Category: Roman Catholicism

There is Antinomianism and then there is Antinomianism

Published on by D. G. Hart34 Comments

Protestants wouldn’t seem to have to worry too much about lacking moral fiber.

Here is how H. L. Mencken perceived moralism in the United States circa 1920:

The man of morals has a certain character, and the man of honour has a quite different character. No one not an idiot fails to differentiate between the two, or to order his intercourse with them upon an assumption of their disparity. What we know in the United States as a Presbyterian is pre-eminently the moral type. Perhaps more than any other man among us he regulates his life, and the lives of all who fall under his influence, upon a purely moral plan. In the main, he gets the principles underlying that plan from the Old Testament; if he is to be described succinctly, it is as one who carries over into modern life, with its superior complexity of sin, the simple and rigid ethical concepts of the ancient Jews. And in particular, he subscribes to their theory that it is virtuous to make things hot for the sinner, by which word he designates any person whose conduct violates the ordinances of God as he himself is aware of them and interprets them. Sin is to the Presbyterian the salient phenomenon of this wobbling and nefarious world, and the pursuit and chastisement of sinners the one avocation that is permanently worth while. . . . Every single human act, he holds, must be either right or wrong – and the overwhelming majority of them are wrong. He knows exactly what these wrong ones are; he recognizes them instantly and infallibly, by a sort of inspired intuitions; and he believes that they should all be punished automatically and with the utmost severity. No one ever heard of a Presbyterian overlooking a fault, or pleading for mercy for the erring. (The American Credo, 51, 52, 53)

Forty years later when a Protestant (Robert McAfee Brown) looked at Roman Catholicism and a Roman Catholic (Gustave Weigel) looked at Protestantism, Weigel’s impression was similar to Mencken’s:

The Reformer’s strong rhetoric against the value of works could be interpreted as a form of antinomianism. “Sin valiantly and believe more valiantly.” Yet all the Reformers were against sin in all its forms and shapes. Calvin’s Geneva was no place for sin or worldliness. Virtue was the strongly enforced law of the city. In the history of Protestantism we do not find antinomianism as a practice except perhaps in some exotic little groups not recognized as genuine by the mass of Protestants. In all Protestant communities it does make a difference whether you behave yourself or don’t. Works are important, very important indeed. Catholic cultures are rarely as strict as communities where a strong calvinism prevails. Strangely enough, Catholicism always is more concerned with the faith of its members than with their works. For the Catholic the loss of faith is the greatest loss. With faith alive, pardon is possible. Where faith is absent, there is no pardon. (An American Dialogue, 177)

Postscript: the observations of Roman Catholics and Protestants in the Brown-Weigel exchange are striking for showing how different the Christian landscape is today in the U.S. On the theme of moralism, Weigel also had this to say:

When the Catholic hears a Protestant sermon he notes a number of things. In most cases the sermon is on a moral theme, and could be heard without much, if any, change in a Catholic church. (135)

Or this:

There is of course a Protestant prudery just as there is a Catholic prudery, but I am not referring to either. It seems to the Catholic that the Protestant is not too worried about birth-control, obscenity in the theatre or in print, and exhibitionism in public. Here the Protestant stands for liberty while the Catholic considers it license. These different attitudes produce friction in the national community. The Protestant thinks the Catholic immoral because he drinks and plays Bingo — and it gives the Protestant satisfaction. The Catholic thinks the Protestant immoral because he will not fight birth-control and it makes the Catholic feel morally superior.

These attitudes to drinking, gambling, and sex are very conspicuous but somehow they are not too significant. The real difference between the two communities is their distinctive conceptions of virtue. The Protestant esteems the natural virtues while the Catholic makes more of the supernatural virtues. The Protestant thinks highly of truthfulness, sobriety, simplicity, reliability, and industriousness. The Catholic most esteems humility, mortification, penance, chastity, poverty, and abnegation. Both admire charity, but Catholic charity is warmer and more personal, while Protestant charity is more efficient and better organized. . . . The result of the different tempers of moral conception will be Protestant reserve, stiffness and gravity in contrast to the Catholic’s tendency toward spontaneity, Baroque display and even Rabelaisian earthiness. (143-144)

Welcome to Protestant Land

Published on by D. G. Hart45 Comments

William Oddie wonders about the state of Roman Catholicism in ways never conceived by Jason and the Callers:

What exactly is going on, when Bishops and parish priests can so radically differ about the most elementary issues of faith and morals—about teachings which are quite clearly explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church—and when simultaneously one Cardinal describes such teachings as “crazy” and another simply expounds them as the immemorial teachings of the Church? Does nobody know what the Church believes any more?

Spirituality of the Church Roman Style

Published on by D. G. Hart10 Comments

Pius XI gets it right (for a graph or two anyway):

14. Let Us explain briefly the nature and meaning of this lordship of Christ. It consists, We need scarcely say, in a threefold power which is essential to lordship. This is sufficiently clear from the scriptural testimony already adduced concerning the universal dominion of our Redeemer, and moreover it is a dogma of faith that Jesus Christ was given to man, not only as our Redeemer, but also as a law-giver, to whom obedience is due. Not only do the gospels tell us that he made laws, but they present him to us in the act of making them. Those who keep them show their love for their Divine Master, and he promises that they shall remain in his love. He claimed judicial power as received from his Father, when the Jews accused him of breaking the Sabbath by the miraculous cure of a sick man. “For neither doth the Father judge any man; but hath given all judgment to the Son.” In this power is included the right of rewarding and punishing all men living, for this right is inseparable from that of judging. Executive power, too, belongs to Christ, for all must obey his commands; none may escape them, nor the sanctions he has imposed.

15. This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things. That this is so the above quotations from Scripture amply prove, and Christ by his own action confirms it. On many occasions, when the Jews and even the Apostles wrongly supposed that the Messiah would restore the liberties and the kingdom of Israel, he repelled and denied such a suggestion. When the populace thronged around him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, he shrank from the honor and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate he declared that his kingdom was not of this world. The gospels present this kingdom as one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though an external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration. This kingdom is opposed to none other than to that of Satan and to the power of darkness. It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.

But then he falls back into the things-go-better-with-Christ meme:

20. If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth – he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity; who said also: “My yoke is sweet and my burden light.” Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! “Then at length,” to use the words addressed by our predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, twenty-five years ago to the bishops of the Universal Church, “then at length will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.”

21. That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year – in fact, forever. The church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God’s teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.

If we applied these parts of the encyclical to the current work of reforming the Vatican Bank, I mean, the Institute on Religious Works, we might recognize the truth of graphs 14 and 15 and see the holes in 20 and 21. In a recent interview with John Allen, George Cardinal Pell admitted that the techniques of modern bureaucratic structures administered by lay people (even secular lay people) may do a better job of overseeing a financial institution than church officers:

Cynics say they’ve seen previous waves of supposed financial reform in the Vatican come and go, and nothing much ever changes. What makes this different?

Nobody in living memory has seen anything like this before. What’s so new are the structural reforms. We’ve now got different focuses of authority and checks and balances. We’re also injecting some of the top financial people from around the world into the leadership of these different agencies, and they won’t stay on these boards if the businesses aren’t run properly.

We’ve never seen such an injection of lay leadership into the senior ranks of the Church as we’re seeing now with finances. That’s extremely healthy, because it’s an area in which we clerics don’t necessarily have any expertise.

Going forward, you won’t be able to change the system back to what it was before simply by changing one person. A whole network of institutions is being set up, with more to come.

The lesson may be, then, that Christ’s spiritual rule is different from his secular rule and that the church operates differently from society. Only Constantine echoing David makes us think Christians hold the key to running the world (and look how well Israel and the Holy Roman Empire turned out).

Whom Are You Going to Believe?

Published on by D. G. Hart29 Comments

Is Christianity a religion of salvation?

Christianity is a salvation religion, and it offers to save us from is sin. According to the Christian story, God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and then suffered and died on the cross, to save us from our sins. The premise upon which all this is grounded is, of course, that we humans are sinners — very serious sinners.

However, what if we are not sinners? Then it would follow that we don’t need salvation from sin. And if we are sinners but don’t feel that we are sinners, then we won’t feel the need of salvation. So Christianity will make no sense to us.

By and large we modern men and women do not feel that we are sinners, at least not in any serious sense. Oh, we admit that we are not perfect. Any one of us can draw up a list of our imperfections: we sometimes eat or drink a little too much; we often exercise too little; we don’t read enough good books; we commit little acts of impoliteness from time to time; and so on. But no really big sins — certainly no sins that are great enough for the Creator and Sustainer of the universe to become man and suffer and die in order to atone for our great wickedness.

We admit that some humans truly are very wicked — Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Charles Manson, and a few others. But they are very untypical of humanity. The rest of us, normal human beings, are utterly horrified by the crimes of Hitler and company. This is proof — isn’t it? — that we ourselves are not very wicked. So we don’t need salvation from sin. And we don’t need a religion that offers this salvation. No wonder Catholicism is in decline.

So how can Christianity build on religions that are wrong about salvation?

. . . if we say that Islam is wrong about everything we are saying that it is wrong to affirm that there is one God, the God of Abraham, holy, righteous, merciful and compassionate. We are saying it is false that the prophets of the Old Testament are prophets; that prayer, fasting and almsgiving are pious works blessed by God; that Jesus was a prophet; that Mary is to be honored and venerated. For Muslims say all these things and all these things are true, as far as they go. The Church, instead of making foolish denunciations of all things Muslim instead does what St. Thomas describes: She recognizes that grace builds on nature and so takes what is good and true in any culture (even one as depraved as our own culture of warlike abortion-loving polymorphous perversity and greed) and begins proclaiming the gospel there. So, as I say, the Church affirms what can be affirmed in common with any religious tradition. One need not pretend we agree on all things in order to agree on the things we agree about. But we should listen to CCC 841 and not denounce the Church or call (as some readers did) for banning the Catechism when she challenges our muddy thinking. Our task is to learn from Her.

Do non-Christians need to be saved?

It’s a joke, I tell him. My friends think it is you want to convert me.
He smiles again and replies: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good.”

Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is?
“Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.”

Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope.
“And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”

Is the Church doing that?
“Yes, that is the purpose of our mission: to identify the material and immaterial needs of the people and try to meet them as we can. Do you know what agape is?”

Do people not notice the irony of Protestants feeling the need to convert to Roman Catholicism and then defending teaching that weakens the imperative to convert? Perhaps only Jason and the Callers‘ lessons in logic can lead us through this intellectual wicket.

The Fullness of Sausage

Published on by D. G. Hart59 Comments

Mark Shea may fault with Rod Dreher for selectivity in reading the Christian past, but has he looked in the mirror lately? As I’ve written before, Protestants do not have the problem of history that Roman Catholics do for one because we don’t have all the history (and baggage) and for another because we don’t promote tradition the way Rome does, and for one more we don’t believe utterances from the past by church authorities are infallible (unless they are part of the canon). So complaints about the way Roman Catholics use and abuse history are inherently self-serving for Protestants.

Still, that does not explain why Roman Catholics keep appealing to the past as leverage against Protestants. Not only do Roman Catholic apologists have a lot of explaining to do about coziness with emperors, the politics of the curia and Rome’s powerful families, or the Crusades, for instance, but they also need to make past decrees square with contemporary ones. And development of doctrine just isn’t working when it comes to worrying about heretics and infidels leading the faithful to hell compared to praying with heretics and infidels.

Consider Shea’s recent celebratory post about religious freedom in the greatest nation on God’s green earth and whether Roman Catholics should embrace such freedom for non-Christians:

. . . the casual description of all non-Abrahamic religion as “satan worship” vastly over-simplifies things, just as the easy willingness to lump all expressions of Judaism and all expressions of Christianity together (presumably consigning Muslims to paganism and illegality) is tremendously simplistic. One pernicious lie embraced by many Catholics since 9/11 is to imagine that Muslims “worship another god” despite the obvious teaching of the Church:

841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”

Many Reactionary Catholics protest this teaching of the Church and try to pretend that God and Allah are “two different Gods”. . . . Here’s reality: Allah is just the Arabic word for the Deity, as Dieu is the French and Gott the German and Deus the Latin. Some will claim that because Muslims are non-Trinitarian, they don’t worship the same God as Christians. The problem is, Jews also reject the deity of Jesus, yet are mysteriously given a pass, as your friends demonstrate. That’s because such Christians are willing to recognize that you can worship God while having an incomplete understanding of him–if you are a Jew. But because of anger of 9/11 and other Muslim crimes, they refuse to cut Muslims the same slack–and wind up talking as though there are multiple gods and not one God who is understood in various levels of knowledge.

The Church’s habit is always to affirm what can be affirmed in common with any religious tradition while, of course, noting the differences as well. Thus, St. Thomas could find much of value in the thought of both the pagan Aristotle and the Muslim Averroes. But the Church has historically gone much further even with paganism. So we find Paul affirming what can be affirmed with pagans in Acts 17 as he speaks to Greek pagans on the Areopagus. Likewise, the Fathers made all kinds of use of Plato In our culture of polarization however, many find this very hard. Outlawing other religions would only massively exacerbate that–in addition to being both wrong and foolish.

Aside from a theologically weak defense of Islam and Judaism, can Shea really say with a straight face that the church has “always” affirmed what it has in common with “any” traditional religion. How did that work for the Council of Trent in its verdict on Christians who affirmed the Nicene Creed? Or what does that affirmative impulse do to the history of banning books and movies? As one of Shea’s astute readers noted, nineteenth century popes (a few steps above Shea’s pay grade) would not have described the church as Shea does:

We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.” Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.” A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. “But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error,” as Augustine was wont to say. (Encyclical on Indifferentism and Liberalism by Pope Gregory XVI)

Accounting for history is hard. And the recent dust up between Bryan Cross and Brandon Addison proves the point. In a debate about apostolic succession and the rise of the Holy See (Rome), Addison pushed Cross to brand as heretical those who deny that the Bishop of Rome was a first-century historical reality:

. . . when Brandon in comment #23, says, “I wanted to point out that Catholics of good repute and in full communion with the Church share my rejection of traditional Catholic claims,” if the “traditional Catholic claims” he has in mind are or include either the claim that St. Peter was not appointed by Christ as prince of all the Apostles, or that it is not by the institution of Christ Himself that St. Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church, or that the papal office did not come from Christ through St. Peter, then such a Catholic is at least in material heresy, and is thus in that respect not in full communion with the Catholic Church. So for any Catholic scholar Brandon cites, if that Catholic is in [at least] material heresy regarding the aforementioned doctrines, then he or she is not in full communion. If, however, that Catholic is in full communion with the Catholic Church, then that Catholic disagrees with Brandon on these points. (footnote 8)

To which Addison responds with a logic that should have pleased Bryan:

Is this a claim that the following men are material heretics:

– Eamon Duffy
– Raymond Brown (and is Thomas Boland guilty of placing his Imprimatur on a work in which a material heretic is explicating his views which are tantamount to material heresy? What does that say about Boland?)
– Patrick Burke
– Bernad Dupay
– Francis Sullivan
– Klaus Schatz
– Allen Brent
– J.P. Meier

These men (among a litany of others) have published their views widely that they do not believe,

“that Christ appointed St. Peter to be the prince of all the apostles, and visible head of the whole Church militant, and that Christ gave to him primacy of jurisdiction.”

This is a point that I have tried to make with Bryan but Brandon makes it much more effectively. Whenever I’ve tried to point out that Jason and the Callers are out of sync with the dominant contemporary Roman Catholic historiography about their communion and its novelty after Vatican II, all I’ve gotten is “you haven’t proved anything.”

So what does Bryan say in response? Surprisingly, his logic goes squishy:

The purpose of our article was not to determine whether or demonstrate that any particular person’s position is material heresy. Rather, our purpose was to evaluate the argument presented in your essay, and present an alternative paradigm in which to understand the historical data.

So rather than comment on the implication of his comment for almost the entire field of Roman Catholic history, Bryan packs up his weapons and chooses a Protestant to critique.

Meanwhile, we hear of another Protestant convert to Roman Catholicism. Why is it that conversion narratives are so common among recent Roman Catholics? Could it be a carry over of the evangelical devotional practice of giving one’s testimony? That wouldn’t be very traditional.

It was difficult to explain my decision to become Catholic to many of my friends and family, most of whom were Protestant. Some of my friends who knew me during college weren’t surprised, since they had seen the progression of my journey and could see that I was heading in the direction of Rome. Other friends and family were surprised by my decision, and couldn’t understand my reasons for it. Many people assumed that it was a matter of taste or preference — as if I chose to become Catholic for the music, the liturgy, the incense, or the hats. But it was only because I was convinced of the truth of her teachings, and for no other reason, that I decided to come fully into communion with the Catholic Church.

Whatever the explanation for the rise of Roman Catholic testimonies, this woman’s sense of having arrived at the fullness of truth sure does not square with the forms of real historical denial in which Roman Catholic apologists must engage before eating the sausage.

Maybe This Explains the Appeal of Independence to the Scots

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

Wow!

Here is what England is:

She is more than a thousand years of uninterrupted Christian faith, from St. Alban, the first English martyr, killed during the Roman occupation in the 3rd century, to the martydrom of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More in 1535. She is the hundreds of martyrs killed during the penal times following Henry VIII’s usurpation of the church in England. She is Beowulf and “The Dream of the Rood”; she is Sir Gawain and Chaucer; she is Byrd and Tallis; she is Walsingham and Glastonbury; she is Austen and Dickens, Newman and Hopkins, Chesterton and Belloc, Waugh and Wodehouse, Lewis and Tolkien. She is Shakespeare! This is the England of our dreams, and our dreams are so much more real, in any meaningful sense, than the nightmare that the modern inhabitants of England seem to prefer. This is the England to which I owe my allegiance; the England of the saints and martyrs; the England of the poets and bards; and the England of the Greatest Bard of all. I will conclude by letting the Bard wax lyrical on the England of my dreams:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in a silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

This may explain why Rod Dreher had a point:

The intellectual arrogance identified by Alan that exists within certain Catholic circles is something I once was guilty of, without realizing it. To me, as an adult convert to Catholicism, the intellectual and aesthetic riches of the Catholic faith were so blindingly obvious that I couldn’t see that the Protestant traditions were worth taking seriously, except in a political and personal sense. That is, I respected Protestants as serious Christians and good people with whom we could and should work on causes of mutual concern, but I didn’t trouble myself to take them seriously on the intellectual front. This was an example of my unearned pride. As far as I was concerned, I had joined the intellectual A team of American Christianity, and Father Neuhaus was our Joe Torre. At the time I didn’t realize it, but looking back, I can see that the only conversations I thought really mattered were between Catholics.

As I write this, I remember a professor telling me years ago at a conference that he might have left Protestantism for Catholicism, except for the fact that his Catholic convert friends were so intellectually haughty in their newfound Catholicism that they kept him away from the Roman church. What that man experienced is a constant temptation for intellectual converts to Catholicism.

A Trend?

Published on by D. G. Hart65 Comments

Some Roman Catholics are scratching their heads about David Brat, the economics professor who defeated Eric Cantor in Virginia Congressional primaries. Brat describes himself as a Calvinist Catholic Libertarian. For some, Roman Catholicism is as incompatible with Calvinism as it is with libertarianism, though you don’t hear as much about Calvinist theology as you do about economics (except among Jason and the Callers but they are so far off the Roman Catholic reservation that they don’t count). Whether Calvinism and libertarianism are compatible is something more often assumed than proved.

Be all that as it may, one Roman Catholic writer has no trouble with Brat at Calvinist, Catholic, and Libertarian:

It’s doubtful that Brat is Catholic in the way readers of this column are likely to be Catholic. He states that he “attends” a Catholic church, St. Michael’s, but also lists other churches as “affiliations” — Christ Church Episcopal, Third Presbyterian, and Shady Grove Methodist. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Hope College, a Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Mich., which is historically affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, a Protestant denomination that sprouted during the 17th century. He earned a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian school. Perhaps Brat will clear up what these “affiliations” signify in the coming weeks.

Until then, I suggest we not get overwrought about what he means when he calls himself a “Catholic Calvinist libertarian,” even though many have been reacting with alarm.. . . I don’t know Brat. I hold no brief for him, but I am convinced that his description of himself as a Catholic Calvinist libertarian is one that most Catholics who identify themselves as “conservatives” or “on the right politically” would feel comfortable with. I include myself in that category.

I submit that Brat’s point is that he is not a doctrinaire Calvinist or economic libertarian. That is why the word “Catholic” is part of his self-designation. He is saying that he is attracted to certain positions that are taken by Calvinists and libertarians that do not clash with Catholic teaching. There are such things.

Brat is not the only so-called Calvinist on the political “right” to be worshiping on both sides of the Tiber as it were. Hugh Hewitt has also recently admitted to double-dipping liturgically. In a piece that suggests Hewitt will be leaving the PCUSA for its vote to divest of companies that do business with Israel, he also admits to going to mass on Saturdays before worshiping with Presbyterians on Sunday:

Now the PCUSA, as its members call it, has taken an official position against Israel and so I, as an elder in the PCUSA — no longer a “ruling” elder in my congregation, having wrapped up my second such stint last year — have to take a position for or against the PCUSA based on it.

Many PCUSA congregations across the country are already engaged in the process of “discerning” whether to remain within the splintering denomination, and this new assault on Israel and the virulent language employed — “occupation” — will no doubt make that process much easier for hundreds of thousands of us. If their congregations don’t leave, they will. They will not be part of the American intifada against Israel.

The PCUSA has raised its hand against Israel. So now either my congregation must depart the PCUSA or I must depart my congregation. I will not be a part, however small, in any campaign against Israel. No Christian who knows how the Church largely stood silent during the Holocaust should be. No thinking person who reads beyond the fringes of the Left would reason as this letter does. If a denomination insists on being ruled by a majority of ill-educated posers, it deserves the withering that has already set in and will now accelerate.

Strong language that, and I have never used it in any of the theological debates to date. Jesus was angry only with the Pharisees and the money-changers. . . .

It seems likely that most of the PCUSA’s General Assembly voters are wholly ignorant of most of this, being anti-intellectual as well as anti-Israel.

This is not a theological dispute. As a guy who goes to Mass on Saturday afternoon and to the PCUSA on Sunday morning, I am not easily riled over theological disputes.

One could well quibble with Hewitt about the theological dimensions of the PCUSA’s decision, especially if he had ever encountered the doctrine of the spirituality of the church during his stint as a PCUSA elder. Some, like me, would argue that for the church to take a political position — which, ahem, the PCUSA has been doing for a long time now — the church is pretending to speak for God (read minister the word) on matters about which God has remained silent. The irony, in addition, is that Israel is both a theological (think Old Testament) and (since 1948 a) political topic. So Hewitt’s attempt to separate theology (where he’s easy going) from politics (where he’s adamant) is not as easy as he might think. But why would he consider leaving a church for the wrong politics? Is the Church of the Latter Day Saints now attractive for its conservative politics or does the deity of Christ matter for church membership?

So where’s the trend? In the long run, it is the social gospel momentum of churches speaking about matters over which they have no authority. (And please note the historical coincidence of Protestants getting in the Progressive politics business at roughly the same time that Leo XIII was cultivating Roman Catholicism’s taste for social teaching.) We continue to see this trend played out 125 years later.

The short-term trend is for this social gospel mindset to blur lines that used to keep Calvinists and Roman Catholics apart. Granted, Evangelicals and Catholics together is almost two decades old now, but Calvinists were a pretty small piece of that effort unless you want to count Chuck Colson’s Kuyperianism. But now with Calvinism’s popularity, it’s possible for political candidates and pundits to have it all.

Is this a pretty good country or what!

What Changed?

Published on by D. G. Hart18 Comments

In 1965, Calvin, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes, and Montaigne were all on the list of books banned by Rome’s Sacred Congregation of the Index (until 1917 when it became the Holy Office). Then in 1966 that list went away. Calvin was no more a problem for Roman Catholic souls than Hobbes. What happened?

Did Calvin change his views? Did Hobbes? Stupid questions. Both being dead, they could have hardly changed their texts. So that leaves the agent of change to be the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. If the church changed so that Calvin was once banned and went to being acceptable, does that mean that the magisterium erred in banning Calvin, Hobbes, Hume and Montaigne (for starters)? But of course, Rome cannot err.

So what is an inquiring mind to do? Don’t read Jason and the Callers (who have lots of ‘splainin’ to do even if it is above their pay grade), but do check out this piece for some background:

The idea of censoring heretical writings dates back to the early centuries of the church but was not formalized as a papal power until Pope Leo X did so in 1515, during the Fifth Lateran Council. Two years later, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. Within weeks, they were printed in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel and distributed widely.

The first Index, as one might expect, published in 1559, banned all books by Luther, Calvin and other Protestant reformers. Since translating the Bible into vernacular tongues was a Protestant specialty, all Bibles but the Latin Vulgate were banned. The Talmud and the Koran were also taboo. But the Index didn’t stop there. It also drew up lists of books that should be purged of passages that conflicted with church teaching. Classical writersincluding Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil, Homer, Euclid, Hippocrates, Thucydides and otherswere put on the expurgatio list because they reflected pagan beliefs. Books translated by Protestants had to be filtered for offending passages. In some cases, a book only had to be printed in a Protestant city to earn a place on the list of objectionable works. The Index originally planned to produce purged editions of about 300 books. They only managed to do about 50, Wolf said.

After this confusing start, the Vatican decided to aim just at books denounced to it as dangerous. The Index Congregation met three or four times a year in Rome. Two consultors were named for each book being surveyed, and their findings were discussed at a meeting of the cardinals in the congregation. The congregation’s decision was then brought to the pope for approval. This produced a vast accumulation of files, written in Latin or Italian and divided into the Diarii, which recorded the congregation’s sessions, and the Protocolli, with all sorts of other papers. The Inquisition congregation met weekly but handled only 2 or 3 percent of the censorship cases, usually theology books.

Over the centuries, the Index managed to condemn a large number of writings that eventually became classics of European culture. Banned philosophy books included works by Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Pascal, Kant and Mill. Among the novelists listed were Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Zola, D’Annunzio and Moravia. Books by Defoe and Swift were blacklisted, as were Casanova’s memoirs. The censors’ zeal varied over the years and lost steam as the 20th century wore on. One of their last targets was Sartre, whose complete works were banned as early as 1948.

Wolf and his researchers are also writing up short biographies of the consultors to reveal the intellectual influences at play. They were all priests; and in many cases their education, travel and language skills have been recorded. The Jesuits and Dominicans dominated their ranks, and each order tried to make sure it was not outnumbered by the other. Certain patterns emerge, Wolf said: The Dominicans tended to take their men from a certain province in Italy. The Jesuits have their world-wide system, and they tended to move people around.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the archives is the large number of books that secretly passed muster. Authors were not informed that their works were being reviewed or invited to defend them. Until now, we only knew which books were banned, Wolf told me. Nobody knew about the books that passed the review.

The treatment of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) revealed the censors’ narrow cultural focus. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not reviewed as long as it was only available in English. You see, English was a barbarian language; only Protestants spoke it and they were lost for the faith anyway, Wolf recounted with a laugh. But as soon as it appeared in a proper Catholic’ language Italian, French or Spanish it became dangerous. An Italian translation turned up in the Papal States and was denounced to the Index because Stowe was a Quaker and thus presumably spreading the Protestant poison, as the denunciatory letter put it.

Where Would Christian Europe be without the Emperor?

Published on by D. G. Hart8 Comments

That’s what Peter Heather makes readers ask in The Restoration of Rome:

Thanks to Charlemagne’s attentions, the papacy was enriched, visited, courted and paid enormous respect, but all these gains came with a price tag. The emperor’s respect for the papacy was genuine, but he was equally convinced. . . that he had his own hotline to the Almighty. No mere vassal of St. Peter, he had no hesitation in making use of the papacy for his own purposes . . . for this too was God’s will. Nor was Charlemagne afraid actually to disagree with the Pope — even on matters of doctrine. The example par excellence is the Council of Frankfurt. There and to the Pope’s face (at least, to those of his legates) Charlemagne had his churchmen declare that Pope Hadrian’s acceptance of Constantinople’s new teaching on icons was in fact mistaken. A second, less charged example is provided by the famous filioque clause. . . .

As such, we can place [Charlemagne] firmly in a tradition which stretched back for the best part of half a millennium. From the time of Constantine onwards, overarching responsibility even for the identification of correct doctrine had been part of the Christian ruler’s job description, and Charlemagne’s attitude to Rome was nothing more than its direct continuation. Indeed, it would be extremely easy at this point to go through the same checklist we have used before, and come to the inescapable conclusion that Charlemagne was undoubtedly the head of the Church within his domains. He appointed all the leading churchmen, he called all the major councils and authorized most of the rest, and great tranches of legal directions on the practicalities of both clerical and lay piety were drawn up in his name. (332-33)

So much for that audacious papacy. Turns out the Pope would not have been the official he turned out to be without the audacity of the emperor. In fact, transformers of culture, Roman Catholic or Protestant, will never see their hopes for a Christian society realized until the ruler embraces the faith and enforces it. Not even Boniface VIII in all his pomp and show could make Europe Christian. It took emperors, kings, princes, and magistrates.

Luther-like?

Published on by D. G. Hart368 Comments

Somewhere during the past few weeks I recall reading something about the origins of the episcopate and Ambrose’s contention that obedience to the bishop was of the essence of episcopacy. (That may generate titters from those in the Episcopal Church or the Reformed Episcopal Church, but it still goes with the territory of a universal bishop who has access to the relics of Peter.) Here is one account of the obedience that bishops require (though it might carry more weight actually coming from a bishop):

. . . most of us encounter bishops not only by instruction in the faith, but in practical judgments that have no assurance of divine guidance: appointment or removal of a priest, refusal of a legitimate request, closing of a church or school. Here obedience – along with charity and patience – is truly tested. This instance requires two further clarifications.

On the one hand, according the will of Christ the apostles and their successors the bishops have legitimate authority in all ecclesial matters down to the most mundane dealings. By virtue of the duties incurred by the great gift of our baptisms, we must obey the juridical decisions of bishops, even if we disagree.

On the other hand, our duty of obedience does not mean we cannot communicate our opinions, ideas, and reservations to our bishops, in private or public. But because of bishops’ ecclesial dignity, we must do so charitably and with deference. We can seek recourse to the Apostolic See if we believe a bishop has decided contrary to canon law, but we must never seek to embarrass or insult him in the process – doing so only further disturbs the whole flock.

“A bishop is bound to belong to all, to bear the burden of all,” writes Chrysostom. As members of the same Body of Christ, we must help our bishops bear the burden of souls by bearing our burden of obedience to them. Obedience never has been easy, and it never will be. But like all things truly Catholic, obedience is worth the sacrifice.

So far, so good (if you’re not a presbyterian or congregationalist).

Then along comes this diatribe that might have given Luther pause:

America’s bishops are confusing Catholics by using doublespeak, being indecisive, and being politically correct. Their posturing has, and is, causing great harm to the Church in America.

A case in point: In June 2012, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) unanimously stated that the contraception-sterilization-abortifacients regulation of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act was an “unjust and illegal mandate and a violation of personal civil rights.” Following the National Prayer Breakfast in May, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, OFM Cap., the archbishop of Boston and chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was asked if this regulation violates God’s law. He responded, “The regulation that imposes abortion and sterilization, this is a violation of God’s law.”

So far, so good; here is the rest of the story. In a letter to Congress, the American bishops wrote, “Those who help provide health care, and those who need such care for themselves and their families, should not be forced to choose between preserving their religious and moral integrity and participating in our health-care system.”

However, when Cardinal O’Malley was asked whether American Catholics should obey laws that violate God’s law, he responded, “The question is complicated.” He went on to further confuse the issue: “This is a very complicated issue, and it’s something the Church is struggling with right now, and trying to come up with a moral analysis in order to be able to allow people to form their consciences and to go forward.”

As I Catholic, I do not wish to engage in calumny, particularly involving a cardinal or bishop of the Church I love. I do not believe my comments are such. I believe that the Catholic hierarchy is obligated to be clear and concise when it comes to defining God’s law. I believe that the hierarchy has a duty, as difficult as it may be, to “uncomplicate” the issues that Catholics face when it comes to their faith and how we should live as Catholics in our secular society. Cardinal O’Malley has failed to meet this obligation.

This is the sort of blast that might have actually led to excommunication and the start of a new church if bishops still expected obedience — enforcing it might be another matter. But episcopacy is not what it used to be and I don’t think Jason and the Callers have noticed.