The Pope of the Peripheries Comes To America

I saw this on ABC News tonight (warning: autoplaying video).  It was good to see some positive coverage for the Church for a change.  David Muir was positively giddy to be with the Pope.

Now for the rant: Pope Francis is famously interested in those on the peripheries: the forgotten and the marginalized.  So it's natural that he should visit that rustic and sparsely populated Eastern Seaboard region of the US.  How will their infrastructure hold up?  The Pope will probably have to ride a horse over a rope bridge to get to New York.  It's not like there are any Americans living more than 50 miles from the Atlantic Ocean or anything.

Of course, perhaps he figures that New York and DC are the areas of American most in need of Christian Evangelization.  Heaven knows the Church up there can barely manage to get the message out.

Yeah, I live in the fly-over states and I'm bitter that the Pope never comes to middle America.  What's it to ya?

1999 was the last time a Pope made it across the Mississippi River, or even the Delaware River.  Maybe in another 16 years the Vatican can organize an expedition to the real heart of America. Maybe Jersey City.

RCIA Talk on Priesthood

Started out with a show-and-tell about priestly vestments, largely taken from the slideshow that's in Mass Explained on my iPad.

Then went into my prepared talk

I was a bit intimidated because a priest was sitting in the room and I half-expected him to laugh outloud at my junk theology.  But it all went well. 

Lots of good discussion afterwards.

Pope Francis and the Loaves and Fishes

I didn't comment on this when it came out because, frankly, I forgot about it.  But when Pope Francis was in Central America, he made a statement about the miracle of the loaves and fishes which generated controversy.  Pope Francis seems to be embracing the wacky idea that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was not a miraculous multiplication of food, but a miracle of people sharing their food which they had brought (though apparently not everyone brought food otherwise there'd be no need to share).  The key quote is "they all went on sharing what was their own, turning it into a gift for the others; and that is how they all got to eat their fill."

Actually, this is not the first time.  The indefatigable Jimmy Akin addressed a previous incident in 2014.

According to Jimmy Akin's article, the chronology of the miracle goes like this.

1. The disciples tell Jesus that the people are hungry.
2. Jesus says "feed them yourselves."
3. The disciples say all they have is a few loaves of bread and a few fish.
4. Jesus takes the food (at which point it becomes "His") and blesses it and gives it back to the disciples (at this point it belongs to the disciples: it is "theirs")
5. They take the (still few) loaves and fishes and share them with the crowd.  At this point it belongs to the people the disciples give it to (it is "theirs").
6. Those people then turn and give some of "their" food to the people behind them.

It is during steps 5 and 6, according to this reading of the Pope where the multiplication occurs.  If I remember correctly, this is similar to how the miracle was depicted in Zeffirelli's classic movie Jesus of Nazareth.

That's all very fine and there's nothing untoward about it, except that the constant use of the indefinite personal pronoun "their" can lead to misinterpretation and, frankly, re-opening old wounds and reliving things that most of us would rather avoid.

But I'm willing to  accept that this is what the Pope meant.  Jimmy Akin's account is believable.  But the Pope's reading of this miracle is strange for other reasons.  In his July homily, he depicts the disciples as indifferent to the needs of the crowd.  That's a strange reading of the text. It seems that the disciples were very concerned about the crowd: there was no human way to provide for all of them, so they proposed the natural solution (let them depart so they can find something to eat). I've been in meetings like that at work.  Perhaps they can be faulted for not having faith in Jesus to provide for the crowd, but it's hard to read this as being in the thralls of a "throwaway culture."

Then when the people in the crowd receive their (still) meager rations, they share what they have.  I will grant that this would be something.  We see disaster relief organizations handing out food in trouble spots in the world and there's not a lot of sharing going on in the crowd.  People run up, grab what's theirs, then go to the back of the crowd to get out of the literal feeding frenzy.  Pope Francis' claim that the crowd shared what they were given by the apostles would be a touching aspect of the miracle, and may well be true, but is not really supported by the text of the Gospels. 

Apart from being a regurgitation of 1970's punk-theology, what bothers me about this homily is it sounds like a political stump speech designed to pander to class identification.  The institutions and the powerful are not to be trusted. They are greedy and will keep whatever they have: even what was given to them freely by God.  Only when the masses look after each other and share what they have been given can there be justice and peace.  That seems like the basic message preached in Latin America for the past 40 to 400 years.  And it's not necessarily wrong. We know that the UN is venal, that Western charities promote evil while nominally doing good. We know that foreign corporations don't always improve the lives of their workers as much as they should or could. 

But it's not necessarily helpful either.  Francis' reading of the miracle demands charity from the crowd as much as it does from the apostles.  But a plain reading would indicate that it focuses almost entirely on material gains, not spiritual conversion.  This was the complaint Jesus had when the crowds gathered around him in John 6: they sought bread that grows stale when they should be clamoring for the Bread of Life.


I can't fault Pope Francis for telling people to share.  That seems like something we can all get behind.  But it seems like he's fomenting class struggle in process and that makes it seem like he's actually saying more, and I don't know what it is.

The Family of the Church

In RCIA we talk about the Church in terms of family.  Perhaps people get frustrated with the slow pace of RCIA and wish they could get into the Church without delay.  They may share the sentiments of Chesterton's Babe Unborn

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,
If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.
In dark I lie; dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.
Let storm clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.
I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.

But Chesterton had more to say about families. In Heretics, he described those who trade their localities for the world.

If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than we have ever known. And it is the whole effort of the typically modern person to escape from the street in which he lives. First he invents modern hygiene and goes to Margate. Then he invents modern culture and goes to Florence. Then he invents modern imperialism and goes to Timbuctoo. He goes to the fantastic borders of the earth. He pretends to shoot tigers. He almost rides on a camel. And in all this he is still essentially fleeing from the street in which he was born; and of this flight he is always ready with his own explanation. He says he is fleeing from his street because it is dull; he is lying. He is really fleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. It is exciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive. He can visit Venice because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; the people in his own street are men. He can stare at the Chinese because for him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; if he stares at the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. He is forced to flee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his equals--of free men, perverse, personal, deliberately different from himself. The street in Brixton is too glowing and overpowering. He has to soothe and quiet himself among tigers and vultures, camels and crocodiles. These creatures are indeed very different from himself. But they do not put their shape or colour or custom into a decisive intellectual competition with his own. They do not seek to destroy his principles and assert their own; the stranger monsters of the suburban street do seek to do this.
...
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty towards one's neighbour. The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting. The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice or a kind of taste. We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroes because they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbour because he is there--a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.
...
Now, exactly as this principle applies to the empire, to the nation within the empire, to the city within the nation, to the street within the city, so it applies to the home within the street. The institution of the family is to be commended for precisely the same reasons that the institution of the nation, or the institution of the city, are in this matter to be commended. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family in the same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to be snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside, but a thing from inside. Above all, they all insist upon the fact that life, if it be a truly stimulating and fascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite of ourselves. ... It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.
...
The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born.

Family life is definitely a challenge, but it's a rewarding challenge.  Chesterton was a controversialist, so he got energy and enjoyment out of the squabbles he describes above.  Most people are not wired thus.  They'd prefer that everyone agree with them on at least the essentials.

When we bring people through RCIA we have a rite where they are asked "what do you ask of the Church?" and the answer is "Faith".   Faith in what?  In Chesterton's poem above, the unborn babe dreams of a fairy land where trees grow tall and grass is short, with twisty streets and doors and men living behind.  Of course, that describes the dull ordinary world we live in.  The unborn babe hopes that he should be allowed to see such a place.  His faith, should it be called that, is that such a place exists.

In the passage from Heretics, there is no need to have faith that family and neighbors exist. They are all too real. So real that Chesterton describes people running away to distant lands.  Perhaps our new Catholics find themselves in this position a year or two after entering into the Church.  These people are crazy!  I've had people in RCIA express wonder that Catholics would dispute the teachings of the Church.  That Catholics -- Catholics! -- don't seem to be with the program.  The family is a wild and weird group of people.

In my own family, I can state unequivocally that there are members who, where they not related to me, I would not have associated with.  In particular I had an uncle who was cantankerous, hard-headed, ignorant and possibly a little crazy.  I would never willingly spend so much as 5 minutes with such a person today.  Yet when I was growing up he was absolutely my favorite family member.  His insanity was his charm ("charm" being a word rarely used to describe him).

Chesterton describes the family as a kingdom in a state of anarchy.  That pretty much sums up the state of the Church in 2015, with the Synod of the Family coming up, and the old modernists (there's a paradox for you) from the 1970's being promoted by the Pope.  Of course, the close of the Synod will do nothing to stop this anarchy. After that, the world will wait for the post-synod exhortation which will inevitably hand the matter back to the national Bishop's conferences, which is where the trouble started in the first place.

So what faith is required here?  A child growing up in a family does not need faith that his family exists.  That much is obvious.  His very presence in the world indicates that he had a biological father and mother (though he may not be raised with either).  He does need faith that he has a family who loves him and wants the best for him.  Regardless of what kind of family he grows up in, or even if he doesn't have a family to speak of, he needs faith that someone in the world loves him and will protect him from the evils of the world.  It may be someone he hasn't yet met.

It's hard to have that faith.  It's easy to believe that God loves you. It's hard to believe that the local parish is the place to find God.  It's hard to trust that the Church, with all it's boisterous dissenters will lead us to eternal life (which is what the rite says is the benefit of "faith").   One of the most difficult parables in the Bible is the wheat and the tares.  The farmer won't pull the weeds out lest some of the wheat be lost as well.  The upshot is these people are going to be with us as long as we live.  We really are like a dysfunctional family: we can't stand each other, but we can't avoid each other and we're called to love each other.

So, like Chesterton, we might as well learn to embrace it.  That's easier said than done, but it's what we have to do.

RCIA talk on Marriage

It's only 13 pages.


References
The Bible, obviously
Catechism, obviously
Dan McLaughlin's essay in The Federalist
CWR piece on sexual morality in ancient world.

More inspiration than reference
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in First Things
(video of Rabbi Sacks's article in First Things) 
Bishop Robert Morlino

I looked in vain in Lapide and other online sources for a good description of Jesus' statement that Moses permitted divorce due to the hardness of the Israelite's hearts.  I need to keep working on that. It seems like our hearts are pretty hardened these days and it seems like a natural response that if the ancient Jews put up enough of a fuss to force Moses to accept marriage, that it can happen today.

I need to research that more.

Father Scalia on the Loss of Meaning

"Of course, there have always been sophists and Gnostics, liars and libertines. But the current reach of this poison surpasses perhaps anything we have seen. It infects our public discourse and our everyday conversations. We have to negotiate the minefield of conversations carefully, lest we take a word for what it actually means."

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/08/02/redeeming-word-and-body-2/

Good stuff.

Catholic Blogging

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/july-31-2015/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-catholic-blogosphere/

Damian Thompson has an interesting, and accurate, perspective on the rise and fall of Catholic blogging.  I noticed the same myself.  During the reign of Pope Benedict, there was definitely a sense of momentum behind conservative Catholic blogs.  It seemed like we had everything going our way. If our Bishops were squishy libs and our parishes rang with Marty Haugen music, at least the Pope was on our side and eventually things would be put right.

Father Z memorably described the process going on as "brick by brick" with a cute picture showing Benedict XVI walling off the heretics and malcontents in teh Church.

When Francis was elected, there certainly was a change in momentum.  But even in the year before that, I noticed that things were starting to change.  The Curt Jester stopped posting as many funny bits.  The Creative Minority Report started becoming less creative and more cranky.  First the National Catholic Register, then Patheos started aggregating alot of the quirky blogs that made the Catholic Blogosphere great and, basically, ruining them. As a simple example, both Father Longenecker and The Crescat were much better blogs when they were independent than as they are now on Patheos.  (it's not for nothing that people refer to that site as "Pathetic").

When Francis was elected Pope, some of the blogs that were flirting with extremism went all the way.  Creative Minority Report became a non-stop Francis-hate-fest.   Suddenly, conservative realized that their Bishops were still squishy libs and their parishes were still infested with Marty Haugen but now the Pope wasn't on their side, either.  The image above from Father Z's blog was not so much Benedict walling off the heretics, but the dominant liberal caste walling off Benedict and the rest of us with him.

But given the movements before Francis' election, I'm not sure things would have turned out differently.  Blogging is hard, lonely work.  I can't blame people for signing up with Patheos because then they at least get paid a little for it.  But you have to do it for yourself.  And by 2013, blogs were starting to give way to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the rest which are a lot more interactive and much less work, because the focus is on the sound bite not extended rambling pieces like this. I gave it up myself for almost a year and only really started again to work out some ideas I had for RCIA.

It's a little sad: the passing of an era.  I can't say that Benedict started it and Francis ended it. It's probably just the time that they were sitting on Peter's throne.  I do actually miss Damian Thompson's Holy Smoke blog, perhaps most of all.  It seemed like that was the definitive end of the Catholic Blogging Adventure, to me.