Category Archives: Culture

In Defense of Honor

Culture, Faith, God's Will, Virtue, , , , ,

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke comments on the loss of honor that came as a result of the French Revolution. Concerning Marie Antoinette, Burke writes,

Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

Honor once lost, like any other virtue, is not easily regained. It is especially hard to regain in a culture that is actively hostile to it.

Honor, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it, “is the reward of every virtue… it follows that by reason of its matter it regards all of the virtues” (ST II-II Q. 129 Art. 4). Thus, it is clear that honor comes from virtue. In order to be truly honorable, a man must be virtuous. Our culture has, in large part, rejected the traditional idea of virtue. There is much talk about rights and what we are owed, but little discussion about duty. Men are encouraged to extol the virtues of kindness and inclusivity, and women, on the other hand, are told that expressing traits like “nurturance” and “family-oriented values” are just mere preferences and not virtues. As always, the devil is in the details. A man should be loving and caring, but if he places kindness and inclusivity above all other virtues then the family and, by extension, society, will suffer. Certainly, kindness and inclusivity would not have saved Marie Antoinette from the guillotine. And families do not need women who prefer to be nurturing and selfless, but women who are nurturing and selfless. There will be, however, some who will object to this and say that traditional notions of honor and virtue are outdated and bigoted. So, naturally, the question becomes, “Why should we care about honor, aren’t we better off without it?”.

There are a couple of approaches one could take towards answering this question. The first would be to ask what will replace the role that honor had in society? What is beyond honor and virtue? Alasdair MacIntyre explores this question in his book After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Of a society that has lost its vision of honor and virtue he writes,

In a society where there is no longer a shared conception of the community’s good as specified by the good for man, there can no longer either be any very substantial concept of what it is to contribute more or less to the achievement of that good. Hence notions of desert and of honor become detached from the context in which they were originally at home. Honor becomes nothing more than a badge of aristocratic status, and status itself, tied as it is now so securely to property, has very little to do with desert.

A society that abandons honor does not get egalitarianism. Instead, it gets aristocracy and credentialism.

For the second approach, one might ask if tearing down virtue and honor would also threaten other societal goods. Failing to examine this question would be like removing a wall in a house without first determining if it is load-bearing. Unfortunately, leaving honor in the past has not been without consequence. Honor is the basis for magnanimity. Aquinas identifies this connection: “Now a man is said to be magnanimous in respect of things that are great absolutely and simply, just as a man is said to be brave in respect of things that are difficult simply. It follows therefore that magnanimity is about honors” (ST II-II Q. 129 Art. 1). In 2020, Ross Douthat wrote a book called The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success about how and why our society has, in many ways, stopped advancing. While his hypothesis is beyond the scope of this article, the phenomenon he is discussing is germane to the point. There has been a societal decline in the desire to do great things. This stems directly from a change in societal value. As MacIntyre pointed out, society values the vain status associated with honor rather than the virtue from which honor is derived. Not only is magnanimity a virtue and therefore necessary for human flourishing, but society needs it. Magnanimity landed on the moon, it sailed to new worlds, it wrote poems and epics, it built planes, and made countless discoveries and inventions. So rather than resent success and laugh at honor, we should have the courage to ask ourselves if we are here on this earth for something great. Perhaps there really is something great in store for each and every one of us if we would but have the courage and magnanimity to pursue it. And even more terrifying is the possibility that part of the greatness God wishes to bring to the world can only be brought through you. Sure, God can bring goodness out of anything, but there may be good that never comes if you abandon honor and magnanimity. In closing, I would like to turn to Pope Benedict XVI who so eloquently reminds us of this truth: “The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness”.

A Porch to Christianity?

Church, Culture, Evangelization, Faith and Reason, Paganism, , , , ,

Although it is not clear who first pointed this out, it is most certainly true that there is a certain law of undulation at play in every time and every culture related to the quality of the men: “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”  We are, by almost any accounting, living in hard times, plagued by weak men.  Historically speaking it is hard to say how long the hard times must go on before the strong men emerge, but there is a growing awareness among many men in our culture that something is amiss with manhood.  This awareness helps to explain the growing popularity of Stoicism, especially among young Catholic men.  Because of Stoicism’s emphasis on virtue, most assume that Stoicism and Catholicism are compatible.  It is worthwhile then to examine whether this is true.

Sitting on the Porch

Stoicism has a long history that extends back to ancient Greece and the lectures that Zeno of Citium gave to his students on his porch or stoa.  It lay mostly dormant until around the 1st Century AD when it was revived by Epictetus and Seneca, followed by the first philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius.  It is marketed as a practical philosophy (i.e. ethics) based on the pursuit of virtue.  According to Epictetus this pursuit is governed by two principles.  First, “In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choice.”  This dichotomy of control is supplemented by a second principle aimed at our response. “What hurts this man is not the occurrence itself…but the view he chooses to take of it.”   Essentially this means that there is nothing good or bad in itself, only our attitude towards it gives it an ethical color.  We have the opportunity to see everything that happens as a means grow virtue.  Although it is often described as such, Stoicism is also not an emotionless ethic.  Because of its emphasis on virtue, it is about bringing our emotions under the control of reason.

It is ultimately this pathway to an inner freedom that comes about by focusing only on those things that we can control that makes it appealing to modern men.  The hard times make the battlefield seem so large and many men struggle to pick their battles and end up in a holding pattern.  But there is more to Stoicism than just this.  Stoicism ultimately is a pantheistic religion.  The reason why the Stoic can practice the necessary detachment is because he believes that everything that happens is necessary and good serving the Good of the whole.  There are no physical evils and the only moral evil is personal vice and folly. 

Ideas Have Consequences

That I labeled Stoicism as a pantheistic religion anticipates the fact that it is not wholly compatible with Catholicism.  But in truth, the two cannot be reconciled at all.  Its insistence that it is only our reaction to what happens that makes something good or evil leads to a subtle form of moral subjectivism.  There are many evils in the world that we cannot control and yet we must offer resistance or even fight against.  Detachment to things we cannot control is great until we are confronted with the suffering of another person.  Their suffering is only because they are thinking about it wrongly and thus empathy and compassion are folly.  Epictetus unashamedly counsels a fake compassion when he says,

“When you see a person weeping in sorrow, either when a child goes abroad, or when he is dead, or when the man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do not hurry you away with it as if he were suffering in external things. But straightway make a distinction in your mind, and be in readiness to say, it is not that which has happened that afflicts this man, for it does not afflict another, but it is the opinion about this thing which afflicts the man. So far as words, then, do not be unwilling to show him sympathy, and even if it happens so, to lament with him. But take care that you do not lament internally also.”

This fits with my experience with many men who practice Stoicism, Christian or not—they are usually the most judgmental and disinterested especially towards those who they deem not as strong-willed as themselves.

This brings up a necessary, although slightly tangential point.  The reason the Church maintained the Index of Forbidden Books for so long was not just to protect the Faithful from heresies.  There is a very real way in which false teachers of religion and philosophy can put an enchantment on the reader.  They have a tendency to draw the reader in and make him question reality, even when he is only curious or trying to adopt certain aspects of that philosophy/religion.  In this regard Stoicism is no different.  Read enough of it with an open mind, even while trying to filter it through a Catholic sieve, and it will “magically” cause you to see the Faith differently.  It seems that there is a fine line between reading a prayer and saying a prayer—a line that may be safe when it comes to the Faith but when encountering false belief systems becomes perilous.  This is why Augustine ultimately rejects Stoicism in his City of God (Book XIX, CH.4); because Cato came under its spell and committed suicide out of pride.

Stepping Off the Porch

In truth it does not actually help the person grow in virtue either.  First, it has a false view of human nature that borders on dualism.  It sees an evil that is done to body as not being done to the person.  The only evil is what is done to the soul.  Furthermore, because everything that happens is good, it rejects any negative emotions.  The 2nd Century Stoic Aulus Gellius tells the story of a Stoic philosopher who is at sea when a terrible storm breaks out.  Because he cannot control the storm, it is wrong for him to fear.  Likewise, it is wrong to be angry or sadness.  The emotions are good and especially important in hard times as they serve to propel the battle against evil.  

Because it denies the negative emotions, it ultimately pins our problems, like Buddhism, on our desires.  Epictetus tells the stoic, “Therefore altogether restrain desire…Demand not that events should happen as you wish but wish them to happen as they do happen.”  The last thing men of hard times need is to become men without chests.  That is exactly what happens when you stamp out desire and create a whole group of men who are aloof. 

Ultimately then the Cross and the Porch are incompatible.  Stoicism’s emphasis on virtue may seem like a good thing, but it is wholly unnecessary for those who accept the counsel of Christ to “take up your cross and follow Me.”

Bias: A Progressivist Slur

Culture, History, Politics, , ,

Many of us have been subjected to implicit bias trainings that have become part in parcel of the human resources department of corporations and academic institutions throughout the country. While many of the ideas behind these trainings seem absurd, they have inflicted grave harm on society nonetheless. Take for example the idea that institutions must embrace equity in order to “correct” for these biases. Evidence suggests that Asians applying to Harvard needed to score 270 points higher on the SAT than Hispanics, and 450 points higher than African Americans to have the same chance of admission: bitter fruit indeed. It was statistics like this that, in part, led to the 2023 SFFA v Harvard Supreme Court case. Though it would be an interesting article to cover the topic of implicit bias trainings and their connection to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology, that will have to be an article for another day.

What will be dealt with here is the larger issue of bias. Bias is a term frequently thrown around by both sides of a debate, but rarely defined. At one point or another we have all probably received the retort “Well you just think that because…” or “You are just biased”. In many cases this is just a simple ad hominem or genetic fallacy and nothing more. However, there is a particularly pernicious use of this attack that is worth examining in-depth. This is the progressivist accusation that the ideas of the past are no longer valid because they are biased, either by their bigotry, racism, sexism, or whatever other pejorative one can think of. This attack is at best ignorant and at worst hypocritical. Bias, per se, is not a reason to discount any argument or idea. In fact, it is unavoidable.

The Progressive View

Before discussing the absurdity of the progressivist charge of bias, it is necessary to talk about the philosophy behind this attack. When I speak of progressivism I am not merely speaking of a political movement, but of a philosophy. It is a philosophy rooted in the belief in inevitable progress towards a more fair, more just, and more enlightened society. Rarely do the proponents of this philosophy argue explicitly that society is inevitably progressing in a positive direction, rather it is assumed. With each advancement in society, progressivists are usually quick to point out that it is a sign of progress, but what is rarely asked is “Progress towards what?”. If the progress is inevitable then the question would not even be worth asking. In an 1853 sermon called “Of Justice and Conscience” Unitarian minister Theodore Parker said, “Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice”. This statement has been famously quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama. While there is truth in this quote, after all we do and should long for justice: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Mt 5:6), it is just too simple. Simple narratives of history should be treated with extreme skepticism. An honest reading of history reveals anything but a simple narrative. History is filled with successes and failures, suffering and triumph, heroes and villains. It is not one long “progressive triumph of the right”, but rather a struggle in which there is both progress and regress.

On a societal level, progressivism leads to the view that tradition is foolish or even a burden as a recent presidential candidate frequently pointed out. On a personal level, this can lead to a deep resentment of one’s ancestors. Progressivism is implicitly opposed to the fourth commandment, “honor and obey your father and mother”. If the progressivist reading of history is correct then what is there to honor in your parents? After all, they are less enlightened than you. Sure, there is a certain degree of gratitude one still owes to their parents for taking care of them and giving them life. But at the end of the day, society has moved on from their honor. What was honorable in their day has been replaced by the “continual and progressive triumph of the right”. There are sobering examples of how resentful progressivism can make people towards their ancestors, including their parents. Take this woman for example. Further, there is research showing that an increasing number of children are cutting their parents off. While there are certainly other factors at play, progressivism has not helped this problem.

I Think Therefore I Am Biased

What the progressivist fails to see is that bias is a necessity. No person can avoid it. Bias is the set of assumptions that we bring with us into the world. It is the narrative by which we see reality. I affirm that each of us should examine this narrative, but I do not advocate for getting rid of it. There is no human being who can rid themselves of all assumptions. As G.K. Chesteron points out in his essay “Philosophy for the Schoolroom” all argumentation, and thus all thought, is built on assumptions and dogmas. No one can be a completely objective observer of the facts of this world. For every person there is a value or set of values by which the facts are interpreted. Therefore, the progressivist is no less biased than anyone else. The concern should not be whether or not a person has bias, but whether that bias disposes a person towards the truth. The goal should not be to rid ourselves of assumptions, but to hold true assumptions. So, yes, we should examine our biases to see if they are in accord with reality and truth. The man who wishes to discard all of his bias must reconstruct his entire system of thought every time he has a new thought, lest he be biased by what he thought before. And even that would not remove all of his bias as Chesterton points out. Ultimately, the great irony for progressivism is that in order for society to progress at all we must be biased towards our ancestors. For it is as Edmund Burke said in “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors”.

The Tyranny of Sophistry

Abortion, Culture, Marxism, Science, , , , , ,

In his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper comments that the battle against sophistry is a perennial problem.  Satan’s primordial sophistry escaped the gates of Eden and has plagued mankind ever since.  Progress, especially when it is not matched by moral progress, only causes sophistry to grow.  Sophistication, Pieper says, usually entails greater degrees of sophistry.  What the sophist seeks to do is to shut down all pursuit of the truth by playing with words, usually by inventing catch-phrases that slide off a forked tongue and convey some half-truth that is cleverly dressed up as the whole truth.  It is most certainly an abuse of language; for the proper use of language is to convey ideas and tell the truth.  But sophistry uses language in order to manipulate people.

The Sophistry of Today

The problem of sophistry in our own age is particularly acute.  You might say that we are living under the tyranny of sophistry in which any objection to a sophist shibboleth is met by stupefied hostility.  “Pro-choice”: how could you not be in favor of a woman’s right to choose?  “Black lives matter”: so, you think Black lives don’t matter?  The objection is not with the half-truth, but with the half-falsehood that is dressed up by the slogan.  In other words, the objection is with the sophistry that manipulates language to hide what is really going on. 

In general, we should all be pro-choice, but in particular it totally depends on what the object of choice is.  If you are choosing to kill an innocent baby, then no, in fact we should not “Pro-choice”.  Of course, Black lives matter.  But what the honest person objects to is dressing up the Marxist aims of the further destruction of Black lives and society as a whole in this truth.  It is sophistry plain and simple.  And anyone who insists otherwise is a language tyrant.

Following the Science

There is a new slogan that is being peddled by the tyrant—“follow the science”.  Science is a great weapon in the hand of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be made to say anything you want it to say.  It is presented as somehow being about objective truth gathered by running controlled experiments in an unbiased setting.  The  method may be reliable, but the scientist himself is a fallen human being.  He is prone to biases, lapses in attention, ignorance, faulty design and even outright lying.  It does not help that his so-called peers who review his work also suffer from the same inherent problems.  It is also not immune to the “Cancel Culture” with many scientists handcuffed by a cultural confirmation bias.  All of this leads to what scientist Stuart Ritchie in his book Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth calls a “replication crisis” in modern science.  Experiments are run all the time.  But the true test is when an experiment is replicated.  Almost none of the so-called “science” has been replicated and very often is exposed as flawed when honest scientists attempt to do so.  Like Ritchie we should not be anti-science but instead to use it in a manner that discovers the truth without succumbing to the sophist’s tactic of inventing it.

As I said, science is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be used to say whatever they want it to say.  Herein lies the half-falsehood found within “following the science”.  Science itself can never lead to certainty.  To assert otherwise is to turn science into a religion that must be governed by faith.  “Follow the science” is a credal statement.

Why is it that science can never lead to certainty?  In short, science, because it deals in material being, always deals with contingencies and therefore only leads to contingent truth.  The truth of what is being asserted always depends on certain conditions also being true.  The point is that when “Science” is presented as certain, without any discussion upon the conditions in which the thing also depends, it is a manipulation. 

Take, for example, the contention that “masks work”.  This is most certainly not an absolute.  What are the conditions under which they work?  To mandate mask wearing without any reference to the conditions under which they work, is not about safety but control.  If you want to keep people safe, then you will school them in the art of wearing the mask.  If you want to control them then any mask will do.  Likewise, the push for vaccination.  What are the conditions under which the vaccines “work”?  What are the conditions under which they don’t, or might even be harmful?  Are we to believe that a vaccine was developed at warp speed that covers every contingency?  To say they are “safe and effective” without observing a multitude of contingencies is not science but scientism.  To even mention those contingencies is sacrosanct and will likely get you censored. 

Science can say whatever I want it to say simply by playing with those contingencies.  I simply design my experiment so that it leads to a positive result.  Then I get peers to agree with the way it was run—never mind that these peers also have a vested interest in toeing the party line.  If it leads to a negative result anyway, I simply put it in the file cabinet.  Whenever you hear some scientific “fact” presented in some absolute manner, always seek the contingencies.  Who or what does this apply to?  When doesn’t it apply?  When someone tells you that it applies across the board, they are presenting something that has some degree of uncertainty as certain.  We may be willing to accept that degree of uncertainty and treat the proposition as true, but it is not anti-science to demand further uncertainty be removed.  But either way, certainty will never be achieved.

In classical Greece, the sophists threatened to take over society until the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle stepped in.  They were unafraid to call sophistry what it was.  But that was not enough for them.  They also rescued the victims of sophistry by teaching them how to reason.  Perhaps in our own sophisticated age, we could do the same.

Cancelling Anger

Culture, Freedom, Virtue, , , , , ,

Virtuous men are rarely, if ever, prone to propaganda.  That is because they can ascertain when to “fight the good fight”.  Vicious men, on the other hand, are extremely prone to it.  They have no idea which are the good fights and so they must be told.  But simply telling them is not enough.  Lacking any real control over their anger, they need someone else to stir it up for them by turning events that fit the narratives catastrophes.   Having no way to turn it off, they are absolutely unforgiving and must find offense around every corner.  Discerning ears will recognize this scenario for what it is—our modern society and its incessant need to cancel other people.

In truth then, at the heart of cancel culture, is the inability to discern the difference between wrath and anger.  These terms, even if they are often used synonymously, are not truly referring to the same thing.  Anger is, first and foremost, a passion or an emotion built into human nature to deal with the presence of evil.  More specifically, it is the emotion that provides an interior motor to fight against a specific evil that acts as an obstacle to achieving some good thing.  When a man discerns some good thing is being blocked, he wills to be angry in order energize him to fight the good fight.     

Fighting the Good Fight

The virtuous man knows the good fight when he sees it because he has the virtue of justice.  He is habitually desiring that each person receives what is due to him.  When some obstacle is placed in the way of that being achieved, he grows angry in order to move him to fight to restore justice.  This is why St. John Chrysostom thought that: “He who does not get angry, when there is just cause for being so, commits sin. In effect, irrational patience sows vices, maintains negligence, and encourages not only bad men to do wrong, but good men as well.”

Not only does the virtuous man grow angry when he should, he also directs his anger at the source of the injustice and does not just “vent”.  Likewise, he also filters it through the virtues of clemency and meekness to avoid becoming excessively angry and aim it at the injustice first and then the cause of it.  He truly knows how to “hate the sin, but not the sinner” because he is just.

Our Lord, Who referred to Himself as “meek and humble of heart” is the example par excellence.  When He cleaned the Temple, it was because His Father was not being rendered what was due to Him.  So, fueled by anger, the Just Man removed the obstacle.  With meekness He whipped the tables but with clemency avoided whipping the money changers.

The reason why anger is such a strong emotion is because it must often supply enough fuel for us to fight for justice for other people.  When that fuel turns inward and ignites a fire in us because of how we perceive we are being treated then it is truly wrath.  This is why wrath has been considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins—it turns what should be an outward-facing passion into a selfish one.  The wrathful man sees red, not because of an offense against justice, but because he has been slighted in some way.  To use modern parlance, he has been offended by the words or actions of another person.  Because anger must always be justified, he must also search for a reason why his own personal offense is really unjust.  In essence wrath turns anger off of justice onto my feelings and directs it not towards rectifying an injustice, but mercilessly punishing the offender.

A simple example might help us discern the difference.  A man is getting on to a crowded bus and he steps on your foot.  You feel anger arise, but look at him and realize he had tripped over someone else’s foot a few feet ahead of you and it was merely an accident.  In that case the just response is clemency because it was an accident.  Now suppose that same man enters the bus looks you in the eye, smiles and stomps on your foot.  Now the anger is justified, but the meek man would temper his response such that it did not include punching him in the face.  But the anger would be directed towards the action and not just the fact that it was done to you.  The way to know the difference is by imagining after stepping on your foot he goes and steps on an old lady’s foot.  If you are just as angry (or more) about that as you are about your own foot being stepped on, then you know the anger is justified.

This scenario also highlights an important point that is often a source of confusion regarding anger.  The Christian in imitation of Our Lord, when He is the sole victim of the injustice, will often suffer it in silence and not be angry.  But when there are other victims, including those who might be scandalized by you not confronting the evil, then zealous anger will confront the wrong directly.  The “others” include the offender because he needs to know that he has done evil in order to repent—and will need to be justly punished as part of that repentance.

Back to the Cancel Culture

Every passion, when not properly wedded to virtue, needs increased stimuli in order to get an equivalent response.  Related to the question at hand, wrath needs to be constantly fed, especially when it is being used to keep the vicious fighting.  It no longer becomes about justice, but about keeping them angry.  There is no need to discern whether something is actually unjust or not, because the anger will make it “feel” that way.  There is no need to make the distinction between victim and perpetrator because the object of that anger will tell which is which.  There can be no forgiveness until the perpetrator is “cancelled” and is no longer exists, either literally or figuratively. 

Thankfully, history has many examples of cancel cultures that always end with the cancellers eating their own.  When there is no one left to be angry at, when there is no one left to cancel, wrath demands that you execute the executioner.  For those who are trapped in this vicious circle the only option is for the virtuous to step up and restore justice.  Fear, masquerading as prudence, is never the solution.  Neither is the ersatz anger that we call “outrage.”  Nor is any attempt at cancelling the cancellers.  Only true zealous anger for justice can repair our decadent culture.

Confronting the Mass Identity Crisis

Angels, Church and State, Creation, Culture, Devils, , , , , ,

When Our Lord and His Apostles came to the great rock of Caesarea Philippi, He asked a poignant question about His personality: “Who do you say that I am?”.  Only Simon, enlightened by Divine grace, saw Our Lord for Who He really was: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16).  Once Peter identified Our Lord, Our Lord in turn gave him his true identity as the Great Rock upon which the Church herself would be identified.  Peter was not alone in this regard.  Our Lord came to bestow our identity upon each one of us.  He identified with us in order that we might come to share in His identity as “sons in the Son.”  Modern man, perhaps more than any other ailment, suffers from a great identity crisis that makes this moment in Our Lord’s Life particularly important. 

The First Identity Crisis

Lucifer had the greatest natural endowment of all creatures.  In this way he was entirely unique and, created in a state of grace, he was the most like God.  This was his true identity. Rather than receive this identity as a gift, he instead chose to create his own.  Lucifer became Satan and lost his true identity forever.  He became, in the words of then-Cardinal Ratzinger an “Un-person”, corrupted beyond any personal recognition.  Out of envy, Scripture says, Satan then became an Identity Thief attempting to steal everyone else’s identity.  He began by coaxing a third of the angels to follow him in asserting their own identity.

Misery loves company and so Satan set his sights upon mankind.  Ultimately his temptation of Eve amounts to questioning her true identity as a beloved daughter of God.  He tells her that she will become like God.  The problem, of course, is that she already was like God.  God had gifted her with sanctifying grace which already made her “like God”.  Satan tempts her to see her identity as something she must grasp, rather than receive and so simultaneously attacks her femininity.  Likewise, with Adam, both his identity as being like God and being a man.  It was the man who was commanded to protect and till the Garden. 

Our identity crisis has its roots in the Fall then.  Original Sin removed sanctifying grace, which forms our true identity, our God-likeness if you will.  But it also wounded us in our sexual identity, the manner in which we individually image God.  Not only does the distinctly feminine power of childbirth become labor for the woman, but, because man will be tempted to lord over her, she will be tempted to seize masculinity.  Likewise, for man, the uniquely masculine way of working also becomes labor and he will be tempted to seize the feminine.  Not only was God-likeness lost, both forgot what it meant to image God in their masculinity and femininity.

The crisis would grow until the New Adam and his suitable helpmate, the New Eve came. Satan could not steal either of their identities.  He tried to steal Our Lord’s when He went into the desert.  The enmity between him and Our Lady made her immune to Satan’s wiles.  Our Lord and Our Lady then, each in their proper way, cooperated in restoring us not just as children of God, but sons and daughters. 

Our Identity Crisis

Satan may have lost the war, but he is still engaging in the Battle across the centuries, trying to keep us from our true identity.  He has had varying degrees of success but has been particularly successful in our own age.   His battle plan remains the same as always by destroying the image and suppressing our desire for the true likeness of God that lies at the root of our real identity.

Rather than accepting God-likeness as a free gift that comes only through Baptism, we chase immortality through technology.  The Covid crisis has been particularly eye-opening in this regard in that we are all expecting a technocratic Messiah to save us.  Technology can make us like gods.

The Church has not been immune to this attack either, putting bodily health before spiritual health.  One soul, dying in a state of grace, is far greater than 1000 people “safely” locked in their houses without any access to the gift of true God-likeness in the Sacraments.  Christ instituted the Church, so that, throughout all-time, His unique power to bestow our true identity might be made available to all.  When the Church forgets her true identity, then a mass identity crisis is sure to follow.    

While technology is the weapon of choice to suppress our desire for true God-likeness, intersectionality, rooted in identity politics, is the weapon of choice to suppress our identity as being made in the image of God.  Intersectionality attempts to root our identity in victimhood.  Christ became a victim so that we could overcome this temptation and clear the way for our real identity.  Sex, masquerading as gender, rather than being a way in which we individually image God, is simply a social construct made malleable (through technology) according to personal whims.  This Great Lie destroys our identity rather than restoring it.  It sits at the heart of today’s mass identity crisis and is nothing more than a ploy of the Evil One. 

Genesis tells us that the Serpent, in attacking Adam and Eve’s identity was the most subtle of all the wild animals (Gn 3:1).  What makes our age unique is that he has thrown subtlety out the window and has chosen to unmask himself.  That is why we must be prepared to fight the identity crisis by refusing to be a party to any of the lies that have enabled the crisis to become so deep.  Too often we simply go along to get along.  The Devil has been hard at work stealing people’s identities, we need to be equally hard at work helping them find their true one.

Plot Holes in Reality

Culture, Evolution, Moralilty, Natural Law, Science, , ,

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, St. Thomas makes the observation that when Aristotle reckons that  “art imitates nature,” he means that man, because he is an intellectual creature, can make things that help him fulfill his nature.  For example, a beaver builds a dam by instinct, while man uses his reason to fashion a house.  But it doesn’t just pertain to servile arts like building a house, but fine arts like making a movie or writing a book.  But because man is also fallen, he can also use those same arts to distort and do harm to his nature.  In this way we might say that, in addition to imitating nature, “art forms nature.”

Examples abound on how this uniquely human capacity is abused, but there is one way that has a profound effect in our age.  The aforementioned storytelling arts use the inherent power of storytelling to activate wonder and convey important truths about what it means to be human.  One way in which this art abuses our nature has been covered previously regarding “Drag Queen Story Hour.”  While this is still somewhat rare, thee is a more common abuse of story that may not even be on our radar at first—it wasn’t on mine until a friend of mine pointed it out.

Tolerating Plot Holes

We have all seen movies in which there are both subtle and gigantic plot holes.  Sometimes they are too much and we turn off the movie, but most of the time we simply tolerate them for the sake of moving the plot along.  We might think that the producers of the movies are simply lazy in not tying up loose ends, but in truth we should expect them when the story presents a falsehood about human life.  The problem is that if we watch enough movies, then we eventually learn to overlook them.  We become, in a very real sense, conditioned to overlook them—not just in the movies but in the rest of life as well.  Point of evidence is the current Covid crisis which is riddled with plot holes that the majority of people of good will simply accept. 

More on this particular example in a moment, but there is something further here that needs to be pointed out.  We accept the plot holes for the sake of the plot and to move the story along.  But if we look at it from the perspective of the producer, he has a plot in mind and includes the plot holes in order to make his story fit together.  In a certain sense then we can say that the plot holes actually reveal the plot and the intention of the producer.

This principle is important because it is applies to the incongruous in real life as well.  We will usually have one of two tendencies; to overlook the plot hole completely or to point out that it makes no sense and then, like the fist tendency, simply move on.  The point though is that it makes perfect sense because it moves the story along.  In other words, if we pay close attention to the incongruities rather than dismissing or mocking them, the plot that the artist is advancing will come into relief. 

Focusing on the plot holes themselves then will enable us to see through the agenda of those who insert them into reality.  These holes may look different in the various arenas of public life, but the principle is always the same.  If we consider three examples from the fields of morality, science and politics then we can learn how to see the plot holes for what they really are.

Plot Holes in the Moral Realm

Any number of examples could have been chosen to demonstrate moral plot holes, but a recent one from Pope Francis is particularly helpful here.  In a documentary that aired in October, the Holy Father was quoted as saying that “we have to create a civil union law.”  While not a tacit acceptance of gay marriage (few things, unfortunately, are tacit with Pope Francis), the comment caused an uproar because he was suggesting that the civil realm should create space for gay couples.

Let us assume that the Holy Father’s “plot” is promotion of the Gospel and true human thriving in this world so as to be residents of the next.  From within that context we would say marriage is a fundamental human good that helps to fulfill human nature.  But not any “union” between two people will do, but only one that is in accord with nature.  In short, as Catholics, we know that only monogamous marriage between a man and a woman leads to authentic happiness.  Any other domestic arrangement leads away from this.  The laws and the practices of the Church herself are reflective of this awareness.  The Church teaches what she does about marriage because she knows that it is a good thing for those involved to act according to nature.

To suggest that this is just a “Church law” or only binding on Catholics with no effect in the civil realm creates a giant plot hole.  No law should be made to protect or promote something that we know will ultimately lead to unhappiness.  By suggesting that there should be some civil law, the Holy Father is really expressing that he doesn’t believe that marriage is a true human good. 

Pope Francis in choosing the name Francis has seen his role as one who would reform the Church.  He has been open about this from the beginning of his pontificate.  Applying our principle of looking along the plot hole (at this and many of his other ones), we can discern what that reform consists in.  The Holy Father is attempting to reform the Church, not according the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of the age. The plot holes reveal the plot.

Plot Holes in the Scientific Realm

Plot holes in the scientific realm are usually more difficult to discern for the layman, but usually become apparent once you check assumptions.  When a scientific theory is full of unsubstantiated claims that are labeled as “assumptions” the plot of the Scientists are unmistakable.

A good example of this is what we is commonly referred to as the Big Bang Theory.  This theory claims that the universe began as a dense ball of primordial matter that exploded and over billions of years organized into the universe that we observe today.  This cosmology is accepted as scientific fact, but once we pull back the curtain we find that it rests on many untested and untestable assumptions.  There is a growing gap between observation and theory and in order to advance the plot, several plot holes needed to be introduced.  According to Big Bang Cosmologists, ~95% of the universe is composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.  The problem is that these hypothetical entities have never been observed and they can’t be measured.  Instead they are theoretical constructs that hold the Big Bang Universe and its accompanying theory together.  You can read more about these two things elsewhere, but the point is that in order to use the theory to explain what we observe in the universe, physicists had to make up an unobservable “force”.  As one physicist observed,

Big bang theory relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities – things that we have never observed. Inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent. Without them, there would be fatal contradictions between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory…the big bang theory can’t survive without these fudge factors.

 Eric Lerner, “Bucking the Big Bang”, New Scientist

The point is that we hold as scientific fact a theory that only explains 5% of what we observe in the universe.

Viewed as plot holes, these assumptions reveal that Big Bang Cosmology is not about the science but about scientism and the ability to explain natural phenomena using only natural causes.  It is an attempt to discredit the Genesis account of creation and theology and create an atheology that is completely devoid of God.  It is essentially the theory of Evolution on a cosmic scale.  The plot holes reveal the plot.

Plot Holes in the Political Realm

 

As is becoming increasingly obvious, the political realm is not devoid of plot holes either.  In fact one could say that the plot holes in this arena of life will be the way in which 2020 is best remembered.  Covid-19 itself is not a plot hole, but the way in which it has been managed has revealed the plot holes in reality.  If we examine them carefully then we can come to see the plot more clearly. 

We will discuss the vaccine some time in the near future, but the manner in which masks, social distancing and closures have been implemented have represented serious plot holes because of their lack of consistency and scientific justification.  I already discussed this with relation to masks, but it also applies to social distancing.  This has never been tried before and it is based on a simulation.  Yes, you read that right, not an experiment, but a simulation.  Drs. Jay Richards and William Briggs cover this in their book Price of Panic in detail, but in short the CDC went with recommendations from this paper in which found that social distancing would “yield local defenses against a highly virulent strain” in the absence of effective treatment. The “science” behind it was simple; you create a model to simulate an environment in which closing schools and implementing social distance measures lower the rate of infection and then you test to see if the rate is in fact lower. Besides proving that you are a good programmer, this also, surprisingly proved that social distancing worked. The fact that it is a simulated environment and not a real one should have no bearing on our decisions, right? This is, after all, Science.  No matter anyway because we now have effective treatment and thus no more need for social distancing, right?

Once we view these inconsistencies as plot holes related to the plot, we can see that there are powers that be that have chosen not to waste a good crisis and to implement their grand plot—The Great Reset—which we will discuss in the coming weeks. The plot holes reveal the plot.

In conclusion, we might be willing to tolerate plot holes in our movies, but we should never overlook them in real life.  If we do, we may find that we are caught up in someone else’s story for how the world should be. The plot holes reveal the plot.

Masking and the New Religion

Apologetics, Church and State, Church Authority, Conscience, Culture, Human Dignity, Magisterium, Marxism, Moralilty, Natural Law, New Age, Paganism, Politics, Sacramentals, Sacraments, Virtue, , , ,

We have been hearing for decades that we are living in a post-Christian society.  This has mostly been a way to describe the fact that Christian values have been in decline.  But Christianity has still been the dominant religion; dominant, that is, until the Covid-19 crisis hit.  The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic in our society marked the official changing of the guard.  While we have been hearing about the emergence of a post-Christian society for decades, Christianity was still the dominant religion.  No longer is this true, however.  Christianity has been toppled and replaced by a new Gnosticism that we call Science. 

To be clear, the issue is not against science per se, but what is more accurately described as religion masquerading as science.  After all, as Aquinas says “He who neglects the experimental order in natural science falls into error” in all aspects of knowledge.  To solve the Covid-19 crisis, natural science plays a necessary, although not sufficient, role.  The peddlers of the new religion, would have us believe that it is sufficient because all we need to do is “trust the science.”  We are saved by faith, not in Christ, but in Science.

The New Priesthood

Nor should we be quick to dismiss expert opinion.  But expert opinion is not fact, it still must be based on solid reasoning.  The problem is that expert opinion is often treated like dogmatic truth because the Scientific Elite are the new priests.  Based on their secret knowledge that only “experts” such as themselves can understand, they dictate religious dogma.  Spoken word becomes fact.  Thus says the Scientist—“Masks don’t work” and it is so.  Thus says the Scientist two months later—“Masks do work” and it is so.  The Shepherds have spoken and the Sheeple must follow suit.  Laws are made to punish heretics who dare to question the spoken word.

This, by the way, is why masks have elicited such a strong response.  The High Priest initially said that they don’t work.  Then he spoke again saying they did and that the Priests lied because they were worried about a shortage.  But if a person unapologetically lies once, how do you know they are telling the truth now?  Actually, a leading Priest at Johns Hopkins says, it wasn’t lying but that “[A]t first, researchers and scientists did not know how necessary mask wearing would be among the general public. Now we are aware that wearing masks is an effective way to help prevent spread of this coronavirus” (Emphasis added).  Given the timeframe and the rather dramatic shift from no-mask to mask, where did this awareness come from? Changing your mind is fine. But changing your mind without a change in the data is based not on science, but fiat.  If you search prior to the dogmatic declaration, scientific opinion for the most part deemed them ineffective.  The fact is that the Priests exercised their hidden knowledge (because there was no new data) and declared them so.  I would probably be clothed in a scarlet mask for this statement alone, but let me go a little further as a statistician and speak about what a reasonable approach to this question would look like.

The Statistician Speaks

First, proving a negative is extremely difficult.  To conclusively say “masks don’t work” is a practical impossibility.  Having said that, there is little data to suggest that they do work (a complete summary that is thoroughly documented can be found here).  There have been studies in the last few months that have suggested they might, but these are inconclusive at best.  They are all very poorly done because they are being done in the midst of the crisis.  To study the problem properly you need to set up what would be something akin to a clinical trial in which you had a placebo group to compare it to.  But you also have the problem that mask usage is almost certainly confounded with social distancing.  Is social distancing the thing that helps, or is it masks, or is it both?  You’d have to set up a study to separate them.  Secondly, not all masks are created the same or are equally effective.

Carnegie Mellon tracks (among many other things) mask compliance here.  Notice that many places are in the high 80ish% for compliance and yet “cases” continue to increase in all of those areas.  If any intervention works, then you should expect the slope of the line of increase to decrease (“flatten the curve”).  But the data suggests that the lines are actually steeper.  For example, see the plot below of my home state of North Carolina which instituted a Mask Mandate on June 26th and has had above an 85% mask compliance rate (currently 91%).  North Carolina is far from unique in this regard and you can find similar data for all your favorite states.

If we were true to “Science” we would look at this medical intervention and determine that it does not work.  A drug company running a clinical trial (where they are using their own money) would stop the trial and might even decide that the intervention is actually making it worse.

This might mean that…wait for it…masks are making it worse.  You would again need to study this, but it is a reasonable supposition given the data.  It also makes sense in that it could easily be creating a false sense of security or become a petri dish of germs just waiting to be deposited on someone else or an aritficial barrier suppresses the body’s natural barrier of the immune system.  To be sure though, if we were testing a drug and the data looked like this, we would stop giving it to people.

This tangent was necessary because it speaks to the reasonableness of mask mandates.  Law, according to St. Thomas, is “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community and is promulgated.”  Any law that does not fulfill those four requirements—reasonable, aimed at the common good, proper authority, and made known—is not, properly speaking, a law.  Therefore, because they are not reasonable (or at least can not be proven to be at this point reasonable) we have no obligation to obey them.  As true Shepherds of the Flock, Bishops and Priests need to stop being so deferential to mask mandates precisely for this reason.

The New Sacrament

The revolt against masks then is really a revulsion to what they symbolize.  They have been made into sacraments through the words of the New Priests.  They are said to protect and so therefore they do.  Those who do not want to subscribe to this religion therefore will not want to wear them.  It seems like a small thing to do, but it plays a key role in the overall narrative that Science can save us.  As a sacrament it symbolizes the fact that the Coronavirus is a serious threat to our overall well-being.  If you are tempted to think “well 99.99% of people that get this will survive”, then you only have to look around at everyone wearing a mask to tell you that you should be scared anyway.  The smiling face of your neighbor, which would normally comfort you, is now hidden from your sight.  The masks will permanently disfigure us because when the next virus comes along, and it will, they will tell us “this is more serious than the Coronavirus (which it likely will be) you must put the mask back on.” 

By blessing the mask, the Priest also makes it into a Secular Scapular.  Through the words of Mary to St. Simon Stock, we know that the Brown Scapular helps to save you eternally.  Through the words of the Scientist, the mask saves us from Covidoom.  The Brown Scapular is an aid to our growth in virtue, the Covid Scapular signals that we have virtue.

One of the things that the totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century was their exaltation of Science as the new religion.  Lenin, Stalin, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Hitler all committed their atrocities using “Science” as their justification.  Had someone stood up to them early on, one has to wonder whether things would have been different.

Politcal Parties and Cooperation with Evil

Abortion, Conscience, Culture, Culture of Life, , , , , , , ,

At the beginning of 1931, the German Bishops collectively excommunicated members of the Nazi party and barred all Catholics in Germany from joining.  The excommunication did not extend to those who voted for Nazis, but only those who joined the party.  This ban was put in place even though not all the party platform was evil.  In fact, there were certain policies that were in accord with the Common Good.  Nevertheless, the party protected and promoted certain intrinsic evils that could never be overlooked and washed away in the political give and take that is inevitable in a party system.    Although the ban was walked back slightly after the election of 1933, the German Bishops demonstrated a long-standing Catholic belief that political party affiliation can put one’s soul in jeopardy.

Party Affiliation and Formal Cooperation

Why this is the case can be seen once we examine the principle of formal cooperation.  Recall that the principle of cooperation acknowledges that a number of people often participate in bringing about some evil action.  Moral philosophy makes the distinction between formal and material cooperation.  Formal cooperation means that a person aligns their will with the intention of the principal moral agent.  Material cooperation means that a person offers some material support in the carrying out of an action, even if, they may not be willing participants in the evil itself.

The act of abortion offers an illustrative and relevant example.  Suppose a woman is pondering an abortion so she seeks counsel with a friend.  The friend says she should do it but says she cannot help her get one.  The friend has formally cooperated in the abortion and thus bears the guilt of the act itself in uniting her will to the will of the woman.  She did not, however, offer material support and thus her material cooperation is minimal if non-existent.  When the woman gets to the abortion mill, she is greeted by the janitor outside who is emptying mop water.  He hates abortion but only works here because he needs to feed his family and is unable to find another job currently.  His cooperation too is material, he provides a clean environment for the abortion, but it is remote since it is not vital to the carrying out of the abortion (which is truer than most people would like to admit).  Finally, she enters the abortion mill and is greeted by the nurse.  The nurse too hates abortion (thus no formal cooperation) but her material cooperation is so proximate and vital to the act that she is guilty of cooperation with the evil of abortion.

In summary, because guilt lies in the will, a person is always guilty of sin when they formally cooperate with evil.  A person who formally cooperates with a grave evil bears a proportionate level of guilt for that evil.  They may or may not be guilty when they cooperate materially, depending on their role and their proximity to the act itself.  Related to the topic at hand, a person who is Pro-Choice, even if they never directly assist or counsel a person to get an abortion, simply by making their position known, has formally cooperated with that evil and bear culpability.

The Democratic Party platform, in no uncertain terms, promotes and protects the evil of abortion: “Democrats…believe unequivocally…that every woman should be able to access…safe and legal abortion.”  And because political party affiliation is a free association, any person who joins the party consents to all of the party’s platform.  There is no “I am personally opposed, but …” type logic because of the principle of formal cooperation.  A member of the Democratic Party is aligning their will with that of the other members of the Party.  Why else would they join?  If they did not believe in any of the tenets, they simply need not join.  This was the logic of the German Bishops in 1931, a logic that can likewise be applied to members of the Democratic Party today.

An All-Important Distinction

Please note what has been said and what hasn’t.  The contention is that because joining the Democratic Party constitutes formal cooperation, it is gravely sinful.  This does not mean that voting for a Democrat is always and everywhere gravely sinful.  To extend the arm of sin beyond formal cooperation is a bridge too far.  This was the point that Cardinal Ratzinger made when in 2004 he said,

“A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.  When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”

The key word related to material cooperation is proportionate.  There must be not only a good reason to vote, but a proportionate reason.  On this level this means that if Candidate A is in favor of one intrinsically evil action and Candidate B supports a different intrinsically evil action, then we might vote so as to limit the amount of overall evil present in society.  For example, suppose Candidate A supported abortion but was against Euthanasia and Candidate B supported Euthanasia but was against abortion, you might vote for B because abortion constitutes a greater evil on society as a whole.  The point is that you cannot simply perform moral calculus adding up the evil on each side, but instead the proportionately is related to the presence of intrinsically evil actions, or as the Church has put it, “non-negotiables”.

But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.  In fact, it is really a natural outlook that would motivate a Catholic to vote for a Democrat.  A supernatural outlook of the world would never allow us to vote for someone who we know to be in an objective state of grave sin.  The reason for this is simple—a person in a state of mortal sin is the Devil’s pawn.  Mortal sin places a person under his dominion and they are very likely to commit further evil.  If Christ is not King of their heart, then most assuredly they will be working against making Him King of our Country.  This principle really goes for any politician.  If the person is known to be in a state of grave sin then you should never vote for them.

This sounds “judgmental” to modern ears, but it is simply a statement of fact.  A person who directly wills that abortions be provided remains in a gravely sinful state until such time as they repent.  Because the support of abortion was public, true repentance would have to be public, causing the person to separate themselves from the sinful Party.  A person who remains in the Party has thus remained in their sinful state.

As the November election is fast approaching, we must as Catholics, come to understand that voting is not just a political action, but a moral one and thus we must shine the light of Catholic morality on our voting decisions.    

Eliminating the Other Police Force

American Founding, Church and State, Church Authority, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Ecumenism, Freedom, ,

While we are about the project of reforming the civil police force, we are allowing the Thought Police to run amok.  The Thinkpol are slowly rendering certain ideas unutterable simply because they do not conform to the Ochlocratic Orthodoxy.  Not only do they have ritual humiliation at hand, they have co-opted corporations so that private views now have become fireable offenses.  The mob silences dissenters by threatening livelihood and so most people simply conform.  Free speech has come under attack in America in ways that would make even Woodrow Wilson blush.  Like the previously discussed freedom of conscience, freedom of speech also needs defending.  And like freedom of conscience, only Catholics who have a proper understanding of it, are in a position to lead the charge.

On the one hand, it is not wholly unexpected that free speech in our country has taken such a sharp left turn into a ditch.  The Founders had an absolute faith in the power of the popular mind.  Individuals might err, but the entire society could not.  Free speech, coupled with democracy, serves as a recipe for finding the truth.  All debate, they thought, would eventually lead to the truth.  All ideas, even bad ones, then must be protected in order to keep the debate moving.  In Gertz vs Welch, the Supreme Court declared that “”Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea … (it) requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters.”

Captivity to the Mob

Any freedom that is directly linked to democracy is always susceptible to becoming captive to the mob.  If debate over an issue ceases then it is assumed that the truth has been reached.  Now those who do not accept the orthodoxy become a threat to the well-being of society and need to be shut up.  Thus we have things such as “hate speech” becoming punishable offenses.    

A vicious circle is formed so that truth as a democratic matter always ends in an assault upon true liberty including free speech.  It is as if they must saw off the limb they are sitting on.  Liberty can only be connected to purpose and the purpose of speech is to utter truth.  Therefore, there is such thing as liberty to speak falsehood.   Freedom of speech is not unlimited but instead is not then a justification to say anything. 

Truth is not democratic but is strictly governed by the dictatorship of reality.  Truth, that is, the accordance of mind with reality, is necessary for liberty. Summarizing, Leo XIII says that the right to free speech “is a moral power which – as We have before said and must again and again repeat – it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, to justice and injustice. Men have a right freely and prudently to propagate throughout the State what things soever are true and honorable, so that as many as possible may possess them; but lying opinions, than which no mental plague is greater, and vices which corrupt the heart and moral life should be diligently repressed by public authority, lest they insidiously work the ruin of the State” (Libertas, 23).    

This abuse of free speech eventually leads to its destruction as ironic as that seems.  The problem is that there is no set of public truths that are immune to criticism, no intellectual foundation upon which debate may be carried out.  Leaving everything open to debate actually closes it, a situation that Leo XIII anticipated when he said “The excesses of an unbridled intellect, which unfailingly end in the oppression of the untutored multitude, are no less rightly controlled by the authority of the law than are the injuries inflicted by violence upon the weak. And this all the more surely, because by far the greater part of the community is either absolutely unable, or able only with great difficulty, to escape from illusions and deceitful subtleties, especially such as flatter the passions” (ibid).

Americanism and the Fallout

Eventually, “nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of natures, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. Thus, too, license will gain what liberty loses; for liberty will ever be more free and secure in proportion as license is kept in fuller restraint” (ibid).  This is exactly where we find ourselves.

Because many prelates in the Church in the United States are infected with the Americanist heresy, they often confuse the authentic Catholic (i.e. true) understanding of free speech with the American model.  The former leads to peace and justice while the latter leads to further division.  One prelate recently said that our religious principles demand that we “defend the rights of all people even those with whom we might disagree.”  Such a statement is misleading at best.  What we are disagreeing about absolutely matters.  Some topics are still open to debate, or as Leo XIII said, “In regard, however, to all matter of opinion which God leaves to man’s free discussion, full liberty of thought and of speech is naturally within the right of everyone; for such liberty never leads men to suppress the truth, but often to discover it and make it known” (ibid).  Others, such as the right to religious liberty and the immorality of racism God has not “left to man’s free discussion”.  Both sins against God cry out for justice.  Therefore, it is neither “baffling nor reprehensible” that a Catholic institution, faced with playing a role in rectifying either, would seize the opportunity; unless, that is, you think the Thinkpol, rather than God, has closed the discussion.  

Protecting Marriage

Culture, Family, marriage, Moralilty, , , ,

A study recently released by the US Census Bureau found that in the past two decades, the number of couples that cohabitate had nearly tripled from 6 million to 17 million.  The study found that the increase was due to the fact that “cohabitation has become increasingly accepted by a broad swath of social and demographic groups.”  Most people view this as a sign of “progress”, no longer bound to the Victorian restraints imposed by marriage.  It is most certainly progress, but it is likely not progress in the direction of anything other than cultural decay and collapse.  The institution of marriage is vital to the life of every society such that without it, the society is sure to crumble.

All of us sort of intuit why this might be the case but having plummeted into the morass created by the Sexual Revolution, we may not be able to articulate why this is the case.  Nevertheless, if we are to turn back to a society built upon marriage, then we ought to grasp the logic as to why this is so.  Thankfully, the great Counter-revolutionary to the Sexual Revolution, Pope St. John Paul II, has already done the intellectual heavy lifting for us in his book Love and Responsibility.  Written just prior to the “Salacious Sixties”, the then Fr. Wojtyla provided an intellectual basis for why the institution of marriage matters.  We would do well to examine his argument in order to apply the tonic to our decadent culture.

The future Pope set out to examine how erotic love develops and matures between members of the opposite sex.  In order to mature, the strong feelings that govern the relationships must always be subordinate to the true value of the person as a person.  When we fall in love with the feelings that the other person stimulates in us, rather than the person who stimulates those feelings, then love can never mature.  In fact, rather than being the basis for love, it becomes its exact opposite—use.  Once this foundation is laid, Fr. Wojtyla then seeks to set up the conditions by which love can truly mature, and one of which is the Institution of Marriage.

Marriage as an Institution

As the word institution suggests, Marriage is something that is established or instituted in accord with the concept of justice.  Marriage justifies, that is makes just, sexual relations between two people.  It does this by ordering them to their proper ends.  In other words, Marriage ensures that sexual relations between a man and a woman are governed both by commutative justice and social justice. 

With respect to commutative justice, that is, the justice that governs the relationship between two people as equals, Marriage protects conjugal love from the threat of use.  There is a vast difference between a concubine or a mistress and a wife—the former implies a relationship of use while the latter one of love.  Likewise, love is always attached to the value of the person as a whole and not just their sexual value.  Therefore, because the value of the person never changes, love must last forever.  This is why Marriage, as an expression of this love, is naturally indissoluble.  By committing one’s life to loving the other person, Marriage justifies sexual relations between the spouses.

This is also why sexual relations between deeply committed people, even if they are engaged say, is always wrong.  “Pre-ceremonial” sex ignores the fact that a Wedding is no mere convention or ceremony, but an entering into the institution of Marriage.  A new reality comes into being when vows are exchanged and it is this new reality that justifies sexual intimacy between the spouses.  Prior to the wedding there was no permanence, afterwards there is.  The permanence of the relationship rests upon the free choice of the spouses.  And because sexual relations always carry with them the possibility of becoming permanently parents, there must be a permanent commitment which justifies their sexual expression.  It is just that a child be conceived from within a marriage because only the institution of marriage forms the proper foundation for the institution of the family.

There might be a tendency to think that love between two people is a completely private affair between “two consenting adults”, but, according to John Paul II, the couple soon “realize that without this [social] acceptance their love lacks something very important.  They will begin to feel that it must ripen sufficiently to be revealed to society.”  There is a need to both keep private the sexual relations deriving from love and on the other hand a need for there to be a social recognition of this love that comes only through marriage. 

Why Marriage Matters for Society

This felt need directs them to fulfill the requirements of social justice.  This may not be immediately obvious, especially when we live in such an individualistic society, but it becomes clearer when we recognize that society itself is built upon the foundation of the family.  The institution of marriage is necessary to signal a mature union exists between two people, a mature union that is based upon a permanent love.  Thus, society can be built upon that foundation. 

One need not imagine too hard what a society would look like when its foundations were unstable or constantly being swapped out, especially given our current plight.  It looks like a society in which cohabitation numbers are tripling and marriage rates are falling.  It looks like a society that is committing cultural suicide.  There cannot be a society without stable families and there cannot be stable families without permanent marriages.  A sane society would enact legislation that protects families and legislates justly regarding the family by recognizing the rights and duties of marriage since the family is an institution based on marriage.

Instead, the inmates are running the asylum.  We feed a “divorce industry” with lawyers, social workers, and judges to name a few whose economic sustenance comes from the breakdown of marriage.  We make divorce “no-fault” and make single parenting “easy” with day-care, public schools, welfare and WIC (why isn’t there a FIC by the way?).  The family is then replaced by an elaborate bureaucratic machine that seeks to control the formation of children so that they grow up to see this as “normal”.  Meanwhile we all accept this as an accident rather than as a planned attack to seize the power of the family.  The sexual revolution was never about liberation but about control and the totalitarians will win unless we begin to think and act like our saintly Counter-revolutionary is instructing us.

On Inculturation

Anthropology, Church Authority, Culture, Defending the Faith, Devils, Natural Law, Pope Francis, , , , , , , ,

In his new Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis mentioned the process of inculturation as a starting point for the conversion of the region.  The Holy Father most certainly had the Pachamama controversy in mind when he exhorted the Faithful to “not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples. Rather, we ought to know how to distinguish the wheat growing alongside the tares, for ‘popular piety can enable us to see how the faith, once received, becomes embodied in a culture and is constantly passed on.’ It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error. Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for gathering and fraternity, albeit in need of a gradual process of purification or maturation” (QA 78-79).  Setting aside the fact that all false religions are by definition superstitions, the Holy Father’s remarks call for a deeper understanding of what the Church means when she uses the term Inculturation. 

Understanding authentic inculturation begins by grasping what we mean when we use the term culture.  Culture is the soil in which the human person grows.  As the Second Vatican Council put it, “Man comes to a true and full humanity only through culture, that is through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature…. The word ‘culture’ in its general sense indicates everything whereby man develops and perfects his many bodily and spiritual qualities” (GS, 53).

Against Cultural Relativism

When viewed in relation to “goods and values of nature,” it becomes evident that cultures are not ends in themselves, but instead means for human growth.  Likewise because there are objective “goods and values of nature,” we can also evaluate cultures objectively in terms of good and bad.  Good cultures are those that cultivate authentic human flourishing and bad cultures are those that do harm to true human goods.  Authentic culture must always be, according to the International Theological Commission, that which “reveals and strengthens the nature of man.”

In short, there is no such thing as a neutral culture nor can anything like cultural relativism be tolerated.  We must evaluate and judge cultures by the objective criterion of whether true human goods are protected and promoted.  It is the Church’s role to be judgmental towards cultures in three specific ways.  Those values that are true human values, even if expressed in “local” terms are adopted as part of the vernacular of the Church and are the means by which the Gospel takes root.  If they point to true human values, but are deficient in some way then the Church purifies them.  Finally, if they are irreconcilable then the Church condemns them.  This process of promoting, purifying and purging is what the Church calls inculturation.

The point of reference for the Church is not the culture itself, but as in all things, the transmission of the Gospel.  The culture is simply the means by which the message takes root.  This is why it is disingenuous to speak of inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church has the fullness of truth and thus has no new facts to learn from the various cultures.  The culture gives to the Church what is for its own benefit—a language that speaks the truths of salvation.  What she does gain is a fuller manifestation of her catholicity.  It becomes proof positive that the Gospel can be put in terms that are intelligible to men of every age and place and answer the deepest longings of all human hearts.

Because he was the most traveled Pope in the history of the Church, St. John Paul II constantly emphasized the connection between inculturation and evangelization.  In an address to the People of Asia while he was visiting the Philippines he reminded the Church that  “Wherever she is, the Church must sink her roots deeply into the spiritual and cultural soil of the country, assimilate all genuine values, enriching them also with the insights that she has received from Jesus. Given the mission entrusted to it by our Lord, the Church’s priority is always the evangelization of all peoples and therefore of all cultures. Inculturation is a means of evangelization, being at the same time its consequence.”

With all of this laid as a foundation, we can see what role, if any, Pachamama would play in legitimate inculturation.  Those who defended it treated it as something that could simply be taken up (literally) as an authentic human value.  But worship of a false god, however seemingly benign or how “spontaneously” it arises (how do we know if something arises spontaneously or at the prompting of demons?), is not a true human value.  Nor is that something that can be purified but instead must be something that is rejected.  Pachamama may have crossed the Tiber after it was tossed in the Tiber, but it was only because certain churchmen lacked both the faith and charity towards the Amazonian people to give them the saving truth of Jesus Christ.  As St. John Paul II, who was not immune to failures in authentic inculturation, told the people of Cameroon, “the Gospel message does not come simply to consolidate human things, just as they are; it takes on a prophetic and critical role. Everywhere, in Europe as in Africa, it comes to overturn criteria of judgment and modes of life; it is a call to conversion.”  Never once was the call to conversion issued to the worshipper of Pachamama.

The great missionary saints, whether it was St. Paul, St. Patrick, St. Francis Xavier, or St. Isaac Jogues, were all masters of inculturation not because they were clever but because theirs was a call to conversion even if they translated them into colloquialisms.  It was because they were holy men that they were up to the task.  As John Paul II put it, “Only those who truly know Christ, and truly know their own cultural inheritance, can discern how the divine Word may be fittingly presented through the medium of that culture. It follows that there can be no authentic inculturation which does not proceed from contemplating the Word of God and from growing in likeness to him through holiness of life”.

On the Necessity of Government

American Founding, Angels, Anthropology, Church and State, Culture, Moralilty, Natural Law, , , , ,

Our country was founded upon a rather strange amalgamation of principles.  A perusal of the writings of the Founders will uncover both references to Catholic Natural Law and principles of the Enlightenments. One can imagine that there are some pretty stark contradictions.  One such contradiction is found in the question of why we need government at all.  In the midst of defending the need for a government that includes checks and balances in  Federalist Paper no. 51, James Madison makes what seems like at first to be a very Catholic statement saying that government is “the greatest of all reflections on human nature.”  Rather than remaining on that train of thought, Madison diverts to another track claiming that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  Understanding both of his statements will help us go a long way in understanding why our country seems to be plagued by moral decay.

If Men Were Angels…

Obviously one of the important questions that the Founders sought to address was how authority was to be exercised by the State.  Trying to emerge from the shadow of Divine Right Theory, the Founders thought authority came from the individual.  Men would form a society like the State by bartering freedom for security.  The individuals would bestow authority upon a Governor in order to ensure that his rights would be secured against encroachments from other men who had all entered the society via a social contract.

When Madison says that government is the “greatest reflection upon human nature”, he has this view of human nature in mind—man as the individual who enters society via the social contract.  This principle of the Enlightenment treats government then as a necessary evil that must be tolerated because man is fallen.  In his own words, “anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger.”  If men were not fallen, like the angels, then government would not be necessary.  So commonplace is this idea today, that hardly anyone questions whether Madison has greatly misunderstood human nature.

Madison’s anthropological error comes into relief if we challenge his theological assertion that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary.”  Angels do, in fact, live within a hierarchy, a hierarchical structure that includes authority.  Scripture provides us with an example in Chapter 10 of the Book of Daniel.  Daniel calls upon the help of Gabriel, but the angel does not immediately respond because the Guardian Angel of the Kingdom of Persia would not allow him to act.  After Michael intervenes, the lower angel is allowed to help Daniel (Dn 10:11-21).  What this reveals is that angels, even unfallen ones, do have a government, one that is based upon a clear authoritative structure.

The Greatest of All Reflections on Human Nature

So, if men were angels then government might be necessary rather than being a necessary evil.  Contra Locke, Rousseau and their intellectual progeny, including the Founders, man is not a solitary being, but is naturally a social creature.  In order to fulfill his nature, man has need of other men.  This is not just a matter of convenience but part of his natural instinct.  There are two natural societies in which man’s needs are supplied, the Family and the State.

Because men naturally form these two societies, they must have an authoritative structure.  As Pope Leo XIII put it, “no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the sovereign Ruler of all. ‘There is no power but from God.’” (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 3).

St. Thomas says that the act of authority would be applied in four ways.  First, the ruler must direct the members of society towards what they should do to contribute to and achieve the common good.  Second, the ruler should supply for difficulties such as protection against an enemy.  Third, the ruler should correct morals via punishment and (four) he should coerce the members to virtuous acts.

Now it becomes obvious that the first two would apply whether or not men were fallen or not.  Virtuous men might agree about some common good, but because it is possible to achieve a good in multiple ways, they disagree as to means.  Without a ruler, that is one without authority, there would be no one to make the final decision.  Because men, even in a state of innocence would not be equal with respect to virtue, it is the most virtuous who would govern.

St. Thomas describes this virtuous ruler in the Summa:

“But a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or to the common good. Such a kind of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons.  First, because man is naturally a social being, and so in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the presidency of one to look after the common good; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one…Secondly, if one man surpassed another in knowledge and virtue, this would not have been fitting unless these gifts conduced to the benefit of others…Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 14): ‘Just men command not by the love of domineering, but by the service of counsel”: and (De Civ. Dei xix, 15): ‘The natural order of things requires this; and thus did God make man.’”

(ST I q.96, a.4)

Madison, because he thinks government a necessary evil, would have us tolerate evil in our rulers.  But when we see the State as something natural, we begin to identify its purpose of making men better.  It is necessary for men to fulfill their nature by becoming more virtuous.  The virtuous ruler will create virtuous subjects.  St. Thomas thinks we can, and must, do better.  The transition may be rocky, but if our society is to turn around and become morally sound, we must not settle for moral degenerates in our leaders.  With Primary Season upon us, especially with a total lack of emphasis on the character of our leaders, this is an important message. 

Relativism, the Supreme Court and Descartes

Abortion, Apologetics, Church, Culture, Defending the Faith, Politics, Relativism, , , ,

GK Chesterton once said that America was the only country built upon a creed.   He thought the American Founders had united the country around certain self-evident truths.  The founding credo has been replaced by a more modern one that is aptly captured by the Supreme Court in their 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood vs Casey.  Writing for the majority in defense of abortion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.”  Freedom to choose trumps even reality itself, and relativism in all its forms was enshrined as dogma.  The only self-evident truth is that there is no objective truth.  Such an exaltation of freedom gives society no foundation upon which men and women may be united.  All that is left to bind the people is force, either through the coercion of political correctness or “the compulsion of the State”.

Quite obviously it is not enough to merely identify the problem.  We must do something about it.  But unless we are going to meet force with force, the only way to correct the problem is to correct the bad ideas that caused it.  Some errors are like weeds. It is not enough to merely pluck the leaves of consequences, but we must attack the roots of the ideas that caused the consequences.  Relativism is the weed that threatens society so that if we are to give society room to flower, then we must tear out its roots.

The Three Words

Three words was all it took to start the avalanche that would overthrow the Christian World Order.  Unwilling to face the Scientistic Zeitgeist head on by restating the higher metaphysical truths of reality, Rene Descartes decided to play the skeptic’s game.  Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”, set the tenor for modern thought and paved the way for the coronation of Relativism.

Good intentions never cover for bad ideas, even if those ideas are “clear and distinct”.  Descartes sought to defend philosophy against the full frontal attack of empirical science.  When you have physics, why do you need metaphysics?  But rather than fixing the problem, he created a crisis in knowledge.  All this because he rejected Scholastic realism, that is, the epistemological position that all knowledge comes in and through the senses.  We come to form ideas based on the perceptions we receive from our encounter with reality.  Our ideas are true only insofar as they conform to reality.  In short, our ideas are means by which we come to knowledge of the highest and lowest things.

Rather than being measured by reality, Descartes thought man was the measure of reality.  Knowledge of reality is an impossibility.  Instead we can only have knowledge of our own ideas.  And not just any ideas, but only those are clear and distinct, the first of which was that he is thinking.  In his own words, “I think therefore I am…In this first knowledge doubtless, there is nothing that gives me assurance of its truth except the clear and distinct perception of what I affirm…and accordingly it seems to me that I may now take as a general rule, that all that is very clearly and distinctly apprehended (conceived) is true” (Descartes,First Meditation).

The Scholastics thought that existence was self-evident and could not be proven.  Our senses drew data only from those things that existed.  This could not be doubted and this was the starting point for all knowledge.  Descartes, rather than starting with the senses, began with the one thing he could not doubt, namely his own thought.  And this formed the basis for his discovering the truth; having a clear and distinct idea.  But because ideas are subjective, truth is no longer objective.  Truth reveals not the outside world, but the state of the mind of the thinker. 

Connecting the Dots

It may not yet be clear how Descartes connects to Casey until we trace out the consequences of Descartes’ thoughts.  We encounter reality in and through our senses and then form ideas about it.  Those ideas are called true which correspond to reality as it really is. Truth, then, is the correspondence of reality and idea.  For Descartes and his intellectual progeny (Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hume and so on), truth consists only in having clear ideas.  Rather than measuring ideas against reality, they are measured by the mind itself and judged true if they are “clear and distinct”.  True comes to mean “true for me” and “true for you.”  All ideas are equally true, so long as they are sincerely held.  This leads to a contradiction because if every opinion is equally true, then the following opinion is also equally true, namely that not every opinion is equally true.

We have grown accustomed to the cognitive dissonance and navigate it the best we can.  We learn to “tolerate” different opinions about reality.  The problem though is that if each of us is living in a world he has constructed on his own, then there is no means by which a society can be formed.  There may be small pockets of “like-minded” people but no real unity.  The seemingly esoteric philosophical problem becomes the source of a gigantic social problem. 

That is why the solution must also be a social one.  There must be a reintroduction of Medieval Philosophy.  We must go back to just before the train went off the rails and set it back on the tracks.  It starts by properly training the young to think clearly about reality as it really is.  We cannot, like Descartes, pick up the scraps of truth on the hems of the Zeitgeist and expect to build anything solid.  Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have bad consequences.  We must go back to St. Thomas and learn from him truly how to think.  We must teach our children to go back to St. Thomas.  Catholic schools need to be true houses of intellectual formation and not merely alternatives to the public schools.  St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Cardinal Cupich’s Two-Way Street

Church, Culture, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, Ecumenism, , , , , ,

In a commentary in Chicago Catholic posted last week, Cardinal Cupich weighed in on the Pachamama controversy.  The Cardinal decried the removal and disposal of the statues into the Tiber River of calling it an act of “vandalism”.  He defended the inclusion of the “artwork from the Amazon region depicted a pregnant woman, a symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life” during the Amazonian Synod as an example of the necessary “two way street of inculturation” in which “both the cultures and the church are enhanced in coming to know God.”  In truth however, the Cardinal is defending idolatrous syncretism, a position that is indefensible for a Catholic.

Artwork or Idol?

In an act of sophistry that would make even Protagoras blush, the Cardinal depicted the statues as “artwork”.  One has to wonder why Aaron didn’t think of that when Moses confronted him over the Golden Calf.  His description defies logic and is a great distortion of the truth.  Pachamama is no mere symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life, but a benevolent goddess of motherhood and fertility that is still worshipped among the indigenous peoples of the Andes.  The peoples, as evidenced by the opening ceremony in the Vatican Garden, still offer worship to the goddess through the statue. 

Each August, the people of the Peru dedicate the month to making offerings and sacrifices to Pachamama.  It is believed that it is necessary to satisfy her hunger and thirst with food offerings.  These offerings are burnt, carrying the prayers of the people in the smoke.  The Pachamama is no mere symbol, but instead a goddess.  The Cardinal is either lying or a fool or both.

Even Pope Francis admits that it was an idol, although not directly of course.  In his apology for the theft and submersion of the statues, he said that the statues were displayed “without any idolatrous intentions”.  No one would question the idolatrous intentions of someone unless the items in question were, in fact, idols.  The Pope’s comment, rather than exonerating him however actually makes what happened even worse.  Worse, that is, if you believe St. Thomas Aquinas.

As an offense against the First Commandment, he thought that idolatry, next to heresy is the gravest sin.  It is an offense directly against God Himself.  Aquinas thought that not all idolatry was equal.  He said that the worst kind of idolatry is, using the Pope’s words, idolatry “without any idolatrous intentions.”  The Angelic Doctor said “since outward worship is a sign of the inward worship, just as it is a wicked lie to affirm the contrary of what one holds inwardly of the true faith so too is it a wicked falsehood to pay outward worship to anything counter to the sentiments of one’s heart” (ST II-II q.94, a.2).  To set up idols without any idolatrous intentions is not only to commit idolatry but to lie as well.  Citing St. Augustine’s condemnation of Seneca for setting up idols that he did not believe in, Aquinas condemned the Pope’s position.

St. Thomas makes another interesting connection in his treatment of idolatry.  Citing St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, he mentions how God turns men over to sins against nature as punishment for idolatry. He says that it is a fitting punishment of the sin of idolatry which abuses the order of divine honor that man would sin against nature as a way of suffering from the confusion from abuse of his own nature.  Might it be that the refusal of the Church to stand against all of the idolatrous elements of New Age spirituality has been met by gross sins of nature, especially among the clergy?  In other words, perhaps the homosexuality that plagues the Church is an effect of idolatry that won’t be rooted out until its cause is also rooted out.

Inculturation?

The Cardinal mentions that this event is simply an attempt at inculturation.  He errs however is describing inculturation as a two-way street.  The Church needs no outside help as She has been given the fullness of truth.  Instead she brings the truth to those who have yet to accept it and explains the truth on terms that are readily understood by her audience.  When evangelizing new cultures she may find elements that can be baptized such that they will make the Gospel intelligible.  She brings nothing back to the Church except the souls she is saving.  Our Lady’s approach (detailed here) to St. Juan Diego and the people of Mexico is a prime example of this.  She borrowed elements that were familiar to them, modified them, and used them to point to the true God in her womb.  The Church learned nothing from the Aztecs.

A two-way street approach to inculturation is just another word for syncretism.  Often masquerading as “ecumenism”, this practice ultimately is about finding creative ways to blend the Church’s doctrines with those of other religions.  It thrives on ambiguity and teeters on heresy.  The problem is that you end up far away from the truth in a way similar to what Chesterton described when he described syncretism as analogous to a man who says that the world is a rhomboid because some people believe that the world is flat and others round. 

It signals a loss of faith, thinking we must compromise to get people to come over to our side.  But the truth has a power all its own such that when it is spoken, especially with charity, it is immediately compelling.  It is also a loss in faith in anything supernatural.  The fact that idols have demons behind them is totally foreign to those of Cardinal Cupich’s ilk.

This is why they find it so incomprehensible that someone would go to the lengths the “vandal” did in attempting to destroy the idol.  It is an act of zeal; zeal for God and hatred of demons.  As St. John Henry Newman puts it, “zeal consists in a strict attention to His commands—a scrupulousness, vigilance, heartiness, and punctuality, which bears with no reasoning or questioning about them—an intense thirst for the advancement of His glory—a shrinking from the pollution of sin and sinners—an indignation, nay impatience, at witnessing His honor insulted—a quickness of feeling when His name is mentioned, and a jealousy how it is mentioned—a fulness of purpose, an heroic determination to yield Him service at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling—an energetic resolve to push through all difficulties, were they as mountains, when His eye or hand but gives the sign—a carelessness of obloquy, or reproach, or persecution, a forgetfulness of friend and relative, nay, a hatred (so to say) of all that is naturally dear to us, when He says, ‘Follow me.’”  It is zeal that destroys idols without destroying the idolaters.  It is zeal that seeks to set the idolaters free.