A brief statement

Before I go out and do some stuff. And then come back and spend the rest of the afternoon trying really, really hard not to blog.

This is related to the link to the Weigel column below which has exploded into some weird (although not unexpected) battle about progressivism, orthodoxy, etc.

Some statements from me, just so no one thinks anyone else is speaking for me in those comboxes:

Religious faith is a mysterious, rich and multilayered thing. We respond to the tug of God on our hearts as we are, where we are. Sometimes we want to throw ourselves into it full force, leaving everything behind. And sometimes, we look to the world, to our temptations, to our pleasure centers, and we think, "Uh...how far can I go?"

All of us do this. All  of us struggle with that essential temptation, which is to shut God out of certain, precious parts of our life, to hold back, to do the minimal. We do it in human relationships, we do it with God.

In a way, pre-V2 Catholicism was both realistic about this, but also seemed to sell out on the matter, at least as popularly received. It seemed to be this mix (coming from one who wasn't there, and only knows what she does From Books) of holding up heroic holiness and sacrifice as the ideal, but understanding that most of us aren't going to make it, and evolving structures of life and worship that took this into account, lest we all fall into despair at our failures, simply give up, and walk away. Hence the legalism, hence the very specific understanding of exactly how much of Mass you could attend and still have it "count."

Given human nature, it was a strength, I think, but it was also a weakness, as the rapid flux after the Council shows - we've often discussed this mystery - how everything went crazy so fast, in really just a matter of five years. There must have been something wrong and rotting and inadequate in the mix before - we can't blame it all on external forces of culture. I tend to think it was this minimalism. But that's a guess.

"How far can you go?" is the cry of the minimalist - all of us - when we want to hold something back from God. (It's also the original title of David Lodge's novel, known in the US as Souls and Bodies, which examines the period from the late 50's to the early 70's, with incision and wit). It doesn't matter what we call ourselves - progressive, liberal, conservative or orthodox. We would all do well to admit the tendencies of our own "side" in the debate to this qualification, this hedging, this idol-making.

Comments

[al]

I think the mistake comes from the view that Vatican II was a rupture with, or repudiation of what came before.

That allowsed people to project all their dissatisfactions, dissents, and dysfuntions onto "Tridentine" Catholicism, and opened the season on "investigators" determining just exactly what parts of Tridentine Catholicism Vatican II repudiated.

If I had a nickel for every half-baked anecdote I've heard about rosary praying during the mass, or wrote masses (like there aren't any of those now) or Scholastic Legalism (usually from someone who hasn't bothered to try and figure out what's being said)--well, I'd have quite a few nickels.

If people came away from Vatican II thinking more about how it comments on the Modern World, rather than on Tradition, I think many of these problems would disappear.

[Christine]

It does make me wonder, though. That same "minimalist" mindset pre-Vatican II; what was it that the spiritual giants of the Church whom we now call saints, doctors, fathers, mothers of the Church -- how did they grow up in this same system and yet hear the call of God to respond with their whole hearts?

And as I look back on my own experience of the pre-Vat II Church with my own relatives, my Dad, who would attend Lutheran services with the rest of the family to "keep peace" because he knew he was never going to convince my mother to attend Mass with him -- would make it a point to attend Mass with our Catholic neighbors because his faith tradition still was very much a part of him. And my own father-in-law, coming from a generation where men were still very much in the pews.

And how are we faring now that the pendulum has swung in the other direction? Having the lived experience of both Protestant and Catholic Christianity I was taught to view the Reformation as having cast off that "minimalist" mindset.

I think the condition of much of the Protestant mainline and even Evangelical Christianity, especially in its "health and wealth" form, is ample proof that it is not only Catholics struggling to make sense of it all.

Yes, I, too, am guilty of making idols at times.

[Mark Kasper]

Amy,

RE: "battle about progressivism, orthodoxy, etc."

Mr. Gallicho has, in a previous post, rightly recognized the lack of charity and generosity among comment box posters.

When many posters demonstrate an all-too-apparent lack of good faith toward Catholicism and its tenants, hackles will rise - and rightfully so.

Observing an aggressive commitment to an exclusionary subset of Catholic beliefs and doctrine rather than to Catholicism itself can easily lead to a lack of charity. The bad faith attempts in manipulating Catholicism to personal or political ideology is so blatant, so in-your-face, that it is hard for one to keep one's temper. And I question whether tempers should be cool about such matters.

The beef is not "Am I perfect?" or "Does that person never sin against the tenants of Catholicism?" The crux is that people go out of their way to deliberately attempt to undermine Catholicisim, to break it, to campaign against it, to change it to suit their own desires.

There is a major difference between (1) the recognition that I am not living up to the demands of my Catholic faith, and (2) my deliberate efforts to destroy Catholic teachings through argument, politics or bullying.

I have yet to sell all my belongings and give them to the poor, and I plead guilty to being a hypocrite on that teaching of Jesus - just as I am a hypocrite whenever I sin. However, I cannot and will not argue or fight against the Gospels which tell me that is what I should do.

[Loudon is a Fool]

I am reminded in this conversation of the passage in Belloc's Path to Rome regarding post-Reformation beverages, where he sets forth a rule for his drunkard friend that he must abstain from spirits and champagne. And the friend improves until one day he is offered whisky and water, and accepts. Before Belloc can take the drink from his friend, the drunkard tells him "After all, it is the intention of a pledge that matters." Belloc observes, "I saw that all was over, for he had abandoned definition, and was plunged back into the horrible mazes of Conscience and Natural Religion."

I am no doubt defective in some manner, but where the Church sees fit not to make rules, or to rescind rules, it puts me in utter confusion. So the Bishops provide that I must make an act of penance on Friday, but the particular act is up to me. Which is to say there were no Friday acts of penance performed by me until my wife and I decided upon a rule. No meat on Friday. Of course, we always intended to visit prisons and the sick and do all sorts of other wonderful things on Fridays, which empty intention resulted in not only not doing grand things, but not even performing simple acts.

With no rule on being tardy for Mass, we never know what to do. The best answer is don't arrive late. But if I am, what do I do? Rely on the prophetic murmurings of the Holy Spirit to my interior self? God evidently does not see fit to provide a bit of special revelation when this issue comes up. So if the readings have started, I don't receive Communion. Not because that's the rule, but because I don't know what the rule is and I figure better safe than sorry.

Without rules, depending on personality, I think, some persons become overly scrupulous. Others become as dirty as they wanna be. Neither is a particuarly good situation to find oneself in (although, it's certainly better to be overly scrupulous). So let's have rules, and many of them. And those who can deepen their Faith and go beyond the rules will do so. And those who are lost without rules (i.e., post-lapsarian man) will be no worse off.

The rapid descent into insanity following the council is certainly a sign of sickness. But it is not a sickness abated by a world without rules, but by Grace which is not inhibited by law.

[WRY]

Zhou will give you a report on how we behaved during your absence.

[Rich Leonardi]

It doesn't matter what we call ourselves - progressive, liberal, conservative or orthodox. We would all do well to admit the tendencies of our own "side" in the debate to this qualification, this hedging, this idol-making.

Mark and al have brought up elements of this, but there's a big difference between the supposed "conservative" Catholic who grouses on Sunday morning about having to attend Mass and love his enemies and the quite real "progressive" Catholic who has institutionalized his yielding to temptation.

The damage of the former, albeit sad, is limited to his children who hear him at the breakfast table. The latter scandalously spreads his poison much further through things like loopy ad-libbed liturgies, entertainment-driven "theatre in the round" church designs, self-worshiping hymms, and denials of the reality of the physical Resurrection in front of RCIA candidates.

[Suzanne]

I too struggle with the question of how much I am "holding back from God." I think that's part of our perennial quest to follow Christ. I look at all the ways I am lazy, or rationalize, or act in a way opposed to God's teachings, and I know that I am a sinner.

What I don't understand is the idea in many of the comment boxes that disagreeing with the Church's teachings on some issues is always a form of "holding back from God." I'm not clear if that's your view, Amy, so I'm not attributing it to you. But many of the comments seem to suggest that dissent = relativism = setting up oneself as an idol = not following God. I think that's a dangerous generalization.

I loved Christopher Rake's comment in yesterday's discussion about the dilemma of seeing a blue sky while being told that it is orange. That's my problem with some of the Church's teachings on women and sexuality. No matter how hard I try, study, struggle, and pray, I still see the sky as blue. I am a very active Catholic, in love with Christ and the Church, but that doesn't solve the problem. I can love the Church and still see its flaws.

So what do I do? I could pretend to see the orange. Or I could pretend it doesn't matter what color the sky really is; the Church says it's orange, and that's good enough for me.

However, then I really would be holding back from God. If God is Truth, then accepting an untruth is cutting myself off from God. I can't help but think that that would be the greater sin.

[Suzanne]

One more question: I also don't understand the idea that dissent is caving into cultural pressure. For me, as a an active Catholic, happily married mother of four, it would be much easier to accept all of the Church's teachings as true. I'm not disagreeing because it makes my life easier, but because I'm trying my best in my fallible way to follow the truth.

Here's the conversation I imagine at the end of my life:
God: What didn't you do more to help gays and lesbians who were told that their love was unnatural and a intrinsically disordered?

Me: Well, I wanted to, but the Church told me it was wrong.

God: Did you study the question?

Me: Yes, I studied, and I prayed, and I talked to many people.

God: And, after of that, did you believe the teaching?

Me: No.

God: So why didn't you do anything about it?

Me: Because the Church said so.

Is that enough?

[Cranky Lawyer]

Suzanne--

Thanks for your openness about difficulties with church teachings. At the risk of offending you, I'd like to comment on your (and Christopher's) analogy.

You say you see the sky is blue while the church says the sky is orange. In your analogy, why do you put yourself in the position of seeing the true color of the sky and the church in the position of claiming the sky is a different color?

Maybe you should put yourself--even in your analogy--of the one who sees an orange sky. If we believe in the truth of Christ, and that our faith comes from Him, and that the church has been charged by Him with keeping the truths of the faith, then our orientation towards the faith begins with our assent to their truth.

It doesn't begin with what we think is true and hoping to understand what the church teaches and being happy with the overlap. Our faith begins with the Truth. Conflicts between our understanding and a truth of faith should initially be resolved in favor of the truth of faith.

[Mark Kasper]

Amy: "Given human nature, it was a strength, I think, but it was also a weakness, as the rapid flux after the Council shows - we've often discussed this mystery - how everything went crazy so fast, in really just a matter of five years. There must have been something wrong and rotting and inadequate in the mix before - we can't blame it all on external forces of culture."

Imagine an immortal German Shepherd straining on a leash. The dog strains and does not relent in its efforts. Finally, detach the collar from the leash. The dog is no longer confined. Off it goes.

Both while restrained and unrestrained, the dog had its nature to run. Whether it was best to keep it tied to the tree or let it have the run of the neighborhood is neither here nor there. It has its nature and the presence or absence of the leash does not change its innate nature.

The pre-conciliar Church was not capable of eradicating human nature. Perhaps it controlled certain elements of human behavior, but it was not within its capacity to eliminate human nature. Released, to an extent, from some of these controls by the Vatican II fathers, it is not unexpected that human nature would make itself more apparent.

The Vatican II fathers perhaps looked to control other elements of human behavior that pre-conciliar structure were not. Perhaps they were hoping to overcome the "legalism" and "minimalism" of humanity. But we cannot be surprised that the German Shepherd might gnaw and chew up the house siding when confined here (Vatican I), or tear up the yard when given free run there (Vatican II).

"There must have been something wrong and rotting and inadequate in the mix before". Yes, there was - that something wrong was me, a human being with original sin. Let us not imagine that there will once come a day upon this earth when the rotting and the inadequate will be out of the mix.

It is time to stop blaming the Vatican I Church for its problems and the Vatican II Church for its problems. Its problems were not caused by the Church - their problems were caused by me.

[Zhou De-Ming]

Dear Mark Kasper,

Twice in my life I have sold all my belongings and given them (even myself and my career) to the poor. The first time was in 1982 when I dropped out of graduate school in Berkeley to pursue campus ministry full time. At one point, while supported very minimally by my church, I did a lot of walking because I just could not maintain the car I had (a gift from a presbyter) or buy gasoline, and still pay my token rent for my room in a church members home.

The other time was in 1986 when I went to Asia as a missionary. Of course, by that time I did not have much to give away, as I had relocated the previous year on the train (not having a car), and only needed two bags to move. What I did leave behind was my fiancee, and my research career at the university. Lots of tears at the airport as I flew away.

But now, approaching our 18th anniversary, we do have a lot more than will fit in two bags on the train. Still, I think it would make Jesus happy. Our home is quite simple materially--we have one table and chairs by the window, we sleep and mostly sit on straw mats on the floor (Asian style), we keep all of our high tech goodies in one cabinet (computer, answering machine, cordless and cellular phones), we don't have television, we have one little car. We used to have a 1983 Honda Civic with no radio and no electric anything, but the engine gave out after 21 years. We generously support of monastery, our parishes, our diocese, social programs such as a women's shelter, etc. We try to maintain a "missionary lifestyle" while at the same time making our home welcoming to guests (we do have one Western style bed in the guest room).

By the way, when I told my research department head in 1986 that I was resigning to serve as a missionary in Asia, he refused to accept my resignation. Instead, he decided that I could go, but stay with the department while not working. Whenever I wanted to come back, I was welcome to resume. That was very nice, especially because then I had a full-time job waiting for me when I returned the next year and married. Only God could arrange such things--I could never ask for them.

It really is a matter of the heart, of love for Christ, not of liberal or conservative, progressive or traditional, legal or free. Just love God with all...well, you know the verse.

[Dave Mueller]

Suzanne,
Huh? If God asks me why I didn't do more to help gays and lesbians be freed from the shackles of outmoded ideas about sexuality, I'll ask Him point blank why He allowed the religions He founded to teach that this was grave sin for 6000 years straight, if it was all OK after all.

If you think the Church is wrong on this constant teaching (about homosexual acts being a sin), why do you agree with the Church on anything? Simply because you happen to agree, or what? Because at that point, it certainly isn't because you believe the Church was founded by Christ and protected from error.

I'm genuinely curious to understand why a dissenting mind accepts anything the Church teaches, once they decide the Church can be wrong on something that has been taught constantly, first in the Old Testament, New Testament, early Fathers, and all the way up to the present day. Not trying to be rude, just want to understand the logic.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

"I have yet to sell all my belongings and give them to the poor, and I plead guilty to being a hypocrite on that teaching of Jesus - just as I am a hypocrite whenever I sin. However, I cannot and will not argue or fight against the Gospels which tell me that is what I should do."

It isn't hypocrisy to sin. It is hypocrisy to say that the standards you attempt to live by do not actually apply to you. I am not a hypocrite when I sin, I am a fallen human being. I'd be a hypocrite if I were to try to excuse my failure; I am not a hypocrite because I fail.

[Steve Galvanek]

Suzanne,
What if you are color blind? What if sin and our fallen nature of make ALL of us morally blind in some areas? In fact, I'd argue that IS the case for all of us. And I think it explains why Christ gave us the church-to guide us where we are weak.
The real question at bottom is about authority. Who if anyone has the authority to guide and teach on such things? The fundamentally different thing between Catholicism and all other belief systems is that we are supposed to believe that Jesus Christ built his Church on Peter and the apostles, and gave them a certain promise that they would be 'guided into all truth', and the 'gates of hades would not prevail against the church. If we believe our Lord's promise is good, then yes, we will indeed trust the church over our own judgment. And if Catholicism is true, then yes, the answer you give on judgment day will be sufficient.
If on the other hand, the promise of Christ is void, then let's all pack our bags and abandon our faith because it's likely all a hoax. If it's not true, then how can we be sure that the same Church that defined and defended the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and all the other things you agree with was not wrong on those as well? If the promise is not true, then Protestants are right about the Church. If Protestants are right, then sorry, moral relativism reigns because it ends up boiling down to me and the bible (and my interpretation), which really boils down to me, which really boils down to me setting myself up as my own god deciding good and evil, which really boils down to the original sin-from which of course we all suffer and causes our blindness in the first place.

In Christ

[William Bloomfield]

Suzanne,

I believe that one of the great benefits of being Catholic is that you can know that what the Church teaches is true.

I would suspect that no amount of studying on my part could have convinced to believe in the Real Presence. But I do believe because the Church teaches me this.

But reason does have a part to play in my faith. I believe it is reasonable to trust the accounts of the Gospels and to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I also believe that Christ instituted one Church upon the rock of Peter and that what the Church teaches is true.

Once I believe these things, everything else falls in place, and when the Church teaches on faith and morals, I can trust that it is true.

God will not ask any more of us than this.

[Mark Kasper]

Cheeky,

I think I'm just coming from a different perspective than your post, but I do think it is hypocrisy to sin. It's not "walkin' the talk."

If I profess to that it is a grave evil to commit adultery but then have an affair, I am a hypocrite. Even though the adultery is, in my opinion, far and away a worse sin than the hypocrisy, hypocrisy still it is.

Catholics: Hypocrites and Proud of It!

This has a certain truth to it that is attractive. We are not proud that we sin and walk counter to our talk, but we are proud that we can proclaim a truth higher than just our walk. Imagine how pathetic it would be to have to proclaim my own actions as the pinnacle of moral living.

But, I do take the point of your post and only disagree in perspective.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

Loudon is a Fool writes:

"With no rule on being tardy for Mass, we never know what to do. The best answer is don't arrive late. But if I am, what do I do? Rely on the prophetic murmurings of the Holy Spirit to my interior self? God evidently does not see fit to provide a bit of special revelation when this issue comes up. So if the readings have started, I don't receive Communion. Not because that's the rule, but because I don't know what the rule is and I figure better safe than sorry.

Without rules, depending on personality, I think, some persons become overly scrupulous. Others become as dirty as they wanna be. Neither is a particuarly good situation to find oneself in (although, it's certainly better to be overly scrupulous). So let's have rules, and many of them. And those who can deepen their Faith and go beyond the rules will do so. And those who are lost without rules (i.e., post-lapsarian man) will be no worse off. "

We've had this argument before but I think this is precisely what we don't need. With regards to Mass, I think it isn't a question of when you arrived, but a question of your intents and purposes. Was I attempting to make Mass on time? Did I arrive late because of my own failures? Etc. You must make the decision in your human freedom. There's a reason why the Church doesn't give us a list of 25 reasons that could justify using NFP to space children. The Catechism merely uses the term "just reasons." We are called to form ourselves, to work toward virtue, pray and then, yes, make a free choice based on our best lights and the guideposts of the Church. I like the drama of having to make that choice. I like the fact that the Church doesn't tell me whether I should abstain right now less than a year after the birth of my daughter. But according to your logic the Church should give me a rule (considering our former tangles you might even say that the Church is clear on this). I don't nee a rule. I need guideposts and need to ask God to help me grow in virtue and prayer so that I can make a free choice. Note this is not a choice divorced from morality. It is, however, a choice divorced from moralism (and legalism).

Here's something I've shared here before but I think it captures what I desire to live:

Msgr. Albacete a friend of the late Pope and a great man in his own right tells a story of the Christian freedom he witnessed in Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice. Albacete, who was then a professor at the JP II Center for Marriage and Family in DC, and Scola, who was visiting as a scholar there for a semester, were spending a Sunday together. They were somewhere up near Baltimore. They were scheduled to go to the Dominican House of Studies for Mass (where Scola was to preach) and then go to friends' for dinner. The dinner had been long planned. The hadn't yet gone to or celebrated Mass that Sunday. As they were returning to DC a terrible rain storm hit I-95 and they had to exit. They waited out the storm and eventually it became clear that they weren't going to make the Mass. Albacete lamented to Scola that this meant that they would now have to leave their dinner hosts early as they would need to rush back and say Mass before the clock struck midnight. Scola turned to Albacete and said, "Tonight this dinner will have to be our Mass. These people have been planning our coming for weeks and they don't expect us to rush off." He was cutting into Albacete's legalism. They spent a delightful evening with friends freed from the burden of having to rush off and saying their Mass to meet the rules. In my mind and Albacete's I believe this was the height of Christian freedom and virtue. I think one would have a hard time arguing that Scola a friend of the Pope's and Albacete were lax priests who need to get with the program. To me this story illustrates the Christian freedom that we are all called to but so few of us every attain. Scola recognized that the true fulfillment of the law would be made in remaining true to Christ's presence there in those people who had long be planning on his attendance at their home. He realized that he and Albacete had made a good faith attempt to go to their Mass. And he had the freedom to be able to say no to legalism. That interior freedom is what I want and I'd argue what John Paul II had.

In fact, that is the same freedom that allowed a young Father Wojytla to journey off with a group of young college women for a weekend as their priest. The men, who were supposed to come with, had an exam rescheduled at the last moment and couldn't come. Rather than freaking out and saying, "I'd better not go with you lest people perceive a scandal," Father Wojtyla said to the women, "Call me Wojek" or uncle. And they spent the weekend in the mountains looking at the crocuses.

Juxtapose this Christian freedom with the legalism we so often hear passed off as Christianity. I know which of the two sides I want to be on. I also have a feeling I know which of the two sides of that divide Christ is calling us to. It is not an invitation to being morally or spiritually lax. It's an invitation to holiness and freedom and to going beyond mere rules. It isn't Vatican II Catholicism of the National Catholic Reporter variety but Catholicism of its purest form.

[Mike]

I appreciated Cheeky Lawyer's response to Suzanne.

What CL is describing is, I think, part of what it means to be a "follower"—i.e., a disciple.

I think he is describing to some extent what Cardinal George has called "the way of discipleship".

One "follows" in almost an unconditional way (in this way it is a bit like love). One doesn't follow because one agrees with the one whom he or she is following, or because he or she has been persuaded to follow.

Rather, one subordinates oneself and follows.

It's a completely foreign concept in the year 2005 and especially in America. But it is nevertheless a path to happiness (this, I think is the "joy" about which BXVI speaks).

Mike

[Cheeky Lawyer]

Mark,

Thanks that helps. I think it may be a difference of externals rather than of substance. I think I might be looking at things the wrong way and I appreciate your comments.

[Loudon is a Fool]

Sweet Cheeks,

The last time you shared the Cardinal Scola vignette Belloc's anecdote came to mind but I didn't share it because I have no desire to criticize or be perceived as criticizing those prelates.

I will merely note that the fact that you do not think you need rules, may not mean you do not need rules.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

"I will merely note that the fact that you do not think you need rules, may not mean you do not need rules. "

I of course agree with that. But let's get to the substance of the matter.

[Mike]

I looked again and the person whose comment I was referring to was actually "Cranky Lawyer".

This explains a lot, as I am a cranky lawyer myself.

[al]

Loudon is a Fool's comments in this regard a quite apt.

Having had identical experiences in this regard, the lack of rules merely requires those of good will to waste their time making up their own, time which could be better spent on the sort of encountering the world which the proponents of the Spirit of Vatican II said they were all about, in wanting to dispense with the rules.

The wholesale chucking of the rules has resulted in less action for "social justice" and solidarity, not more.

[Christine]

I've carried my Augustinian roots right over from my Lutheran days into my life as a Catholic. A great quote attributed to this theological giant: "Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

Rightly understood that points to Christ in his Church as the source of truth.

[TSO]

One thinks of the cruel nun in the '40s film "Bernadette" as an example of someone who was ascetic and in no way a "sell-out" with disastrous consequences. Better she'd been a lush. Perhaps she wanted to be holy for her own sake, not for Christ's. I'm getting this secondhand but word on the street is that the during the '40s and '50s that cruel nun would not be unfamiliar figure in the Church.

I assume I am not alone in preferring to error on the side of too much earthly pleasure rather than too little, but I'm no saint so I can't tell you if this is a good strategy or not. Of course if sanctity were a formula we wouldn't have to depend on God would we?

The key is not to refuse the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps I hear the Spirit more easily when what is asked is not too difficult because I figure if I was mistaken in my discernment it's not going to cost much. That's not particularly heroic, but then recall that I have a responsibility to my wife not to be a grouch and I've got my will-to-live to consider. So when it's something I'd really rather not do, I ask and hope that He'll shout.

[Dave Mueller]

I absolutely love Cardinal Scola, and in fact I was hoping for him as our new Pope (though Ratzinger is at least as good, he just probably won't reign as long)...but I'm not sure that Cardinal Scola made the right decision in that case. He is obviously incredibly well-formed (being a Ratzinger disciple) and I would not opine that he is WRONG either, just that I would feel the safer choice would have been to say a short Mass at their friends' home.

Personally I find rules freeing, and if I were in a similar situation, I'd think it grand if there were a rule covering the situation.

[Scotus]

Cheeky Lawyer,

There's an inherent tension between the more legalistic approach and the more open "follow the spirit of the law" approach. It sees to me like through various reform movements the Church has moved one way and then the other throughout its history.

There are valid reasons for heading both ways, and both approaches have their own pitfalls. So for instance, with eating meat on Fridays, I think many in the pre-Vatican II church treated this as the Catholic version of eating kosher: It wasn't thought about enough to be a true penance, it was just a way of setting oneself apart from the rest of the world. (I mean seriously, is a KofC fish fry really all that penitential because they aren't BBQing steaks? Maybe my normal menu is too penitential by default, but steak and fish BOTH sound great from where I sit.)

On the other hand, the wide open "just do what's right" approach makes it easy both to make things too easy and to be too hard on yourself. It always struck me in reading Martin Luther's writing that one of his big problems early on was in a sense that the Church wasn't legalistic _enough_, leaving him to spend endless time worrying about his salvation and whether he's been repentent enough to really be forgiven in confession, or maybe it hadn't worked.

Similarly, another type of personality is all too likely to take the "God will understand" approach and excuse any infraction of the rules based on a vague claim to be following their spirit. In this camp I know a number of professed Catholics who skip mass at least half the time on the theory that since Christ is found in all things and all people, sometimes having a quiet breakfast at home or taking the kids to an amusement park is more important than going to Sunday mass.

Both are incorrect approaches, and it's probably to be expected that the Church will move one way and then the other trying to correct the excesses of both approaches.

[RP Burke]

Blaise Pascal may have said it best with his famous wager, rather broadly paraphrased as:

If I bet that there is a God, and at the end of my life I discover there is none, I have lost nothing.

If I bet that there is no God, and at the end of my life I discover there is, I have lost everything.

[Karen Howard]

Interesting exchange between Loudon Is A Fool and Cheeky Lawyer. I tend to prefer rules myself, but the discussion also makes me think of Teresa of Avila's comment that "Lent is Lent and partridge is partridge."

I wonder if the two positions are somewhat analogous to imperfect and perfect contrition. The former is where most of us are; the latter is the goal. The former needs the sacrament of penance to complete it; the latter is sufficient by itself. Most of us need to start with the former if we are ever going to attain to the latter.

[Regina]

“If you think the Church is wrong on this constant teaching (about homosexual acts being a sin), why do you agree with the Church on anything? Simply because you happen to agree, or what? Because at that point, it certainly isn't because you believe the Church was founded by Christ and protected from error.”

I identify very strongly with Suzanne’s description of her struggles. I can’t give her answer to your question, but let me try to share mine. (One caveat: I’m still trying to explain this intelligibly, so please bear with me if I muddle occasionally.)

I firmly believe that the Church was founded by Christ and protected from error. But it certainly hasn’t been protected from mistakes. Church history illustrates ways in which our doctrines and teachings have grown and developed over the years. It also exemplifies the ways in which human fallibility gets in the way of the Spirit’s protection.

So what’s the difference between error and mistakes, other than semantics? At this point many people are objecting: “Yes, Church doctrine has developed, but it’s never contradicted itself on anything really important.” I agree completely! The difference between us is what we define as “really important.” I wouldn’t put homosexuality in that category; obviously many other people would.

If the Church is wrong on homosexuality (to use this example), does this mean the Church is wrong on everything? Absolutely not. I don’t understand Church authority as an “all or nothing” game.

I realize that I’m opening myself up to charges of being a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing which issues are important. I just don’t think there’s any way not to prioritize the doctrines of our faith. To do otherwise would be to embrace an ahistorical, static view of the Church.

[I don’t know if this helps, but it’s an attempt to respond to a question that’s been asked a lot recently. As I said, I’m still struggling with it; if I had all the answers I’d be writing my PhD thesis, not debating on blogs. :) ]

[Paul Pfaffenberger]

Suzanne and Christopher Rake,

Regarding orange and blue skies, St Igantius writes toward the end of his Spiritual Exercises:

"To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."

I struggled with this mightily as a young man at a Jesuit retreat, and still do 20 years later. From that struggle has come great growth - not so much as to accept and live this particular rule (I don't), but to understand the "direction of the Spirit" and the difference between the "Heirarchical Church" and men who are bishops who lie to protect their reputation.

Proving only that I'm not "right in everything", possibly becasue I'm not ready to "go that far". Anyway ... thought the reference might be helpful, or maybe disturbing in a good-challenging kind of way.

[Regina]

Follow-up thought:

Is it different to disagree about homosexuality and the Real Presence?

I’d argue yes.

The Church’s teachings on sexuality are limited by reliance on natural law. As our understanding of God’s revelation in nature changes, so then must our teaching. That’s why human experience is relevant here in a different way than other doctrines, such as the Real Presence, which do not depend upon natural law.

An analogy from outside the realm of sexuality would be our understanding of what it means to say that God created the world. As our understanding of science and the origins of the earth has developed, so too has our theological understanding of Genesis and basic ideas about creation.

[Christine]

And part of the Catholic legacy in the west is simply the Roman way of doing things -- to define, categorize, codify. Many of the Church's responses to various situations over the centuries were to try to answer the questions of the laity as to why, for example, did the Church develop this or that doctrine.

The Christian East, with its more dramatic and mystical flair, simply had a different way of doing things. But they have their own set of "rules" ....

[Cheeky Lawyer]

Regina writes:

"The Church’s teachings on sexuality are limited by reliance on natural law. As our understanding of God’s revelation in nature changes, so then must our teaching. That’s why human experience is relevant here in a different way than other doctrines, such as the Real Presence, which do not depend upon natural law. "

First, the Church's teaching on sexuality are not solely based on natural law ethics. The theology of the body demonstrates that these teachings can be discerned from theological anthropology as well.

Second, the natural law does not change. So I don't see how your statement "[a]s our understanding of God’s revelation in nature changes, so then must our teaching."

At the same time, I think we all can agree on the hierarchy of teaching in the Church. Of course the teaching on the Real Presence is more important than the teaching on sex but they are connected.

[Eileen R]

Regina, I appreciated your thoughtful post. I think I see where some of the difference comes from now.

So what’s the difference between error and mistakes, other than semantics? At this point many people are objecting: “Yes, Church doctrine has developed, but it’s never contradicted itself on anything really important.” I agree completely! The difference between us is what we define as “really important.” I wouldn’t put homosexuality in that category; obviously many other people would.

The thing is, that I and a lot of people would not reply, "“Yes, Church doctrine has developed, but it’s never contradicted itself on anything really important" but "it's never contradicted itself on what it has previously defined as incontrovertible doctrine."

I can not bring in sky colours here, since I do see as the Church does. I can imagine it would be more difficult if her teachings did not make sense to me. I've never been in the least tempted to reject the Church's teachings on anything. Where I've doubted, it's been with the certainty that there is an answer to the doubt. This is not a virtue, I think, so much as a personality.

That's not to say that I haven't intellectually examined my faith. I have. But for some reason, uncertainty has never touched me. So I feel inadequate to speak to those who have a very different make-up and experience.

[Mark Kasper]

"about the dilemma of seeing a blue sky while being told that it is orange"

The implicit belief here is that sin can be DETERMINED by the senses. If only we were that fortunate. If only sinful activities were as easy to identify as plunging one's hand into fire.

I've seen people swear, take the name of God in vain, skip Mass on Sunday, harangue their parents, secretly engage in affairs, gossip about people behind their backs - but in each of these cases, I haven't seen some natural consequence or result to these actions that could identify (or determine) them to be sin. I think our culture, not to mention most Catholics, have reached the point where sin must be defined as actions which have some readily observable detrimental and undesired effect.

We believe that there must be blood on the floor. No harm, no foul. Any consensual act is by definition not sinful.

The philosophy of the state of Missouri - The Show-Me State - reigns supreme in the US, and increasingly in the Church.

[Dave Mueller]

Regina,
Interesting argument - however, I would add this to the discussion:

Jesus, when founding the Church, giving authority to the Apostles and especially Peter, etc., never said "whatever *really important* thing you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven" or "He who hears you on *really important things* hears me" or "the Spirit will lead you into all truth, on *really important* things."

The human members of the Church make mistakes, yes, but the Church is protected from making outright error in teaching. So, when you attribute that "the CHurch has never contradicted itself on anything really important", I'd go a step further and say that "the Church Magisterium has never contradicted itself on ANYTHING."

Now, that statement has to be qualified, in that you have to know which things are doctrine, and which only discipline; which statements by the Pope are an exercise of his teaching authority and which aren't, etc. but given those distinctions, Church teaching can never contradict itself.

As others have already pointed out, the teachings on sexuality are not based solely on natural law by any means. The Church teaches that the sexual teachings CAN be understood by a natural law reasoning apart from revelation. However, the sexual teachings are *ALSO* part of revelation.

[geordie]

Pre-Vatican 2 malaise and its results? "Many a false anxiety about sin, created by a narrow-minded moral theology and all too often nourished and encouraged by spiritual advisers, avenges itself today by leading people to regard the Christianity of the past as a kind of harassment that kept man constantly in opposition to himself instead of freeing him for open and anxiety-free cooperation with all men of good will" Joseph Ratzinger,originally in 1973 but published in 1982

[geordie]

Pre-Vatican 2 malaise and its results? "Many a false anxiety about sin, created by a narrow-minded moral theology and all too often nourished and encouraged by spiritual advisers, avenges itself today by leading people to regard the Christianity of the past as a kind of harassment that kept man constantly in opposition to himself instead of freeing him for open and anxiety-free cooperation with all men of good will" Joseph Ratzinger,originally in 1973 but published in 1982

[chris K]

how everything went crazy so fast, in really just a matter of five years. There must have been something wrong and rotting and inadequate in the mix before - we can't blame it all on external forces of culture.

Well, I don't know how many "youngsters" we have here and how many who actually had some real time in the pre VatII experience, but I can remember like it was yesterday the moment when everything was literally turned around over night. I remember the confusion of those who were older and the disillusionment and wonder (and apprehension) of what would come next. And, I feel the reason things were able to change so fast was because these generations had been raised on strict obedience to the Church's instructions - whatever and whenever. So there wasn't that much outward disobedience by the faithful. I would guess that if things changed in the same drastic way today that most would take their kids and the cheerios and beat it fast out of the comfortable living rooms of worship spaces and join the whatever church down the road.

When I think of the "spirit" of those days, I don't only concentrate on the liturgy - high mass/low mass, but rather the huge participation by each and every parish in the annual Corpus Christi processions at Churchill Downs, the annual "living rosary" at Freedom Hall, the Forty Hours devotions, Parish missions, the many parish picnics that were great family events with automatic acceptance of working the booths, cooking et al. And then Sunday benediction with lovely hymns and incense. I remember the pastor spending some time in the weekly sermon lecturing about proper dress and various temptations - including alcohol, proper expectations of children's behavior and even directly addressing the teens and pre-teens normally up in the choir loft to keep quiet, listen...and know they were in the house of God. Things hadn't gotten so materialistic of course and mothers still worked the lunch rooms with very balanced meals and ferried the sisters to various appointments or to the motherhouse. And ALL of that larger atmosphere brought a certain quality of humility and obedience to the worship service. Perhaps everything "was a mystery" and we didn't understand how certain things like grace could be explained, but we were still childlike enough to trust. The pastor used his authority more and begged, borrowed and stole the efforts of others as needed but he usually had the final authority and normally showed up for any meetings that committees ran. There were the men's parish clubs and the women's altar sodality that worried over appearances of the dignity of the tabernacle surrounds. I remember most Sunday masses lasting at least 50 min to an hour; communion distribution to a packed church by the pastor and his assistant. One just automatically learned to be patient. There were crying children during sermons and all the fidgets during other parts of the mass. So, yes, human nature showed itself in some minimalist behavior, but after participating in all of the guitar masses, communing with Joe Wise new song sessions, etc., I would say that I've witnessed a growing "maximalist creep" in what has since evolved....that is...not what minimal amount one can get away with, but what really major creepiness has been tolerated to a certain horror in the lack of even simple faith in the Eucharist. And a real lack of patience and humility before the Lord. I have seen mostly an ongoing, evolving, casual, quasi mass in comparison, with only expectations of more change without reason or foundation. I have rarely seen a new mass without some kind of self consciousness by the celebrant - some underlying need to do something different or unusual to keep attention and seem relevant to the false community spirit. Why? Because no one has discovered that the horizontal (which should take effect after the mass and in the community) can only truly result when there is first proper vertical praise and adoration with true humility. IOW, we can do nothing without Him. Sorry to sound so much like Mother Angelica!!

[Tom]

Having had identical experiences in this regard, the lack of rules merely requires those of good will to waste their time making up their own....

Instead of wasting time making up rules, they could invest time becoming virtuous, and then simply do the right thing habitually. (Or so I've heard.)

[Jason]

Having been Catholic for three years now, there are many ways in which I have grown from my zealousness as a baby Catholic. It has really helped me to look back on my own journey in the Church, and see where I have failed and erred. And, generally, it wasn't intentional. I really loved the Church, and was really trying to follow her. But that was the problem sometimes. I had a one track vision on many things. Everything was black and white. There are a lot of things, looking back, that I wish I hadn't done and said, and there are a lot of ideas that I wish I hadn't embraced. With spiritual maturity, however, has come wisdom. I'm learning that everyone is in their own place; and they aren't necessarily anti-Christs. Have they become entrenched in a particular sin? Have they come into some muddled theological thinking? Are they less than charitable in their zealousness for orthodoxy (as I once was, and still am sometimes, unfortunately)? They don't always need to be smitten with the sword of truth. And neither do I have to lose my peace over their own mistakes. I can accept that it will take time for them to see why they are wrong, just as it took time for me. And I'm sure, three years from now, I'll look back and see a million new things that I need to change.

Thank God for his mercy.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

"Instead of wasting time making up rules, they could invest time becoming virtuous, and then simply do the right thing habitually. (Or so I've heard.)"

Tom, you just hit a grand slam out of the park.

[Julia]

"There must have been something wrong and rotting and inadequate in the mix before". Yes, there was - that something wrong was me, a human being with original sin. Let us not imagine that there will once come a day upon this earth when the rotting and the inadequate will be out of the mix.

I agree.

Read Ratzinger (aka B16) about the dangers of any instsitution promising perfection on Earth. Pre-VII Catholics didn't work itself into a lather trying to fit the Church's teaching to their own ideas. We were well aware that we were sinners and there was confession for that. Post-VII Catholics seem to be obsessed with finding a way to live with Catholic teaching that will be sinless. Ain't gonna happen.

Scotus says truly that we are seeing a repeat of Luther's agonizing over "justification" with a different vocabulary.

Saints were also sinners. The only human without sin was Mary. Jesus was also divine so he didn't sin either. They are models of what to strive for. It's impossible to be fully congruent with what the Church teaches.

I don't think pre-VII Catholicism was rotten, but it needed some tweaking for sure and it took bizarre twists.

I think one of the big problems in the US was the nuns who taught us were totally divorced from reality. I remember in the 50s, nuns thinking they could call my mother any time for a ride here or there because they didn't drive. No thank-you. No understanding that a person might be put out by that. Did you know that nuns back then could not go anywhere alone? Always had to have another nun with them. When my nun relatives came to visit, we met lots of their companions. Priests seemed to live more in the real world. When my Jesuit cousin came, he took off his collar and that black thing over his shirt and turned into a real person.

After VII, the nuns seemed to jump over the lay people and ended up in hippy territory. I can't tell you how many friends were shocked at seeing sister so-and-so at parties drinking and dancing. My own cousin who used to come in full habit with the body guard, gradually no longer had a nun companion, got simpler and simpler in her habit, then Burmuda shorts and one day came with a priest who seemed to be her boyfriend and swam in the pool with the rest of us. She ended up leaving the convent, of course.

I read some time ago about an order of nuns in California who had some psychologist use them as an experiment in sensitivity training. Before a year or two was out, the nuns flew the coop. They had so little experience with real life that they freaked. This was the beginning of the enneagram and quasi-Gnostic worthip of Jungian thinking. An ex-seminarian friend of mine said they studied the enneagram in seminary !!!!

Anyway, that's this 60 yr old's take on things. I'm never going to be perfect and I accept that. Neither are conservative, progressive or liberal Catholics.

Read Ratzinger. He's incredibly insightful as well as learned.

[al]

You don't just "become" virtuous.

Rules are the conduit for virtue, which is why St. Thomas observes that Law is intrinsic, rather than extrinsic to Virtue, and why even in the Garden of Eden, administration would be required.

Any good Thomist knows that.

[michigancatholic]

Suzanne, yours is a sensitive post and I can see what you're saying, but when you said," I can love the Church and still see its flaws, are you so sure they're not your flaws?
If you are sure they're not, how are you so sure?

[al]

To wit:

ST, IaIIae, q. 92, a. 1: "Objection 1. It seems that it is not an effect of law to make men good. For men are good through virtue, since virtue, as stated in Ethic. ii, 6 is "that which makes its subject good." But virtue is in man from God alone, because He it is Who "works it in us without us," as we stated above (55, 4) in giving the definition of virtue. Therefore the law does not make men good.

. . .Consequently it is evident that the proper effect of law is to lead its subjects to their proper virtue: and since virtue is "that which makes its subject good," it follows that the proper effect of law is to make those to whom it is given, good, either simply or in some particular respect. . .And since law is given for the purpose of directing human acts; as far as human acts conduce to virtue, so far does law make men good. Wherefore the Philosopher says in the second book of the Politics (Ethic. ii) that "lawgivers make men good by habituating them to good works.""
ST, IaIIae, q. 96. a.3: "But law, as stated above (90, 2) is ordained to the common good. Wherefore there is no virtue whose acts cannot be prescribed by the law."

ST, IaIIae, q. 62, a.3: "Now since the notion of good consists in "mode, species, and order," as Augustine states (De Nat. Boni. iii) or in "number, weight, and measure," as expressed in Wis. 11:21, man's good must needs be appraised with respect to some rule. Now this rule is twofold, as stated above (19, A3,4), viz. human reason and Divine Law. And since Divine Law is the higher rule, it extends to more things, so that whatever is ruled by human reason, is ruled by the Divine Law too; but the converse does not hold."

[michigancatholic]

Excuse me:

hypocrite

n : a person who professes beliefs and opinions that he does not hold [syn: dissembler, phony, phoney, pretender]

Every sinner is not a hypocrite. To be a hypocrite is to sin and deny that one sins. Both parts are necessary.

[Loudon is a Fool]

Tom & Cheeks,

I think you might have it backwards. When men are act virtuously habitually, they tend to develop virtue in spite of themselves. At least with respect to that narrow habit. Which, perhaps, goes to Al's original point about half-baked pre-Vatican II anecdotes. Perhaps the prayer of the old lady who daily prays the rosary out of mindless legalism is efficacious. The question is not "should we merely obey the rules?" The question is "if we are never given the rules, how likely are our actions to conform with knowable and unknowable objective truth?"

The Angelic Doctor notes that one of the reasons for the Divine Law is that we might know the natural law without a lot of trial and error and that stupid people, who might never come upon proper conclusions of the natural law, will have peace of mind. The Church's discipline aids us in this same manner and, as Dave M. remarked, allows us to fully enjoy genuine freedom. It can be likened to taking recreation in a mine-field. If I knew that the beach on which I were vacationing was also a mine-field full of incendiary explosives, I would have difficulty relaxing. But if I am told by an authoritative source that a large fenced portion of the beach is free of mines and glass and other sources of danger, I can enjoy my vacation without fear of incineration.

[michigancatholic]

Cheeky, there is some truth in what you say about the freedom from rules, but I think it's quite possible to get carried away by talking only about extremes. Are you saying there should be no norms, no rules, no expectations? Should we do whatever we think good at the time? Believe anything we like? If this is the case, perhaps my atheist friends are right---there is nothing to religion but emotion? I think you must be wrong, because there is surely more. Or else why would we care to be here?

[Loudon is a Fool]

Whoops. I did not intend to merely copy al. There was a delay between writing and posting.

[michigancatholic]

No, Regina, Scripture specifically rejects homosexuality in many places as wrong. The language it uses is very definite--no room for error on this one.

Look it up for yourself if you don't believe me. http://bible.gospelcom.net/

[Loudon is a Fool]

But in fairness to Sweet Cheeks, Al, I don't think he claims to be a Thomist. He's one of those deontological Finnisians. Which makes his disdain for rules a bit odd.

[Not A Lawyer]

Is punctiliousness a sin or a virtue?

Just asking.

[al]

Not to mention when talking about the Positive Law that God has given us--such as Sacramental Law--there is no Natural Law as disclosed in reason to guide us--the Virtue of a Positive Precept IS in following the Law.

Hence the Sacraments.

[michigancatholic]

It's okay, Chris K, yours is a wonderful post. I'm old enough to remember a bit of it--I was a non-Catholic but I went to Catholic school for a year and I'm Catholic now in part because of what I remembered, which was wondrous to me. The Center of the Faith, the Lord, is still the same. Not to worry.

It's my guess, knowing a little about the Dominicans in that part of the country, that they'd rather have had Cdl Schola be about his worship of God than his dinner and company. ;) Just an observation.

Julia, I can't imagine how shocked you must have been re your nun-aunt. There are some well-documented books out there on this phenomenon. It was interesting and the fallout is still around to be seen in what is left of the old orders.

[Caroline]

Seems to me that the pre V2 maximalists we were all taught to look up to, the saints, were largely priests and nuns. Just being a layperson made you a minimalist. To be a maximalist, to give God everything, you had to become a priest or a nun.

[michigancatholic]

Not so. There are many saints who were not priests or nuns. St. Francis himself was never ordained. St. Catherine of Sienna was not a nun, but a layperson belonging to a lay order. Margaret of Cortona was a layperson. Angela of Foligno, a great mystic, was a wife and mother. St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a widow with children. There are many.

[Liam]

St. Francis of Assisi was indeed ordained. He was ordained a deacon around the time his order got papal approval. At the pope's insistence.

[patrick]

there has always been a problem with more men involved in the local parish. but there are many men very involved in the ecclesial movements. check it out!

i love the orthodox tradition,but i have not found the grass is much greener over there when you look close.

also many of the orthodox churches have had their share of scandals these past ten years.
here is some info on the troubles in greece:

Helena Smith in Athens
Sunday March 20, 2005

Observer

Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, is facing trying times. Last week, Greece's newly inaugurated President, Karolos Papoulias, spurned tradition by refusing to kiss him.
Days earlier, his closest confidant, Theoklitos, the Bishop of Thessaliotis, resigned amid accusations of homosexuality and drug dealing. And yesterday, after weeks of calls for his own withdrawal, the whiff of scandal came closer still - ensnaring his mentor, Metropolitan Bishop Kallinikos, with yet more claims of sexual impropriety. Growing numbers of the faithful have begun to wonder whether their fiery leader will survive 'Holygate'.

'There is no doubt that this crisis has blackened the face of the church,' said the conservative daily Kathimerini. 'Those who thought that the corruption scandals and shady intrigue bedevilling it were just a passing phase have been forced to reconsider.'

The revelations are mind-boggling. Almost daily, men once revered as paragons of virtue have been exposed as lascivious money-grabbers. Recorded conversations of eminent clerics engaging in 'love talk' have been broadcast on television, secret bank accounts revealed, and malfeasance unearthed, with priests emerging as central players in activities as disparate as trial-fixing, antiquities smuggling and election rigging. Highlighting a raft of lurid sexual claims, one newspaper splashed what was purported to be a 91-year-old priest in bed with a woman across its front page.

'In many ways, the Greek Orthodox Church has been revealed for what it is: a completely amoral and unethical multinational company,' said Nikos Dimou, author of the best-selling book The Misery of Being Greek .

At first, the archbishop reacted by pledging a wide-ranging 'self-catharsis' to clean up the church's sullied image. Addressing an extraordinary meeting of the Holy Synod, the institu tion's governing body of bishops, he conceded that reforms were clearly necessary to counter 'our apparent lust and greed'.

But despite the measures, the drama refused to die down. Forced to admit his own links with a priest imprisoned on charges of stealing icons and manipulating court judgments, the 66-year-old archbishop was quickly drawn into the scandal. Subsequent revelations of his connections with Apostolos Vavilis, a convicted drugs smuggler whom he endorsed in a glowing letter of recommendation, sparked protest from within his own ranks.

'There is no other solution ... the only thing left for the archbishop to do is resign,' insisted Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Zakynthos, a long-time rival.

Previously, Christodoulos had denied he ever meeting Vavilis, whom he is accused of employing to ensure that Patriarch Eirinaios of Jerusalem was elected to his post in 2001.

As the biggest landowner in the Middle East - the Israeli parliament and presidential palace are built on plots owned by the Orthodox patriarchate - insiders say the archbishop was keen to see his confidant win the seat.

Vavilis has since admitted circulating homoerotic pictures of Eirinaios's main opponent, a dirty trick that ensured his defeat. In another embarrassing step, Eirinaios conceded that Christodoulos had sent the wanted drugs smuggler to lobby for him.

Inevitably, the archbishop's popularity has been badly dented. Parish priests have added their voices to the growing chorus of demands that he step down. 'There are sacrifices that must be made,' said Efstathios Kollas, who heads the union of priests. 'The archbishop, if he loves the church, must make this sacrifice.'

But Christodoulos has vehemently refused to resign. He is, he says, 'determined to lead the effort to clean up the church'.

As the allegations have mounted, so have calls for a separation of church and state. Priests in Greece are paid by the government.

With the Holy Synod due to launch an inquiry into claims that the archbishop's mentor, Bishop Kallinikos, made sexual overtures to a male cantor, and the net closing on Vavilis, those calls are bound to get louder. 'Greeks are not particularly religious,' said Dimou. 'But the church is like the Greek flag, a symbol of their identity.'

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[michigancatholic]

St. Francis would not permit himself to be ordained a priest out of humility and awe of the priesthood. Some places say he was ordained a deacon, however, the Franciscan order has no day that is celebrated as such like they do of the of the other main events of his life, such as the Transitus.

Indeed, his ministry was one that was served out in a combination of contemplative prayer in the wilds of Umbria and service in the streets, not at the altar. He went to the altar to receive Holy Communion from the hands of the priest like anyone else and in his writings that is very clear, as he wrote about it a number of times.

[pattrick]

sorry i meant to post this on the following thread, in case you wondering why it is here!

[michigancatholic]

A lot of these sources online say that he was ordained a deacon, although I'm not sure if that's the case. There are a lot of legends, you know, some merely pious.

At any rate, I have listed several other saints who were laypersons above and there are more. If lists of saints are checked, you'll find a number.

One of the reasons there are more saints from the religous life is simply that families are not as likely to put up a member for canonization as religous orders are, especially for their founders.

[Liam]

Well, even the Roman Martyrology lists him as a deacon and confessor:

For October 4:

At Assisi in Umbria, the birthday of St. Francis, deacon and confessor. He was the founder of three Orders, namely: the Friars Minor, the Poor Clares, and the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. His life, replete with holiness and miracles, was written by St. Bonaventure. A totum duplex feast of the first class.

[Sandra Miesel]

Julia is remembering the fall of the Immaculate Heart nuns of LA., once highly regarded as schoolteachers. They brought in Carl Rogers' sidekick for a weekend program and most of the nuns who attended immediately--like the next day--decided they wanted out. There was a complex fight with Cardinal McIntyre over their new plans. A rump group of the order which stayed faithful to the rule still exists.

The science faculty of Cal Tech was subjected to Rogerian mind games around the same time at the insistence of the administration. The scientists, led by Feynmann, rebeled against the program and went back to their work unaltered.

Moral: the unbelieving scientists had a stronger sense of their mission and dedication to their work than the nuns.

[michigancatholic]

Confessor simply means one who confesses the faith in the old parlance you are using there, not one who hears confessions.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

Nothing I said denies the idea that law leads us to virtue. I take what Tom and I said to mean that we need not sit around positing new rules and laws which don't lead us to virtue but in fact hinder our ability to become virtuous. Certainly, it can be the case that we can fall into a desire to have every last detail planned out for us by the Church. I think that is problematic.

I have no disdain for rules. I think people are really taking my words further than they ought (though I may well have been imprecise and this is hardly the forum for in depth discussion). I stand in the tradition of Ratzinger and other theologians before and during the great Coucil who were reacting against a neo-Scholasticism and a manualist tradition that did precisely what al and Loudon are calling for. This was inadequate as I believe the implosion of the Church after Vatican II demonstrates. It is a rigid, moralistic and legalistic model that hindered

michigancatholic asks: "Are you saying there should be no norms, no rules, no expectations? Should we do whatever we think good at the time? Believe anything we like?"

Of course not. That's why I spoke of guideposts. I fully subscribe to the teachings of the Church. I think these are the concrete demands of our relationship with Christ; they are pathways toward virtue and holiness. But the drama of the moral life plays out between those guideposts.

Am I Finnisian? Certainly on some things, especially on public moral arguments. When it comes to moral theology I guess I would probably be a Pinckaerian as in Father Servais Pinckaers, O.P. Are they reconcilable? That I don't know.

But I will tell you what I don't believe. I don't belive that the path of following Christ is a rigid one that requires nor necessitates numerous and burdensome rules.

Let me give you an example. Several years ago my mom, dad, sister and I drove to my aunt's house for the Easter weekend on Good Friday. My aunt who is a lapsed Catholic had prepared dinner for us. Knowing that my sister was a chicken fan, she'd prepared a chicken dinner, not realizing that it was a day of fasting and abstinence (we had fasted). (Incidentally, I would point to the Church's discipline during Lent as an example where I think the virtuous Christian would desire to go beyond the Church's proscriptions: i.e. an eleven year old boy might desire to fast even though he was not bound to do so; an adult might fast from all food except for one meal rather than eating the several smaller meals allowed.) My mom said, "It's Good Friday. We can't eat meat." She looked at me for support. I didn't want to eat meat. But my aunt had made the meal knowing my sister was a picky eater. Normally I would have been quite rigid about it. Perhaps you think I should have been in this instance. But I said, "Mom, she [my aunt] didn't know and it would be uncharitable for us not to take the meal" (or something to that effect. Was there a particular rule here that guided me? Or was it the general principles of charity and Lenten discipline that I had to negotiate and apply? Was I wrong? I ate the meat dish. I don't think so. Perhaps you will say that we have a rule that charity is to trump discipline. Maybe that is so. But what I gather from Loudon and al and others is that we should desire that the Church lay down with specificity a rule for such a situation. I think that unwise.

[Liam]

MC

I understood that. Confessor is a term of art in the Martyrology. And, since he was ordained a deacon, his entry is not merely Confessor, but Deacon and Confessor.

[Liam]

Btw, it makes sense that Innocent III insisted on Francis being ordained a deacon. (Or, in those days, at least tonsured as a subdeacon.) Because making him a cleric gave Innocent more control over him, and Innocent III wanted very much to control the new mendicant orders so that they did not go off the rails like contemporary lay poverty movements....

[Chris]

Regarding Cardinal Ratzinger's comment on the false anxiety of Pre-Vatican II, I don't doubt priests experienced it ad nauseam, because my Jesuit teachers in high school never stopped talking about it (and continue writing about today), but what I glean about life in general among the laity from my dim childhood memories, from the stories of my older extended family members (and it is a big family), and even from the pictures of those times, is an abundance of joy, of happiness among the difficulties (which were great) of enthusiastic worship and eager participation in the obligations and rituals of the faith. Who can say they feel that now, or have felt it only sporadically since those times ended? I have often thought that VAt II was a revolt by priests against their priesthood - or what they perceived as the shortcomings of priesthood. The laity couldn't have cared less: why change a good thing?

[Richard]

Al said:

That allowsed people to project all their dissatisfactions, dissents, and dysfunctions onto "Tridentine" Catholicism, and opened the season on "investigators" determining just exactly what parts of Tridentine Catholicism Vatican II repudiated.

Bingo.

[Richard]

Rich Leonardi wisely said:

Mark and al have brought up elements of this, but there's a big difference between the supposed "conservative" Catholic who grouses on Sunday morning about having to attend Mass and love his enemies and the quite real "progressive" Catholic who has institutionalized his yielding to temptation.

The damage of the former, albeit sad, is limited to his children who hear him at the breakfast table. The latter scandalously spreads his poison much further through things like loopy ad-libbed liturgies, entertainment-driven "theatre in the round" church designs, self-worshiping hymms, and denials of the reality of the physical Resurrection in front of RCIA candidates.

Bingo.

Again.

[michigancatholic]

Liam, it is true about the Pope in St. Francis' time worrying about the fidelity of charismatic groups like Francis' friars. The church had plenty of trouble from them in those days, because many of them were quasi-heretical. In fact, the reason St. Francis and his friars were given approval was their orthodoxy and also a dream it is said that the Pope had after meeting Francis.

It's often said in the order (I'm SFO) that it's a shame that we have the problems we do, given that our charism is complete fidelity to the Holy See in the mode of St. Francis.

[michigancatholic]

The old story goes that the Pope let Francis leave the Church, but after having the dream, he sent a runner to fetch him again. But you know how these stories go...there is much romance and not a tiny bit of lore around St. Francis. Makes it rather hard sometimes to actually *see* him.

[Liam]

Yes. But my point about his diaconal ordination is precisely that it is a hard and unsentimental aspect of his story, unlike the pious lore.

[Eileen R]

Did anyone watch that trippy "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" movie? We rented it for our young adults' parish club once and nearly died laughing. The soulful gazes between Francis and Claire under a waterfall, the Donovan music, the hippy gathering in the ruined church while the rich and respectable go to Mass. It's such a product of its time.

[michigancatholic]

Yes, I've seen that one, Eileen. It has every single hippie element possible in it. Another thing that makes it very difficult to understand St. Francis, really.

[Whitcomb]

A couple of posts suggest that if those nuns in the '60s would have simply held the line, things would have turned out just peachy. Surely some of us remember how priests began leaving in droves too. Or was that the nuns' fault as well?

We should entertain the possibility that a lot of these religious who left did so because their hearts were never in it in the first place. They had joined the convent or entered the priesthood because mom expected them to, and she began preparing them for the religious life at an absurdly young age. I think this happened a lot. Consequently, when sprung from the convent, you saw some newly freed nuns doing the Watusi and shaking their rumps with the best of them.

[Loudon is a Fool]

Cheeks,

By your anecdote are we to believe that you think there should be no rule of abstinence on Good Friday? If not, then you are clearly comfortable dispensing yourself from the rule, so why bother calling for fewer rules? More rules would simply give you greater opportunities to pit your subjective judgment against the wisdom of the ages. You are right that your aunt should not be made to feel embarrassed about her hospitality. Because it is not your aunt's fault that you failed to remind her of your Lenten obligation before your journey to her home at dinner time. And I don't mean to suggest, by the way, that your failure is culpable. People forget. But with the world without rules comes greater, not less, responsibility.

In fact, the limitation of the manualist tradition is not that it contains rules, but that it spares us moral judgments in close situations. Close situations are always problematic. But they do not go away by dispensing with rules. Instead, dispensing with rules multiplies the many clear situations in which more objective ethical minds have made prior proper determinations.

So I do not recommend situating oneself within a matrix of legalisms and refusing to make decisions in close cases. But I do suggest that rules help to remove the subjective quality of decision-making by providing objective guidance. The goal is not the rule, but truth.

If the limitation of the manualist tradition was that men copped out of decision-making in close cases, the limitation of the world of autonomous consciences is that many make the wrong decision in clear cases. The former will always be a problem, but the latter need not be.

[Wisconsinkathy]

What a blessedly beautiful thread. Scholasticism, Augustinianism, some Franciscan Rule, and some good-sense catechesis! I remember arguing with a boyfriend in 1964 or '65 about the need anymore for regular "Confession." He was adamant that good Catholics would continue to go to Reconciliation (we'd just heard about the name change, etc.) once a month or more--and anyone who didn't would leave the Church. Bada Bing. Like that. Actually, a lot of people did. Don't know whatever happened to him, but none of us had any idea that cafeteria Catholics would take over like they did, insisting on evangelizing their virtues, mostly having to do with not taking any of the old rules (especially about sex) very seriously. The sense of sin for many people just disappeared. The wonderful St. Joseph nuns at College of St. Catherine left or wore smaller veils or decked themselves out in polyester pantsuits. Now the ones left are into labyrinths, liturgical dance with streamers, and, for many, a determination to become priests. Their brochures are "in the Catholic tradition" and don't mention God in their plans for self-actualization as powerful women.

In addition to what we need to do to be good Catholic followers of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (rules, guidelines, informed consciences), one area that truly needs a few rules from Church Authority (called norms or guidelines during the '70s and '80s and more-or-less ignored) is appropriateness and consistency in liturgy from one parish to the next, one diocese to the next. Whether such will make it through the USCCB (and the notorious Archbishop Trautman),through diocesan bureaucracies down to parish priest level to the parishioners is a big, big question. The people in the pews, many of us lost in confusion, malaise, or lack of interest, will have to be instructed and willing to pay attention. There'll be a lot of grousing. Around here, haven't heard any positive--or negative--remarks about Benedict XVI (except for my daughter and son-in-law), and I've wanted to high-five *somebody*! The GIRM has flopped in my parish, I know that--and Latin is sung very rarely--like once or twice during lent. Choir director has pictures of Joncas up in the choir loft and we get a lot of Haugen, Haas, etc. (Sorry to bring liturgy/music up but Mass/the Eucharist should be, I think, the Center and Source of a lot of renewal. "Renewal": Now there's a buzzword.

[Wisconsinkathy]

Oh, aargghh. "Brother Sun, Sister Moon"--now the theme music is going through my head. Thanks a lot =) Our DRE when my kids were small nearly swooned over it.

[Lawrence King]

Sandra wrote:

Julia is remembering the fall of the Immaculate Heart nuns of LA., once highly regarded as schoolteachers. They brought in Carl Rogers' sidekick for a weekend program and most of the nuns who attended immediately--like the next day--decided they wanted out. There was a complex fight with Cardinal McIntyre over their new plans. A rump group of the order which stayed faithful to the rule still exists.

This event illustrates that things are often more complex than they seem.

Only about 1/3 of the IHM's dropped out during the Rogerian era. Only about 10% formed the old-rule order. The majority stayed with the revised order, and they still exist today, although like most orders of sisters from that era, there are almost no members under the age of 60.

But there's another side to it. When the sisters said they wanted to give up the habit, Cardinal McIntyre publicly denounced the idea, and said, "What's next -- posing for underwear ads in the New York Times?"

Moral of the story: When you examine the history of groups that abandoned orthodoxy in the Sixties and Seventies, you will often find some radical leaders who scoffed at tradition, and also some conservative critics who were quick to condemn instead of encouraging careful reflection that might lead to distinguishing useful reforms from harmful reforms.

[Rick Lugari]

Julie,

I’m laughing about your comment about driving the nuns. My mother was one of those high school kids fortunate enough to have a car and unfortunate enough to have to chauffer nuns between Detroit and Monroe, MI. They too were IHM nuns, and as an order they have become quite abominable. Their very existence as an order is one of my pet peeves.

Since you, Sandra and Lawrence are familiar with the IHM’s you may want to look at some of my postings on the Monroe sisters. They are here and here.

It is interesting to note, that I know one of these sisters and even though she leans liberal on many social issues, she is essentially an out-cast, because she is not a whacked out pagan type. Form what I gather, there are a handful like her, but for all intents and purposes the order is lost.

[Maureen]

Re: rules

As long as you get to Mass before the Gospel's done, you're golden. I thought everybody had that rule!

Knowing this rule came in very handy when we were on vacations down South, racing all over creation to find a Mass. Nowadays, masstimes.org and web maps and directions make this not quite so essential, but it's still good to know.

Re: Lenten chicken

Hard one. I guess it could go under the "you _can_ eat meat sacrificed to idols, but don't cause a scandal" rule. The problem is, what's the scandal? Also, did your aunt hear your mom say it was Lent?

If your aunt didn't hear -- frankly, your options are much wider. You can just family conference, eat, and skip meat on Saturday.

If your aunt heard your mom say it was Lent, and you guys ate, would it lead her to believe that Catholics weren't serious about Lent? OTOH, if your aunt's one of those people who gets really hurt about specially-prepared food not getting eaten, would not eating the chicken cause years of bitterness for your aunt as she reflected on how all her hard work was spoiled by your silly Catholic idolatry to rules?

There is also the "all of a sudden I feel sick" option. Not a lie, given how I feel when imagining this scenario happening to me and my family. (The usual more polite "I ate too much at lunch and now I'm not hungry. Really." would be way too noticeable with a whole family, though.)

But all these things do sorta presuppose that caring for the Marthas of this world is more important than Lent. I haven't really noticed that my observing Jewish friends are particularly shy about telling folks that they really can't eat a thing you've prepared because none of it is kosher. (Of course, they're sf fans, so tact is not always a huge concern.) It didn't occur to any of us to be resentful; rather, we felt stupid for not knowing kosher rules.

But of course, you don't want your aunt and hostess to feel stupid. That's pretty basic to being a good guest. I'm fairly sure Jesus didn't make comments about kosherness when he was dining with those tax collectors and prostitutes. I'm sure he would have politely refused pork; but chicken in Lent is not as serious as that, unless you have reason to believe someone is torquing with your fast on purpose. And Jesus did say not to make a big public deal about fasting.

I think in this case you pays your money and you takes your choice, frankly. Eating chicken for love of one's neighbor and feeling stupid is pretty penitential, as far as I can see.

[Maureen]

Of course, there's also the hindsight answer:
"Don't eat at non-Catholics' houses on Fridays during Lent", or warn 'em in advance of your special dietary requirements.

Actually, warning the host well ahead of time of _any_ special dietary requirements is definitely the duty of a good guest.

[Cheeky Lawyer]

Loudon is a Fool,

I believe I confused things a little. You ask: "By your anecdote are we to believe that you think there should be no rule of abstinence on Good Friday? If not, then you are clearly comfortable dispensing yourself from the rule, so why bother calling for fewer rules? "

No. I of course believe such a discipline is a good thing. My use of the anecdote was to express our proper posture in front of rules or obligations. The point is always Christ. I find it beside the point to suggest that we should have reminded my aunt. This is a different question from that of whether we need more or fewer rules.

"In fact, the limitation of the manualist tradition is not that it contains rules, but that it spares us moral judgments in close situations."

Exactly. And why does it do that? Perhaps because it gives too many rules for every last situation.

I of course am not advocating for a world of autonomous consciences. I should be seen to be making two related points. First, the point of Christianity--the beginning and end--is Christ. When Scola, or Wojtyla, or yes, Cheeky, were faced with a situation where Christ's was present but an obligation seemed to suggest a different path, they responded to the presence of Christ in front of them. In none of the situations posisted was it a question whether one should fulfill the obligation at all costs or whether the proper circumstances for dispensing from the obligation were present. Rather, each involved someone recognizing the presence of Christ and responding to that presence. (Here I am drawing heavily on an e-mail from a professor friend of mine.)

The second point is that we risk falling into the very problems you articulated about the manualist tradition if we begin imposing new and more rules. Again, I come back to the example of NFP and contraception (which you've not addressed). This seems to me to be a good example. There are absolute limits we cannot cross--no use of artificial contraceptives. There are general priniciples we must follow--you must have "just reasons" for spacing children. But then within this framework comes alive the drama of the moral life. Jack and his wife discern that they have no just reasons. Frank and his wife who have a very similar situation discern that they do have just reasons. I find that the beauty of Chrisitan freedom. We need no more rules to help them live. Or do you think in this context we do?

And we should differentiate I guess between moral law and disciplines. I would never suggest that we can dispense from absolute moral prohibitions.

[Maureen]

So, all things being equal and no malice being involved, I'd say that failing to remember to warn your aunt makes breaking the fast your family's problem and not hers. It would be wrong to cause _her_ distress for something that's not her fault. Eat your chicken and fast on Saturday, and next time don't forget to mention this little problem ahead of time.

Anyone who doesn't like this ruling is free to stick their chicken in their napkin while your aunt's not looking. ;)

[Maureen]

The fact that the above scenario took me so long to think out is definitely an argument for rules and scenario manuals. In real life, I would've stood staring at that chicken long enough for the meagerest brain to figure out I was having Lent problems.

Honestly, if we can have situation training for work, why can't we have it for Christian morals?

For example, since this is never mentioned in religion class but kids always discuss it....

If you accidentally eat meat on Friday in Lent, it doesn't make it okay if you throw it up. Why?

A) Wasting food is a sin.
B) There are children starving in Ethiopia.
C) We don't promote bulimia.
D) If you ate it accidentally, it's no sin!

Maureen

[Maureen]

Ooh, I thought of two more options.

Lead your aunt away from the table. Everyone else strips the meat off their pieces of chicken and feeds it to the dog, leaving the bones on their plates as evidence of eating.

Put your aunt and the chicken into stasis until midnight, when it will be totally lawful to eat a late chicken supper. ;)

[Maureen]

Seriously, though, I think the reason we tend to talk about rules so much is that every other part of religion is something that words fail to express. Charity is something to be done without making a big deal of it, worship and liturgy is easier to do than talk about, self-sacrifice is "offer it up", and private prayer is to be done in secret. So either it's rules and theology, or keep your mouth shut and meditate.

[al]

Cheeky,
The difficult is, the approving citation of the injunction to "just be virtuous" seems to indicate that you really don't understand the tradition that Pinckaers and Finnis even arise from, and Cardinal Ratzinger's relationship to it.

First of all Pinckaers is most definitely a neo-scholastic or neo-thomist, in the sense that this was the return to St. Thomas inaugurated by Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris, and most recently confirmed in the words of John Paul II, who wrote immediately preceeding his death in Memory and Identity: "If we with to speak rationally about good and evil, we have to return to Saint Thomas Aquinas, that is, to the philosophy of being."

Of this movement, John Paul II observed in his encyclical Fides et Ratio: ""More than a century later, many of the insights of his Encyclical Letter [Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris] have lost none of their interest from either a practical or pedagogical point of view—most particularly, his insistence upon the incomparable value of the philosophy of Saint Thomas. . . .61. If it has been necessary from time to time to intervene on this question, to reiterate the value of the Angelic Doctor's insights and insist on the study of his thought, this has been because the Magisterium's directives have not always been followed with the readiness one would wish."

And on this subject John Paul II has described the relationship between the law, grace and virtue in these words from Veritatis Splendor: "Going to the heart of the moral message of Jesus and the preaching of the Apostles, and summing up in a remarkable way the great tradition of the Fathers of the East and West, and of Saint Augustine in particular,32 Saint Thomas was able to write that the New Law is the grace of the Holy Spirit given through faith in Christ.33 The external precepts also mentioned in the Gospel dispose one for this grace or produce its effects in one's life."

In the section of Veritatis Splendor entitled "Blessed is the man who takes delight in the law of the Lord (cf. Ps 1:1-2)", John Paul II goes so far as to say "44. The Church has often made reference to the Thomistic doctrine of natural law, including it in her own teaching on morality."

I hope what I have excerpted from St. Thomas on Law being intrinsic to virtue broadly indicates where the notion of a virtue, construed in precinsion from the following of a law, is entirely at odds with the Thomistic account of Law and Virtue.

But to draw attention to the point more closely, let me draw your attention to a writing of Pope Benedict on this subject: " Instead, I shall focus on a phenomenon which appears more innocuous: an interpretation of Christianity that from the scientific point of view seems to be altogether respectable, and was developed in the last century by the great evangelical jurist Rudolph Sohm. Sohm proposes the thesis that Christianity as Gospel, as a break with the law, originally would not have been able, or desired, to include any law, but that the Church was born initially as a "spiritual anarchy," which later no doubt, because of external needs of ecclesial existence, already manifest at the end of the first century, was substituted by a sacramental law. Instead of this law, which was based so to speak on Christ's flesh, on the body of Christ and was of a sacramental nature, in Medieval times it became no longer the right of Christ's body but of the corporation of Christians -- in fact, the ecclesial law with which we are familiar. But for Sohm, the real model remained spiritual anarchy: in reality, in the ideal condition of the Church there is no need for law. Stemming from these positions, in our century what becomes fashionable is the confrontation between the Church of law and the Church of love, law presented as the opposite of love. A similar contrast can of course emerge in the concrete application of law, but to raise this to a principle twists the essence of law as well as the essence of love. . . . Redemption does not dissolve creation and its order but, on the contrary, restores the possibility of perceiving the voice of the Creator in his creation and, consequently, of better understanding the foundations of law. Metaphysics and faith, nature and grace, law and Gospel are not opposed but are intimately connected. Christian love, as the Sermon on the Mount proposes, can never become the foundation of statute law. It goes well beyond this and can only be realized, at least in an embryonic way, in faith. But this does not go against creation and its law; rather, it is based on it. Where there is no law, even love loses its vital context."

[al]

And note the characterization he gives to this error "There is even a crypto-theological origin for this negation of law. Because of this, it can be understood why vast currents of theology -- especially the various forms of liberation theology -- were subject to these temptations. It is not possible for me to present these connections here because of their extent. I shall content myself with pointing out that a mistaken Pauline idea has rapidly given way to radical and even anarchic interpretations of Christianity. Not to speak of the Gnostic movements, in which these tendencies were initially developed, which together with the "no" to God the Creator included also a "no" to metaphysics, to a law of creatures and Natural Law."

[Sandra Miesel]

One of the Desert Fathers--a group not noted for laxity--found himself offered a rich meal that would break his fast. Out of charity, he ate what his hosts offered and taught his monks that charity trumps mortification.
Both Donna Steichen and Ann Carey have charted the decline of female religious orders. But one element in the mass exodus that doesn't get mentioned is the tension within pre-V II convents caused by cruelty among the nuns. The Queen Bee mother superior who tormented the Little Flower wasn't an isolated case. I think that the humiliations and exploitations they visited upon one another were then projected upon "patriarchy." It's telling that feminist nuns like to repeat stories about troubles with bishops (which did happen) but never things that went on among women religious, even what reaches public knowledge in the lives of the saints.

[Joseph R. Wilson]

"Maybe you should put yourself--even in your analogy--of the one who sees an orange sky. If we believe in the truth of Christ, and that our faith comes from Him, and that the church has been charged by Him with keeping the truths of the faith, then our orientation towards the faith begins with our assent to their truth.

It doesn't begin with what we think is true and hoping to understand what the church teaches and being happy with the overlap. Our faith begins with the Truth. Conflicts between our understanding and a truth of faith should initially be resolved in favor of the truth of faith."--Posted by: Cranky Lawyer at April 29, 2005 01:26 PM

Having taught three, and working on the fourth, of my children to drive, I have come to a deeper appreciation of rules. I grew up in a family that had largely abandoned Catholicism (at least in externals) in the context of mental illness, alcoholism, divorce, remarriage, etc. (in the sixties and seventies). The emphasis seemed to be on reasonable options rather than on rules. I was vaguely, if at all, aware of what was going on in the church in the wake of Vatican II. I was very much a free-thinker, and a scientific materialist, and wasn't confirmed until the age of thirty nine.

I now believe that when the Church teaches that the sky is truly a different color than what I perceive, that I need to take great care to see how I have erred. This has been an ongoing conversion process for me, and has never seemed easy. When I no longer find reliance on the authority of revealed Truth transmitted through our Church reassuring, I suppose that I may leave.

[al]

"The denigration of law is never in any way at the service of liberty, but is always an instrument of dictatorship. To eliminate law is to despise man; where there is no law there is no liberty."

--Benedict XVI

[Joseph R. Wilson]

Amy, thank you for this thread. Do you have time to expand this conversation into a (short) book? ;)

[michigancatholic]

Interesting how this was phrased above. "none of us had any idea that cafeteria Catholics would take over like they did, insisting on evangelizing their virtues, mostly having to do with not taking any of the old rules (especially about sex) very seriously. The sense of sin for many people just disappeared. " Yes, it is what happened. But *are* these things virtues??

Lawrence, and your point is what? That they should be able to pose in their underwear in the NY Times?

WisconsinKathy, yes that song "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" is part of the body of crap that Secular Franciscans spend a lot of time trying to ignore...LOL...along with pictures of St.Francis holding birdbaths. ;) That's not who he was at all!!!

[John Farrell]

Rules are the conduit for virtue, which is why St. Thomas observes that Law is intrinsic, rather than extrinsic to Virtue, and why even in the Garden of Eden, administration would be required.

Why does it not surprise me that Al equates administrative rules with Laws...?

[al]

John,
The "administrative rules" that prescribe the conditions under which the Sacraments are to be dispensed are laws--Canon Laws.

Because the Sacraments and observances (the "rules" such as going to mass on sunday, confession once a year. . . ) are wholly functions of a positive precept--that gaining the graces that attach to the sacraments are solely a result of observing the conditions God has set down--in this case the "administrative rules" are the laws.

Which is why the Church bothers to compile Codes of Canon Law, and Handbooks of Indulgences and what not, to give us a framework for us to demonstrate our obedience and gain these graces.

If you don't think you need the graces, then by all means, dispense with the "administrative rules."

[m]

"College of St. Catherine"

I remember when that was a Catholic school.