of Life out there. But let me just close by saying once again: We have all the clarity we need on the solution to the problems of today, problems caused or exacerbated by the errors of Russia.
We are to turn to the Immaculate Heart.
We are make the First Saturdays devotion--at least the five, but really, I think that those of us who know of this devotion and its importance should make a committment to try to be faithful to it as best we can to the end of our lives. If we hope to lead others to it, we must be setting an example of taking it seriously and in finding it doable and rewarding.
We should be praying the Rosary daily for peace in the world, as Our Lady of the Rosary requested at Fatima. Getting a blessed image of the Immaculate Heart (or even better, of the Alliance of the Two Hearts) up in your home is a good move. Lighting a blessed candle in her honor, etc.--all very good.
And do the works of mercy. Pick one. Stick with it. Perform them faithfully. (And, speaking as someone who's bad at it, be nice to yourself when you don't stick with it. Pick yourself back up, get to Confession, and start again.)
We are to become immaculate through the grace of God, given in the Sacraments, given in Christ. We are to become like Mary, and thereby overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are to become what we love, not what we hate. We are to become good in order to fight evil, not become evil in order to overmaster the former Dark Lord. Victory looks like Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, not Saruman, Denethor, and Gollum; like Aslan, not the White Witch.
They have a good instinct in appreciating the past, and refusing to abandon ways that have worked before, ways that have led to sanctity, to true communion with God. Often, once the fashions of the age have swung around a few times on their axis, we come to appreciate the folkways preserved by those whom fashion had derided, had called out of date or passed by on the way to today.
“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” – New York Times Magazine, Feb. 11, 1923
I have a great gratitude for the traditionalist/conservative/whatever label promotion and preservation of the Rosary especially, but a whole host of traditional devotions, in spite of a faddish disdain for them in the wake of Vatican II. I share some of the same instincts, in fact, as a number of conservatives and traditionalists. I tend to like primary sources, for instance. Want to know how to be holy? Let's look to the saints. Why would their witness ever be out of date? True, they practiced the faith in a whole different context, but humanity hasn't changed that radically in 2,000 years such that there's no such thing as perennial wisdom. Why not listen to the great masters and mistresses of prayer, of mercy?
And so when I see a lot of traditionalists and conservatives having a real problem with Pope Francis, I'm inclined to be sympathetic--up to a point.
I understand that Jesuits can be disconcerting. Heck, from the time of St. Ignatius of Loyola, their founder, up to the present day, the Society of Jesus has been reliably followed by a certain cloud of consistent criticism, fear, and misunderstanding, largely occasioned by St. Ignatius' remarkable spiritual genius in spawning an order of incredibly effective, incredibly brilliant, incredibly potent men. Further, those men have all been formed according to the first principle and foundation, which at its best leads them to do all ad majorem Dei gloriam--all for the greater glory of God. That has meant several centuries of men willing to go anywhere, take up any style of life, preach to anyone, practice the works of mercy for anyone under any circumstances, and, chameleon-like, accommodate themselves to any environment in order to bring Jesus to people.
At their best, they've been anchored by their obedience to their legitimate superiors, and in a special way, their obedience to the Holy Father. Rooted by that tether, they've been able to go to the ends of the world, to the furthest reaches of the lands of unbelief, in order to draw people from the furthest periphery into the center, which is Jesus Christ. They've been modeled on the Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep; the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, who leaves Heaven to come to earth and even harrows the depths of hell in order to draw up to eternal life all those saints who lived and died before the Incarnation.
The Jesuits are, then, the ones who go farther than anyone else; who have historically provoked protests and outrage from the other religious communities in mission lands; who have run afoul of the Inquisition; who were shut down by the Holy See for a time, and later restored; who, if they go wrong, go almost farther wrong than any other, and who, when they're good, are better than any others.
The Jesuits, at their best, embody dreaming the impossible dream.
And for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a Jesuit is the pope.
This was not ever really envisioned by the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits are bound to report any of their brethren whom they hear "ambitioning" to be made a bishop, or who seek any sort of ecclesiastical preferment. They are meant to be priests, and that's it. They've given the Church a number of outstanding bishops and cardinals over the years, rather against the will of their founder. And Francis is the first Jesuit pope.
So of course, in some ways, it should be expected that he might provoke a certain amount of fear and trepidation. Compound that with his habit of giving impromptu press conferences on the papal plane or interviews to secular journalists who don't take notes and reconstruct what they thought the pope said from memory. Yes, that can certainly be a recipe for disconcerting headlines, for strange claims about Church teaching, and for confusing news stories, clarified by Vatican releases that the average person never sees.
That's as far as I go in my sympathy with the traditionalist and conservative concerns about Pope Francis.
After that--well. We've been here before.
We should have learned, after long experience across a number of pontificates (for me personally, it's been the pontificates of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis), that if you want to know what the pope has said on any given subject, you really must search out the primary source text or the transcript of the words spoken. The media coverage invariably ranges from the well-informed to the utterly uncomprehending. GetReligion does a great job of chronicling that range of coverage.
Under St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, that coverage usually made it sound like the popes were always and forever hidebound, reactionary conservatives, against everything modern, progressive, and new. Oh, sure, there were occasional stories about papal concern for immigrants, the environment, and other topics that in the Anglosphere fall on the liberal side of things, but somehow that didn't penetrate to the average reader or media consumer. No--what came through confirmed American conservatives in both the media hostility to religion, conservatism, and them personally, as well as that the media didn't hear or understand what was coming from the Vatican.
Under Pope Francis, that same media reports everything the pope says or does that supports a narrative of him as a major liberal reformer--and those same American conservatives who should know better, given the decades of bad coverage of previous popes, tend to follow that line, as well.
The whole controversy--or at least 99.99999999% of the controversy--over Amoris Laetitia is a controversy over a few footnotes.
Footnotes.
I object to the level of controversy erupting over the contents of several footnotes. Whether or not there's dubious expressions in those footnotes, this sort of scandal being taken by Catholics is grossly disproportionate to the import of a footnote. If the Holy Father had attempted some sort of doctrinal definition of error, excommunication of holders of the perennial teaching of the Church for so holding that perennial teaching, or had anathematized irreplaceable elements of the teaching, then I get the reaction.
But for a footnote? Even a few footnotes? No. Grossly inappropriate, remarkably overblown, and a greater contribution to confusion in the Church than Amoris Laetitia itself.
Poor liturgical choices? Those have happened before, under a variety of popes, and they'll happen again.
Poor personnel decisions? Same.
Poor prudential decisions? Yup.
Has Francis made those sorts of decisions? I dunno. I distrust snap judgments about popes and other world leaders. Maybe; maybe not. But no matter what, I can guarantee you this: We've been through far worse than Pope Francis.
My position on Pope Francis, quite simply, is that the first, foremost, and underlying fact about him is that he is Peter. He is the Holy Father, the bishop of Rome, and so to be in communion with Christ's Church, I must be in communion with him.
Now, given the guarantees given to Peter and his successors, on the one hand, the Holy Father is infallible teaching ex cathedra on matters and faith and morals. On the other hand, he may be wrong on matters of discipline, policy, prudential judgment, and much else. As Scripture shows us quite clearly, Peter screwed up a number of times, both in word and in deed. But Jesus did not deprive him of his office.
... the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head.(27*) This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church,(156) and made him shepherd of the whole flock;(157) ... The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful.(30*)
He's not formally teaching error. All the most dubious stuff has been in interviews, often interviews with no notes taken, or coming from the mouths of those surrounding him. He evinces clear supernatural faith on a regular basis, speaking of spiritual combat, the reality of the devil, the importance of devotions such as the Rosary, praying to the saints, the Divine Mercy message and devotion, and more. His track record in Argentina on orthodoxy was pretty largely unobjectionable.
On everything he's pushed as pope, there may be/have been questions of prudence or whether they're the best policies, but he's never gone near to doing anything a successor could not undo or walk back. He's behaving like a Jesuit from the oldest days of that order--go out to the furthest corners of the world in order to spread the Gospel to those furthest from the Church--and the Good Shepherd--leave the 99 in order to go after the 1 fallen away.
If ever there were a time to put into practice patient, prayerful love of a spiritual father who freaks one out, it's with this guy. And honestly, most Catholics ought easily to be able to just completely ignore most all news from Rome, if they need to, and plug away at their local parish in the Sacraments, prayer, works of mercy, and the new evangelization/growing the culture of life running off Scripture, the Catechism, the Compendium of Social Teaching, and the writings of whichever Doctor or saint most speaks to them. If Francis freaks people out, then just abide in the fullness of the faith and don't look over there. God's got it all well in hand.
So pray for Pope Francis, certainly. Study the teachings of the Church from past ages earnestly, sure--Scripture, Tradition, liturgy, creeds, catechisms, papal magisteria, saints, Doctors, and approved mystics. And no matter the controversies that may erupt or the questions that arise in the course of the Church's pilgrimage here below--the sins or betrayals of the clergy or our fellow Catholics, or even our own sins and preferences--don't ever leave the barque of Peter.
Hopefully convincingly; hopefully well. Let me reiterate my closing point briefly:
The remedy Heaven has given us for the present age is in the message of Fatima: devotion to the Immaculate Heart, especially through the First Saturdays devotion and the daily Rosary for peace in the world.
Our Lady explained those Five First Saturdays to Sr. Lucia dos
Santos, one of the Fatima visionaries, on Dec. 10, 1925, in the
following way:
See, my daughter, my Heart encircled by thorns with which
ungrateful men pierce it at every moment by their blasphemies and
ingratitude. Do you, at least, strive to console me. Tell them that I
promise to assist at the hour of death with the graces necessary for
salvation all those who, in order to make reparation to me, on the First
Saturday of five successive months, go to Confession, receive Holy
Communion, say five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for a
quarter of an hour, meditating on the … mysteries of the Rosary. ...
If you immediately dismissed the above, I pray you, think again. If you nodded, went, "Yeah, yeah," and are eagerly anticipating me changing the subject--guys, diagnose that.
Pay attention to how hard it is to pay attention to the First Saturdays and the daily Rosary for peace.
Notice your resistance to thinking about these things seriously. Notice how easily your attention slips away.
Where we meet the greatest resistance, there the enemy fights hardest to protect himself.
Our Lady has given us the remedy to the present day--five smooth stones to take down the Goliaths of the modern age. Our Lady has given us everything we need to heal the world of the errors of Russia, beginning by healing ourselves with the Sacraments, prayer, and meditation on the mysteries of the Incarnation. Our Lady has given us the path to peace.
Use these means. Follow this path. And commit to it.
In order to lead the rest of the people of God along Our Lady's way, we who know the message of Fatima have a special obligation to live her requests. We need to simply commit to make the First Saturdays as best we can continuously till the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart or till the end of our lives, whichever comes first.
We who know the remedy need to take it ourselves, and invite our neighbors to join us on that road. We must do this for the sake of the victims of the errors of Russia, past, present, and future. We must do this for the sake of the Church, and especially for the sake of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, which feel so keenly every loss of a soul, every act of sin, every time someone falls.
We know what we need to do. We have everything we need in order to do it. Let's go.
There's a lot of people whose preferred method of evangelization looks like this:
Son of man, I have appointed you a sentinel for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, you shall warn them for me.
If I say to the wicked, You shall surely die—and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade the wicked from their evil conduct in order to save their lives—then they shall die for their sin, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. If, however, you warn the wicked and they still do not turn from their wickedness and evil conduct, they shall die for their sin, but you shall save your life.
But if the just turn away from their right conduct and do evil when I place a stumbling block before them, then they shall die. Since you did not warn them about their sin, they shall still die, and the just deeds that they performed will not be remembered on their behalf. I will, however, hold you responsible for their blood. If, on the other hand, you warn the just to avoid sin, and they do not sin, they will surely live because of the warning, and you in turn shall save your own life. (Ezekiel 3:17-21)
And of course, given the Scriptural warrant, there's something real and important to this. There's a time and a place for a stark prophetic witness, for a determined denunciation of real evil, of real wickedness. We look for it in the dark days of the Third Reich, and are encouraged to discover Dietrich von Hildebrand, the papal encyclicals Mit Brennender Sorge and Summi Pontificatus, the writings and public addresses of Cardinal von Galen, the heroic work of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty in rescuing thousands from the Nazis, and more. Public witness against evil and for the good matters. It matters in the time of a great evil, and it matters to those who come after, who look back and see how to do it when they confront the evils of their own times.
But what happens when the evils become smaller, become more everyday, become fashionable sins and vices, become faults and falls of ourselves, our immediate neighbors, our friends and family, our own? What then?
Caritas in veritate. Truth in charity. Both, inextricably intertwined. And that demands discernment. That demands a recognition that we are to be rock solid in the truth, yes; we are to study it, adhere to it, assent to the teachings of the Church on faith and morals, and work assiduously to understand and accept those that we find most challenging. We must hold and defend all that the Catholic Church holds and defends.
But when it comes to proclaiming it to the people, we have to take a lesson from the divine pedagogy of the Scriptures. God came to the people of a given time period and spoke to them in ways they understood, in language that they understood. He is a perfectly just and merciful judge. His justice takes into account our weakness, ignorance, and concupiscence. His mercy provides remedies for them, and offers a way home even after the umpteenth fall. And more: When Jesus comes, He has a very particular method. He is gentle with the weak and the broken.
"A bruised reed he will not break,
a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory.
And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matthew 12:20-21)
He is firm, even stentorian, with the strong, the purportedly righteous, with all those who should know better. He calls out in the strongest terms those who hold themselves to be faithful adherents to the Law, and eats with tax collectors and prostitutes.
So apply all this to the present day.
Most people have a very clear idea of what they're doing wrong by Catholic standards. They're relieved to be loved by people who believe they're doing wrong, relieved not to have that sin be the first or only thing we Catholics see when we look at them, relieved that religious people can engage them as people rather than some part of their life that our faith tells us isn't right.
Also, the Church is in such a deep mess these days that Catholics leading with making clear what we don't condone doesn't often make sense to many people inside or outside the Church. Far better we lead with a smile (as Mother Teresa said), friendly conversation, sincere interest in the other person and their loves and lives, and a rueful acknowledgment that these days, we all done screwed up.
There's certainly a time and a place for public witness against evil--stand against abortion; stand against human trafficking; stand against racism; and so forth. But usually when we're one on one with people, what's called for is simple love and gratitude for the other person. They almost always know where we believe they're going wrong. We don't have to say it. Simply not giving assent to things that are wrong can speak louder than a thousand homilies--see Thomas More for more.
Yeah, it's a mess of a discernment process. I think, though, that Jesus' example tended toward the "eat with the public sinners; chew out the publicly righteous" model of evangelization. The outcasts and disreputable in a society are reminded of their sin by the society itself, by their daily existence; the self-righteous, respectable folks have their vices cloaked by an approving society, overlooked by their peers, and their pride upheld.
The pendulum is certainly swinging in our society as to what's approved and what's disapproved, and what is respectable and what's not. But I think most people are abundantly clear on Catholic teaching on the crucial things; they're not nearly so clear on their intrinsic dignity, God's unfailing love for them even though they sin, and that any religious person could find them worthy of love, let alone time, attention, and friendliness.
And then one last subtlety--we're meant to be witnesses at all times and places by our love, not necessarily by an obvious proclamation of the Gospel. We are called to live lives in this world, we lay people, called to sometimes merely be doing a task, merely to be a customer, merely to be a patient. As Simcha Fisher once pointed out (if memory serves), we are meant to be salt and light in the world, which means not so much salt that people gag on the Good News and not so much light that people are blinded, sunburned, scarred. We are to lend savor to life and be a leading kindly light, instead.
We are to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents; to be servants of the truth, but also of Logos, of reason, and of the Hagia Sophia, of holy wisdom, as well. We are called to be fishers of men. That means there will be times to be silent as well as to speak, times to bait the hook and leave it in the water while we hold very still, waiting patiently on the Holy Spirit. He makes converts, not us.
In other words--when in doubt, just love. When in doubt, live well. When in doubt, hold on to the fullness of the faith, and share only as much truth as a person can hear without tuning out, giving up, or despairing.
Recently, a number of folks have put their signatures to a letter calling Pope Francis a heretic. Catholic Answers senior apologist Jimmy Akin gives an analysis and response here (minute 29:37):
Akin expanded on his response in a piece for the National Catholic Register. Excerpts:
Many of the Open Letter’s charges deal with the issue of divorce and civil remarriage, as discussed in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, but as Cardinal Gerhard Müller has shown, the relevant statements in this document can be understood in harmony with Church teaching.
Akin replies to the reply from one of the signatories. Excerpt:
... By stating that the definitions I have offered for dogma and heresy are “ridiculous,” Kwasniewski reveals either (1) that he does not know how the Magisterium uses these terms or (2) that he considers the Magisterium’s use to be “ridiculous,” in which case his problem is with the Magisterium, not with me.
The use of these definitions in no way renders “many of the condemnations made by the Church Fathers” pointless. They retain their full force.
Kwasniewski complains about parsing out “canonical niceties,” but this is precisely the area that he and his co-signatories have ventured into by writing—in their words (in the Open Letter)—“to accuse Pope Francis of the canonical delict of heresy.”
You can’t accuse people of canonical delicts and then complain if you are being held to a canonical standard of proof. That is moving the goal post.
As I said before, it’s one thing to ask for clarifications, voice concerns, or express disagreement, but it’s another to start making charges of the canonical crime of heresy. When you do that, you’d better be able to prove your case, but Kwasniewski’s responses indicate that he can’t.
The whole of Jimmy's responses are well worth reading. I think my own reaction may be summed up briefly: When it comes to a theological faceoff between the successor to St. Peter and a handful of academics, no matter how well regarded, my first instinct will be to sit back, examine the arguments, and wait for clarity while continuing to try to live a full Catholic life.
No matter the disputes between bishops; no matter the uncertainty amongst the leadership of the Church; no matter how clearly or not we understand and feel comfortable with what's happening in the broader Church, we know what we are to do. We must live a life of Sacraments and Scripture, of works of mercy and regular prayer, of reading the writings of the saints, councils, doctors, and popes, past and present. We know where we are to stand. We have the creeds. We know what we are to proclaim. We have the Scriptures and the Catechisms. We know where to look for wisdom. Follow the canons of Scripture and of the saints.
We have everything we need. Let time heal all confusion. We have our bedrock with the faith handed on from the apostles. While doctrine develops, while synods sit, while popes legislate, reform, and deal with the crises of the present age, we across the world can simply attend to the perennial things, waiting on the Holy Spirit.
And then ... well, my other main thought is simply that we've been given the successor to St. Peter as our spiritual father of fathers, not academics. We are told that the Holy Father is the bedrock, the one who confirms the brethren in their faith (Lk 22:32; Gal 2:9). Compared to every other authority in the Church, the successor to St. Peter has a unique primacy, a unique standing. There may well be times when people feel in good conscience they must oppose Peter to his face (Gal 2:11), but I would hope that would be done with a certain trepidation, a certain sense of personal danger, and a careful process of discernment. For all of us average Catholics out there, then, I think a safe general rule is: When in doubt, stand with Peter. When everything is clear, stand with Peter. When the world seems to be crashing down around your ears, stand with Peter. Prefer Peter over other authorities on matters of faith and morals. Regard Peter's rulings as superior to the rulings of other authorities within the Church. Trust the gift given to Peter by Christ, and stand.
Matthew 16:13-20 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)
When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah
Hell. How can you still be Catholic when you have to believe in hell?
How can you believe that a good and loving God could condemn anyone, no matter how bad, to an eternity of torment? How does that make sense?
It's a good question, and a long-standing one. I think the answer comes from the nature of humans and the nature of God.
You see, human beings are more than just animals, more than just haunted meatsacks, or whatever the dismissive term for us is these days. We're greater than we seem, greater than we often act. In fact, as C.S. Lewis pointed out masterfully in The Weight of Glory, human beings are potential gods or monsters, potential heavenly beings or potential monsters. We are matter and spirit, body and soul. We are persons who will live forever, no matter what, no matter who we are. Once created, always existing--why?
What makes human beings immortal?
Well, there have been a number of theories down through the ages, a number of different ways of addressing what happens to us after we die. I'm going to dismiss the atheist contention that it's night and silence for us upon death, the argument that once the biological machinery ceases ticking over, then it's curtains for the strange combination of electric impulses and chemical reactions that make me who I am. I'm going to dismiss that because it's such a minority view in terms of human history that it barely warrants a mention by the numbers. Across the ages and cultures, you have some notion of an afterlife, some notion of a part of us that endures beyond the grave--even if we may face dissolution and destruction at the hands of gods or devils past that point--that we really ought to be able to take the existence of some sort of soul as well established,
But what is it that makes us immortal?
Well, we are made in the image and likeness of God, originally. God breathed life into us, and with that breath of earthly life also came divine life, at the outset. Since that time, Adam and Eve took a bite out of a forbidden fruit, and so we lost that original inspiration, that original inbreathing of divine life, only to be regained through Baptism, Holy Communion, and retained through Confession and Anointing of the Sick. But we've never lost the image of God.
We are persons. And all persons are immortal.
All persons, divine, human, or angelic (including fallen angels) have spiritual souls. All persons, once created, will never pass out of existence again, though some will experience the "second death," whatever that will entail. The Last Judgment seems a dismal prospect for the goats; but as best we know, people who have once come into existence will never pass away fully and finally.
That means that beatitude for the blessed will last forever, and damnation for the damned will last forever.
But why must it be so?
Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that God is not Harvey Weinstein. That is, God respects human free will. He is a gentleman, and will take no as the refusal for a relationship that it is. He comes to us, sacred Scripture tells us repeatedly, like a bridegroom seeking His bride; like a lover seeking His beloved. He comes to us, in other words, pursuing a love affair with the created order, a union that marriage only resembles in a shadowy, distant sort of way.
Marriage is the union of two lovers; the union God is pursuing with us is the union between Love Itself and--well, us.
But of course, true love seeks freely willed, freely chosen love. Love Itself must be met with love, or else it will go away. God created us free in order to allow our love to be free. So there is the option to say no to Him.
Now, during our lifetimes, we may be saying yes and no to Him at different points along the way; just as in an ordinary relationship, sometimes things can get rocky. Couples break up, get back together, and go through all sorts of ups and downs together. But with God, there comes the time of a definite choice, where all the lesser choices of a lifetime culminate, or are overcome by grace.
That is to say, one day we die.
There are a few options for last minute interventions, of course--Our Lady can step in, as St. Alphonsus Liguori details in story after story in The Glories of Mary. Jesus comes to the soul in its final moments three times, as St. Faustina details in her Diary (1496; see also 1698). But at a certain point, our destiny is fixed--for spirits, such choices are all or nothing affairs. Human spiritual souls will experience this, just as it was for the angels and the demons at the time of their testing.
And then--well, we remain in our choices forever after. We choose either the company of God, His angels and His saints, or we choose the company of those who cannot stand company, those for whom the existence of others is a burden and a bore, whose egos reign supreme, whose vices have overtaken them and swallowed any goodness in them. We choose God and an afterlife of radical self-giving and receiving love, or we choose ourselves and an afterlife of radical selfishness, of closed mindedness, closed heartedness, closed soul.
If we choose ourselves rather than loving ourselves and opening ourselves up to God and His beloved creation, we choose to become the Dead Sea, salt, stagnant, and blocked off, rather than the Sea of Galilee, receiving new water and giving out water. We choose to become misers, neither spending nor receiving, neither welcoming others nor seeking out the true good for ourselves. We choose hell--as C.S. Lewis pointed out, the gates of hell would of course be locked from the inside, would be furiously closed off against anything outside of hell's control, blocking out light, life, and the unwanted, intolerable intrusion of other people, other ways of being, other ways of living.
But must it be forever?
Yes--because God is love, and God is eternal. God creates and sustains all that is through His love. You exist right now because of God's love, because God knows and loves you, remembers you and pours out His heart to you, shares His being with you, and calls you good.
You exist from moment to moment because God chooses you. God loves you. God calls you worthy.
And God can never stop loving His creation. It's not in His nature. He is love, not hate; wisdom, not forgetfullness. God is eternal life and love, and so He holds His beloved fellow people in existence for all eternity.
As Diane Duane puts it so well in the Young Wizards Series, nothing that is loved is ever lost.
So even the devils in hell are loved by God. He must, or else they would cease to exist. He loves us so much that He sustains us even in our furious rejection of Him, even in our sins. He loves us and remembers us even as we lash out against Him, even as we doubt His existence, forget our obligations to Him, fail to show Him gratitude, and do evil against God and neighbor. God loves us so much that He lets us choose freely what to do. He loves us so much that there are consequences to our choices, even eternal consequences.
And He can never stop loving us, because that would demand that God ceases to be God.
That is to say, He can never stop sustaining us; He can never stop holding us in existence, even if we have rejected Him, even if we have chosen life without Love, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Being--life without God.
He can never stop loving us into existence, even if we have chosen hell.
That is how eternal damnation and divine love make sense in my head, at least.
We're reading Madeline Miller's book Circein one of my book groups. It's nicely written and certainly evocative, but there's one underlying assumption that I find peculiar--the notion that magic could come as a new power, one even mightier than the gods themselves.
It's a notion I've encountered in my brushes with the show Supernatural, as well, a show that, for all its ostensibly Christian angels, satanic devils, and showrunner God, is essentially a story of pagan deities and Greek heroes. The angels and demons may be "slain," God can run out of power or even be threatened--indeed, he has a sister, darkness to his light--and the throne of hell is unsteady indeed.
And in that world, magic again rules supreme.
The runes on Michael's spear are what make it so powerful, for instance. The heroes use magic to defeat apparently immortal foes.
So, too, with Circe, daughter of the sun and a nymph, and her siblings. Their power can threaten even the gods themselves, a power drawn from the earth and her fruits.
I assume that on some level both works show that high regard for the products of human ingenuity, of reason and science, that characterizes modernity. In a universe where magic works, after all, with reliable results and precise formulas, it would seem to be less the magical arts and more another branch of the natural sciences. So in some sense at the back of both works of art, there's simply one more modern valorization of reason over faith, of trust and belief when one can seize power. Indeed, Prometheus is the wise God to Circe, the first to make her think, to seize her own divine fire and challenge the gods.
The thing is, the cosmos isn't built that way.
Oh, sure, the Greek gods could have been threatened by mortals. As Socrates pointed out, they weren't real gods after all. Surely we all know on some level what we mean by divinity, he pointed out, and the gods of the Greek myths do not consistently live up to that standard.
But God--the source of all being; Being itself--could not be so threatened by its own creatures. The source of all that is must be outside of and independent from creation, or else it would be incapable of giving rise to creation. That which is the source of time must itself be outside of time, in eternity, native to eternity, to timelessness. The source of all cannot be threatened by all, or manipulated by all. When Aslan speaks of the deeper magic in the Chronicles of Narnia, he's speaking of a deeper reading and understanding of himself, for he is Logos, he is Word, he is God.
And yet here we find the root of attempts at magic, and the difference between magic and true religion: Magic is the attempt to manipulate God. Religion is right worship, logika latreia, rational worship, liturgy, the work of the people.
Magic is fundamentally an attempt at seizing divinity; worship is receiving divinity in the palms of open, trusting, generous hands.
Magic is a matter of power; worship, rightly understood and done, of love and trust.
You see this voluntaristic character of magic in the attempt to rule things through the knowledge of the Tetragrammaton, the supposed secret, hidden name of God, or the longing to know the language of creation, to be able to exercise the same power that God used when he spoke all things into being, that Adam perhaps possessed when he named the animals before the fall. You see the endless gnostic, occultic desire to be like God through consuming the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And there is the fatal error. There is the misunderstanding of hell.
For to be like God isn't simply to be powerful, or to be able to create, or to be able to shape things with a word, a movement of the will. That isn't God in his essence, in his own nature, eternal, outside of time. God is Creator in relation to creation; God is lord of angels, of the heavens and the earth, upon his creation of them.
No, to be like God in his eternity, as he always has been and always will be, as he would have been even if he had chosen not to create, if he had rested satisfied in his own perfect beatitude, is to be family, to be love, to be communion, to be. To be like God, we must eat of the fruit of the tree of life. We must embrace trust. We must live love, and self-gift.
That is the font of his power--that he is constantly giving it all away. He is endlessly self-emptying, endlessly generous, and endlessly receiving everything back again. The dynamic of the Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the One who gives life; the One who receives life; and the Life that they are constantly, endlessly giving to each other.
God is not subject to our manipulations, nor do we need to manipulate him. He gives us life every moment of every day. Indeed, we cannot cease to exist now that we have begun to exist because he loves us into existence, moment by moment. Our continued existence endlessly depends upon him remembering us and loving us. God is eternal, and unchanging in his perfection--he can't stop loving us, can't stop remembering us. He can never let us go out of existence now--thus the eternity of hell. We have free will. We can reject the gift, reject the love, but he can't stop loving us; can't stop remembering us; can't stop holding us in being.
And so if we put ourselves out of heaven, the endless dance of life and love, by refusing to take part, we are trapped outside of the meaning and goal of our existence.
One last thought--in some sense, the idea of Prometheus put forward in Circe resonated with me as an intense foreshadowing of Christ. Prometheus, Miller points out, is a god of prophecy. He knew, then, what would happen when he brought fire to mankind, and chose to do it anyway. He chose to accept the torment of being chained to a rock, of his liver being plucked out by an eagle each day, of endlessly regrowing the organ only to repeat his torment again in swift succession.
In Christianity, we understand that what happens to an eternal person takes on an eternal character, to a certain extent. So Christ in eternity, in some sense, is always the Lamb who was slain. Good Friday is always present in the life of the Trinity. That day of absolute self-donation, self-emptying, is outside of time because the protagonist is a person whose native world is outside of time.
And even with that, Jesus chose us. He chose fidelity to his own divine nature, to the Father's life and love that he had always shared in and would always share in, of utter self gift for the lives of others.
That gift of life is more powerful than the knowledge of good and evil. Knowing what is means you will be able to discern what is not. Knowing God on his terms means a greater knowledge of the devil than the most dedicated satanist, the most eager devourer of the forbidden fruit. Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Devour the lies, and your darkness shall be great indeed.
