A Spiritual Loneliness

In recent years I have become aware of a particular loneliness within myself: it is sad but quiet, peaceful, gentle, prayerful, and even sweet.

It has nothing to do with the pandemic: I abstained from Covid-phobia; I was out and about every single day all day for the last year and a half.

Perhaps it is a sign of aging. Perhaps it is a preparation for death, the final loneliness. Perhaps it is a quiet participation in the hermetic vocation, about which we read so much daily in the Magnificat, even as I live a gregarious, active life.

It is connected to the papacy of Francis. For almost my entire adult life I delighted in a constant, euphoric communion with John Paul, Benedict, as well as the entire Church on earth and of the ages. I have lost that. Much that is beautiful and sacred to me is scorned by the current Pope. But he is my Pope. I have no choice but to suffer a disappointment.

More concretely and specifically, however, I have over this period suffered a sense of separation, of rupture with at least a handful of those very close to me. Happily, in almost all cases we remain close to each other and mutually respectful and affection. Nothing like a full rupture. More like a significant disagreement on something of importance. Helpful feedback recently from my nephew made me aware that I am passionately engaged with what I have received as True, Good and Beautiful and also craving of intimacy with those I love in those realities. Result: it is a deep loss to differ with someone I love on what is sacred.

Like everyone, I am myself a distinctive combination of many forces. The traditional Catholicism I received from my family was intensified by the charismatic renewal, the Communio theology of Benedict and John Paul, and a lifelong desire to serve the poor. Secondary influences include: walking for a time in the Neocatechumenal Way, friendship with Communion and Liberation, 12-step spirituality, my work as a supervisor in UPS, the conservatism of First Things, Rene Girard mediated by Gil Baile, and others. It goes without saying, of course, that first and foremost is my marriage and family. Recently I realize there really is no one exactly like me: I enjoy a unusual number (I think) of intimate intellectual/spiritual friends with whom I share many of these realities. But with no one do I share all of them. For example, I can think of only three among my circle who share the charismatic experience, something that was important to me. Conservative friends may not be too passionate about service of the poor; and viceversa. And so, I stand alone in a way.

As mentioned, there is a peace, a sweetness to this solitude. It comes to me as an invitation to (in the words of my nephew) "detach with love." To renounce inordinate attachment and free the beloved friend to be himself or herself, rather than the fulfilment of my longing. It comes as an invitation to prayer, to quiet communion with our Lord Jesus, who alone can share with me in intimacy the fullness of Truth and Good and Beauty that I crave so desperately.

What Happened to Retribution?

More than a decline or demise: retributionhas disappeared from contemporary discourse. The term is no longer understood: it has become conflated with revenge which is its opposite.

Revenge is a personal intention of harm to another out of hatred because of some wrong inflicted. It is a sin as a direct contradiction of charity. Restitution is the act of justice by an authority (as received by God) to restore the moral order, to compensate for a wrong done. It is inherently a good act. There is, however a connection between the two: without retribution, revenge will burn disastrously; but with proper restitution, the anger and wound is partially healed and vengeange is calmed.

As if by magic, restitution has disappeared from the modern mind. Consider Catholic discourse on the death penalty: John Paul, Francis and the Catholic Catechism omit it. It is as if there were no such thing. It is the null curriculum. However, for over two millenia retribution has been a basis for the death penalty. Avery Dulles stated at the time of John Paul that if he the pope were to declare that the retributive justice could not be the basis for the death penalty then he would be renouncing a firm tradition of over 2000 years. They do not engage it and thus they deny it implicitly.

To be clear: I myself would not make a strong, clear argument for capital punishment based on reparation, but I would insist, on the basis of Catholic tradition, that it be considered. Tempermentally I am disinclined myself to revenge, but I do have a strong sense of retribution, that the right order be restored. Perhaps it is that I am an oldest son; or conscientious and thoughtful; or that I have for my entire life been a ground-level authority...teacher, supervisor, director...and responsible to maintain the public order.

Substantial concepts, related to retribution, that firmly stuctured Counter-reformation Catholicism have largely disappeared in the Vatican II Church: merit, purgatory, indulgences, temporal punishment due to sin. This gestalt of concepts which formed the Catholic response to the Reformation surely deserved to be recontextualized within a stronger theology of grace, faith and mercy. But not to be thrown out so that they are not intelligible.

Jesus instructed us on our final fate: the sheep receive eternal reward; the goats damnation. Retribution pure and simple!We see here that the concept includes reward as well as punishment. In this life, by analogy, those infused (from above) with authority exercise similar retributive justice in the ordinary arena of home, school, work, and society.

John Paul's weakness here in his strong dismissal of capital punishment was, to me, his single theological flaw.Perhaps this is related to the failure on his part and that of the broader Church to respond firmly to the sexual abuse? Francis of course has gone qualitatively beyond him into a real heresy. Even the work of Balthasar needs to be corrected for catechetical purposes although with less fervor than shown by Ralph Martin. Yet there is widespread indifference, except for certain eccentric conservatives. (That would be me!)

So, why has this simple, fundamental idea become unintelligible? Several reasons come to mind:

1. The prevalence of a soft, cheap concept of Mercy. That of John Paul was not soft or cheap as it was infused with justice, truth and holiness. But he did have a blind spot for retribution. Francis and his movement are a different story: he has absolutely (?) renounced capital punishment as well as criticized life imprisonment. He is living in an alternative reality.

2. Decline of the masculine psyche. Retribution is a concept of justice which is natural to the male, paternal, authoritative mind. It is alien to the feminine and the maternal. Our culture and especially our Church have both become entirely demasculinized and so the concept is strange.

3. Liberalism and individualism have become the very air we breathe, intellectually, so we do not think in terms of the corporate, the communal. So punishment now focuses on the protection (and deterrence) of the individual and rehabilitation of the individual. Instinctively, we do not think about a "public order" that must be restored. The libertarian,the therapeutic, the bourgeois have entirely triumphed in the last 50 years.

4. A pervasive philosophical nominalism, a superficiality, a lack of ontological density has left us with a failure to see the FORM. By this I mean to see the interior essence, the deeper inner meaning of a thing or an action. Catastrophically the Cultural Revolution vacated precious, sacred realities of their inner meaning: sex and gender, authority, tradition, fidelity and chastity, just warfare and the litany continues. And so, there is an incapacity to see the form of retribution as distinct from revenge, as rooted in authority and an objective moral order.

Strangely, I experience a distinctive sadness and loneliness on this precise issue. Partially it is that I am dissonate with my mentor, John Paul. Add to this the heavy-handed intrusion by Franis into the Catehism which has been widely accepted. And then just the frustration of seeing so clearly a reality that is invisible to others. I miss Avery Dulles!

Looking for a Catholic Unicorn: the Dilema of Liberal Catholicism

"Finding a young candidate for the priesthood who wants to follow Francis and live celibacy is like looking for a Catholic Unicorn." Fr. Thomas Reese S.J.

Fr. Reese hits the nail on the head: he identifies the fragile, incoherent, unstable and parasitic nature of liberal Catholicism with his metaphor of a Catholic unicorn.

In a thoughtful, much-read piece last week he suggested that his colon surgery may be the beginning of the end of the pontificate of Francis. I think this speculation is silly: we watched my mother, who recently passed at 101, snap back a number of times through her 80s and 90s when she should have been down for the count. Franics is like my mother, a tough old bird. He is more than capable of a resurge. He may be around for quite a while. If so, I hope he will do more good than harm. His is a strange papacy. It is like watching film noir. His two immediate predecessors were like a Jason Bourne movie: when things get terrible, Bourne gets smarter, tougher, stronger. So,everything from JPII and B16 (not the Vatican) was unerringly, serendipitously inspiring, hopeful, truthful. Their predecessors, in living memory, were solid, steady, safe, grounded. But Francis is like the noir genre: you just don't know what is coming next! Noir is thrilling because the good characters may turn evil; the worst might turn to the good; the femme fatale may finaly surrender to love or hatred; the ending could be happy sad and nihilistic. In that sense, Francis is like the rest of life: we just don't know the outcome. It is high drama! (But not always in the best sense!)

Back to the Reese piece: the rest of the article point on: he regrets that the papacy has been a failure in that Francis has not recreated the clergy/episcopacy in his own image. Even as more than half of the current cardinals were appointed by him, the American bishops who support him are only 20 to 40 of about 240. The triumph of his vision requires a successor in his likeness but even with that Reese identifies the deeper problem: most of the younger priests are in the mold of John Paul. New, liberal bishops will find for themselves that most priests, including the most trustworthy and reliable, are of a conservative mode. Hence: the dilemna of liberal Catholicism is that it is not procreating itself.

The liberal Catholicism of the last half century since the Council has three features: First, the sterilization of sexuality and the disenchantment of the Mystery of masculinity/femininity (and ultimately of romance itself). Second, a break with tradition which it disparages from a posture of enlightenend superiority rather than filial reverence, loyalty and gratitude. Thirdly, a search for salvation from the leftwing politics of the expansive state as well as a turn to psychology as religion. Because of its embrace of sterility it is not fruitful; as it breaks with the past it has no organic future. And so the surge of expectant energy in the Church has been in overwhelmingly "conservative" and in tune with John Paul: young priests, new orders, lay renewal movements, return to tradition, home schooling, and so forth. The recent repression of the Latin mass shows the anxiety and insecurity of the liberal psyche.

The "Spirit of Vatican II" generation, now in their 70s and 80s are retiring to nursing homes. They were, to me, a noble generation in their embrace of the poor and suffering, their ecumenical spirit, their enthusiastic openness to new ideas. The young could learn a lot from them and I hope they do. But the dark side was the break with tradition, the weakening of the Catholic sexual ethic and the accomadation to the Cultural/Sexual Revolution. And so a sadness hangs over them: they leave no legacy.Yes there has been a resurgence of liberalism under Francis, but his advocacy has been inconsistent and so he has disappointed.

He himself is a puzzling combination of conservative and progressive and in that he is emblematic of the Church herself, although his is an incoherent synthesis.

St. Thomas says the human will protects the good that is present (conserve) and seeks the good that is absent (progress). Being in itself is stable and yet in movement: continuing the Good/True/Beautiful even in movement towards it. As is the Church! But for Catholicism there is a primacy of the given, the actual, the received: life itself as created gratuitously and salvation as definitively given in the Gracious Act of Jesus Christ. Growth, movement and liberation always flow organically out of the primacy of Gift. The Resourcement Theology that was cooking in the Church quietly after the war and birthed the Council (DeLubac, Ratzinger, Danielou) was the epitome of Catholicism as rooted in tradition and yet organically fresh and creative; it continues in the legacy of JPII and B16 and the Communio community.

There is inherently a tension between tradition and progress. We might think of the prodigal son and his stay-at-home brother: the later was close to the Father, always, but with a terrible attitude; the former strayed but did come back to receive the paternal embrace. We will always have both types: the explorers and the homesteaders.

The Church, like every community of value and purpose, is like an onion with different levels of depth, intensity and involvement. The inner core give their very lives for the cause; the outer layers are less engaged. And so the inner core of Catholicism will always be the saints, with Mary and Joseph, who give their entire selves to the Bridegroom, whether anonymously and quietly, or in the vowed or ordained vocations, or otherwise. But the Catholic Church is the opposite of a cult in that it seeks to include and welcome, even those who rebel. So the Church will always have the inner core of true believers and the outer layers of accomadationists, those who straddle, a foot in the Church and one in the world. For example, the Church is highly valued by liberal activists: the cultural side of liberalism despises the vigorous, rigorous sexual ethic, but the political side sees that it is the strongest consistent force in the world defending the poor and suffering. So social justice warriors will tend to a parasitic dependence on the Church, even as they reject essential interior beliefs.

And so, the accomadating wing of the Church will always be with us; and sometimes they are right; and sometimes they will prevail (like the Arians over Athanasius); but they will be dependent upon graces and riches...Marian, hierarchical, liturgical, anonymous...that they are unable to recognize as they hold themselves above the Tradition. They can be at times resentful; and at times sad and discouraged. Let us hold them in tenderness and esteem, as we fight them in the relentless Culture War.

Pope Francis Restricts Latin Mass: Big Mistake!

Yesterday was a sad day: we are in grief over the loss Thursday of our Grandaughter, Gianna, in the 17th week of pregnancy. What can we say? It is a sadness. A mystery. It can only be suffered and surrendered to Christ.

Then the Pope's restriction of the Latin mass: Another sadness!

I understand the clerical frustration with the Latin mass community. They are a counter-culture, in tension with the mainstream Church establishment and often defiant and dismissive of it. They can manifest the spiritual immaturity of all renewal, alternative movements: distrust of the system and authority, arrogance, self-righteous indignation, stubborness. There can be a schismatic, propensity there: there always is in enthusiastic, intense religious sub-communities. It goes with the territory. Clergy can make a reasonable argument that they will benefit from discipline, boundries, regulation and "holy obedience?".

At the same time, they are fervent in their love for Christ in the Tridintine mass, Tradition, Thomism, Catholic customs and piety. They preserve the splendor of the old mass as mainstream liturgies have become often insipid. They are reverent, pious, protective of much that is best in our past as so much of that has been forgotten and discarded. They are good Catholics, in an offbeat fashion. I like them. I am friends of the local community. They have been good to our Magnificat Home work. As a group they are quirky, interesting, intelligent, informed, often sophisticated, interesting, full of life, love and faith. They are currently hosted in a poor, inner city parish. That pastor, in negotiations with myself, bemoaned: "Nobody gives much money! Not that groupand not that groupand not that group!You know who gives money? The Latin mass community!

Every alternate Catholic community, including all the renewal movement, is a child of the Church; and each struggles like an adolescent with obedience, trust, loyalty. Each is prone to spiritual indignation and pride. But the underlying cause of such separation and resentment is: the feeling of being unloved. Now that may or may not be caused by the authority figure. But in this case, I fault the Pope. I am in the corner of the traditionalists.

How I prefer the affectionate, sympathetic embrace of them by Benedict. Francis has a blind spot here: he is blind to their love, loyalty, and genuine piety. He is defensive, arguably paranoid, as he sees them as an assault on his configuration of the Vatican II Church. He sees only rigidity, separateness, reaction, formalism and an offensive piety. He is admirably transparent and candid: he hates them. He is NOT a loving father...not patient, long-suffering, tender or affectionate.

There is irony here: the liberal branch that he represents prides itself on "inclusion" and "diverstiy" but typically is intolerant of and even "canceling of" disagreement from the right. It is analagous to Biden's current effort to repress vacine criticism on Facebook: his authoritian heavy-handedness verifies and intensifies the already pandemic suspicion of the establishment (medical, political, media). It further polarizes and divides: feeding distrust and resentment. I fear that Francis' heavy handed repression will have the same result: increased distrust and division.

In this case, I must say: Francis is a bad father, a bad pope. The truth will set us free: in his betrayal of the persecuted Church in China, in his destruction of the John Paul Institute in Rome, and in his repression of the traditional mass...we are facing a form of child abuse. To deny this would be to be an ennabler. It is what it is.

We live in dark times. In our mega-Archdiocese of Newark we are now ordaining maybe one local candidate a year. We are Israel in the desert, wandering around with no promised land in sight. We are in exile, in Egypt or Babylon, bereft of homeland and temple and priesthood. We are in some kind of corporate dark night of the soul. Are we Job being tested by Satan? It helps to be clear who we are and where we are. So we can bring it to the Lord.

Pope Emeritus Benedict on the Priest Sex Scandal

The fierce criticism of someone dear to me moved me to re-read Benedict's 2019 statement on the priest sex scandal. I found more there than I grasped on a cursory, initial reading. I liked it!

1. Vintage Ratzinger, it is a modest, unpretentious offering. This is neither an infallible papal ruling nor an exhaustive historical analysis. It is more like an old timer, in his rocking chair, going back in memory, to the war or the depression or something.

2. In line with this, I found the anecdotal style charming. Some of them seemed more personal than global in nature, but those put me in touch with the person. For example, he recalls that in some seminaries his writings were banned: he was cancelled before "cancel culture" was born.

3. This piece surely is one of the last of his writings and valuable for that alone. He is, in my view, one of the three GREAT Catholic theologians of my lifetime: with his friends John Paul and Balthasar. These three are in a class of their own, lapping every competitor. This is because of sheer intellectual genius-energy-stamina-erudition, holiness of life and a happy blend of continuity with Tradition and creativity-freshness of spirit. He is the least of the three in terms of the total gravity of his work. His theological corpus would have been far greater if he had not served pastorally, but his influence would not have been so great.

4. He is, however, the superior catechist: his writing is sweet, crystal clear, and available to the ordinary Catholic. There are a handful of Catholic writers who combine theological orthodoxy, docility to the Holy Spirit and a charm, a sweetness, a gentleness of manner: Cardinal Newman, St. Francis DeSales, Caryl Houselander, Heather King. Anything they write has a taste of delightfulness. Joseph Ratzinger in in this club.

5. Expectedly he writes about the sexual revolution and the concurrent disorientation of moral theology as the climate in which the scandal erupted. I for one would have been shocked if he neglected this. The surge of priest abuse 1965-85 is undeniable.

6.A particular irony surrounds him: the most quiet, soft-spoken, humble, meek and gentle of men, he is at the same time among the most hated of Catholic thinkers. Before becoming Pope, he was referred to as "Ratzi the Nazi." A more unjust, vile slander I cannot imagine. It was related to his genius and his orthodoxy. His brother said of him: "He does not look for a fight but he will not back away from one." Hans Kung, a theologian of comparable natural genius, said of him when he became Pope: "He is very sweet, and very dangerous." At the Council he was known to everyone as the young, brilliant, liberal-but-grounded Ratzinger; as Pope he became with his older partner THE definitive interpretation of it.

7. He provides technical detail of why the canonical procedures in place were inadequate to the catastrophe: they were inorinately directed towards the repentance of the accused and to protection of his rights. He would know as he was given, by John Paul, primary responsibility for the review of the cases. He describes this as his "every Friday penance exercise." He may know as much detail as any living person by virture of this task and his other positons in that decade.

8.Correctly, he identifies a root cause as the loss of God in our lives. Here, as in other things, he simply echoes the unchanging proclamation of the Church: God alone is our Savior. Sin is the cause of all evil. In particular he emphasizes loss of reverent love for Christ in the Eucharist: this love has been the untiring theological theme of his life.

9. Specifically he speaks of the mission of the Martyr in testifying to the Truth and he happily expresses gratitute for his own little family where he finds daily such testimony. So simple, so thankful, so joyful! He is indeed living the "Benedict Option" which Dreher named after the ancient monk but I always identified with this holy Pope.

10. Lastly, most striking and...for me...troubling. He thanks and praises his successor Pope Francis for all he has done. I swallowed hard when I read this. Francis is a complex case...he is many things...but prominent among them he is theologically the anti-John-Paul-and-anti-Benedict. Why does he praise, so sincerely, an adversary who has set back so much of his work? Could it be that he is suffering some dementia or that he is unaware of events since his retirement? I think not. His thinking is clear. More likely it is a combination of the following: One, his esteem for the Chair of Peter is such that he reveres the workings of the Holy Spirit in that office notwithstanding the failings and mistakes of the occupant (which only he of all the living would understand.). Two, he is grateful to be relieved of that heavy burden. Three, his concern for the unity of the Church urges him to a gracious act of peacemaking. Four, like the dying Thomas Aquinas he is approaching the Thone of Grace and sees so much of our theological/cultural/political wars as "straw" by comparison. Five, he no doubt appreciates the strengths of Francis, strenghts which are strikingly different from his own.

For me personally, he is a tremendous example and an inspiration: to be loyal to our current Pontiff and to be (this doesn't come natural to me) humble, meek, and charitable in my theological convictions.

The Wounded Priest

Three of my dearest priest friends died in recent years, each of them shamed and stripped of priestly perogatives because of credible sexual allegations. Each cherished his priesthood; each was gifted in extraordinary ways; each was a cherished collaborator of mine in different periods of my life; each was very close to my heart; each did much good. Yet a sadness hangs heavy over their memory. They lived and died without a happy resolution to their suffering. It is a Mystery!

Perhaps that is why I find myself this morning considering a type I know and love well: the wounded priest. This is the priest who quietly suffers his sadness, a sadness which is deep, mysterious and incomprehensible even to himself. It may involve anxiety, depression, social nsecurity. It may manifest itself in dysfunctional, toxic or self-destructive behavior: typically alcoholism in the Church of my youth; homosexuality in the Church of the last 50 years. It is a sadness that does not resolve itself: largely invulnerable to therapy, 12-step work, good friendship, sound theology, and even prayer. A psychologist might suggest a kind of "structural damage" to the psyche: a deep disorder immune to cure and even treatment.

In an earlier essay I wrote about the "Maverick Priest." Many mavericks are wounded, and many wounded are mavericks; the two coincide in many priests. But they are quite distinct. A maverick need not be wounded and a wounded need not be maverick. There seems, however, to be a common sensitivity, depth and vulnerability underlying both.

The wounded priest is quiet: Not a dissenter; Not a Culture Warrior; Not a Social Justice Crusader. Those types are aggressive, confident, indignant, (self?)righteous, strong in judgment against injustice exterior to themselves. The Wounded Priest is mute, introverted, humble, meek.

At its best this sadness moves into the desolation of the spiritual "Dark Night" and becomes a path to sanctity. Classic examples: the striking Javier Bardem priest in "To the Wonder", "Diary of a Country Priest," and the clerical alcoholics in "Power and the Glory" and "The Edge of Sadness." In such cases, there is no moral victory of the will over weakness! On the contrary: the suffering persists; the protagonists remains a victim to hostile forces beyond his control. Rather, in a mysterious manner, there is an enduring, a surrender, a serene acceptance of the "wound in the flesh" (St. Paul) such that the misery prevails but a gentle, subtle Mercy emerges. A wise young man (my nephew Brendan) once told me: "Some things just must be suffered."

Oftentimes the wounded priest becomes more of a deficit than an asset to his bishop or superior as he, like the maverick, does not fit into the system. His suffering may involve a negativity that can be contagious. He may have to be sequestered where he an do minimal damage.

An emblematic figure for me is the late Brennan Manning: ex-priest, gifted writer and speaker, he left the priesthood to marry and then divorce, and finally succumbed to alcoholism. To the end however he fiercely prolaimed the Gospel of the love of Christ for each sinner, preisely in his sin. He pushed Catholic theology to the limit. But I cherish his message. There are among us many who are so broken that there really is no hope, in this life (there is always Hope) for wholeness and healing. His last years entailed evangelization behyond the boundaries of the Catholic Church. But I understand he had a Catholic burial at St. Rose's in Belmar. That last Eucharist sealed his life and his message.

It is a Mytery of suffering and tragedy...the Wounded Priest. Futile suffering, failure and frustration, incurable pain. We do well to pray for them:those who have passed and those here with us even now.

The Spiritual Seductiveness of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung

It was the late 1990s, a theology course at Union Theological, NYC, was reading Joseph Campbell; almost everyone was enchanted by him. I was nauseated! I could smell his contempt for the historical religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. His was a sophisticated but thinly disguised apology for paganism. I was not surprised later to learn of his reputation for anti-Semitism. But I imagine his was not such a politically incorrect hatred for Jewish blood as much as a radical anti-Judaism, a disgust for the love of the transcendent God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Campbell was himself a disciple of a greater genius, and a darker figure: Carl Jung. In the study of the religious psyche, Jung is the GOAT: greatest of all time. (On further thought, maybe William James could challenge him?) However, he had also surrendered himself to diabolical forces: the occult, drugs and sexual sin. He is a fascinating, provocative but ominous figure. He exerted an immense influence in Catholic and Christian circles in the 1970s and continues to do so today, largely through his disciples like Campbell, Rohr, Jordan Peterson and Alexander Shaia.

The appeal of Jung is that he uses the language of Christian theology to propose an alternate gnostic spirituality which, usually implicitly, renounces the transcendent God of the Bible and Tradition in favor of an introspective exploration of the Self in all its archetypes, experiences, longings and travails. Jung is fascinated by religion and Christianity, but incapable of the simple act of faith in a God exterior to his own narcissistic psyche. He replaces the Trinity with his own 4-figured paradign that seems to be retrieved by Shaia. Campbell is worse: he hates that God as he glamorizes all the archetypes and idols proposed by the pagans.

In figures like Rohr and Peterson (Jordan, not Danny, and certainly not Ed or Eddy or David) we have a muted, modulated gnosticism. For example, Peterson has deep, solid intutitions about the nature of virility and our current crisis but he is unable to cross the threshold into simple faith in Christ. Rohr offers a rich stew of Jungian psychology, Catholicism, 12-step work and other stuff. He is immensely talented and charming. He may be growing beyond the hatred of institutional Catholicism that so offends red-meat Catholics like myself.

To be sure, what is offered within Catholic circles today is not the dark occultism of Jung or the shameless paganism of Campbell, but a more appealing, muted and disguised mixture. For example, a hip retreat house might offer a mouth watering smorgsboard (for the spiritual seeker who is lukewarm in his Catholicism) of: the Enneagram, mindfulness training, Zen Christian meditation, non-binary eco-organic-wholesomeness, and so forth. Now any of these offerings are in themselves innocuous and arguably wholesome in their right place and correct degree: like the daily walk or swim or fruit-veggy drink or vitamin regime. The problem develops when any (or any combination) is offered as an alternative "spirituality"...as a practice/belief system capable of organizing your life in place of traditional faith and practice. In that case they overreach and become in effect idols. This is done in a quiet, anonymous fashion: not a direct challenge to Orthodoxy, rather a compelling and fascinating distraction.

The new-agey, Jungian diet is a kind of spiritual vegetarianism. Now normal vegetarianism is entirely wholesome, assuming dietary needs like protein are satisfied, and apparently much healthier for the human body and the globe. A Catholic certainly can be a vegetarian, but not in an absolute or ontologial way: because we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, literally. When Jesus clearly proclaimed this truth...this dogma...many left him. So today many Catholics are afflicted with an aversion to things like eating a body and drinking blood, to a sacrfice in its bloodiness, to poverty-chastity-obedience, to authority and tradition. So, what is offered to such sensitive, searching spirits is a bloodless, meatless, sacrifice-less, vow-less, authority-less "spirituality" without religion {"religio") and all its bonds, demands, boundaries, laws. This Jungian alternative offers itself to the idealistic as more enlightened than traditional faith in its simplicity and demands.

At the end of the day, what do we make of this veggy burger, lite, meatless Catholicism? It is hard to say. On this I come down as non-binary: it may not be clearly good or clearly bad. It seems helpful and inspiring for many "on their journey." But anyone who has feasted on the rich wine and meat of Eucharistic Catholicism will find it too watered down.