The dragon is not slain

Indeed. Short and to the point.

http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-dragon-is-tamed-not-slain.html

Evangelism: Give the People What They Want.

I found this article posted at First Things' First Thought's blog.  It has much wisdom in it and I've been thinking along similar lines, but have been unable to articulate my thoughts.

I also haven't been able to do enough research to speak confidently on this, but it seems to me that many of the early converts to Christianity converted because Christianity offered something that they wanted or needed.

• Slaves converted because Christianity offered human dignity to them
• Women converted because Christianity offered respect.
• Scholars converted because of the philosophical claims of Christianity opened up new avenues of study.
• Constantine converted to win a war, leading to
• Constantine's toadies to convert as a political ploy.

Other than the last two, these are not bad reasons to convert to Christianity, but they represent a promise, not an actual fact.  Slaves may convert, for instance, but unless their masters also convert, their human dignity will only come in the next world.

Accordingly, if we are to evangelize the world today, we need to offer a clear benefit to the world.  What are the issues that people complain about in the US?  I can think of a few.

• A combination of loneliness and overstimulation that comes from electronic communication.
• Stress of the busyness of raising a family.
• Economic uncertainty.
• Dissatisfaction and hopelessness.
• Fear of crime and terrorism.

There are other ills to be sure. I'd mention "lust" and "envy" but these are the ones that people themselves recognize.  They have to be convinced that "lust" and "envy" are problems.

Can Christianity speak to the list above?  I think it can.  It currently is not.  For most problems, people are currently turning to the government instead of the Church for solutions.

It's something to think about.  I'll have to ponder it some more before I can figure out what to do.

Disappointment

Mother Angelica on disappointment inside and outside the Church.

(that's a strange cover image).

And, while we're at it, Mother Angelica talking about "Let not your hears be troubled"

Fin de Siecle, part 2

In an earlier post, I wondered who would take the place of Mother Angelica.  I still don't know who can replace her witty charm, her wisdom and her ability to connect with people.  But I have a nomination for who will continue to use EWTN to hammer heretics: Raymond Arroyo.

As Exhibit A, I submit his memorial episode of The World Over.

There are two notable parts in this video: Mother Angelica's condemnation of the fiasco at World Youth Day in Denver where a woman played Jesus in the Stations of the Cross and her scuffle with Cardinal Mahony.  These are significant not only because of what Mother said, but because as far as I know EWTN essentially swept them under the rug. In the case of the Cardinal Mahony flap, EWTN was requested to never play it again, according to the book written by the same Raymond Arroyo.  In the case of WYD, I don't know if EWTN deliberately decided not to show it, or if they simply felt that it wasn't relevant anymore since that episode was long past.

When I saw this show, and saw the Cardinal Mahony incident discussed, I couldn't help but get the sense that Raymond Arroyo was making a statement that, even if no one else could take Mother's place, he personally was going to continue her role as Guardian of (small-O)rthodoxy.  It's something that he's done in the past with some crisp interviews on his World Over Live show, but it didn't occur to me until this show that he was formally accepting the challenge.

Lead on!

I've Given up on Amoris Laetitia

I'm only a mortal man.  I can't get through it all.  I can't even tough it out to get to the juicy part.  In fact, I'm just exhausted by the whole subject.  Three years, Two Synods, "Five Cardinals" book, an "Eleven Cardinals" book, Kasper's book and a critique of Kasper's book, an entire issue of Communio devoted to the subject and a 300 page non-doctrinal exhortation, not to mention my own 25+ years of marriage and the marriages of my family and friends, and apparently nothing much has changed.  And actually, the juicy part affects me very little. In the worst case scenario (or best case, depending on your point of view), Francis leaves that up to the pastor or bishop to decide and I'm neither of those. (Though I suppose I'd be more curious about it if I was divorced.)

So what was the point?

I'm just burned out by the whole subject.  I just have no strength to devote to either the document itself or the voluminous commentary about it.  I can't get fired up about who's a heretic this week or who's standing up for the faith this week.  Marc Barnes, who's a better thinker and writer in his sleep than I am when fully engaged, wrote a relatively modest 1800-word essay on the matter and I couldn't even get all the way through that -- though to be fair I read 1700 of them and enjoyed them all.

This is a grace.  Normally I would obsess for weeks about this stuff, but in this case I'm able to worry about other things.  Like my life -- my poor hail-damaged roof, my job, my bank account, my family's health, my own health, spiritual attack ... you know, trivial things like that.

I guess that, as a catechist, I'm mainly curious as to whether I need to update any of my talks about marriage and such.  But from the sounds of it, I'm not going to get any such advice from this document.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I kind of expect my bishop and pastor to read this stuff and make sense of it and tell me what it means.   I mean, they went to priest-school and bishop-school and got enrolled in the hierarchy and all that.  I have a Catechism. Unless I need to replace it with a new document from the Vatican, I don't think it's really important for me to keep up with the Pope's latest unfocused commentary.  Unless I personally enjoy reading him the way I'd enjoy reading any other author.  And, in fact, I do not.

So there.

A partial retraction

Hyperbole is an essence of my writing which, upon reflection, I almost always back away from in the interest of clarity.  I don't want people's emotions getting in the way of a message I'm trying to deliver.  In the previous post, I can't read a person's soul and certainly don't mean to imply that anyone is in jeopardy of hell due to criticism of this Pope or the office of the Papacy.  We are required to give some sort of respectful reception to what comes out of the Magisterium.  But whether this or that document rises to the level of "assent of will" or "assent of faith" or "polite applause" or whatever is beyond my ken.

A thought about the Pope's Exhortation

I'm on chapter two of Francis' Joy of Love exhortation.  A few days ago I was still on chapter two.  However, I've read some of the summaries and commentaries and so I think I know what's ahead, should I choose to continue.

However, the constant carping about it from points various and sundry got my dander up earlier today and I posted a comment on a blog post that reflects my general view about the whole thing.

People getting worked up about a footnote or a single sentence! There's an old (maybe Protestant) saying: A proof-text without Context is a Pretext. What's the context of the note? Isn't there anything else in the 200+ pages that would guide the interpretation of a single sentence. If your context is that "Francis is a modernist who wants to change church teaching and this sentence is proof.", then you may be correct about Francis, but the proper context OF THIS TEXT is not Francis' personal preferences, but the Magisterium. Francis may want all kinds of things, but we don't read Papal documents in light of off-the cuff statements not protected by the Holy Spirit but on the constant teaching authority of the Church, which is. In 30 years people will read this document blissfully unaware of Francis' verbal diarrhea and only in the context of the documents referenced therein. We should read it the same way. 

If the Pope decries gradulism in the law in one part of the document, then he can't be advocating for it in another. He must mean something else (like what kind of baby-steps are necessary to bring people to compliance with the law). Bishop Morlino (no liberal) said that the law of gradualism means that if someone comes up to him and says "I used to be having an affair with 4 women, but now I'm only having an affair with 1 woman" then Bishop Morlino would have to say "that's good! Now let's work on this a little more." THat doesn't mean he lets the adulterer come to Communion. It means he encourages him in the progress he made and encourages him to make it the rest of the way. 

I'm sure I'll be hated on now. So I have my asbestos undershorts ready :(

Source

The source of the Bishop Morlino quote is found here, starting around the 44:30 mark.  

Since I haven't read the document, I felt a little hesitant about the post, but I figure if I know nothing about it, then I'm at least as qualified as some of the other commenters I'm reading.  I also got my example wrong (Bishop Morlino's example was cutting the number of mistresses from 3 to 1) and I had typos in my post, so I'm definitely on the same plane as the other commenters on the interwebs.

The thing is, Pope Francis is not my favorite Pope.  I'd prefer if someone else was Pope.  But Francis IS Pope, and I AM a Catholic and so I MUST read him in light of the constant teaching of the Church.

The last couple of weeks we were all talking about the passing of Mother Angelica.  One of the great stories was about how early on her nuns packaged peanuts to make money. A distributer wanted a kickback to sell the peanuts.  In declining to pay the kickback, she said "I'm not going to hell for a peanut."  In the same vein, I'm not going to hell for willfully misreading the Pope.  I am often confused by the this particular Pope and, almost daily, I'm disappointed by this particular Pope, but the office of the Papacy is a dogma of the Church.  My confusion and disappointment can't result in disobedience.

That's the traditional way: obey the Pope.  If he says thing you don't understand, then obey the things you DO understand but don't undercut the rest of it. Let someone smarter than you (or more qualified in the case of the bishops) figure it out.  That doesn't mean I can't make some good-natured jokes or ask pained questions as a way of blowing off steam.  But I must give the Pope -- even this Pope -- the courtesy of reading him in continuity with the Magesterium

There, I said it.

Excellent talk on Resurrection

http://www.instituteofcatholicculture.org/my-lord-and-my-god-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-christ/

The audio is a little rough at the start.  Bear with it. It's a wide-ranging talk about relativism, atheism and Christianity.

The talk references the classic CS Lewis talk "Fern seeds and Elephants", available online here.

Also relevant is Peter Kreeft's classic Evidence of the Resurrection, available here.