I'll take God's Chihuahuas over the Black Sheep Dog Any Day!

Take a look at this…

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2011/06/major-announcement-we-are-gods.html

This is a great parody of the hypocrisy of Fr John Corapi. I feel for him facing the accusations he has, I believe him when he says they are totally unfounded, but I have absolutely no respect for his decision to leave the priesthood.

His decision to leave the priesthood is offensive to all faithful Catholics who have ever had to struggle through difficult times in their marriage, or put up with the persecutions and humiliations doled out by heretical Bishops such as the patron of this site and their modernist clergy. He can no more leave the priesthood than I can stop being the father of my children. I pray for him that when his head stops spinning it is facing the front once again (and he has gotten rid of that ridiculous dye in his beard), and encourage you to pray for him too.

Sadly I believe that he will discover fairly quickly that most of those people who were willing to pay to hear him preach were not interested in him so much as Christ. John Corapi has little to offer the world, whereas Fr Corapi had Christ.

He could confect the Eucharist for God’s sake. Who in their right mind, or state of grace, would walk away from that?

 

Free Love or Freedom

The Australian Constitution is a remarkable document. It does not have the inspirational quality or literary finesse of the U.S. Constitution. It has no “we the people” or self-evident truths, but it is a remarkable document none the less. What is truly remarkable about the Australian constitution is that for the most part and for most people it works. In fact it works so well, it is so unobtrusive that we don’t have to think about it. Australians do not feel a need to remind ourselves that we are a free nation or to assert our freedom as if to convince other nations how free we are.

Our remarkable constitution protects us all, under the law, from persecution and ensures that each of us is free to live where we like and be employed in any way we choose. We are also free to practice our religion and espouse our religious beliefs without fear or favour. Article 116 of the constitution states:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.[1]

In fact this article of our remarkable constitution is so well formulated that no religious person or body needs to seek any further protection in the exercise of their rights as would be provided under a national charter of rights.

In his Valetine’s Day feature “Faiths rule on sex from staffroom to bedroom” for the Sydney Morning Herald, David Marr is critical of the Catholic Church and various other religious bodies for their opposition to the adoption of a National Charter of Rights. He is also cranky that religious groups are seeking exemption from federal government planed extensions to federal anti-discrimination laws in order to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.

This is not surprising, however, as David Marr is a homosexual activist and sometime journalist frequently critical of religion and Christianity in particular. Twice listed as one of Australia’s most influential gay and lesbian Australians[2], Marr makes no secret of his contempt for Christianity, especially its traditional moral teaching on sexuality[3].

The move to extend anti-discrimination laws to cover sexual orientation and for the adoption of a national charter of rights are not an attempt to strengthen our freedoms under our remarkable constitution, but rather to curtail it, and further the objectives of an increasingly militant GLBT lobby. Religious leaders in states that have recently adopted similar charters of rights have found themselves facing hate crime charges[4] for preaching against homosexual practices.

For thousands of years and in almost every global religion and culture, sodomy and homosexual practices have been looked upon with disgust and shame yet in only one generation since moral relativism was widely introduced by the sexual revolution, homosexual activists such as Marr are now claiming the moral high ground and condemning the Churches for their attempt to maintain the right to govern themselves and their institutions with the autonomy guaranteed under the constitution.

Marr complains about a Church’s right to discriminate in the hiring of staff particularly when they are delivering services for a public authority. As such, he claims, they should not be able to discriminate according to their beliefs in the selection of staff. In Britain he argues:

“when the churches are doing the work of the state, they have to obey secular rules of fairness. That's not so in Australia. Though public money is their lifeblood, church schools and hospitals in this country remain free to pick and choose staff according to the rules of religion”

Religious schools and hospitals were run in this country without access to public money for an awful long time before the Goulbourn School strike of 1962. David Marr may have forgotten the standard of equipment and facilities in Catholic Schools prior to Bishop Cullinane’s School strike. Before that, non-state schools received no Federal funding despite educating about one third of Australians. The government was happy to take the taxes of parents who chose to send their children to non-government schools but they were not so keen to put any of those tax dollars towards those schools.

Bishop Cullinane of Goulburn, a country diocese that took in the ACT decided to enact a strike and closed his schools forcing his entire enrolment of students to enrol in the NSW state and federal ACT schools swamping the system. The point was made, education is not the work of the state alone and funding should be given to all schools fairly and equitably.

Marr’s assertion that Church run schools and hospitals are doing the work of the state is worrisome. The history of the last century is littered with examples showing that whenever a state attempted to exclusively take over the education of children, the result was dictatorship as in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It was the Church, not the state, who established the first schools and hospitals as we know them today.

It is a dictatorship of ideas and sexual permissiveness that David Marr wants to promote with his attack on the Churches. The Churches he claims are bigoted, cruel and hateful[5].  Anyone who attempts to defend the Church or its teaching is labelled intolerant, lacking in respect and a homophobe. Yet it seems that it is the homosexual activists like Marr who are intolerant. Either you accept their particular morality and all its consequences or you are a bigot, hateful and cruel and they refuse to discuss your belief because they “have no patience… anymore.[6]”

The Catholic Church acknowledges her many faults, we are all sinners after all. None of us are perfect, but we do not need to accept our imperfection as a fait accompli. Sex and sexuality are inherently good, and have a dignity higher than the sexually permissive and morally relative would have us believe.

The hedonistic cry of the 60’s “if it feels good, do it” is fundamentally flawed because it fails to recognise that as imperfect creatures our feelings can be, and frequently are wrong. Sexuality is not a toy to be played with whenever we are bored or aroused.

Sexuality is the cement that holds the most basic unit of society, the family, together. Not sex, per se, but sexuality. The complimentary natures of husband and wife who work together with all the beautiful and complimentary differences that men and women have, to raise a family and the next generation of citizens is at the heart of a correct understanding of marriage and sexuality.

Any action that lessens or cheapens the glory of sex and sexuality is fundamentally flawed, and will only result in contributing to the further break down of society. The Church condemns the act of sex outside of marriage because it waters down that cement that holds the family together. Humans are not slaves to their urges or instincts, we are able to rise above our broken nature. Christians are commanded to love the sinner but hate the sin, and in this regard the Church does more than any state or other organisation to support single mothers, orphaned children, treat people suffering from HIV/AIDS, educate the poor and heal the sick and destitute. The Church consistently backs up its teaching with action.

Those people who refuse to accept that what they do is sinful, such as active homosexuals, the sexually permissive and promiscuous are free to reject the Church’s teaching, and can still avail themselves of Church run services.

To expect those who hold relativistic and permissive philosophies which are specifically rejected by the Church to be employed as representatives of that body whose moral teachings they reject is insane. To expect the Government to intervene and force Churches to do so is to abandon the freedoms guaranteed by our remarkable constitution and begin down the short road to dictatorship and tyranny.

Bibliography

Parliament of Australia – The Australian Constitution.  [9th July 1900] © Commonwealth of Australia http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/general/constitution/index.htm (Last reviewed 21 May 2003)

Australian Women Online http://www.australianwomenonline.com/the-25-most-influential-gay-and-lesbian-australians-for-2008/  [Accessed 17/06/2011]

John Dixon, (June 2011) Ethos - Homosexuality: A New Conversation http://www.ea.org.au/Ethos/Engage-Mail/Homosexuality-A-New-Conversation.aspx [Accessed 17/06/2011]

David Cloud  - Way of Life Literature (Web Site 23/6/08) http://www.wayoflife.org/files/706fe196bc5dd6068bb1a96eefc8b4be-109.html [Accessed 20/06/2011]

 

---

[1] An Act to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia.  [9th July 1900] http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/general/constitution/chapter5.htm

[2] Australian Women Online http://www.australianwomenonline.com/the-25-most-influential-gay-and-lesbian-australians-for-2008/  [Accessed 17/06/2011]

[3] John Dixon, (June 2011) Ethos - Homosexuality: A New Conversation http://www.ea.org.au/Ethos/Engage-Mail/Homosexuality-A-New-Conversation.aspx [Accessed 17/06/2011]

[4] David Cloud  - Way of Life Literature (Web Site 23/6/08) http://www.wayoflife.org/files/706fe196bc5dd6068bb1a96eefc8b4be-109.html  [Accessed 20/06/2011]

[5] Dixon. J. op cit.

[6] Ibid.

Rupture and Reform

Over thirty years ago James Hitchcock wrote

“In the postconciliar period the dimming of the sense of eternity, of the Church as mediator between two worlds, was paralleled by a drifting away from many of these traditions – in doctrine, in liturgy, in morality, in structure because they were irreformably predicated upon belief in the Church as a supernatural institution. Reformers who began with the intention of remaining respectful of the past soon found this impossible, given their belief in the essentially temporal mission of the Church; the traditions could scarcely bear such reinterpretation without violence to their fabric. Conversely, the lessening of the authority of the traditions also meant that the eternal dimension of the Church became less and less intelligible, since the very language through which it could be expressed was lacking.”

(Catholicism and Modernity: Confrontation or Capitulation?, p. 15)

The validity of his assertion that one effect of the post-conciliar period has been a dimming of the sense of the eternal, is obvious in the modern Church. It could even be argued that in many parts of the Church a view to the eternal has been almost entirely lost. A confused form of eschatology has developed within some sectors of the Church, arguing that if God is a loving parent he would never condemn us to an eternal punishment for our temporal disobedience[1]. This idea or variations of it are widely found throughout the Church with the result being that many believe God will not hold us to account for our sins and transgressions. We would need to be guilty of only a few very grave sins, such as genocide to warrant eternal punishment. Over the years a few sins have been added to this list, such as intolerance or homophobia, but on the whole there are usually no eternal consequences for our sins as long as we try to be nice and good.

This of course is complete garbage and does not stand up to serious theological or philosophical scrutiny, but ideas such as this rarely are put under any significant scrutiny, with the result being that Catholics stop thinking about their final end because it has been assured and there is little they can do to change it. The Church then is no longer seen as a divinely instituted organism, the channel of grace and necessary means of our salvation, but rather is viewed as an organisation whose primary role is to engender and encourage the promotion of justice and peace in the world.

This is but one example of the confusion and controversy that has swept the Church in the wake of Vatican II. The enthusiasm of the reformers was so strong that many of them were carried away by a tide of change that in reality had little to do with the teachings of the Council.

We live in an exciting time of uncertainty in the Church, some would say a time of crisis like no other. A struggle of ideas is taking place for the right to authoritatively interpret the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. While the claims of a crisis are not overstated, it is certainly not unique in the history of the Church. When making his assessment of the difficulties experienced by the Church in her attempts to implement the teachings of the Council, Pope Benedict XVI noted that such crises had been the experience of the Church after other councils[2]. At the same time Benedict identified two competing views of the Council, each with its own hermeneutic or key to unlock the true meaning of the council documents.

Anyone who has held even a superficial interest into the workings of the Church since the Council would be able to identify a dichotomy of interpretations of the Council. There exists a constant struggle between those who hold these interpretations, and conversations about the changes will inevitably yield up words like old and new, conservative and liberal, traditional and progressive, pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II, orthodox and modernist. Benedict has attempted to classify these contradictory positions in terms of the hermeneutic they use to interpret the council[3]. He identifies a hermeneutic of reform which maintains that Vatican II is part of the organic development of the Church and maintains conformity to and continuity with the teaching of the Church throughout history. The second hermeneutic he identifies is a hermeneutic of discontinuity or rupture that views the Council either explicitly or implicitly as a new beginning or change in direction for the church. The former teachings, liturgy and practice of the church had been superseded by Vatican II[4].

The Seeds of Rupture

The Second Vatican Council was unique in the life of the Church, in that it was not called at a time of crisis in the Church, in order to confront error, clarify a point of doctrine or settle a dispute within the Church. This council was not intended to modify or change Church Doctrine and belief but to guard it, to take “a step forward toward a doctrinal penetration and a formation of consciousness in faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought.”[5] The council was called to “bring up to date” the methods of evangelisation and to respond to a world that had changed significantly in its political structures and technological advancements.

Unlike former councils of the Church, the Fathers of the council relied heavily on the attending periti (expert theologians) to advise them on the detail of proposals in the working documents. In fact the theologians became so influential that they became in a real sense the teachers of even the Bishops.[6]

The enthusiasm of the periti engendered by the council spread quickly among other theologians, priests, religious and laity alike, and this continued after the council. “Theologians increasingly felt themselves to be the true teachers of the Church and even of the bishops.”[7] Discovered by the media, the theologian became the expert and the Magisterium, and especially the Vatican, began to be seen as antiquated and medieval in the eyes of the world.[8] The superiority and veracity of the theologian was assumed, and objections by the Magisterium or appeals to its authority were often met with ridicule or analogous references to the Galileo controversy. This negative view of the Vatican or anyone who questioned the expertise of the theologians was assisted by appeals to Pope John XXIII’s opening speech to the Council. They took out of context his references to “prophets of gloom” who were worried about the nature, timing and possible outcomes of the council.[9]

Rupture

The enthusiasm for reform quickly became an expectation of change that began to pervade the Church. The call to update the Church and to engage the modern world soon became in the minds of many, a call to change the Church and accommodate the modern world. The first significant evidence of this came in 1968 with the promulgation of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on Human Life, Humanae Vitae. Theologians, academics, priests and religious protested its continuation of the Church’s moral teaching against the use of contraceptives to regulate the conception of children.

A committee of experts had recommended that Pope Paul change the Church’s teaching and he didn’t. Who did he think he was, defying the experts? In many parts of the world, in the West in particular, the laity were counselled that while the Church “teaches” that contraception is wrong, Vatican II says that there is a primacy of conscience, so if you feel in your conscience that you should use contraception, then you can without being guilty of any sin. Hence the uptake of “the Pill” has been the same among Catholics as it has been among others despite the Church’s ban.[10]

The dissent from Humanae Vitae was widespread and even some national Episcopal Conferences dissented from it.[11] A culture of dissent quickly grew among theologians and individuals who began to dissent not only from the moral teachings but also from long settled doctrinal teachings of the Church. Theologians who had led the council changed their understanding of the Church and its ecclesiology.[12]

The beginning had been made of what Avery Dulles came to identify in the dissenting positions of the Catholic Theological Society of America as a “kind of alternative magisterium for dissatisfied Catholics.”[13]  Those theologians, Bishops, priests, religious and laity who embraced the culture of dissent believed that the documents of Vatican II were a result of compromise and did not fully reflect the true intentions of the Council Fathers and it was thus up to them to keep alive the Spirit of Vatican II,[14] even if no one could clearly state the objectives or ends to which this “spirit” was moving.

Reform

The Second Vatican Council has given the Church much to digest and, when properly interpreted according to its word rather than a vague “spirit”, the tools we need to go out into the world and bring the Gospel to all men. Many, though certainly not all, have in the name of progress and the Council, run blindly into the world chanting for change and they have only been successful really in causing confusion and slowing the real task of the council. They still attempt to justify dissent[15], or claim that the Pope does not properly understand the teaching of the council and the vocation of theologians.[16] Yet by identifying the hermeneutic of rupture and the hermeneutic of continuity the Holy Father has given the Church the tool necessary to sift the chaff from the wheat.

The generation of dissent is aging as they has largely been unable to inspire young people to take up their call to continue the revolution. This failure is contrasted with the huge success of World Youth Days held around the world which has enabled the Church to engage the culture in a meaningful way. Young Catholics are being challenged by an Orthodox message of faith and they find it both convincing and compelling. Through these modern tools and a greater use of the media and new technologies, the Magisterium is increasingly able to sidestep the remaining theologians and inspire, instruct, and educate people as the fathers of the Council intended.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity has largely run its course, it has caused much damage to the body of Christ and the faith of those raised within its influence but it is increasingly losing traction in the minds of a smaller and younger generation of theologians, priests, Bishops, religious and laity. Increasingly theologians or Bishops and priests will run to the media to dissent from certain teachings, but fewer and fewer Mass going Catholics are paying any attention to them. Their public dissent is more and more looking like, what the author of three interview based books on Pope Benedict XVI has called, a rebellion in a nursing home.[17] 

 

---

[1] Linn, D., Linn, S.F., Linn, M. Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God  (Mahwah, N.J., Paulist Press, 1994)

[2] Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia Offering them His Christmas Greetings, (22 December, 2005) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia_en.html [retrieved from the Vatican Web Site – 6^th June, 2011] 

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] John XXIII, Address on the occasion of the solemn opening of the Most Holy Council, (11 October, 1962) http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/teach/v2open.htm  [retrieved from Our Lady's Warriors – 6^th June, 2011]

[6] Ratzinger, J., The Nature and Mission of Theology, (San Francisco, Ignatius Press 1995) [Kindle Edition retrieved from Amazon, May 2011] Location #1,192.

[7] Ibid., Location #1,195

[8] Ibid.

[9] John XXIII op. cit. (A good example of this is found at the site www.vatican2voice.org)

[10] Shea, L., Catholic Church Birth Control  from the site Lisa Shea / Naturalist,  (Copyright  © 2011 Minerva WebWorks LLC), http://www.lisashea.com/lisabase/aboutme/birthcontrol.html [retrieved 8th June 2011] 

[11] The Bishops of Canada, CANADIAN BISHOPS' STATEMENT ON THE ENCYCLICAL "HUMANAE VITAE'' (Winnipeg, Canada - 27 September, 1968) http://web.archive.org/web/20080514023803/http://www.catholic-legate.com/articles/winnipeg.html [retrieved 9th June 2011]

[12] Messori, V. & Ratzinger, J. The Ratzinger Report (San Francisco, Ignatius Press 1985) p.18

[13] Dulles, A., Donovan, M.A., Steinfels, P. How Catholic Is the CTSA? Three Views - Commonweal. Volume: 125. Issue: 6. (Publication Date: March 27, 1998.)

[14] Benedict XVI, op cit.

[15] Curran, C., A Place for Dissent: My argument with Joseph Ratzinger – Commonweal (Publication Date: May 6, 2005) ) http://smu.edu/newsinfo/excerpts/curran-spring2005.html [retrieved 7^th June 2011]

[16] McBrien, R., Interpreting Vatican II – (Copyright ©2007 Richard P. McBrien) Voice of the Faithful of Long Island website, http://www.votf-li.org/interpret.html [retrieved 6^th June 2011]

[17] Luxmore, J. Theologians' dissent a 'rebellion in a nursing home' Catholic News Service, Reprinted in the Perth Record 16^th February, 2011

The Cost of Global Warming

I found a site that helped me put the enormity of the Global Warming crisis in to context… I suggest you take a look.

 

A Complete List of Things Caused by Global Warming

 

It is chilling to think that the 0.006 degree Celsius per year increase in temperature will make billions homeless, cause beer to become simultaneously better and worse, cause cancer, drive crocodiles from the water, cause jellyfish to explode (read it how you want),  wreck the US Masters Golf tournament, and then there are the poor old Polar Bears… If they survive the earthquakes and the planet slowing down and spinning faster at the same time then they will and will not face extinction (along with apes, cod and the smallest butterfly), then they will have fewer cubs, go deaf, turn to cannibalism and drown. No wonder they are going to become aggressive.

 

The only thing I know is, it is going to cost a lot more to survive once they bring the carbon tax in. Maybe that is what will make us homeless?

An old letter I found....

This is a letter I wrote to Bishop Morris back in April 2002. I sent it to an Australian Catholic Journal where a cut down version of it was published as an article in June of that year. It is still relevant today though now we have a Bishop in Rome who is willing to do something….

 

My Lord Bishop Morris,

 

I believe there is a real need in the Church today for us all to stop, look at where we have come from, look at where we are, and try and determine if we are going where we are meant to. I think that this process, if it is adopted by our Bishops, will be a very difficult road to follow. For some it may be painful, for others a vindication, but it is necessary if we are to heal the deep wounds that exist in our Church and move forward together with Christ our Head.

 

About the same time I was born, cries for change began to be heard in the Church. Vatican II had recently ended, a new rite of Mass had been instituted and many young people in the Church (excited by the societal changes of the sexual revolution and the anti-war movement) had a real hope and expectation of revolutionary change. For many the release of Humanae Vitae dashed these hopes. The release of Humanae Vitae was a watershed for open dissent and revolt in the Church. Thousands were disillusioned and left the Church, others feared that the Church was losing it’s relevance to the world, and especially to the young.

 

As a result I grew up in a Church that was in a constant state of change and that was always seeking new ways to become “relevant”. The quest for relevance seemed to ignore the long history of the Church that provided numerous proofs of the simple fact that if the doctrines of the Faith were presented to people logically, coherently, and with faith, they were quite capable of inspiring, enlightening, enthusing and converting, even to the extent that all types of people, young, old, educated and simple were willing to die rather than be untrue to the Faith.

 

In the minds of many Humanae Vitae had “proved” that the Pope was not infallible. A fallible Church led by a fallible Pope had little or nothing to offer “the world”, and would soon pass into insignificance. The solution as they saw it was to change, to become relevant. After all wasn’t that what Vatican II had told us to do? And if Vatican II didn’t say that specifically, surely that was the “spirit of Vatican II”.

 

One of the other things I noticed was that while the Church was becoming more “relevant” the pews were emptying slowly. The fact that less people were attending the local parish, was not seen as a direct correlation to attempts to become relevant, but rather that “Rome” had said something embarrassing that would drag the Church back to the unenlightened pre-Vatican II days or even the “Dark Ages”.

 

As children, my contemporaries and I were not taught the tenets of the faith in schools beyond the most basic and vague. We were not specifically taught that in communion we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ because at such a young age we apparently were not “able to grasp the concepts properly”. We were just told that it was “special bread” because that was more relevant.

 

As a teenager I recall that lessons about the faith and morality did not consist of an apologetic lesson of what the Church believes, why and the basis for that belief, but rather “this is the topic, what do you think?”. I attended Toowoomba’s Catholic Schools for 13 years in the 70’s and 80’s, I was involved in youth groups that were deemed successful, I even attended the Provincial Seminary at Banyo for a year in the late 80’s, yet when I turned 19 I did not know the Apostle’s Creed. I knew of it, but I didn’t know it. Mum and Dad assumed that I would learn it at school like they did, and the school system didn’t believe that it was relevant to me as a youth.

 

By the end of the 80’s and in the early 90’s the some intellectuals and leaders in the Australian Church had become “prophets”. If the Church was to become really relevant we needed reassess the power structures. Firstly, the whole top down theology was wrong. The Humanae Vitae thing had proved infallibility to be a myth so the idea of the Divine selection of a Pope who appointed Bishops who in turn ordained priests was wrong. We needed a Democratic model of “Church”. After all “we are Church”, we are the power base. The spirit of Vatican II lives in us so therefore we should be consulted at the very least about appointments of new Bishops or priests.

 

While these “prophets” were busy trying to fix the problems in the Church an “injustice” was identified that had to be fixed. If this could be fixed the Church would not only become “relevant” but it would finally attain “credibility”. Apparently everyone knew that Jesus was a simple uneducated Jewish Carpenter who had no idea He was God (so much for omniscience). He set in place a structure of “Church” that was not offensive to the people of His day, that’s why He didn’t have any women priests (we are talking about the same Jesus who didn’t want to offend anyone so much that they crucified Him, not to mention His inoffensive followers who were crucified, beheaded and thrown to the lions). Surely if He were here today, Jesus would see how truly advanced we are and He would let us have women priests. But that “Old Pole” won’t. It always bothered me as a youth and young man to hear the lack of respect and reverence our teachers and priests had for the Holy Father.

 

In a final attempt to prove just how prophetic they are, our new “prophets” predict, “but the next Pope will” let us have our way. These “prophets” are delusional enough to believe that a future Pope will contradict the doctrinal and moral teachings of all his predecessors, even to the point of correcting Jesus’ own “mistakes”. Heck, some of them even want the Church to be so relevant that it doesn’t even preach Christ, they would prefer if we preached the doctrine of “the great goddess”, or the “light bearer” (why does that name sound ominously familiar?).

 

The biggest problem in the Church today is that in the quest to become relevant, we gave up everything that is true. We gave up Christ, we gave up everything that is worth dying for. The reason the “youth” do not believe is primarily that they do not know what to believe in. We have given up being the Church Militant, in the futile quest to become the Church relevant. Relevant to what?

 

If the dogmatic claims of the Catholic Church are true, if the Church was founded by Christ, if the sacraments were instituted by Him as a sure source of Grace, if Jesus is God, if He did indeed come to save us from sin and eternal death, if He truly rose from the dead, then the Church’s relevance to us is eternal, we need look no further than the authoritative teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 

If any of those claims are not true, however, then none of it is true and the quest for relevance is not only futile but foolish. When is a lie relevant?

 

My generation and those that have followed mine have been short changed. I wish I knew how many times I have heard a contemporary of mine ask upon hearing a doctrine of the Church explained for the first time, “Why weren’t we ever told this?” The simple fact is we were never told the Truth, because people in the Church didn’t think it was relevant. We were force fed a diet of lollies that made most of us sick, and no one ever bothered to tell us about the meat and potatoes of Catholic Doctrine.

 

Much has been made in recent times of the Stolen Generations, and rightly so, but when will my and subsequent generations of Catholics receive our apology from the Church for having our faith stolen from us because someone didn’t think it was relevant?

 

 

Most Sincerely

 

 

 

The Theology of Hope

Christian Hope

To the Christian, Hope is not an option. It is, in fact, one of those elements at the core of what it means to be a Christian. When writing to the Corinthians, St Paul gave a wonderful treatise on the Christian life. In a chapter often heard at weddings because of the profuse use of the word “love” he provides a wonderful meditation on the character of Christ and a challenge to the Christian.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13:4-13)

Faced with this text the Christian must ask himself, am I patient and kind or am I jealous or boastful, arrogant or rude? Do I insist on my own way? Am I irritable or resentful? Do I rejoice in what is wrong or what is right? Do I bear all things? Do I believe all the Church teaches? Do I hope in all of the promises of the Gospel? Do I endure all temptations to sin and doubt?

This meditation is able to bring the Christian clarity as each question is rhetorical and need only be answered interiorly. We know that God is love[1] and we, with our fallen nature are incapable of living up to the demands of faith, but we also know that “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth”[2] and so, what is impossible for us on our own, becomes possible through Christ who lives within us[3]. 

The life we live now as Christians, imperfect though it is, is the life of Faith and Hope in Love. The life we hope for is the life of Love in its purest form. The Christian has no need for harps or clouds, for the heaven that we hope for is not a relentless millennia upon millennia of life bound to time as we know it. It is, rather, rather a rapturous and ecstatic moment which endures out of time where we are held in an enveloping, beatific embrace with pure Love Himself. This is what we were made for. This is what each soul yearns for, though we can no longer articulate it because our ability to understand the needs of the soul was damaged by original sin. 

The Object of our Hope

There is an innate desire in each of us that drives much of our life. Left to ourselves this desire is unable to be named or explicitly known. We do not know how to satisfy it, and we try all kinds of ways to do just that, but we always know, in our heart of hearts that it remains unfulfilled. We seek it in our loves and passions. We look to fill it in our family and friends, our spouse, our hobbies and our work. Each of these things do in some way satisfy a need and provide us with some happiness, but they do not, individually or collectively, fulfil that fundamental desire that each of us harbours in the depths of our soul. That desire is the one lasting thing in our lives, and it is the only thing that will remain with us at the moment of death.[4]

The human’s fear of death arises not so much in its finality, but is rather a fear that this most innate desire will remain unfulfilled. As death approaches our soul cries out, “Isn’t there something more?” We were made for something, but it is elusive and unattainable in this life. The Christian has the grace of knowing that it is the intimate union with Divine Love that we desire. This knowledge gives his heart Joy and his soul contentment. He knows that as long as he is willing to stop trying to fulfil his innate hunger with other things like sex or wealth or power, as long as he embraces the life of divine love, he has the assurance of attaining that secret desire for which he was made.

The Christian is asked to become a sign of contradiction[5], a grain of wheat that dies[6] so it may gain a new life.  We are being asked to give up the quest of self. We are asked to put ourselves in the lowest place at the table[7], to not seek our own honour or the gratification of our every desire. We are asked to humble ourselves[8], to repent of our sins[9], to pick up our cross[10], to make ourselves holy[11] and perfect[12], to love our neighbour[13] and our enemies[14] and in return we are given an assurance that the innermost desire of our soul will be perfectly fulfilled. God has made each of us for Himself, and “and our hearts are restless until they rest in” Him[15].

Each of us has been custom moulded to fit that place that Christ has prepared for us in heaven[16]. Nothing else will satisfy our innate desire for love. If we try to fit other love into that place with God then like a stone in a shoe it will have to be removed before we can ever be happy. No other love can satisfy us or will satisfy us. We are asked give up all loves that would take the place reserved for Divine Love. The hope of the Christian then is based on the assurance that we will be truly satisfied and our soul need never cry out “isn’t there more?” for we already have the emphatic answer “Yes!”  At the moment of death, the Christian soul cries out “I desire Devine Love!”

The Consequence of our Hope

Hope itself does not sustain us in our own love which tends towards that Divine Love for which we long. Unfortunately, humans have become fickle creatures. We were not made that way, but because of the original sin our natures are wounded and we are inclined to be ignorant, we tend towards evil, we are weak willed and prone to concupiscence.[17] We need to constantly battle with ourselves to live as we ought.[18]  If hope is the assurance of our future union with Divine Love, then faith is the means of attaining that for which we hope. But hope and faith are insufficient to sustain love. Rather it is love that sustains our faith and hope, this is why St Paul finishes his meditation on the Christian life [cited above] with “So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Only by cultivating a relationship with Divine Love revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ, are we able to grow in faith, increase our hope and perfect our love. Each one of us is called to a vocation of love with love. We must turn our gaze away from ourselves, away from the obsession of our unknown innate desire, and look outwards to love others, neighbour and God. The Christian echoes the words of St John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”[19]

It is in sustaining this outward view, that the Christian encounters the world around him. In looking to Christ he sees the poor, the blind, the hungry and the lame. The widow and the orphan become other Christs for him to love, and his love compels him to tend to their needs. He looks at strangers not as rivals to compete with but as souls to love; souls to whom he can introduce Love himself. His Love feeds his faith, because it provides tangible evidence of the Divine Love in whom he has faith. His hope grows stronger because he knows that the promise of Divine Love has begun to be fulfilled here and now.

The Christian is compelled by the love that fuels his hope and faith to go out into the world and perform good works, works of mercy, compassion and charity. These works are done not as acts of philanthropy (i.e. to find a sense of personal fulfilment, or as a form of self-aggrandizement), but rather as acts of self-less love and even worship. The Christian tries to bring the face of Christ to those he helps, that they might know the unconditional love that God is and offers. But he also finds Christ in the faces of those he helps which enables him to love all the more.

This synergy between faith and hope bears fruit in the Christian community, and has been a positive force for the advancement of the world for nearly two thousand years. The charity and compassion towards the sick and poor (both Christian and non-Christian) is one of the defining marks of the Christian. Even the enemies of the Church such as Lucian (AD 130-200), Julian the Apostate (c. AD 360), and Martin Luther admit that it is this generous charity and compassion that sets the Church apart from all other groups[20].

The Hope of Christians has not only fed the poor and hungry of many generations, but has been this same hope that has given the world hospitals[21], schools and the university system[22], numerous scientific advances[23], the recognition of equality under the law[24] and many basic assumptions we have in our Western morality[25].

The Loss of Christian Hope

When we lose our hope there are several negative consequences both for ourselves and society. The loss of hope does not necessarily lead one to despair or make one pessimistic about the future, but it does turn our gaze inward once again. We become somewhat narcissistic, looking to gratify ourselves with fun and pleasure and good feelings. Our personal morality slips as we no longer accept the objective truth of faith, or the personified Truth that is Jesus Christ[26]. As we slowly embrace relativism, we become practically (if not overtly) less convinced of the equality of all men and an innate human dignity. Our esteem for others falters and we become more concerned with our own self-esteem.

We may continue to help the poor and hungry, but we look at them more with pity than compassion, or as a means of fulfilling a need for people to think well of us. When lose the hope of an eternity of perfect fulfilment, we begin to seek new ways to satisfy our every desire in this life. Those around me are no longer companions, fellow pilgrims on the road towards our true home, but they can become a means for me to satisfy my needs and urges.

A utilitarian worldview becomes predominant, and the primary question in a society without hope becomes “What is in it for me?” Employees become seen merely as a resource in the production process. Sex becomes inconsequential and fornication common place. The demand for respect and rights increases at the same time that fundamental rights and institutions become reviled. We live in a society that is characterised by a loss of Christian Hope and despite our technological and scientific advancements we are still asking that fundamental question as we draw our last breath, “Isn’t there something more?” The Christian knows the answer to that question, Christ is our hope.

 

---

[1] 1 Jn 4:8

[2] Ps 124:8

[3] Gal 2:20

[4] Lewis, C.S., Made for Heaven: and why on Earth it Matters. (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005) cf. pp.16-20

[5] Lk 2:34

[6] Jn 12:24

[7] Lk 14:10

[8] Mt 18:4, 23:12, Lk 14:11, 18:14, James 4:10, 1 Pet 5:6

[9] Mt 3:2, 4:17, Mk 1:15, Lk 13:3,5, Acts 2:38, 3:19, 8:22

[10] Mt 10:38, 16:24, Mk 8:34, Lk 9:23

[11] 1 Pet 1:15

[12] Mt 5:48

[13] Mt 19:19, 22:39, Mk 12:31

[14] Mt 5:44, Lk 6:27, 35

[15] St Augustine, Confessions,  Penguin Classics Series (London: Penguin, 1961) Book I, 1

[16] Jn 14:3

[17] St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, (Electronic Ed, Coyote Canyon Press) (Downloaded April 2011) [I-II, Q. 85, Art.]

[18] Rom 7:15

[19] Jn 3:30

[20] Woods, Jr. Thomas E., How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, [Washington: Regnery Publishing Inc. 2005] pp.180-181

[21] ibid, p.176

[22] ibid, p.47

[23] ibid, cf. pp.67-114

[24] ibid, p.151

[25] ibid, cf. pp.201-215

[26] Jn 14:6

Sacking a Bishop

Last night the ABC's Compass program ran a story on the Sacking of Bishop Morris (Here is the link). I have an awful lot to say about this program, Bishop Morris and his defenders in the media and in Toowoomba. I have not said anything till now because of study, essay writing and exams. But in a few short weeks I will have to time to vent.....

 

till then.