Yuval Levin, in his masterful A Time To Build highlights the importance of institutions: they hold our communal lives together, advance causes beyond the individual self, systemically train us in virtue as they diminish selfishness. He identifies our societal crisis as largely a crisis in institutions as there is widespread loss of trust in them and lack of commitment to them.Specifically, he identifies the "cult of celebrity" in which the hegemonic, narcissist ego uses a prestigious institution to gain prestige even as the protocols and purposes of the institution are dismissed. Donald Trump is a blatant, egregious example, but he is simply emblematic as a pervasive trend.
We Catholics identify two institutions as specifically defined by God: marriage/family and the Church. These two are absolutely sacred in their fundamental structures. Observant, obedient Catholics have lived and gladly died to defend these interwoven mysteries. Marriage/family itself is the foundational natural analogue for the Church whom we understand as the bride of Christ (the groom) and as our Mother (complementing God our father and our not-mother).
Sexuality itself is deeply, clearly institutionalized in the Church...it has been from the beginning...in the institutions of marriage/family and virginity/celibacy. In the first, sex is the privileged expression of an enduring, exclusive, fruitful communion of love between man and woman. Outside of that sacred context, it is sacrilegious and toxic. In the second state of life, Eros is sublimated in a sacrificial generosity into a bridal reception of Christ the Bridegroom and/or into the virile imaging of Christ's spousal love for His bride.
The defining cultural/religious issue of the last half century has been the sterilizing of sexuality: its separation from fruitfulness, from the masculine/feminine Mystery, and from an enduring community of love.
Now let us consider the strange case of Pope Francis and James Alison. James Alison, the British version of James Martin S.J., has long been active as an advocate within the Church for the LGBTQ program. He is, in short, aggressively disruptive of the defining icon of the Catholic institution: the Church as receptive, faithful, fruitful Bride and Mother. He was laicized by the Vatican's Congregation on the Clergy. A few years later, he received a call from Pope Francis who told him privately: "I give you the keys. Do you understand?" Clearly, by this he dismissed the declaration of his own congregation; restored full priestly faculties; and approved the gay agenda, the sterilization of sexuality.
This is a problem on many levels.
1. In the manner of our own President Trump, he directly contradicted, undermined and frustrated his own institution. And so, we the faithful now have two Church voices: that of the Congregation and that of the Pope himself. We have a split personality. We are polarized and divided...not only between ourselves, but within ourselves. Were I invited to a (Fr.?) Alison mass, do I obey the Congregation or the private chat of the pope? There is no way to reconcile this: we follow Francis or his own institution.
2. Again, like Trump, Francis flourishes his celebrity status to operate above and beyond institutional protocols. One might reasonably argue that this path was already walked by John Paul and even John XXIII, just as Reagan and JFK already created the celebrity presidency. But both Francis and Trump have brought this troubling development to a new, catastrophic level.
3. The action was done privately, secretly, like so much in this pontificate. Tragically, our pontiff has revived the old stereotype of the Jesuit, operating politically behind the scenes in a secretive, deceptive manner. The horrible agreement with the Chinese Communist government remains a secret. The entire McCarrick story remains secretive, over two years later, so that the Vigano accusation remains as a shadow over this entire pontificate. A rational conclusion is that allegation of a lavender mafia operating in the Vatican must be accurate, given the protection given McCarrick for decades and the continued secrecy.
4. This phone call is in accord with the deconstruction of Rome's John Paul Institute for Marriage and the Family and any number of decisions and appointments and verifies that this papacy intends to destroy John Paul's legacy of the Theology of the Body.
5. Again like our own President, this Pope acts on personal whims and preferences and dismisses institutional restrains. After the synod of bishops clearly rejected the suggestion of sacramental remarriage for the (non-annulled) divorced, Francis slipped it into his document. Without consulting with the bishops or cardinals, he changed the Catechism's teaching on capital punishment. In one swap, he disparaged the college of cardinals and blemished the (amazing) Catechism.
6. In countless off-handed remarks and homilies he has disparaged institutions and encouraged (not least by his own example) subjective, impulsive actions that disregard custom, tradition and authority.
Francis, in short, in his phone call to Alison and in a myriad of ways embodies the aversion to institutions, the celebrity cult of narcissism, and an ethic of individualism, irrationality, and self-will. Most troubling of all, he is covertly waging war against our defining institutions: marriage/ family and Church as bride and mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment