Catholic Weird

One of the many great things about being Catholic is all the weird stuff. What other religion has stigmata, bilocation, demonic possession and exorcism, incorruption, scientifically verified miracles, locutions, levitation, visions, hermits,  anchorites, consecrated virgins, dark nights of the soul, Marian apparitions, confession/absolution/reparation for sin with the seal of silence, souls in purgatory, indulgences (plenary and partial), particular and and Last judgements,  relics (first, second and third class), bleeding hosts, and other?  Imagine how boring it is to be a universalist, content that everyone is saved! 

How ironic! We have the magisterial intellectual legacies of St. Thomas, Cardinal Newman and Balthasar. And these geniuses all recognize this other stuff that is bizarre, random, frightening, gratuitous, unnatural, illogical, unpredictable, mysterious and awesome.

The institutional Church goes to great lengths to downplay the miraculous. The great mystics warn against fascination with ecstasy; but they do not deny it. Bishops are reluctant to pay any attention to the appearance of the supernatural; but sometimes they cannot avoid it. The Carthusians in Vermont buried a monk of great holiness in their customary way: placing the body directly into the ground without a coffin. They realized the body was not corrupting. They stood over it and prayed for the natural decay lest they be distracted from their rigorous silence and prayer by attention.

I love to teach this stuff to my 6th grade CCD class. They are rightly fascinated! It is an excellent antidote to the deadly monotony of secular, empirical, disenchanted modernity. How flat, fatiguing, arid, and discouraging is the universe of evolution, technology, mechanism, and bureaucracy!

How blessed are we Catholics to live in an enchanted, mysterious, ultimately inexplicable cosmos: in the midst of the dramatic clash of heaven and hell; the invasion of the supernatural when least expected; the horror of pure evil; the splendor of Holiness; the agony and ecstasy of genuine love; the commingling of humility and magnanimity; the stability of gratitude and worship; and the triumph of Hope! Thank God for Catholic Weird!

The Five Realities that Structured 'A Catholic-Boomer's Moral-Political World

 Coming of age in the early 60s as an adolescent with a sensitive, serious conscience, my worldview was structured by five recent and current realities, five "Dominions from Hell": the genocide of the Jews, Soviet Communism, American slavery and Jim Crow, the Axis fascisms, and world hunger and poverty.

The Holocaust.  The deliberate massacre of 6 million innocents, including women and children, because of their ethnic/religious identity, is beyond human comprehension: it is not natural, not human; it is supernaturally evil. This is further confirmed in that it targeted the very people that gave us the scriptures, our Savior, Mary, the apostles, patriarchs, prophets, Pentateuch and first saints. Real antisemitism is more than a political or psychological reality: it is Satanic. Already in high school I learned from Monsignor John Oesterreicher (The Bridge) that Nazi hatred of the Jew was not a development of historic Christian anti-Judaism, but a neo-pagan hatred of the God of the Jews and of Jesus Christ the Jew. This event remains, for me, after the death of Christ and the original sin of Adam and Eve, the most significant and sinful historic event in human history.

Soviet Communism takes second place among the demonic dominions. The decisive geo-political reality of the first 42 years of my life was our conflict with communism. In late adolescence and throughout adulthood I would learn of the failings of Western, democratic, liberal capitalism. But in childhood I learned and still see that communism is a pure form of evil in its hatred of God and systemic destruction of the human person in his freedom, rights and conscience. In that bipolar world, the USA and its allies were never perfect, but always substantially the actor for good against evil.

Slavery in America of Africans, and specifically the deliberate destruction of the black family, rivals the previous two in purity and profundity of evil. Jim Crow, even in my childhood, in our South, continued this legacy. I came of age when the Civil Rights Movement was cresting and it is to the credit of our society that it destroyed this system of evil, due to an aggressive federal government but even more to the virtually unanimous moral consensus of our Judeo-Christian culture. KKK was iconic of this vicious racism but that group despised Jews and Catholics as well so our historic racism was never construed in my mind as a white/black binary. Rather, the fearful, vile racism targeted ethnics, Jews and others as well as blacks. Our Catholic memory of persecution by bigoted WASPs evoked a sympathy for the cause of Martin Luther King.

Poverty and Hunger of the Undeveloped World.  This was, at that time, seen as an evil of a different sort. This suffering around the globe was lamentable, but not clearly due to any human agents. Therefore, this was not a pure, moral and spiritual evil. However, our own newfound prosperity aroused a moral urgency to share our resources and technology to work against this suffering. And so, especially in the early 60s, there was a fervent crusade in the global Catholic Church as well in the USA (Peace Corps, etc.) to share our wealth and help the less privileged. As I read the NY Times "News of the Week in Review" every Sunday I followed two plots: the Cold War and the crusade to assist poor countries (and keep them free of Communism at the same time.)

Axis Imperialist Fascisms of Germany, Italy and Japan had recently been defeated at the time of our childhood. Interestingly, this was not much mentioned. Our uncles and family friends, who had served in that war, never spoke of it. We knew of it more from the movies. But there was an abiding, unspoken sense of pride and honor: in John-Wayne-fashion, our men had defeated these evil empires. It was as if a faint halo of virility, honor and heroism was over them. Never a touch of pride or bravado. Silence and humility. I was born two years after the war: I do not recall derogatory comments about our recent enemies. It was past history. Like last years football championship.... Life moves on. The current opponent was international Communism. It was a regrettable necessity that we were forced to cooperate with authoritarian regimes in that cosmic conflict.

These five evil realities were real to me but quite distant. My immediate world was sheltered from all of the above. Catholic, parochial, patriotic, prosperous, confident, clear, certain, fertile, hopeful, secure...carefree and happy and sheltered by a remarkable network of institutions: large family, strong Church, powerful government, expansive economy, powerful unions that defend workers, the Democratic Party, NATO, and United Nations. And so, if the world had five reigns of terror, we were peaceful and protected by a different Kingdom, one of light and goodness. That world of interlocking, essentially good (however imperfect and flawed) institutions has surrounded me and mine with remarkable peace and prosperity since my birth. 

We seem now to be emerging into a new era, of chaos and violence, more similar to the 1930-40s than 1945. In year of our Lord 2024, approaching 77 years of age, I ask: Does the worldview and ideology of my youth still serve? Or do I need to adjust in view of change? Notwithstanding the monumental, especially technological, change in these years, we clearly are facing the same demons that attacked us in the 1930-40s.

Antisemitism. To my surprise and horror, since Oct. 7, 2023 and the Hamas attack, our world is again invaded, from hell, with a surge of hatred for the Jew. Far more than a compassionate sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinians, in the West, this new expression replaces the racist nationalism of the Nazis with a neo-Marxism, simple and absolute, that sees everywhere and only the oppressor/oppressed binary: white/black, male/female, straight/gay and now Jew/Palestinian. Clearly antisemitism is not the same as anti-Zionism or anti-Judaism; but nor are they entirely detached from each other. The state of Israel and by implicit extension the Jewish people are impersonalized as an embodiment of the despised "powerful." The "woke" paradigm erases all complexity, contingency, and freedom and Hamas becomes the victim and their captives (symbolically) the culprit. With Hamas and Hezbollah we are back with Hitler and Himmler. 

Communism, in its Soviet expression, has simply been replaced by a capitalist-friendly Chinese form that is even more totalitarian in its enhanced technology of control and equally ambitious in its imperialism. We are again in the Cold War.

Racism, decisively renounced by the Civil Rights Movement and the overwhelming consensus of our society in the 1960s, has by some diabolic miracle resurrected itself after 50 years of steady progress in race relations (contemporary with a color blind class/culture of poverty with inordinate black participation) culminating in the presidency of Obama. We face the perverted inverted perversion of "anti-racism," Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory that again erases the person on behalf of an abstract, ideological binary of white-on-black. The spirit of slavery and Jim Crow has now covertly taken over our progressive, godless elites who posture with lawn sides in condescension to the underclass of "deplorables." 

 Global Poverty remains persistent and urgent but has a more complicated, confused nature than what we perceived in the innocence, confidence and positivity of our 1960s prosperity. It is undeniable that global, technological, market economics has lifted millions out of hunger, including in China. We also see more clearly that corporate capitalism, for all its efficiency in the material domain, has a systemically corrosive effect on the family, traditions, faith, morality and authority as it isolates the autonomous individual, inducing a passivity and dependency upon big tech, big state, and big business. That challenge remains but has become more convoluted and difficult.

Fascisms, of nationalist nature, are again resurgent around the globe. The most vile expressions are the totalitarian imperialisms of Russia and Iran; both uncompromisingly evil. However, as in World War II and the Cold War era, other populist nationalism are a more ambiguous, dense mixture of the good and the bad. Think: Brexit, Franco, Trump, Diem, the Shah of Iran, Salazar, Orban and Meloni. These populist movements are in part wholesome reactions against the "totalitarianism of relativism" of the pretentious "enlightened" secular, neo-Marxist elite and protective of the integrity of the family and the gendered person, powerless life, religious liberty and other human freedoms. At the same time they easily lean into ethnocentrism, bigotry and authoritarianism. Often, we have no option but to work with them to minimize the negative and enhance the positive.

Today's world is essentially like the one in which I was raised: we face the same demons. There have been immense changes: fall of the Soviet empire, the rise of Islamic terrorism, developments in technology including weapons of war, environmental damage, bioethical challenges, and the complicated influence of the internet and social media, especially upon our youth. All of these are small compared with the single, defining event of my lifetime: the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. 

This event (from hell, in my view) destroyed the post-war Christian Pax-American Pax of the West and created two opposed cultures: the traditional Christianity of the underclass and the secular, technology-worshipping, sexually-liberated, neo-Marxist progressivism of the elite. We are now effectively two competing  cultures, divided over the nature of the person, gender, sexuality, abortion/euthanasia, authority, faith and freedom. We are now fighting an exhausting Civil War as we face our traditional demons: antisemitism, racism, communism, fascisms, and poverty. Our world today is more dangerous and ominous than at any time since World War II.

I remain a Roman Catholic, a patriotic American, a strong internationalist; even as I am the culture warrior I became in early adulthood. It remains to be seen if we, now a divided and conflicted society ourselves, have the moral vitality our parents demonstrated in their time in the conflict with these five global demons. 

Our call is to fight this battle, on all these fronts, and leave the outcome to God's Providence!

Progress (Modernity), Chaos (Post-Modernity) or Drama (Catholicism)

 Among Balthasar's greatest contributions: announcement of the Dramatic structure of human existence, against competing models of progress and chaos. For him life is always the clash and confrontation of freedoms: our own, God's, the angels and the demons. We are engaged in an ongoing drama, at times tragic and then comic, as each of us personally engages the freedoms of other humans and the domains of heaven and of hell. This is combat, but not chaos. There is movement, in freedom, but no mechanical inevitability as progress. Each of us faces constantly the decision: for life or for death; as did the good and bad angels, our parents Adam and Eve and every spirit, human and angelic, in Creation. This drama reaches climax and conclusion: for each of us at death, for all of Creation with the return of Jesus.

Progress: Modernity

Modernity, starting with the rationalism of the Enlightenment, is built upon the myth or dogma of progress: that humanity is moving forward and upward, into a this-worldly utopia, entirely without the supernatural, through human agency and reason. Three of the four great "masters of suspicion" structure this narrative: Marx, Darwin and Freud. 

Marx took the Hegelian "dialectic" of history, materialized it, and posited an inevitable, inexorable, conflictual  movement into freedom through the revolution of the oppressed against those in power. In the industrial society of his time, Marx asserted the victory of the working class, the proletariat, over the capitalist class. In time, however, this economic model was superseded by the cultural one: the liberation of racial groups, sexual minorities, women and similar groups.  And so, the "arc of history" is always the resistance of those oppressed, their capture of power and liberation.

Darwin's discovery of biological evolution was, of course, exaggerated into a philosophical meta-narrative whereby the human race is developing, not just physically by survival of the fittest, but culturally and spiritually by the advance of science and technology.  This stream of Progressivism replaces the combat model of Marx with the quasi-mechanical, inevitable development of science, reason, and education.  In this story line, human reason, over time, overcomes ignorance, superstition, religion, authority, tradition and so-called-revelation. Gradually but inexorably, human reason and agency attain happiness and liberation from physical vulnerabilities (sickness) and intellectual/spiritual failings (religion).

Not so much Freud, ever the sober realist, but a school of his followers identified human integrity and happiness with liberation from inhibitions of guilt and shame around sex. Here we have the famous "triumph of the therapeutic." This story has human sexuality as inherently wholesome and uncomplicated but violated by societal negativity and repression. Here we have Cultural Liberalism pure and simple.

These three "liberation movements" are distinct but entirely compatible, they work to support each other and together compose the Progressivism that exploded upon the West in the 1960s and has reigned as the hegemonic, elite culture since then.

Post-Modernity: Chaos, Nihilism, Will to Power

Nietzsche, our fourth "master of suspicion," shared with the sober realist Freud an immunity to the illusions of progress. With a depth and clarity of insight that eludes progressives, he saw that the "death of God" brings us no earthly utopia, but "war of all against all"...descent into the abyss of chaos and meaningless, reliance upon the bare, naked human will, and nothing else. He thus resists the systemic optimism of evolutionary theory. His raw religion of power absorbs easily the sexual license of cultural progressivism.  as well as the tribal resentments of cultural Marxism. But he strips these ideologies of all comfort and leaves the sexual libertine and the raging revolutionary both  to face the boundless abyss of despair and meaninglessness. In the long run, Nietzsche is our primary antagonist: brutally honest and real, free of illusion and delusion. 

Balthasar: Catholic Drama

Against the delusional optimism of rationalistic modernity and the despairing-raging irrationality of post-modernity, Balthasar proclaims the Eventful Drama of human salvation and damnation. In an Act of gracious, free, unbounded generosity the Triune-Event-Communion-of-Love CREATED us other free, rational, relational spiritual agents, angels and humans. We, all of us, are engaged in a Drama of Freedom, with each other, with the kingdoms of heaven and of hell. Wounded by earlier exercises of this freedom, we nevertheless engage freely with each other and the two conflicting dominions in decision, combat, collaboration, communion, surrender, agency, assent, reception, donation, affirmation, disobedience, defiance, disbelief, faith, hatred and love.

Conclusion

In today's gospel (John 6;60-9), the disciples complain that Jesus teaching is hard. Many return to their former way of life and no longer walk with him. Jesus asks the twelve: "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter, impetuous-volatile-unreliable-honest, answers: "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."

Each of us, every day, hears this same question! May each of us, whatever our Peter-like failings, answer with such clarity and conviction!

The Vatican Document on Human Dignity

With a sigh of relief, we, the faithful, receive the Vatican's recent document on human dignity: Not too bad!

Cardinal Fernandez is doing a little better with this document. It is, on the whole, a reasonably accurate and fair summary of Catholic thought on this immensely significant reality of human dignity.  

It is a tedious, boring read, like most Church documents, as it mostly quotes earlier statements. Not recommended for leisurely or spiritual reading. It is mercifully short and succinct.  To it's credit it quotes quite a bit from earlier popes, not just Francis. John Allen in his Crux publication has been advertising a theological artificial intelligence that can access thousands of Church documents to address any particular topic. I suspect that that application could produce something like this current document. It is a decent survey. But it lacks the personal touch of charm and inspiration we find in the encyclicals of John Paul and Benedict and even (by some miracle) The Catholic Catechism. It does not carry the fire of the Holy Spirit to inflame us with zeal and courage.

It's strengths:

1. Not once did I read the nauseating "s" word that begins with "syn" and ends with "ality."  Additionally: there are no exhortations "to make a mess;" no defamation of rigid, retro priests; no mention of "accompaniment;" and no blessings of "irregularities." This shows that the Holy Spirit remains with the Church; that the Catholic Church maintains integrity, stability and resilience even in the worst of times; that there are resources of prudence, common sense and intelligence, however under cover, in the scandal-plagued Vatican! 

2. There is a refreshing clarity and intensity in the rejection of gender ideology, surrogate maternity and related issues. The fact that the LGBTQ crusade is so upset with the document, that the Biden White House disagreed with it...these are very good signs.

3. Even more important is the very clear statement about the created nature of the human person as male/female. This is stated with force. It is applied to gender ideology but has obvious implications as well for other hot issues, particularly homosexuality and the masculine priesthood. 

4. It also provides succinct, but very significant explanations of the philosophical and scriptural foundations for human dignity and rights. It alludes frequently to the United Nations statement on rights which asserted such without any solid foundations.  Clearly, one aim to provide such a footing.

Weaknesses:

1. There is no mention of chastity and fidelity  to one's (marital or religious) vows. This is a glaring deficit: personal purity/loyalty are the expression, the protection, the embodiment of dignity. The Sexual Revolution is specifically an assault on chastity as dignity. Yet, the document fails to engage precisely  here.  This failure is emblematic of the Francis Project: first,  to renounce the stern, vigorous, traditional sexual ethos clearly announced by his three predecessors in the face of the Cultural Revolution; second, to avoid agonistic combat and seek peace through surrender to all opponents including Cultural Progressives, Chinese Communists, imperial Russians, and terrorist Islamists. Peace at any price! No war is worth fighting, dying for! No heroic ideal here!

2.  Contraception, masturbation and pornography are not addressed. Pope Paul VI clearly predicted that societal acceptance of contraception would lead quickly to abortion, abuse of women, homosexuality, and the breakdown of the family. This is precisely what happened across the globe, but especially in the West. A culture of sexual sterility requires backup abortion, normalization of "self-abuse" (including its manifestation in homosexual acts), deconstruction of gender, and toxic individualism. Our youth especially are facing a pandemic of pornography and the assault on self-dignity that is lust. 

3. Homosexuality is the thorniest issue for this pontificate. Cardinal Fernandez, in presenting the document, was asked about the language of "disorder" used by the Catechism in regard to the practice. H refused to defend this language, answering that a different word might be preferable but that the act cannot match the infinite beauty of heterosexual ones which bring forth human life. He, Francis and this document lack the charity, clarity and courage to call a sin a sin. (Note the irony that the gay-affirming Catholic group that works to normalize homosexuality calls itself "Dignity.")

4. There is no recognition of the supernatural, the demonic in the global assaults on human dignity. We Catholics know we are dealing with powers greater than ourselves and we will not prevail on our own agency, but only by calling for heavenly intervention. This is a failing coming from the office of doctrine.

5. "Who is the audience for this document?" This question hangs over the document. Coming from the Vatican office of doctrine we would assume it addresses  the Catholic Church, especially bishops, priests, teachers and thinkers. In its foundational affirmations from revelation on the "image of God" there is assumed a Catholic faith or something close to it. At other times, however, as so often with this pontificate, the posture is that of "global chaplain" in giving binding guidance on policy matters like immigration, environmental concerns and other.  This is a creeping clericalism that assumes some vague papal infallibility on matters that are vastly complicated, nuanced, unpredictable and removed from the specific God-given expertise on faith and morals.

6. Unfortunately, this propensity is glaringly evident in the forceful repetition that the death penalty is unacceptable in ALL circumstances. This absolute statement  directly contradicts the unchanging teaching of the Church for many centuries. It was done without any "synodal consultation" by the fiat of Francis. One wonders if the African bishops would agree. The issue is marginal, however, as all Catholic majority and all Western (except the USA) countries have banned it. It is practiced by Communism and Islam, hardly the audiences for this document. 

7. The "seamless garment" model is apparent in the document: a long litany of violations of human dignity are lumped together in a confused way. Key distinctions are not made; priorities are not set. Most troubling is the failure to contrast inherent moral evils which must be absolutely renounced and defeated from complex, ambiguous policy issues which allow difference in prudential judgements. Inherent moral evils that are always and everywhere wrong include: sex trafficking, abortion, genocide, deliberate targeting of civilian populations, torture, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Quite different are those issues which admit of different approaches: hunger, homelessness, medical coverage, immigration, gun control, and crime. The Francis pontificate has been heavily influenced by Cultural Liberalism in its obsession to downgrade the first category (especially those dealing with sexuality and innocent life) as they impose an ideological rigidity regarding the second category. The "seamless garment" approach allows the Vatican to mush all the issues together and thus allow different factions to advocate according to preferences: the cafeteria approach. No one is offended; everyone gets along!

8. The section on war is the worst instance of this confusion and indecision. A nod is given to "the need for self defense and protection" but then the document quotes Francis: "...no war is worth the tears of a mother who has seen her child mutilated or killed; no war is worth the loss of life of even one human being..." Actually, if the Vatican were to ("synodally") consult with the Ukranians or the Israelis they will hear from the vast majority that their war is worth fighting. There are many, many wars worth fighting, dying and killing for. In this world there always will be. This section is not only self-contradictory; not only histrionic, indignant, hysterical;  but it reveals an underlying viewpoint that is naive, sentimental, Chamberlain-esque: that if we are nice to others (Hamas, Putin, Beijing, etc.) they will be nice to us.

Conclusion 

My math shows 8 weaknesses to 4 strengths. Not an outstanding score! But every human statement is prone to limitations and inadequacies. It is a decent, accurate summary of our Catholic view on human dignity. 

May the Holy Spirit protect Pope Francis and his Vatican and guide it into all truth!

Why the Novus Ordo Mass Requires the Latin, Charismatic, Neocatechumenal and an Extravagant Banquet of Devotions

Eucharist: Our almighty, perfect, absolute, everlasting, infinitely Good-True-Beautiful, eventful Trinity...present in a simple rite, a few words and gestures, and elements of bread and wine.  This is incomprehensible for our finite intellects! This is incommensurate with the fragility, finitude, weakness, disorder, instability and sickness of  wills, hearts, intellects, and emotions. The thing is impossible on two levels: objective and subjective. Objectively: no human act, no creaturely reality can fittingly express God. Subjectively: so distracted, inattentive, agitated, restless, compulsive and obsessed are we, in so many ways, that we are incapable of a fitting reception and response. 

Nevertheless, Christ choses to give himself to us...body and soul, humanity and divinity, crucified-and-risen...in these few simple gestures, words and elements. So we, the Catholic Church...the Bride of the Groom, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit...say "yes"..."fiat"..."amen" as we receive, cherish, celebrate, enjoy, protect and share this Incommensurate Mystery!

Subjectively: We hear the words "this is my body...take and eat...in memory of me." We do so...aware that our thankful but weak reception and response are infinitely asymmetrical, incommensurate, and inadequate. We can only pray that over time, by God's grace, we might walk a patient path that honors the encounter...of thanksgiving, receptivity, praise, charity, hope, compassion, zeal, and joy.

Objectively: We receive with filial gratitude, from Mother Church, this miraculous treasure in its humble, earthen vessel. For us: the Novus Ordo, the Vatican II Catholic mass. We painfully recognize that no imaginable rite of words, gestures and things can fittingly represent God. But he himself chooses to come to us in this simplicity, indeed indignity. And we obediently receive, participate, eat, drink and adore.

Novus Ordo form of the mass, universally practiced by the worldwide Roman Church for almost 60 years, is authoritative, efficacious, authentic, and valid. It is also blatantly inadequate...as an expression of the inner form/substance/essence/Mystery of the Eucharistic Reality...in several ways:

- It lacks sense of the sacred, the solemn, the awe-inspiring, the adorable. It is deliberately casual, informal, vernacular, relaxed, ordinary. It discards silence in favor; it replaces altar with table; it prefers the living room to the sanctuary, the chapel, the cathedral. Along with this:

- Aesthetically it is banal, monotonous, philistine. It is low (Protestant) Church and low brow. The  newer Church buildings feel like clean, new, high school gymnasiums. The music is, for the most part, winey-moany-groaney, effeminate, sentimental. (I much prefer the solemnity of Gregorian Chant, the piety of old Catholic hymns, the vigor of charismatic Praise-and-Worship music, and the martial virility of the Neocatechumenate.) Translations emulate the secular and avoid the traditional and ancient.

- Too many words! Too verbal! We sit and listen, non-stop, to prosaic, common-use American English until our minds go dizzy and we get nauseous. There is no break for silence, Latin, crusader zeal, solemn chant, praying in tongues, holy laughter, ecstatic worship. The entire rite is cerebral, white bread, suburban, bourgeois, middle class! Along with this:

- Too priest-centered! Paradoxically, the liturgical movement intended to retrieve a sense of community. What resulted is that we sit and listen to the priest. He reads scripture, gives homily, says almost all the prayers. We sit and listen, like a bunch of hyperactive, high-testosterone junior high boys stuck in the classroom learning poetry from a 75-year-old nun. Worse: priests with a narcissistic trait feel obliged to entertain, to tell jokes, to charm and enchant. And so we endure the annoyance of embracive greetings, personal stories, clapping in Church, and amateur performance.  By contrast: the Latin mass offers: an aura of quiet,  ongoing chant from the choir, incense, a legion of aged altar "boys" moving around in perfect harmony; the Charismatics offer robust music, praying in tongues, prophesies, apostolic preaching, miraculous healings, heartwarming testimonies; the Neocatechumenate offers echoes, admonitions, and crusader music that would stir the heart of an El Cid. In none of these forms is the persona of the clergyman so pervadingly monotonous and oppressive. 

It is not the fault of the priests. Many are humble and holy and find a way to hide themselves and allow Christ to radiate in the liturgy. The problem is systemic. So we see that our Church needs other expressions, other forms to manifest other dimensions of this incomprehensible Mystery.

Latin Mass retrieves that sense of the sacred and the solemn: the unusual language, the calming-prayerful-inspiring chant, the genuflecting-kneeling-reception-on-tongue. It maintains a sense of community with previous generations over the centuries. It is deliberately NOT casual, informal, user-friendly. The priestly action is, of course, the heart of the rite, but it is symphonically complemented by music, incense, many participants around the altar. It is largely non-cerebral and non-verbal and so appeals to the human spirit, senses, emotions as well as the intellect. There is plenty of exercise: standing, sitting, kneeling, genuflecting, sitting, etc. It is even good for the body!

Charismatic Worship, offers similar benefits in a strikingly different style: tongues, prophesies, exuberant music including swaying and lifting of the arms, testimonies. Again: the priest is the center actor, the Alter Christus, as he is surrounded by a superb cast of supporting characters. From the Pentecostals and Evangelicals there is an enhanced reverence for the power of the Word of God.

Neocatechumenal Way even more deeply strengthens the Liturgy of the Word. A small group meets previous to the liturgy to prayerfully, carefully read the three scripture offerings and prepare admonitions or exhortations. After the readings, participants share "echoes" or personal testimonies on how the Word impacts their actual lives. After this, the priest delivers a succinct homily, highlighting the key message. Historically we Catholics have been weak in our reception of the Word. Unhappily, the Liturgy of the Eucharist which follows is not strengthened but weakened in this "Way" as the ancient, received model of solemnity and sacrifice is rejected in favor of a "Passover-meal" model that became fashionable at the time of the Council. 

Eucharistic Devotions are essential to Catholic life for two reasons: objectively no single rite can adequately express the Reality; and subjectively our reception/response at that rite is woefully inadequate and requires an entire way of life, a culture. So, we need: adoration, processions, 40-hour-devotions, frequent visits to Church, holy hours, daily mass, solemn protocols of silence/genuflecting, signs-of-cross, fasting, daily office, rosary and frequent confession. We need to build our personal and social lives around that simple, short daily and weekly liturgical rite.

Pope Francis, tolerant of the charismatics and Neocatechumenate, has brutally repressed the Latin Mass. This is a rash judgement on his part; a huge mistake; a scandal; a narrow, authoritarian repression. One of his very worst decisions. He has crushed a wholesome, salutary and even necessary expression of the Eucharistic Mystery. History will judge him harshly on this.

Pope Benedict will be remembered as the great pope-theologian of the Eucharist. His Spirit of the Eucharist, which echoes in his personal voice the masterpiece of the same title by Romano Guardino, is a classic. He encouraged the Latin Mass as a corrective to the Novus Ordo. He valued the Neocatechumenal Way but directed that they be more integrated into the broader Catholic liturgical practice by attending the ordinary parish liturgy once a month. This was, in my view, a prudent, balanced, corrective pastoral directive. However, Kiko Arguello rejected it as a threat to the integrity of his "   ?   " (way? association? movement? cult?). In this suspicion he shows a fundamental schismatic impulse: a disparagement of ordinary, parish Catholicism. While he does not question the validity of the ordinary mass in the manner of the most extreme, sedevacantist Latins, he clearly devalues ordinary parish worship. He seems to fear that such integration and diminishment of the detached position of his innovative Catholic association will destroy it. To his satisfaction, of course, Benedict resigned and his successor Francis is not so demanding.

To Conclude:  Catholic life is an entire culture, a Eucharistic symphony, that infuses every aspect of life, and finds expression in boundless creativity, richness, and diversity. With Benedict we do well to "catholically" welcome the many valid expressions of the Eucharist, integrating them into the broader ecclesial life, but cherishing each for its distinctive beauty.

The Chiaroscuro of Dark Apocalyptic Times: 1930s and 2020s

 After 75 years of national and (for the most part) global peace and prosperity (1945-2020), we have entered a new, dark, even apocalyptic time: horrendous violence in Ukraine and Gaza, the ominous emergent Chinese Communist Empire, environmental troubles, and domestic politics of unprecedented divisiveness, decadence and discouragement. We seem to be entering a dark era, more similar to the first half of the twentieth century. Consider especially the 1930s:

Worldwide Depression with the accompanying impoverishment, despair, suicides and mental breakdowns; the bookends of two world wars; emergent anti-Christs of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini; fratricide in the Spanish civil war; suppression of Church by the masonic state in Catholic Mexico; Jim Crow and the KKK in control of our South; contempt for poor, urban, Catholic ethnics among the WASP elite of our northern cities.

My maternal grandfather lost his job, suffered a breakdown, attempted suicide, and died mysteriously in an institution, leaving his wife poor with three children. My paternal grandfather, having lost the family diary farm, was unemployed with six children until he got a job with a New Deal program. My oldest uncle, Frank, was a young, emergent labor leader with the UAW, getting beaten up by Henry Ford's union-breaking goons on strike at Edgewater, NJ, and fighting communists for control of the union. Dark days!

At the very same time, we have an alternate reality at work: quietly, humbly, hopefully, anonymously at study/work/prayer: Father Solanus, Brother Andre, Father Maximillian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Karol Wojtyla, Father Leopoldo, and thinkers like Danielou, Congar, Balthasar and DeLubac. 

An even greater radiance comes when we consider women quietly in service and prayer: Faustina, Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Dorothy Day, Catherine Dougherty, Katherine Drexel, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Caryll Houselander, Adrienne von Speyr, Elizabeth Anscombe, Raisa Maritain, Josephine Bakhita, and Etty Hillesum.

Our time, like that decade ninety years ago, is one of chiaroscuro: a cosmic, apocalyptic clash of the dark and the light. In the darkness, the light shines all the more.

May we consider these quiet, radiant flames of faith and hope. May we emulate them and bring that warmth, clarity, light and encouragement now to our world!

 

Glamour

In the USA it is spelled "glamor" 12 % of the time. In England, they spell it "glamour" 97% of the time. My daughter uses the word "jazzy" which means "bright, colorful, showy." Dictionaries define glamor as pleasing, attractive, appealing, alluring, often entailing good looks and charm. That misses the mark.

The many synonyms for "beauty" all have distinct connotations: cute, pretty, lovely, elegant, glamorous, gorgeous and so many more.

Beauty is the most generic term and is normally defined in our subjectivist culture as pleasing to the observer. But a realistic philosophy will see it as objective, even as received by the subject: it is a perfection of the form, the thing or being, a radiance and harmony from an interior, mysterious integrity. So, in boundless analogy, we know the beauty of a poem, woman, rose, symphony, mathematical equation, or baseball double play. They are beautiful in entirely different ways but all are perfect expressions of their kind, in a distinctive, indeed miraculous radiance, harmony and integrity. It is this objective reality that pleases the observer.

Cute is beauty as petite, precious, endearing, fragile, vulnerable, non-intimidating. It evokes delight as tender, protective and nurturing.

Pretty implies beautiful and therefore pleasing in a moderate degree, without intensity, depth or exaggeration. It resembles "cute" in its modesty, temperance, and lack of pretense. We speak of a pretty girl and a cute child.

Lovely is "beauty" but with more emphasis upon the interior, spiritual aspects. A "lovely" woman is beautiful especially in dimensions of modesty, simplicity, generosity, dignity, graciousness. 

Elegance is very similar to "lovely" in the sense of quality, style, dignity. It suggests again simplicity and modesty with a sense of  culture and artistic worth; again free from ostentation and pretense. It can be defined as "artful enhancement of beauty."

Gorgeous is an intensification of the subjective delight, similar to words like "spectacular," "striking, "splendid" or "marvelous;" but not indicative of any specific objective reality.

Glory or Splendor is beauty as absolute, infinite, transcendent, supernatural. It describes God. Yet the Divine Absolute Beauty is manifest in created loveliness at its highest.  

Glamour I will define as:  artificial exaggeration of feminine attractiveness.

Glamour can be contrasted with elegance.  The first is artificial, the second artful; the first an exaggeration, the second an enhancement; the first is overstated, the second is understated; the first ostentatious and pretentious, the second modest and simple.

Is glamour bad, of its nature? In baptism, we renounce the "glamor of evil." So is glamor itself evil? Not necessarily. At its best, it is a form of play: ironic, purposefully overstated, tongue-in-cheek. For example, little girls play at being glamorous using their mother's makeup, high heels and so forth. It is innocent and harmless. Something similar happens when adult women go glamourous, on an occasional and celebrative event:  prom, weddings, and girls night. They intentionally accentuate their feminine attractiveness, in a protected and wholesome setting, with bright red lipstick, heavy makeup, striking hair styling, tight-colorful-revealing dresses and so forth. This is fun, celebration and play...in itself wholesome and good.

Can men be glamorous? No, glamour is inherently feminine. If a red-blooded male is looking at the magazine Glamour, he is not seeing the styles but the female models. Glamour involves an essential element of vanity, of awareness of one's own beauty. A modest degree of vanity is proper for the woman but contradictory of virility. True, men dress up for the Kentucky derby in a play/ceremonial manner with color, hats, bowties and such. It is playful, costume-like,  lighthearted. Note that in weddings men traditionally all wear the same thing: tuxedo or suit. There is a monotony here. The male identity and vocation is to direct his strength, gently, for the protection, provision and affirmation of women, children and all that is good-true-beautiful in the community. So narcissistic self-regard is unmanly. We see this in traditional expressions like fop, dandy, glamour boy. With the deconstruction of gender and amnesia about the form of masculinity, we have new terms which redefine such anti-masculinity as a mere question of taste. So, we have had the metrosexual, the urban, sophisticated hetero-male concerned with style, fashion, and appearance. More recently we have the spornosexual who combines "sport" with "porn" in a narcissistic obsession with his own body as muscled, sculpted and tanned: "Do you lift, Bro?" 

Drag Queen is, of course, the epitome of male glamour. Here we have a male costumed in a caricature of feminine glamour in cartoonish exaggeration. Previously, in traditional gender-normal society, the sight of a man dressed and acting like a woman was entirely ridiculous and therefore hilarious: Some Like it Hot, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire. Here again we have comedy, play, irony, dissonance. The drag queen phenomenon is not so light and comical: it is more serious and therefore tragic, toxic and disordered. The real drag queen is renouncing his own virility and doing so by a contemptuous display of faux-femininity. It is an insult to the man and the woman .It is neither fun nor innocent. It is inappropriate for library story hour.

Feminine Vocation involves beauty, inherently. In her own person, appearance, style, demeanor the woman manifests beauty as comforting, encouraging, inspiring, iconic, nurturing, healing, delightful and sanctifying. Beyond her person she attends to the immediate environment: home, garden, grooming and dressing of the family especially the young, elderly, and the males. She is endowed, by nature and culture, with a sensitivity, an intuition, a spontaneous taste for what is good, true, beautiful, proper, delicate, and vulnerable. It is entirely coherent with this vocation and identity for the woman to be aware of her own appearance, to groom herself properly, as she does the same for those around her and her world. 

One of my daughters spent a good portion of her 13th summer monitoring, before our full-length mirror, the development of her physique. I found it to be delightful and wholesome as she was developing into a beautiful woman and properly aware of it. Were my son to do the same in spornosexual fashion, I would have disapproved. Yes...there is a double standard here. 

Another daughter, beautiful in a statuesque, athletic fashion came home late from a softball game with 12 minutes to prepare for the prom. She did her shower, hair, makeup, jewelry, and dress within 12 minutes. She was stunning; but not glamorous. 

My 99-year old mother still went to daily mass and groomed herself elegantly: dress, makeup, hair and so forth. A good touch of glamour. Not overdone. Age did not diminish her sense for beauty.

Women Dress for Women.  As a male, I assumed for many years that women dress to be attractive to men. As a son, husband, brother to six sisters and father to five daughters, I finally got it: women dress for women. They are not thinking about men. For girls night out, they all dress up; get silly; drink and eat freely; dance; joke and laugh. It is true: girls just want to have fun! It can be wholesome, innocent, playful, mutually delightful. But it can be competitive and demeaning. Women compare themselves to each other; they rate themselves against each other. In this they can inflate themselves in vanity but much more frequently (I observe) demean themselves as inferior.

Trophy Wife. Here, as in many things, exhibit A is former President Donald Trump. If men are not really glamorous, their machismo, celebrity and status can be enhanced by the trophy or glamorous wife. Melania is the most glamorous woman I can think of off the top of my head. She is naturally gorgeous with more than a touch of elegance and taste. In contrast to other former presidents (Clinton, Kennedy) her glamor-beauty seems not to arouse desire, much less affection, reverence or gratitude in her mate. Rather, she seems to function for him (like the horses in the patriarchy of Barbie's  Ken) as a "male enhancer," to increase his prestige as a powerful, admired man.

Glamour as Distance, Illusion, Frustration. My argument here is largely, but not entirely, anti-glamour because of how I experience feminine glamour. For most of my adult life, I experienced a normal degree of masculine insecurity, but more than average attraction to women. And so I encountered the glamourous woman as fascinating, attractive, alluring, but also as unavailable, distant, goddess-like and therefore frustrating and saddening. For those like myself, the glamor girl (as with romantic and erotic longing in general) seems to be a painful rehearsal of the oedipal loss: the desired, the pleasurable is denied, is distant and out of touch, is unavailable. This is saddening, discouraging, and dark. I am not suggesting that the glamor girl intends this (although that is a possibility), but that is simply the common experience of some of us men. It contrasts with the engagement with woman as close, sisterly, friend, partner, comforter, healer, nurturer. It contrasts, negatively,  with masculine experience of the feminine as filial, spousal, sororal, maternal, convivial, companionable. 

Glamour Magazine embodies the ideal of progressive femininity in the post-cultural-revolution utopia: beautiful, glamorous, affluent, bourgeois, educated, anti-patriarchal, independent of men, liberal, accomplished, sexually-romantically unrestrained by traditions and faith, contraception-addicted, divorce-and- abortion-friendly. It is woman as NOT innocent, childlike, spousal, maternal, Marian, religious, poor-chaste-obedient, sacrificial, modest, humble.

Barbie the doll is a glamorous toy for girls. As such it is arguably innocent and childlike. Barbie the movie is a brilliant, hilarious, ironic spoof of the doll, feminism, glamour, and the weakening of masculinity into timidity and toxic, macho patriarchy. It is humor and irony at its best. It is itself...writing, jokes, acting, music, color, playful glamor...a thing of beauty!

Illusion and fantasy is a dimension of glamor. It intends a surreal, quasi godlike grandeur that is fascinating, mesmerizing, and intoxicating. It is used, therefore, by evil to seduce and deceive. But in the correct context it is not necessarily evil. 

Taylor Swift is "girl-power-glamor." She is a new kind of diva. "Diva" (from the Italian for goddess) describes the stereotypical opera star: dramatic, gorgeous, exaggerated, fascinating, larger than life. Taylor is clearly not a pin-up; not a fantasy of male lust. She has about her an aura of girlish energy, innocence and wholesomeness. She operates, as in the Barbie movie, in a girl-only world. Tons of girls, all in pink, (including my unabashedly "swifty" granddaughters) happily, vicariously participating in the joyous, uninhibited spontaneity of being a girl.

This brings to mind the father-daughter dances I would attend when my daughters were in high school. The girls were all dressed to the nines:  gorgeous! The only men there: us fathers. It was a moderately boring night; we would sit at the tables and talk. But the girls were running around the place in small groups, dancing together, singing, laughing. Entirely oblivious of the fathers and of men in general. Girls really do want to have fun!

To Conclude:  Glamor is the artful, artificial enhancement and exaggeration of feminine beauty. It is in part fantasy, illusion, fascination. It can be used to seduce and deceive for evil intents. However as play, irony, comedy, art, celebration it can be delightful and wholesome. At its best and in the right order it can be a glimmer, however distant and faint, of the Glory of Heaven.