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.
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.
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.
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 :(
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
In 2011, the new English Translation of the Roman Missal became official, including a new translation of the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil. Notable among the changes in the Exsultet was a reference to the Easter Candle made of wax, "the work of bees".
But 2011 was, after all, only five years ago and it's entirely inappropriate to expect people to actually implement something as radical as changing the Exsultet in such a short period of time. So our humble parish, away from civilization, out in the boonies, with no access to electricity or fancy book-learning, continues with the old, non-apiary focused Exultset. Apparently no one knows the music to the new expanded version. All of our hymns were published by OCP in the 1990s, so that's understandable. But if only some clever person would figure out how to record music so it could be played back as an aid to learning it.
But every spring, the promise of baseball, greening of the leaves and the buzzing of the insects warms the cockles of my cold black, pharisaical, throw-away, pre-Vatican heart and I long to hear about the beautiful bees in the Exsultet. And every year I am disappointed.
Now, even the National Catholic Reporter is praising the bees. The emphasis on environmentalism is a bit stretched, to my mind. But since my parish and diocese regularly reads NcR perhaps next year will be different.
With the passing of Mother Angelica, it seems even more clear that we've hit the end of an era, at least in America. First our supposedly "conservative" Chief Justice started re-writing law to allow the Obamacare mandate that affected the biggest expansion in government control in the history of the United States. Then Pope Benedict XVI, who ask for prayers that he wouldn't flee from the wolves fled from the wolves and resigned. Then Cardinal Burke got fired. Then our "conservative" Chief Supreme Court Justice decided that the constitution not only allows gay marriage, it requires it. Then our "conservative" political party started playing footsie with a vulgar, adulterous, orange-colored boor as nominee. Then the greatest conservative justice on the Supreme Court died and now Mother Angelica has passed the earth.
Not for the first time, I'm reminded of Yeat's The Second Coming. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Who will take the place of Pope Benedict XVI, Antonin Scalia, and Mother Angelica? The pessimist will say "no one". The optimist will say "we may have lost leaders, but we still have a movement". Wouldn't that be something? A sea of cultural and spiritual conservatives breaking over the sea-wall of liberalism; the head is struck down, yet the flock charges on.
On Twitter, a question was posed: what would you say to new Catholics this Easter? I replied "Don’t get discouraged by “bad” Catholics. We don’t follow pundits or priests. We follow Christ risen." I meant it then, and I mean it today. But it's one thing that there's a fever swamp of bad catholics out there that give the faith a bad name. It's another thing that no one effectively repels it. For every liberal outrage, there may be 100 or 1000 bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers and so on to rebut the arguments or present an alternative interpretation. But is there anyone that people are forced to take seriously? Like it or not, the media controls the dialog. Is there anyone who the media recognizes as a voice for conservative Catholics? Is there anyone who is in a position of authority who will do something besides issue limp wristed statements when liberal catholics get out of line?
In short, is there anyone in the Catholic Church who will (1) say something like this and (2) be listened to?
(Michael Voris and Father Zuhlsdorf are a "Yes" for the first question but a "No" for the second.)
Mother Angelica put steel in the spine of the US Catholic Bishops. In the 1980s, they were willing collaborators with the liberal agenda of women priests, open marriage and contraception. They reluctantly drew the line at abortion. Mother Angelica's emotional and thoughtful rejection of that nonsense, along with the visible support of the Pope, eventually caused that nonsense to at least go underground. And eventually we got a few Bishops in the mold of Burke, Chaput, Loverde, Morlino and Bruskewitz.
Now our Bishops are "pastoral" and the best conservatives can hope for is benign neglect from the Vatican.
Mother Angelica stepped down from EWTN over a decade ago. Her passing is a symbolic tragedy and not a strategic setback. And that it happened on Easter is inexplicable.
