In a strong article in THE JAPAN MISSION JOURNAL, Autumn 2005, Edmund Chia draws attention to one of the most disturbing phenomena in Roman Catholicism today. He speaks of a younger generation that is "becoming more and more traditional and conservative in their thought patterns" and which Newsweek magazine refers to as the JP2 generation. Andrew Greeley discusses the same phenomenon under the heading "Young Fogeys" in Atlantic, Jan.-Feb. 2004.
Indeed the one person most responsible for bringing the Neocath generation into existence is John Paul II. I saw the beginning of it in Ireland at the beginning of October, 1979. When the Pope delivered the words, "Young people of Ireland, I bless you, I love you", the youthful crowd roared for twenty minutes until Fr Michael Cleary, the emcee, called on them to quieten down. Even amid the euphoria of Ireland's first papal visit, voices were raised to denounce this as crowd-manipulation. It is said that the Pope viewed the film of the scene over and over again in the Vatican.
A stunning essay by Alberto Melloni, the distinguished Italian church historian, in a recent issue of RECHERCHES DE SCIENCE RELIGIEUSE, accuses John Paul II of making his voyages the main form of his magisterium, and substituting a cult of mediatic images for substantive educative communication. (The entire issue of the review, dedicated to the need of a new Ecumenical Council, is worth reading closely.) Throughout the world, the most visible face of Church and of Christianity for a quarter of a century was that of the travelling Pope, and his privileged target audience in every country was the youth.What psychological need drew them to this super-father-figure?
John Paul II thus bypassed and reached over the heads of the educated baby boomers, influenced by Vatican II, in order to address an audience who were a tabula rasa, and to communicate to them a world view that the Vatican II generation would find problematic on many points. His tactic recalls that of Mao in China. At the same time critical theology was ruthlessly discouraged and suppressed throughout the Catholic world. Fr Chia's article tells how this was done in Asia. The fates of Kung, Drewermann, Leukel-Schmidt, Curran, McNeill, Boff, Lavinia Byrne and many others are a tip of the iceberg of the same process in Europe, the US and Latin America. The more warmly the youthful crowd applauded, the deeper the intellectual chill that fell on the Church.
Edmund Chia says that the JP2 generation are "distinguished by their unflinching devotion to all that the beloved and late Pope John Paul II stood for. They were present in huge numbers at the late pope’s funeral. Unlike the baby-boomers or the generation X-ers, the JP2 generation has a greater sense of uncritical loyalty and obedience to ecclesial authority and is more likely to prefer conventional values and traditional church life. Tradition and uniformity are their bywords, while conformity and submission are their operating modes. This is the JP2 generation's way of “rebelling” against their elders, especially those wont to employ a hermeneutics of suspicion when apprehending religious symbols and ecclesial institutions. In a way this new generation is the “born again” generation and feeds perfectly into the restorationist programs advocated by the pontificate of John Paul II, where the hermeneutics of retrieval is given greater emphasis. This involves retrieving what the previous generation questioned or threw out altogether, e.g., the doctrine of papal infallibility, devotional activities, the wearing of the roman collar, cassock or habit, and the reception of holy communion on the tongue."
In fairness, the generation of John Paul II Catholics are often blessed with vibrant and joyful faith, and I have been moved and impressed by many who are adherents or products of Opus Dei or the new movements known as "the Pope's Armada". Generally, their wholesome piety is not associated with right-wing ideologies but with a love of the Church as seen through the prism of theologians like Hans Urs Von Balthasar.
I reserve the term Neocaths for a vocal ideological wing of the younger generation which is in alliance with older voices and organs such as The Wanderer, Catholics United for the Faith. They are particularly well represented in the blogosphere. They are led by academic mentors such as the philosophers Peter Kreeft and Philip Blosser, and some of the more flamboyant voices are those of Christopher Blosser, Jeff Miller, Jimmy Akin, Oswald Sobrino, Mansfield Fox, Earl E. Appleby, Amy Welborn, Arthur Tsui, and at the youngest (and perhaps most genuine) end of the spectrum, Apolonio Latar III.
Here are a few traits that seem to recur frequently:
The Neocaths are Catholics, with a certain prominence of converts from Episcopalianism or Protestantism. They are people of faith and piety. Their sincerity is not in question.
The Neocaths tend to sexual puritanism. Appalled by the consequences of the sexual revolution, AIDS, abortion, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, pornography, they retreat to the strictest Catholic doctrine as an ark of refuge. They are very vocal advocates and practitioners of a strictly-interpreted concept of sexual fidelity, with a strong emphasis on procreative sexuality. They insist that masturbation is mortally sinful, and have an especial enthusiasm for the teaching that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered and that homosexual acts can never be countenanced. They denounce as apostasy a massive rejection of Vatican teaching among Catholics and call for bishops and priests to stand up against the tide of laxism instead of floating along with it.
The Neocaths are combative apologists. Their apologetics is sometimes directed against Protestantism, which they have no hesitation in branding a heresy. But it is more often directed against liberal Catholicism. They devote treasures of ingenuity to proving that the Church has never changed her teaching on anything -- not on usury, slavery, torture, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and above all not on sexual matters.
The Neocaths are "young fogeys" -- they take a delight in sporting old-fashioned references, such as Chesterton, Belloc, C.S. Lewis, Garrigou-Lagrange, Sertillanges, and in exhibiting all the trappings of traditional Catholic piety -- the Latin Mass in particular. They distrust a list of Vatican II generation writers such as Rahner, Schillebeeckx, Raymond Brown, Richard P. McBrien, whom they often hastily denounce as modernists. At their best they draw they favour those they see as "ressourcement" writers, sometimes including even Congar (a hate-object of many conservatives), over the "aggiornamento" wing (a rather dubious opposition). They often seem to yearn for an idealized church of Pius XII, a vibrant flawless Catholicism that never was.
The Neocaths combine biblical and magisterial fundamentalism. They argue by proof texts, in complete contempt of biblical scholarship and hermeneutics. Their ingenuity in defending their fundamentalist stances is extreme, and will draw on ad hoc hermeneutics when necessary, but they are estranged from the broad current of Catholic biblical scholarship. A Neocath who would admit, for example, that the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden in not historical would not be a worthy representative of militant Neocath ideology.
The Neocaths are ill at ease with modernity. They feel they have seen through the myths of secular humanism, and the liberal culture of democratic discussion which they see as relativistic. They bewail confusion and uncertainty and call for a firm voice of authority to put an end to it.
The Neocaths are ideological and political rightists. Issues of social justice never appear on their agendas and Church documents such as Populorum Progressio, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Octagesima Adveniens, Centesimus Annus are ignored. Their papolatry commonly goes hand in hand with Busholatry. They play down papal opposition to the Iraq War, torture and capital punishment. Some may be active on social issues, but in their internet polemics this is scarcely in evidence.
The Neocaths are well organized, and have as yet no equivalent on the Catholic left. They know which lines to push and which to avoid. For instance, they will attack gays with a show of concern for the welfare of their souls, and in harmony with the letter of Catholic doctrine. At the same time they will be found bewailing the demise of sodomy laws.
The Neocaths are very quick to denounce liberal Catholics as heretics. Authority looms very large in their mental world, and is indeed its dominant theme. However, authoritative documents, or early utterances of Joseph Ratzinger, that go against their reactionary convictions will be whittled away. This is notably true of Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes.
The Neocaths believe strongly in Hell, and play down the views of Von Balthasar and John Paul II that we may hope the Hell is empty. They insist on the physical pain caused by hell fire. They invoke Hell against liberal or what they call "dissident" theologians and against those they consider sexually deviant.
The Neocaths are joyfully uncharitable in their speech, trampling not only on political correctness but on the laws of libel.
There is surely much more to be said about this social phenomenon. Its future evolution will be followed with interest. We can only hope that like the Neocon movement with which it has so much in common it will turn out to be an ephemeral excess.
Happily there is another side to John Paul II and his successor -- their concern for social justice and their ecumenical outreach -- which should ensure that the hothouse world of the Neocaths is not the future awaiting the Roman Catholic Church as a whole.
Folks, I want to share with you a detailed commentary of Fr. Joseph O'Leary's essay, The Rise of the Neocaths, which you may read at his blog. The Spirit of Vatican II. Needless to say, the essay has captured the attention of many in the Catholic Blogosphere, and also brought out responses from the best known members of our community, such as Dr. Phillip Blosser (The Pertinacious Papist), his son Christopher (Against the Grain) and Apolonio Latar III, among others.
As a lesser light of St. Blog's, mostly reflecting the light of others, I've decided to throw my hat into the ring and make a point-by-point commentary and response to Fr. O'Leary's essay. I guess that since he's trying to define me, I might as well take away his cards and define myself. His words are in blue and block-quoted, with my comments following below each paragraph. I foresee this will be a three or four part reply.
Quote:
In a strong article in THE JAPAN MISSION JOURNAL, Autumn 2005, Edmund Chia draws attention to one of the most disturbing phenomena in Roman Catholicism today. He speaks of a younger generation that is "becoming more and more traditional and conservative in their thought patterns" and which Newsweek magazine refers to as the JP2 generation. Andrew Greeley discusses the same phenomenon under the heading "Young Fogeys" in Atlantic, Jan.-Feb. 2004.
Framing the argument in terms of generational conflict is telling. Baby boomers such as Fr. O'Leary, or gurus to baby-boomers like Fr. Greeley, find themselves today leading an aging population of liberal boomers who are as conservative in their 60's dogmas as their parents were before them with their own worldviews. Thus, Frs. O'Leary and Greeley are puzzled and angry that they can't keep a large young audience Neither Fr. O'Leary nor Fr. Greeley are used to be seen as passé by any segment of Catholic public opinion, even less the younger generation who these good priests thought would be their natural constituency.
Yet, there's more to this than a mere generational gap. It is not solely a matter of children rebelling against their parents. Maybe it is because the 60's ideas were not all good in terms of their consistency, coherency, or consequences. Maybe we don't like the world Fr. O'Leary is leaving to us and that by itself deserves a critical approach. Fr. O'Leary does not dwell too much on the real reason why we reject him and his confreres.
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Indeed the one person most responsible for bringing the Neocath generation into existence is John Paul II. I saw the beginning of it in Ireland at the beginning of October, 1979. When the Pope delivered the words, "Young people of Ireland, I bless you, I love you", the youthful crowd roared for twenty minutes until Fr Michael Cleary, the emcee, called on them to quieten down. Even amid the euphoria of Ireland's first papal visit, voices were raised to denounce this as crowd-manipulation. It is said that the Pope viewed the film of the scene over and over again in the Vatican.
The late Servant of God Pope John Paul the Great—you can certainly see where I'm leaning—was blessed with a gift for communication , but foremost, with an unparalleled moral authority supported by a holy life dedicated to combat all the pagan ideologies that under the guise of different totalitarian systems threatened to destroy us throughout the 20th century. Pope John Paul II was a scholar, a pastor, a philosopher, a theologian, a worker, an athlete, an actor, a poet, a priest, a bishop, a Vatican II father, even a Catholic feminist. He was all the things the Left holds as paradigmatic and yet, they hate him, and in that "they" I include Fr. O'Leary, who dismisses this man's magnetism as he would that of a rock star surrounded by fanatical groupies blinded to the threat he presents.
Why is this? Why do they hate Pope John Paul the Great? Because Fr. O'Leary—and Küng, Greeley, among others—cannot accept the fact that the Pope considered himself to be in a very real way the principal interpreter of the Second Vatican Council, of its documents and legacy. Pope John Paul brought to an end the pretensions held by many tenured theologians that they were also part of the Church's Magisterium. Pope John Paul II moved the Church away from the amorphous "spirit of Vatican II" and put her firmly on the objective basis of what the Council really said, not on what it was purported to say. Fr. O'Leary et al. resent that Pope John Paul effected this needed change in direction without him asking their leave.
Quote:
A stunning essay by Alberto Melloni, the distinguished Italian church historian, in a recent issue of RECHERCHES DE SCIENCE RELIGIEUSE, accuses John Paul II of making his voyages the main form of his magisterium, and substituting a cult of mediatic images for substantive educative communication. (The entire issue of the review, dedicated to the need of a new Ecumenical Council, is worth reading closely.)
Again, it is the rock star accusation, the theory that the Showman must be dismissed as lacking substance and as mesmerizing his gullible followers. Fr. O'Leary apparently thinks that we can't read the Magisterium of the late Pope by ourselves, or that if we can, that we are somehow unable to understand it, some glib, selected quotes aside. But is not only his words, is also his example, captured in so many biographies— for example, that of Tad Szulc and the one by George Weigel—that I've been privileged to read, in Spanish and English. John Paul's aura was captivating precisely because of his exemplary holy life, and holy death. Absent these qualities, then, Fr. O'Leary would be right, it was all a show. The fact that John Paul's life stands this scrutiny grates on Fr. O'Leary.
Quote:
Throughout the world, the most visible face of Church and of Christianity for a quarter of a century was that of the travelling Pope, and his privileged target audience in every country was the youth. What psychological need drew them to this super-father-figure?
"Super-father-figure?" Another telling remark, instilled with Freudian overtones. What's the implication here? Was the adulation young people heaped on the late Pontiff but a manifestation of unresolved Oedipal tendencies on a mass scale? Was the late Holy Father but a more down-to-earth epiphany of the great Sky Father we all neurotically project as the great solution to all our problems?
Perhaps I'm overstating Fr. O'Leary's argument. It's just that I don't like the good priest's amateur attempt to subject "neo-catholics" to a global pop-psych diagnosis. Us so called "neocaths" deserve better.
Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 2261 Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:44 pm Post subject:
Brian - wait, sorry.
JMJ
Brian,
Where the hell did you get this drivel? So much idiocy crammed in so little space. They must have been smoking some pretty powerful stuff in the '60s. Just blame it on the Pope. Could it for a split-second enter into the dingbat's mind that maybe -JUST MAYBE - modernist theology and protestant liturgy weren't meeting the people's needs? 50,000 priests left the priesthood from 1965 to 1980 - THAT'S THE CATHOLICISM HE WANTS?????? IDIOT!
BTW, if somebody finds Fr. Greeley's lament, let me know where to find it. That ought to be riotously funny. _________________ Now starring as Redbeard the Pirate, suitor of Rapunzel
Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 2261 Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:48 pm Post subject:
That was aimed at the original post, not Teofilo's reply, which I have yet to read. _________________ Now starring as Redbeard the Pirate, suitor of Rapunzel
This is a problem that has perplexed me for years: what in the world do the Neocatholics have in common with JPII except for sharing the same positions on the inguinal issues? On every other substantive issue, their stated positions do not correspond, unless you use the Neocatholic trick of saying, “well, the Pope was not advised very well when he said that.”
Some forty years ago, as the dramatic events of the Second Vatican Council unfolded, a spotlight was trained on the Catholic Church. It was, commentators said, a revolutionary time. The Church fathers broadened the canons of scriptural interpretation, invited other churches and denominations to engage in friendly dialogue, and attempted to understand the strengths of the modern world. They defended religious freedom, condemned anti-Semitism, and recalled the traditional notion that the Church was made up not just of its clerical hierarchy but also of its laity. They approved the translation of the liturgy into vernacular texts. Although in actual practice the reforms were only modest attempts at housekeeping, made by moderate men who had no intention of destabilizing the Church, they nevertheless contradicted the Church's traditional attitude toward reform—that the Church had not changed, would not change, and could not change. In that regard any reform at all was indeed remarkable.
For more than three decades now, as a sociologist and a priest, I have been tracking the evolution of the beliefs and practices of the Catholic clergy and laity in the United States. My most recent analysis, based on survey data that I and others have gathered periodically since Vatican II, reveals a striking trend: a generation of conservative young priests is on the rise in the U.S. Church. These are newly ordained men who seem in many ways intent on restoring the pre-Vatican II Church, and who, reversing the classic generational roles, define themselves in direct opposition to the liberal priests who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.
The divisions created by Vatican II are not new, of course. Caught up in the reform euphoria that followed the council, the lower clergy and the laity almost immediately developed a new ideology based on respect for women and for the freedom (including the sexual freedom) of the laity. On these matters, quietly or loudly, the laity and the lower clergy did resist the teachings of the Church.
The backlash was swift. Church leaders, realizing that reform had slipped out of their control, grew increasingly convinced of the need for a Restoration—a movement in which the upper clergy would close ranks and reassert their authority. Newly appointed bishops would restore the rules; theologians who disagreed would be silenced; and, as much as possible, the old order would be re-established. Even some of the progressives of the council, frightened by the laity's exuberant interest in change and by the declining influence of the Church in the United States, lost their nerve and joined in the call for a Restoration. Today's young conservative priests are rallying to this call.
Who are these young counter-revolutionaries? Several studies are helpful in answering this question: a 1970 National Opinion Research Center study (with which I was involved); two studies released by the Los Angeles Times, in 1994 and 2002; and a 2002 study by the sociologist Dean R. Hoge. Hoge's The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests is particularly useful. Hoge reports that half the newly ordained priests he encountered believe that a priest is fundamentally different from a layperson—that he is literally a man apart. Hoge also reports that almost a third of these priests feel that the laity need to be "better educated to respect the authority of the priest's word." These beliefs are strikingly at odds with those of the predominantly liberal generation of new priests studied in the 1970 NORC survey. Today's young priests tend to want to restore the power that the clergy held not only before Vatican II but also before a large educated Catholic laity emerged as a powerful force in the Church after World War II. Older priests today often complain that their younger colleagues are arrogant, pompous, and rigid, and that they love to parade around in clerical dress. The image that comes to mind is young versions of the old ethnic monsignors of the Depression era.
Stark differences exist between older and younger priests on many major areas of concern within the Church. The 2002 Los Angeles Times study reveals that priests of the Vatican II generation overwhelmingly support the idea that priests should be allowed to marry. In the study 80 percent of priests aged forty-six to sixty-five were in favor, as were 74 percent of those aged sixty-six to seventy-five. Only about half the priests under thirty-five, however, supported the idea. The study revealed a clear divide, too, on the ordination of women. Sixty percent of priests aged fifty-six to sixty-five, and at least half of those aged forty-six to seventy-five, supported the idea, but only 36 percent of priests under forty-six did. Significantly, even priests over seventy-five—whose views took shape well before Vatican II—were slightly more likely to support the marriage of priests and the ordination of women than were the young priests.
The lines are a bit less clear on questions of sexual ethics. According to the same Los Angeles Times study, about half of all priests reject premarital sex and homosexual sex as always wrong. But only about 40 percent of the younger generation believe that birth control is always wrong—a revealing failure of the Restoration efforts of the past thirty years, which have been fundamentally opposed to birth control. And younger priests seem to have a higher general regard for women than older priests do—an attitude demonstrated most clearly in the 1994 Los Angeles Times study, in responses to questions about support for official condemnation of sexism and for better ministry to women, and concern for the situation of nuns. This attitude, which is in line with the views of the laity, explains some of the clergy's resistance to the Church's teachings on sexuality. Nonetheless, younger priests are more than twice as likely as priests aged fifty-five to sixty-five to think that birth control and masturbation are always wrong, and they are significantly more likely to think that homosexual sex and premarital sex are always wrong.
Priests as a group are simply not in touch with the laity. In the 2002 Los Angeles Times study only thirty-six of 1,854 priests identified clericalism as one of the major problems facing the Church's laity. Astonishingly, only forty-seven priests thought the sex-abuse scandals worth mentioning. For some reason, priests of all generations are unable or unwilling to see the clergy as responsible for the departure of disaffected laypersons—a problem that today plagues the U.S. Church.
To explain the laity's dissatisfaction with the Church, priests from all generations tend to trot out the usual litany: individualism, materialism, secularism, lack of faith, lack of prayer, lack of commitment, media bias, hedonism, sexual freedom, feminism, family breakdown, lack of education, and apathy. The advantage of such explanations is that they free priests from any personal responsibility and put the blame on factors over which the clergy cannot be expected to exercise much control. The rectory thus becomes an isolated citadel battered by cultural forces, which encourages precisely the sort of closed, band-of-brothers mentality that the Vatican II reforms were designed to break down.
Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 2261 Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
JMJ
Thanks, Brian. Some of the happy stuff they were shooting in the '60s must have gotten in the water. Can anyone find anything discernably Catholic in Father Greeley's... Never mind. This is Father Greeley.
And out of respect for the priesthood, as Teo's response had not yet been posted and I didn't know it was a priest's article, I wish to amend my first post here: REV. FATHER IDIOT _________________ Now starring as Redbeard the Pirate, suitor of Rapunzel
Joseph S. O'Leary has been named recipient of the 1998 Frederick J. Streng Book Award for his 1996 volume, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth. Dr. O'Leary was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1949. He studied literature, theology, and philosophy in Maynooth, Rome, and Paris. After teaching briefly in the United States (University of Notre Dame and Duquesne University), he moved to Japan in 1983. He has worked in association with the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture and currently teaches English literature at Sophia University (with special emphasis on Joyce and the modernist period) and a course on Japanese values at International Christian University.
He has been working on a trilogy in fundamental theology that has taken on an increasingly interreligious character. The first volume is Questioning Back: The Overcoming of Metaphysics in Christian Tradition (Minneapolis: Winston/Seabury, 1985), reviewed in Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1987; a French version is in preparation. The second volume appeared first as La verite chretienne a l'age du pluralisme religieux (Paris: Cerf, 1994) and then as Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth (Edinburgh University Press, 1996). Joseph O'Leary is also coeditor of Heidegger et la question de Dieu (Paris: Grasset, 1980) and Buddhist Spirituality (vols. 8 and 9 of World Spirituality, New York: Crossroad, 1993 and 1999).
Impressed yet? -- Father O'Leary initially struck me as being very well-read and well-schooled in classical and modern literature, philosophy and theology (with an obvious fondness for Rahner, Kung, Teilhard, Schillebeecx, Barth and Luther). That he is well-educated priest is a simple fact -- one that is conveyed time and time again by the frequent peppering of his comments with perpetual recitations of authors, texts and obscure references.
Upon further exposure, I was inclined to wonder if all this bookishness might have gotten to his head and become somewhat debilitating to his ministry as a priest in the Catholic Church. Judging by his reception on my father's blog I was not the first to have such an impression.
positions himself to the left of America magazine ("America is a too conservative mag for my tastes and its title is idolatrous")
believes that the Church should abandon its old-fashioned prohibition on homosexual acts ["Churches should be opening a dialogue and learning more about [homosexuality], rather than going into tantrums about ill-thought-out doctrines"]
harbors a strong disgust for Opus Dei ["their disproportionate flourishing is a direct result of the Vatican's suppression of open discussion and democratic participation. Once again the Vatican finds itself in bed with fascism"]
believes that Fatima was a case of childish delusion: "The kids at Fatima saw hell because that is what their parents had filled their little imaginations with. . . . The idea that the shepherd kids had a prediction about the Turk's attempted assassination of John Paul II is ludicrous, and it is a sad commentary on the intellectual level of the Vatican today that both JP2 and Ratzinger took it so seriously."
takes a grim view of John Paul II's legacy: "The rage of Catholic women and of Catholic gays against JP2's obtuseness, which he transmitted successfully by unscrupulous demagogery and repression, is a prophetic rage that springs from the depths of the sensus fidelium. Dr Blosser does not want to hear this (hence my imminent expulsion from his site!) but is it the mighty roar of the Holy Spirit!"
and has a tendency to lapse into long spurts of Latin, as if to demonstrate his linguistic prowess (intimidating fellow readers and with the inevitable result of short-circuiting the conversation).
Browsing further the heated-yet-engaging exchanges between O'Leary and Dr. Blosser's commentariat, one may get a sense of the Father's opinion on a host of pertinent theological issues:
Quote:
liberation theology (". . . the last major effort to reconnect church teaching with the agonies of mankind -- working on the inspired lead of Paul VI in Populorum Progression, Evangelium Nuntiandi and Octagesima Adveniens (texts buried in oblivion in the Wojtyla-Ratzinger pontificate) -- and was crushed on the basis of picayune arguments about the alterity of theology and politics, the danger of earthly utopias, and the fearful venom of Marxism. Now the only way the church connects with the world is by lambasting an alleged Culture of Death." - Joe O'Leary | 05.12.05 - 5:49 am | Source
the historicity of the Resurrection: ". . . The empty tomb story has ANGELS involved in all four versions, and the presence of Angels is usually an indication of non-historicity. The best historical evidence of the resurrection concerns the appearances (listed in 1 Cor 15 by the last eye witness), but the narratives in the last chapters of the four gospels are full of legendary or symbolic matter. This is all very well known . . . Joe O'Leary | 05.13.05 - 1:48 pm | Source
the reality of the heavenly and demonic realms: ""Hell, heaven, angels, devils -- historically all this scenario comes from Zoroastrianism and entered Jewish thinking only shortly before the time of Jesus. The "messengers" (angeloi) of the Old Testament are not angels in the Persian sense. Persian also is the time scheme of a being who existed from the beginning, appears at the centre of history, and comes again at the end. The idea of salvation and of the manner in which Christ is a savior obviously has to be radically rethought in our cultural context, in which such pictorial. representations carry little conviction. Joe O'Leary | 06.14.05 - 11:28 pm | Source
the miracles of Our Lord: ". . . The word "miracle" is not a biblical word -- the Bible talks of signs and wonders and is more interested in their prophetic or revelatory significance than in their contradiction of the laws of nature. St. Augustine on miracles comes close to saying that they are part of natural process. Magic stunts have no place in adult Christianity; the sign of Cana I take to be a symbolic narrative -- the water of the old dispensation yielding to the wine of the new -- rather than a literal account of carbon atoms being created ex nihilo. Joe O'Leary | 06.17.05 - 1:26 am | Source
and the glory-days (daze?) of Vatican II ". . . The blaze of inspiration that befell me when I read Teilhard, Le Milieu Divin, as an eighteen year old, making me pace the boards of the Irish College, Paris, with delighted excitement; the joy of hearing Rahner lecture in Maynooth, radiating like the sun; the challenge of Schillebeeckx's subtle and comprehensive vision, at a seminar in Leiden in 1974; all of that seems to have disappeared to be replaced by a minute parcelling out, a parcimonious rationing of divine grace by bookish clerks who are completely unable to give a sense of the majestic working of the spirit of God in creation and salvation. The evolutionary schema within which Teilhard and Rahner rethought Christology is even scoffed at, instead of being further developed, and these cautious bureaucrats rehearse instead the old, tired theologoumena of our Tridentine childhood. And the old dreary names of warped reactionaries are trotted out again and again -- Schall, Hardon, Kelly, Grisez, Schaeffer -- along with old-fashioned fuddy-duddies like Chesterton, Belloc, CS Lewis, Fulton Sheen. All of this is the narcosis of Catholicism, its hibernation. I note that Ernesto Cardenal says the election of Ratzinger is "fatal" for the Church, but perhaps that Spanish word translates better into English as 'awful'." Joe O'Leary | 06.15.05 - 9:24 am | Source
O'Leary vs. The Neo-Caths
Rise of the Neo-Caths is one of Fr. O'Leary's groundbreaking posts to his blog, "Spirit of Vatican II", taking a wild and undiscriminating swipe at St. Blog's Parish and the "John Paul II Generation":
Quote:
. . . I reserve the term Neocaths for a vocal ideological wing of the younger generation which is in alliance with older voices and organs such as The Wanderer, Catholics United for the Faith. They are particularly well represented in the blogosphere. They are led by academic mentors such as the philosophers Peter Kreeft and Philip Blosser, and some of the more flamboyant voices are those of Christopher Blosser, Jeff Miller, Jimmy Akin, Oswald Sobrino, Mansfield Fox[?], Earl E. Appleby, Amy Welborn, Arthur Tsui [Angry Twins], and at the youngest (and perhaps most genuine) end of the spectrum, Apolonio Latar III. . . .
One has only to read these bloggers to note the differences of tone, style and content, although I count myself duly privileged to be lumped together with the likes of such gifted bloggers as Jimmy Akin, Oswald Sobrino and Amy Welborn. (I'm sure my father is likewise thrilled to no end for his placement with fellow philosophy professor Peter Kreeft).
What then, are the alleged traits that bind this diverse group of bloggers together under Fr. O'Leary's heaping criticism?
Quote:
That we "tend to sexual puritanism . . . vocal advocates and practitioners of a strictly-interpreted concept of sexual fidelity, with a strong emphasis on procreative sexuality";
that we engage in " combative apologetics . . . [devoting] treasures of ingenuity to proving that the Church has never changed her teaching on anything -- not on usury, slavery, torture, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and above all not on sexual matters" (what's this preoccupation with sex?);
that we are "'young fogeys' -- [taking] a delight in sporting old-fashioned references, such as Chesterton, Belloc, C.S. Lewis, Garrigou-Lagrange . . . [yearning] for an idealized church of Pius XII, a vibrant flawless Catholicism that never was";
that we "combine biblical and magisterial fundamentalism . . . in complete contempt of biblical scholarship and hermeneutics";
that we are "ill at ease with modernity . . . bewail confusion and uncertainty and call for a firm voice of authority to put an end to it";
that we are "ideological and political rightists [whose] papolatry commonly goes hand in hand with Busholatry".
Fr. O'Leary paints with a broad brush, and his wild strokes have already merited comments from Dale Price (Dyspeptic Mutterings) and responsory posts from Amy Giglio aka. R.C. Mommy; a New Englander blogging under the name of "Concerned Catholic", and Greg @ Vita Brivis
Meanwhile, neo-Cath prodigy Apolonio Later III has penned a two-part substantial response -- Part I; Part II -- to Fr. O'Leary's article Dogma and Religious Pluralism (Australian E-Journal of Theology Issue 4, Feb. 2005). (See O'Leary's blog for a response).
What is one to make of Fr. O'Leary? -- Is he the voice of the future? The real and genuine "spirit of Vatican II"? Are his postings that of a prophet, crying out in the wilderness?
I know a few "progressive" Catholic bloggers who might answer in the affirmative, while others would probably consider him something of a curiousity, the very epitomy of intellectual hubris and disgruntled liberalism, an endangered species floundering in the wake of a thriving and vibrant renewal of orthodoxy.
In any case, I find him rather entertaining and -- despite his comparisons of John Paul II to Chairman Mao -- occasionally throught-provoking.
So permit me to close this post by exending a virtual welcome to St. Blog's Parish -- that is to say, if he can tolerate the presence of us "young fogeys." Those who are so inclined may offer a couple rounds of the rosary for the rehabilitation of his keen intellect and the spiritual welfare of his soul, bringing to mind the wisdom of Thomas A' Kempis (The Imitation of Christ):
Quote:
Restrain an inordinate desire for knowledge, in which is found much anxiety and deception. Learned men always wish to appear so, and desire recognition of their wisdom. But there are many matters, knowledge of which brings little or no advantage to the soul.
I haven't read anything so ridiculous in a long time. I'll grant that Joseph S. O'Leary is a learned man; what he seems to lack is sense.
O'Leary seems to resent anyone suggesting that the texts Vatican II produced do not have infinite meaning. Hence he has a thing about Popes (and all Authority, really). Hence his blog is not about Vatican II, but 'the spirit of...' , whatever that might be.
His July ninth post is a work of snark to behold, so let the fisking begin!
John Paul II thus bypassed and reached over the heads of the educated baby boomers, influenced by Vatican II, in order to address an audience who were a tabula rasa, and to communicate to them a world view that the Vatican II generation would find problematic on many points. His tactic recalls that of Mao in China. [HAHAHA! Whoo-EEE! That's rich! Just call them Hitleryouth and be done with it.- ed.] At the same time critical theology was ruthlessly discouraged and suppressed throughout the Catholic world. Fr. Chia's article tells how this was done in Asia. The fates of Kung, Drewermann, Leukel-Schmidt, Curran, McNeill, Boff, Lavinia Byrne and many others are a tip of the iceberg of the same process in Europe, the US and Latin America. The more warmly the youthful crowd applauded, the deeper the intellectual chill that fell on the Church.
Intellectuals like to play with ideas but when they operate in a faith structure, there is an obligation to play with ideas in a search for truth. The faith is not a set of tinker toys to bash together in a vain effort to make sparks. Why should theology be more free form that physics? This stuff affects how people live. Getting it wrong has the potential to hurt, and to kill. JPII as Mao - get real, dude. Hey, what are your views on the BushHitler?
JPII and Benedict XVI were both a part of Vatican II; there is no reason for them to try and shut it down. As they have aged and grown wiser, they have tried to curb excesses of the time, such invoking always vague 'spirit of Vatican II' to browbeat anyone hesitant about the latest and greatest our supposed bettors have cooked up. We want to stick with the texts, which we hold to have specific meaning. In doing that, Ratzinger and Co. have chosen a direction that you disapprove of. Heaven's to Bestsy, how dare they! They obviously have no idea who you are.
In elevating some texts over others they are being true to the Council. Claiming that this is akin to 'fundamentalism' or some kind of fascism is absurd.
Quote:
["Neocatholics"] often seem to yearn for an idealized church of Pius XII, a vibrant flawless Catholicism that never was.
The kids are bad because they listen to the Pope and not to "educated baby boomers." I see why that's not good for boomers but utterly fail to see why it's bad for the kids. I listened to boomers all through school, and in university, and I still hear them in the media and the workplace. I've had quite enough of them. You can keep that tired shibboleth about conservatives wanting a 'time that never was' too. We want to keep things we see as valuable, no matter what period they are from. What to keep and what to reject is an ongoing debate. Hey, is there any Pope you like? Or would that transgress your hermeneutics of suspicion?
Quote:
The Neocaths tend to sexual puritanism. Appalled by the consequences of the sexual revolution, AIDS, abortion, cohabitation, adultery, divorce, pornography, they retreat to the strictest Catholic doctrine as an ark of refuge. They are very vocal advocates and practitioners of a strictly-interpreted concept of sexual fidelity, with a strong emphasis on procreative sexuality. They insist that masturbation is mortally sinful, and have an especial enthusiasm for the teaching that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered and that homosexual acts can never be countenanced. They denounce as apostasy a massive rejection of Vatican teaching among Catholics and call for bishops and priests to stand up against the tide of laxism instead of floating along with it.
You say this like it's bad...
Quote:
The Neocaths combine biblical and magisterial fundamentalism. They argue by proof texts, in complete contempt of biblical scholarship and hermeneutics. [Oh my! - ed.] Their ingenuity in defending their fundamentalist stances is extreme, and will draw on ad hoc hermeneutics when necessary, but they are estranged from the broad current of Catholic biblical scholarship. A Neocath who would admit, for example, that the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden in not historical would not be a worthy representative of militant Neocath ideology.
I guess I'm not a NeoCath then. It's funny as all get out, in a tragic way, that you appear to have more faith in hermeneutics than a faith tradition 6,000 years in the making.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, one of the fathers of modern hermeneutics, was a Protestant. The search for an 'authentic, scientific' Hermeneutics of the Bible makes sense for Protestants. Without a recognized authority like the Church, they need some firm intellectual ground to stand on when wrestling with how to form their theology. I'm not convinced they've turned up much of value. It is exceedingly strange that one would want to import their methods into the Catholic faith.
Quote:
The Neocaths are ill at ease with modernity. They feel they have seen through the myths of secular humanism, and the liberal culture of democratic discussion which they see as relativistic. They bewail confusion and uncertainty and call for a firm voice of authority to put an end to it.
Projected paranoia. How nice. Bobby Fisher would be proud. It is sad that when you see yourself as the Authority under a 'hermeneutics of suspicion' the reaction is one of contempt, confusion and an ill concealed, disoriented rage.
The whole post reads like a Greek tragedy in which the third Act is just getting underway.
Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 2261 Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:30 pm Post subject:
JMJ
I just posted the links to The New Springtime on Fr. O'Leary's blog. I'm sure they'll enjoy it. _________________ Now starring as Redbeard the Pirate, suitor of Rapunzel
I definitely do not consider myself a "neo-Catholic" though I am of the age (26). Nor do I consider myself a traditionalist. I am more of an "unorthodox Lefebvrist" . Regardless of the drivel that much of Fr. O'Leary's article contains, where there's smoke, there's fire.
Many of his characterizations of John Paul II pontificate have some bit of truth (though mixed with a gross set of errors). The reign of "charisma without content" is a quite accurate image of this pontificate. It was only this last April that I finally got to live in a Church that had a different Pontiff than John Paul II. While growing up, there was a great sense of living in the ruins of a Church that no longer was. When I was very young, there were still priests who said small portions of the Mass in Latin and the statues and the high altar were still in the Church. Then, when I was about ten, they gutted the Church and put a common table and chairs in their place. Gone were the statues, gone was the altar. The priests became more and more liberal. And I didn't know even a smattering of Catholic doctrine, nor did any of my peers. This was my experience growing up in the Church of John Paul the Magnificent, Doctor of the Church and Equal to the Apostles.
The neo-Caths feel this was probably the greatest papacy since St. Gregory the Great. Funny, I must have missed it.
Many of the neo-Catholics cited have really no idea how to be Catholic in the traditional sense. No matter how Catholic you dress it up, the Novus Ordo is not an apostolic liturgy; it is a concoction written by liturgical "experts" who thought they knew better. To be a real Christian means to abide by Tradition. In most places, this Tradition was blown away and all anyone can do is wade through the ruins.
Many neo-Catholics as well are magisterial positivists; they do not think like theologians, they think rather like journalists. Whatever a papal encyclical comes down into their hot little hands, they have to defend it and construct a whole theology around it. Never mind if it's right or wrong, or if it's even traditional for that matter. The Magisterium is always right; the Pope is the Holy Spirit's robot. This means they usually make for bad scholars.
Their affinity for Hans Urs Von Balthasar is very significant in this sense. He was by no means a theologian zealous for orthodoxy. When he was a seminarian, he used to put wax in his ears during his classes, so he could sit in the back of the class and read St. Augustine. Now, this was a temptation when I was a seminarian, as well, but I never did it, and I'm glad I didn't. I did learn something from even the most boring professors who were passing the Faith down to me the best that they could. What type of theology, then, can sprout from such a mind that shuts itself off from authority at so young an age? One that had a lot of problems fitting his own ideas into the traditional teachings of the Church. His idea of the Church as a "chaste whore" (casta meretrix) and his temptations to universalism are significant in this regard.
And he is the St. Thomas of Catholic conservatives.
I realize that this rather heretical priests was painting all of us to the right of him with the same brush. But his criticisms at least made me think about how I conceive the Church as it stands now. And it is still not in good condition by any means. _________________ Vinculum quippe vinculorum amor est.
Omigosh, you MUST read the respionses he got on his blog. Most of them ripped him for it - many of them his own admirers - and their criticisms are VERY salient. I'm too angry to respond rationally. These people are not as angry - thus more level-headed - and have a very RATIONAL criticism of the post. Not a peep of defense from Fr. O. It's great reading.
Read this gem from one of his few supporters against neocats: "Neo-caths indeed believe in a lot of what you say, though they resort to mental gymnastics in order to make their vision of the traditional Church agree with the Church that has come out of the Second Vatican Council. They try and cover up the real break that occured in such documents as Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, and Dignitatis Humanae. They try and recuperate a traditional liturgical ethos for the Pauline missal even though the Pauline missal was designed for a much more liberal liturgical praxis."
Liberals haven't completely lost touch with reality - conservatives have. _________________ Now starring as Redbeard the Pirate, suitor of Rapunzel
Again, as I asked above, what have the Neocatholics to do with JPII? Why do they admire him so? Every Neocatholic I know (maybe I know only the more intelligent ones), tries to bend over backwards to fit the documents of VII and the pronouncements of JPII into what the Neocatholic understands to be the traditional teaching of the Church. As far as I can tell, JPII himself had no such compunction.
The truth be told, the relationship between the Neocatholics and JPII was one of co-dependency. The Neocatholics assumed to themselves the role of explaining to faithful Catholics what JPII REALLY meant: how his words were to be interpreted. They needed to make JPII a god, so that they could arrogate to themselves the position of the god’s official oracle. It is a position they coveted, and a position that proved profitable to them.
In his turn, JPII saw that the Neocatholic leadership (even though they disagreed with him on every issue, other than the inguinal issues) could be used to appeal directly to that segment of the Catholic population that was by temperament most ideologically fanatical and most willing to make itself obedient to authority. JPII needed to tap into this source of strength.
Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:38 pm Post subject: Three classes of heretics
I have often heard from one east coast group who refer to the Present Pontiff as a Anti Pope, that " since the Pope uttered a heresy, he cannot be Pope " .
This is very confusing to people.
It is made more confusing since St. Robert Bellermine, A doctor of the Church said a heretic cannot be Pope.
Here is some info that might help everyone.
There are three kinds of heretics.
a material heretic,
a formal heretic
a manifest heretic
A material heretic is someone who may not be very clear on Catholic doctrine and thus speaks incorrectly.
One example might be confusion over some aspect of confession.
or marriage annulments.
Such mistakes do not render a person a non Catholic.
Second is the formal heretic:
This would be a person who might promote contraception as OK. After a few warnings, the church might declare this person a formal heretic. Such a person would be excommunicated, but still a Catholic. Once they recanted, they would be allowed to participate in the sacraments of the church.
The third group is manifest heretic
This is someone who is a Catholic who is publicly denying defined dogma.
For example saying Jesus did not die on the cross, and refusing to recant of that dogmatic fact which is obviously known as a truth to all Catholics
such a person could be declared a manifest heretic and separated from the church.
For the group of Catholics who claim we have no pope, the present pontiff would have to be a manifest heretic. Denying a obvious article of faith.
There might be some words said by the pope which people construe as heresy, but even if true, it would be only material and the pope is still the pope.
The Pope is a sovereign, which means he is beyond judgment.
I have often heard from one east coast group who refer to the Present Pontiff as a Anti Pope, that " since the Pope uttered a heresy, he cannot be Pope " .
This idea is not even worth responding to, although you did in a well formed manner.
To those who hold this position imperfection = corrupt, mistakes or error = heresy and sin = evil. Such thinking rejects the deposit of faith, our catechism and Christ's very teaching.
For gosh sakes, He called Peter satan... the very pope who was to later deny Him 3 times.
Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 29 Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:23 am Post subject:
JDobbs wrote:
Quote:
They try and cover up the real break that occured in such documents as Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, and Dignitatis Humanae. They try and recuperate a traditional liturgical ethos for the Pauline missal even though the Pauline missal was designed for a much more liberal liturgical praxis.
Liberals haven't completely lost touch with reality - conservatives have.
Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:34 am Post subject: Father O'Leary
i wonder if Fr O`leary isany relation to Dr timothy o`leary whoin the 60s used to praise the use of LSD to enlighten your mind.having grownup in the 60s ,a lot of this stuff seems like a trip back to that hideous time.
Servitium wrote: Such thinking rejects the deposit of faith, our catechism…
If you are talking about jp2’s catechism, The Catechism of the Catholic Church the answer is I absolutely reject it.
Servitium wrote: For gosh sakes, He called Peter satan... the very pope who was to later deny Him 3 times.
Even though Jesus told St. Peter in Matthew 16:18-20, that He would build His Church upon him; He did not confer the supreme jurisdiction upon Peter until John 21:15, which was after the Resurrection.
Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council I, Sess. 4, Chap. 1, 1870: “And upon Simon Peter alone Jesus after His resurrection conferred the jurisdiction of the highest pastor and rector over his entire fold, saying: ‘Feed my lambs,’ ‘Feed my sheep’ [John 21:15].”
The reference to Saint Peter as satan, and Peters denial of Jesus both happened before he was made pope, therefore they cannot be used to demonstrate that a pope could be a heretic.
QUESTION 14
What are we to think of the NEW CATECHISM
of the Catholic Church (1992)?
This question illustrates the fundamental differences between the Society of Saint Pius X and the Conciliar “traditionalists” or conservatives. These latter are often seen defending both the traditional Latin Mass and the “new” Catechism but not openly attacking either the Novus Ordo Missae or Vatican II. The Society of Saint Pius X on the other hand defends the traditional catechisms and therefore the traditional Latin Mass, and so attacks the Novus Ordo Missae, Vatican II and the “new” Catechism, all of which more or less undermine our unchangeable Catholic faith.
Conservatives defend the Catechism of the Catholic Church for its re-affirmation of teachings silenced or denied by out rightly modernist catechisms; the Society of Saint Pius X rejects it though because it is an attempt to formalize and propagate the teachings of Vatican II. Pope John Paul II agrees with this:
"The Catechism was also indispensable (i.e., as well as the 1983 Code of Canon Law), in order that all the richness of the teaching of the Church following the Second Vatican Council could be preserved in a new synthesis and be given a new direction." (Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, London, Jonathen Cape, 1994, p. 164)
One need but consider the 806 citations from Vatican II, a number which amounts on average to one citation every three-and-a-half paragraphs throughout the 2,865 paragraphs of the Catechism.
In particular, the novelties of Vatican II appear in the following paragraphs:
an infatuation with the dignity of man (§§225; 369; 1700; 1929...),
such that we may hope for the salvation of all the baptized (§§1682ff),
even non-Catholics (§818),
or those who commit suicide (§2283),
and of all the unbaptised, whether adults (§847),
or infants (§1261);
which is the basis of all rights (§§1738; 1930; 1935) including that of religious liberty (§§2106ff),
and the motive of all morality (§1706; 1881; 2354; 2402; 2407, etc.),
a commitment to ecumenism (§820f; 1399; 1401) because all religions are instruments of salvation (§§819; 838-843; 2104),
collegiality (§§879-885),
over-emphasis on the priesthood of the faithful (§§873; 1547; 1140ff, etc.).
Now, just as he who denies but one article of Faith loses the Faith [PRINCIPLE 7], so a teacher who errs on one point alone proves himself fallible, and, renders all he teaches questionable.
Just as the Second Vatican Council is not an authority to quote even where it propounds Catholic teaching (it does not do so infallibly and clearly), so this Catechism is not an authority of Catholic belief because of the modern deviations which it encompasses.
Those who defend this Catechism are supporting the innovations of Vatican II.
A response to Father Joseph O'Leary's The Rise of the Neocaths.
Continued from part I.
Fr. O'Leary was saying:
Quote:
John Paul II thus bypassed and reached over the heads of the educated baby boomers, influenced by Vatican II, in order to address an audience who were a tabula rasa, and to communicate to them a world view that the Vatican II generation would find problematic on many points. His tactic recalls that of Mao in China. At the same time critical theology was ruthlessly discouraged and suppressed throughout the Catholic world. Fr Chia's article tells how this was done in Asia. The fates of Kung, Drewermann, Leukel-Schmidt, Curran, McNeill, Boff, Lavinia Byrne and many others are a tip of the iceberg of the same process in Europe, the US and Latin America. The more warmly the youthful crowd applauded, the deeper the intellectual chill that fell on the Church.
This jewel of a paragraph may be described in various ways, let me tell you which: it is full of hubris, insulting both to the memory of the late Pope and to "neocaths," condescending, paternalistic, spiteful, elitist, pharisaic, and foolish. Let's review every single statement, one by one:
Quote:
John Paul II thus bypassed and reached over the heads of the educated baby boomers… .
Implication: those of us who came after are not nearly as educated as our baby boom betters
Quote:
…baby boomers, influenced by Vatican II… .
Implication: and our generation was not influenced by Vatican II? We can't read its documents? Or, have we chosen not to read them? Or, perhaps, it is because we read them without the lenses or the guidance that Fr. O'Leary, Kung, Drewermann, Leukel-Schmidt, Curran, McNeill, Boff, Lavinia Byrne, would like us to utilize, where the problem really lies
Quote:
[Pope John Paul addressed] an audience who were a tabula rasa…
Implication: Though Fr. O'Leary uses the term "tabula rasa" derogatorily, I choose to understand it in a more positive fashion. We're talking here about generation who is more aware, more sophisticated than the boomers in the things of the world; what for boomers was a groovy discovery, for us is a matter of ordinary life. We have little preconceptions of that past the "reforming" boomers were so successful in destroying. Educated boomers, as dreamed by Fr. O'Leary, expected their children—real or spiritual—to rebuild what they had destroyed according to the boomers' wise and "educated" specifications. They became disagreeably surprised when we didn't. We were free to re-conceive the world in our own terms without asking advice from hip priests, fakirs, gurus, and other spiritual guides held in awe by boomers. And then came Pope John Paul II. The rest, as they say, is history.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
A Neocatholic Strikes Back — Part III
A response to Father Joseph O'Leary's The Rise of the Neocaths.
Continued from part II.
Where Teófilo waxes nostalgically about his life to provide some experiential context.
Folks, before you start reading this one, I have to warn you that I wrote it with some autobiographical contents. Why did I do that? No, it is not for self-promotion, no this is not about me, yes, I'm aware about the demands of humility.
I bring it up because I believe in the power catharsis found in autobiographic narration, and on its ability to illustrate one's Catholic pilgrimage and life experience. Faith doesn't exist in a vacuum: it is lived. Otherwise, I would be a mere abstraction. Therefore, please, don't ascribe to me motives beyond these. Oh, and if you get bored reading this kind of narrative, well, you are now forewarned.
Fr. O'Leary was saying and I was retorting:
Quote:
[Pope John Paul was able to] communicate to them a world view that the Vatican II generation would find problematic on many points. Implication: that Fr. O'Leary's worldview is unassailable or at least, that we—the neocaths—lack the intellect to assail it. Somehow, before Fr. O'Leary's eyes, we're either incapable or unqualified to find Fr. O'Leary's worldview "problematic on many points."
Still, there's another, deeper issue here. Who is this "Vatican II generation"? Is it Fr. O'Leary's? I submit to you that the good priest forgets one teensy little detail. The Vatican II generation is not the generation that consciously lived before and through the Council. The Vatican II generation is that generation that didn't know that there has been a "before" until someone else told them as they got older.
I'm part of that generation. I was born in the mid-1960's in Puerto Rico. I went to Catholic school in the 1970s. When I started going to Mass and appreciate what it was all about, it was the Novus Ordo. When people spoke of "the Latin Mass," I thought they were talking about the Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, which was actually done in some Pontifical Masses. I was vaguely aware of a previous rite and discipline because I inherited the old St. Joseph's Missals containing the 1962 Mass and noticed that something was different, but similar.
I didn't attend a Tridentine Mass until I was in my late 30's—that wasn't that long ago—and when I did, I did it both out of curiosity and because I wanted to reclaim it as part of my heritage. By that time I was already a veteran of numerous Byzantine liturgies. Today, as it has been the case most of my life, I continue to attend the so-called "New" Mass which, as far as I'm concerned, it's "old" for me now.
My religious books throughout elementary and middle school were imbued with both Vatican II teaching and that from previous conciliar and papal declarations. The books in 9th and 10th grade were atrocious; they were flimsy pamphlets containing even flimsier, sentimental teachings based upon the worst interpretation of Vatican II, watered down for teenagers to understand. I've repressed the 11th grade, so I can't remember it.
What I remember is doing my own self-education back then, which also happened to be the days in which I got involved with the Charismatic Renewal. Again, my whole view of the Church was transformed; I learn to read the Bible rightly as a Catholic book, under the tutelage of learned priests and outstanding lay leaders. Otherwise, I probably would've minimized the role of faith in my life down to mere externals; I would've been lost to the Church as another "cultural Catholic" with no real, deep faith.
Praised be the Lord, that didn't happen. Later on, in the early 1990's, I earned a B.A. in Theology from St. Mary's University in San Antonio Texas. I remind Fr. O'Leary that my graduation date was almost 30 years after the Council closed. I don't get much post-Conciliar than that! I dare to say that most of my colleagues who care about these matters are as bona fide members of the Vatican II generation as I am.
I dispute, then, Fr. O'Leary's biased reference to the "Vatican II" generation and his restricting it to those likely-minded to him. That was very self-serving of him, and ridiculous, to say the least.
Why then, having been educated fully in the post-Conciliar environment, do I reject Fr. O'Leary's approach to Catholic life? Because I find it inconsistent with previous New Testament, Patristic and classical Catholic thought and life and therefore incoherent and confusing. Worse: I can't derive any meaningful life of moderation, prayer, and contemplation, from it. I find Fr. O'Leary's, Küng's (not Rahner is ok) and other's thoughts an unstable foundation for a Catholic sacramental and contemplative spirituality, it is too psychobablish, too ethereal, impractical, abstract. In the end, I think, no meaningful integral Catholic life is possible from the ideological Left.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
A neocatholic strikes back — Part IV
A response to Fr. Joseph O'Leary's The Rise of the Neocaths
Continued from Part III
Folks, I know this is taking too long, but I don't want to leave any allegation unanswered. I foresee one more substantial post and one concluding post. Please, bear with me. I appreciate your patience thus far.
Fr. O'Leary was saying (in blue and italics) and I was retorting:
Quote:
[Pope John Paul II's] tactic recalls that of Mao in China.Implication: we "neocaths" have been brainwashed by the cunning of Pope John Paul II and as a consequence we've been moved into a frenzy in order to throw the Church into the throes of a Cultural Revolution. To equate the late Pope with Mao is beyond the pale; to ascribe to him sinful motives is presumptuous; to imply that those of us who want to carry on his legacy have been somehow brainwashed by him is a collective ad hominem attack, fallacial, and without substance.
Quote:
The more warmly the youthful crowd applauded [Pope John Paul II], the deeper the intellectual chill that fell on the Church. Only if the self-proclaimed intellectuals taught their own thing not according to the mind of the Church, Fr. Joseph—I'm talking directly to you know, Father. When are you going to learn your place, Father? You don't rule the Church, you are not a member of the Magisterium, you serve the Church and if you serve her, then you are supposed to love and cherish what she teaches, what she stands for. This is a very basic teaching, that I should not be reminding you of.
Do you find the boundary of orthodoxy too constricting? Well, Father, the Church is not your private theological preserve. The Church extends to the past, through the present and on to the future. I belong to the Church because it makes those who went before me immediate to me; they are with us in the same Church. I treasure what they left me. I am sad to see that you have lost that sense of the Church's past as a living reality; you only see it as confined in the pages of some dusty books or manuscripts.
Quote:
Edmund Chia says that the JP2 generation are "distinguished by their unflinching devotion to all that the beloved and late Pope John Paul II stood for. They were present in huge numbers at the late pope’s funeral. Unlike the baby-boomers or the generation X-ers, the JP2 generation has a greater sense of uncritical loyalty and obedience to ecclesial authority and is more likely to prefer conventional values and traditional church life. Tradition and uniformity are their bywords, while conformity and submission are their operating modes. This is the JP2 generation's way of “rebelling” against their elders, especially those wont to employ a hermeneutics of suspicion when apprehending religious symbols and ecclesial institutions. In a way this new generation is the “born again” generation and feeds perfectly into the restorationist programs advocated by the pontificate of John Paul II, where the hermeneutics of retrieval is given greater emphasis. This involves retrieving what the previous generation questioned or threw out altogether, e.g., the doctrine of papal infallibility, devotional activities, the wearing of the roman collar, cassock or habit, and the reception of holy communion on the tongue."
My generation treasures critical obedience, Father Joseph. I can be obedient to the Church and be critical in the broad sense of the term "critical." I am not a traditionalist in the narrow sense; nor am I a fundamentalist—in any sense. Critical obedience is free obedience, freely given, Father Joseph. The difference between you an I is that you rationalize disobedience and disrespect, building behind it intellectual constructs so that you can justify the unjustifiable and feel good about it.. "Critical obedience" is for you a cliché, a permission to disobey the Church's Pastors and deconstruct the Church accordingly. Not to me, and I dare say, not to my generation. This we repudiate from your generation, this we disregard, not uncritically, but soberly, due to the harmful consequences your generation has brought to the Church.
What's wrong with a priest wearing a collar or a cassock, or a religious his/her habit? What's wrong with the testimony this kind of dress gives to the world? What's wrong with some people not wanting to touch the Holy Bread with their hands?—I have no such qualms, btw. What's wrong with holding to the defined dogma of papal infallibility, or to any other defined dogma?
Answer: there is nothing wrong with any of these. The "previous generation"—Fr. O'Leary's super-boomers—was wrong in rejecting them and thus eliminating an elloquent countercultural testimony that was so much needed, and it's still needed today, a testimony of consecration, dedication, humility, and respect. See if the lack of this kind of testimony has helped enhance any of these qualities in today's dominant culture.
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The first neoconservatives--Irving Kristol, Allan Bloom, and Francis Fukuyama-- were proponents of the philosopher Leo Strauss, an migr from Nazi Germany. Strauss considered the ideal state as one ruled by an intellectual elite with religion used to mollify and control the masses. The Roman Catholic Church already had centuries of experience preaching docility of the population to civil leaders willing to support the Church's preeminent position in society. They were natural partners, albeit with differing pet interests. Applying this concept in the US, however, had its difficulties. While Catholics were the largest single denomination, they did not constitute a majority. In order to establish a "national christianity"--the union of church and state, of naturally conservative fundamentalists and evangelicals, was numerically necessary in order to form the "religious right."
Paul Weyrich, once referred to as the most powerful man in America, and fellow Catholics Terry Dolan and Richard Viguerie, along with Howard Phillips, a Jew who had converted to evangelical Christianity, established the Moral Majority, to be led by televangelist Jerry Falwell, to energize their Christian base into political activism and get out the vote.
Weyrich, along with Catholic Edwin J. Feulner Jr., also founded the Heritage Foundation, the prototype of the right-wing think tank, to produce intellectual propaganda for the movement. Funding to pay religious leaders along with think tanks, journals and media outlets, came through Knights of Malta William Simon, Nixon's Treasury Secretary, and William Casey, Reagan's CIA Director. The Knights were members of a clandestine international group who, along with the CIA, perpetrated acts of terrorism and the overthrow of legitimate governments justified as defense against the Soviet Union and Red China but, in fact, protected their own wealth and power. Opus Dei-backed Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI lent moral authority to neoconservative mendacity, and by new appointments, filled the ranks with like-minded prelates. Neo-Catholic journalists Michael Novak, Fr. John Richard Neuhaus and George Weigel rationalized immoral projects with religious rectitude. Their vocabulary and formulations were amplified through the neo-con network and repeated by other religious leaders and politicians.
It would change not just the face of American Catholicism, but the face of social policy in the United States as it exists to this day.
From the Publisher
Catholics are 24% of the American population, almost three times the number of the second largest religious group, Southern Baptists. They are a significant force in the US educational system, with 150,000 Catholic school teachers teaching 2.7 million students.
* There is no other book which traces the history of the alliance between the GOP and the Holy See and weaves their mutual ambitions for power and money into the narrative.
* While much has been written about the neo-conservatives and the Christian fundamentalists, there is little material on the pivotal role played by individual powerful Catholics and American Catholicism in establishing this alliance
* This book addresses the profound shift in Catholic social concerns which the neo-Catholics were able to establish, and as such should be of great interest to socially concerned Catholics and their numerous organizations.
* The efforts towards beatification of Pope John Paul II will stimulate much interest in the pontiff's deeds; this work will provide a critical counterpoint to the likely deluge of eulogies.
About the Author
Holder of a theological studies in the employ of the Archdiocese institutions from the inside out. Progressive News, an editorial contributor articles for Voice of the Faithful, sex-abuse scandal.
Interesting reading.
I grew up in a Catholic Church dedicated to the 'spirit of Vatican 2'. I left the Church for twenty years looking for a deeper spirituality, which I did not find among 'Baby boomer' Catholics. Since I relate more to my parents generation, than the generation I was born into, my journey led me right back to the Church of all ages, the Catholic Church. I see now with new eyes because I know what is damaging the Catholic Church, particularily in America. My solution as a young man was to leave what I thought at the time was the Catholic Church.
My daughter however is a convert. She grew up in and around Hell-fire Baptist churches. So, she never had the same experience I had as a child, nothing to compare with being Catholic. When I ask her about attending a Latin Mass, she's excited about it. She knows more about the Catholic faith at 19 than I did at the same age growing up in the Catholic Church.
The solution she and her generation have toward the mess in the Church created by the 'spirit' of Vatican 2 and the baby boomers is not to leave it, but to change it.
I firmly believe the future of the Catholic Church resides with her converts. _________________ http://thetrailhome.blogspot.com/
Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 2008 Location: Pays d'Haute Louisiane
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:09 pm Post subject:
Quote:
A forthcoming (July 2009?) book (http://www.amazon.com/Neo-catholics-Implementing-Christian-Nationalism-America/dp/0932863639):
Now that is a dangerous book. It is dangerous not because it ably criticises something real; of course not. It is dangerous, rather, because if American liberals succeed in dragging American Catholics even further into the Democrat/Republican false dichotomy, especially these days, they will succeed in copting another generation of Catholics into stupid Americanist infighting. _________________ O crux ave, spes unica
[quote]Catholics actually following the teachings and doctrine of the Catholic Church...what a novel idea!
[/quote]
Well we are the "children af Vatican ii, we love novelty!
I never Liked the church or the cult of John paul ii, and I dont care too much for the cult of Mother theresa either she just doesnt inspire me. I left the church as soon as I was old enough to realise what a sham it was. Damn hippies ruined my childhood religion and left me without any clue as to what the church stood for. But they have created a monster! A monster who, after discovering what they had hidden, turned into a zealous catholic who will stop at nothing until truth and justice is brought into the light and the evil forces that oppress the faithful and seek the destruction of morality.....I really need to stop reading comics _________________ Ceterum autem censeo tabulam esse delendam
Well we are the "children af Vatican ii, we love novelty!
That phrase reminded me of my days in the evangelical world. Somewhere in my archives I have an old sermon about Laodicia in Revelation in which I used the phrase 'Children of yesterday's revival'. They were complacent, lukewarm, and frigid. Novelty was the only thing that kept them going because the fire was gone.
Fires that are not stroked and re-fueled, die.
The fire must be re-lit. _________________ http://thetrailhome.blogspot.com/
Dont worry. As long as the embers are there the pheonix will rise from the ashes...Doh, there I go again with that sentimental garbage I was raised on during JP2's pontificate.
But as long as there are trads willing to put up with ignorant (hopefully invincibily ignorant coz then I get to heaven no matter what eh?) young lads like me, and teach us, things will be ok. _________________ Ceterum autem censeo tabulam esse delendam
Watching the liberals battle the Neo-Caths is amusing. It's like watching Hitler battle Stalin. They are both wrong and lost but actually have more in common than they think. The liberals don't understand the Neo-Caths at all. They think they do and they write articles supposedly "explaining" and "psychoanalyzing" the Neo-Caths but they keep missing the target. They lump all Neo-Caths and Trads together into this monolithic army of "right-wing" ideology. Nothing could be farther from the Truth.
I think it truly takes a Traditionalist to know the Neo-Cath mind and what they are about because many of us once were Neo-Caths ourselves. And Neo-Caths are simply moderate version of the liberals. I think this is why the liberals loathe them. Because they are partly a reflection of their own misguided ideology in the opposite direction.
After Vatican I we had two camps of error, both wrong about infallibility. The liberals held that everything not stated ex cathedra was up for grabs. These were the modernists and their ilk, eventually driven underground.
The "conservatives" held the opposite error, that all Papal statements were infallible and required complete intellectual submission.
Those Catholics who properly understood the Magisterium after Vatican I were few. In fact, Archbishop Lefebvre's teacher in seminary warned him that this error of too expansive a notion of infallibility would haunt us in the future and he was right.
As long as authority and Truth remained united, as they did through Pius XII, there was no problem. Trads and Neo-Caths were indistinguishable except for their hidden differing ideas on infallibility.
After VCII Trads went with the Truth and Tradition, Neo-Caths stuck blindly to authority, and the liberals used Vatican II to come out from underground into the open and used the Council they helped author as a pretext to spread error and all sorts of novelty. They were not opposed in the least by the new authority, as the Popes let them run wild.
Yet the Popes personally were moderates. Yes they liked these new ideas, believing them to be beneficial, but within reason. So the difference in a Neo-Cath and liberal is a matter of degree. The Neo-Cath believes novelty is acceptable, but only a moderate amount of novelty that semi-resembles Catholicism and that the Vatican approves of. The liberal wants nothing to do with true Catholicism and seeks to wreck the whole thing from within. The liberal ignores the Vatican and they own many of the Bishops so they are protected.
It is sadly amusing to see these two attack each other, both of them completely missing the point and the cause of our problems. Their premises are both false and so their conclusions will always be false. What they both share is a complete abhorrence for true Traditional Catholicism. _________________ http://church-in-crisis.com/
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Where the hell did you get this drivel? So much idiocy crammed in so little space. They must have been smoking some pretty powerful stuff in the '60s. Just blame it on the Pope. Could it for a split-second enter into the dingbat's mind that maybe -JUST MAYBE - modernist theology and protestant liturgy weren't meeting the people's needs? 50,000 priests left the priesthood from 1965 to 1980 - THAT'S THE CATHOLICISM HE WANTS?????? IDIOT! 
. Regardless of the drivel that much of Fr. O'Leary's article contains, where there's smoke, there's fire.
