A Permanent "Vacation From the Church"

The Non Catholic Rundown has an obituary for the late Richard McBrien. Oddly, I was just thinking about him last week, wondering, as I thought about how often I attend a Mass where I must damp down always too often smoldering anger at the disrespect and Solipsism with which liturgical ritual is treated, why he had not pooped up on my radar of late.
He had been very ill for a number of years and moved away from his power base.

Prayers going up for his soul; he was responsible for on of the most evil pieces of advice I had ever read in a Catholish periodical from someone entitled to wear a roman collar.

I boiled down to: your church makes you sad? stop going until someone there makes you happy.

Got that?

The woman poured out her frustrations, saying that the pastor had taken the parish back to a church that she knows nothing about...
In my reply, I wrote: “No, you are not simply to ‘get used to it’. Parishioners need to go elsewhere...
If there are no parishes or other worshipping communities in the vicinity where the pastoral leadership is healthy rather than driven by a narrow ideology, then one simply has to ‘take a vacation’ from the church until the skies finally clear and we are bathed in sunlight once again.” 

How perfect for members of the I'm-Spiritual-But-Not-Religious denomination.....

Actually, it's a kind of Donatism, isn't it? You'd think someone with a "knowledge of [the Church's] history" would know that.... unless he really didn't believe in the sacraments, as a source of supernatural grace.

Which I hope was not true.

May the angels lead him into Paradise....

The Meaning of "Myth"

Speaking of martyrdom and myths, have you noticed that the meaning of the word "myth" has changed?

There's that Notre Dame professor, for instance, whose subject matter is actually martyrs in the early Church, (when the subject isn't, quit your fussing and pay for my birth control, which in her mind is a related topic.)

Well, you know, as a professor, she must be very smart, so if she has decided to redefine "myth" to mean, well, yeah, true, but not as bad as you're making it out to be...." we should take heed, right?

Other instances of this new usage of "myth" are to discredit reports of protesters chanting “What do we want? Dead cops!”, since other reporting had erroneously claimed that protesters were chanting "kill a cop," when they were actually referring to murderous police as "kill-ER cops."

Similarly, if you disagree on the causes of climate change, or the degree to which blame for it can be laid at various doors, you can refer to the whole dang thing as a "myth."

"You told me not to hit him, you didn't say I couldn't kick him"

I, who have always been a bit of a sneak and given to casuistry even before I knew the word, have always realized that for the most part, laws and regulations and precepts, like parental rules, are not usually articulated until someone realizes that alas! there are among ones citizens, employees, adherents or small children, those for whom NOTHING "goes without saying."

So, yeah, I probably said those exact words to my Mother or Father more than once growing up.
"Well, you didn't say...."

The Winking Catholics over at the register, or rather, the poor, put-upon Catholic school teachers of Cincinnati they are trying to support, kinda remind me of me. "Well, when I said I was a practicing Catholic and signed a contract, the contract didn't actually say I couldn't..."

What? What??!?#?$%???
The most important aspect of a Catholic school is to pass on the faith???!?!??
We have a ministerial and catechetical function?
When I function as a representative of the Church's teachings I'm supposed to act that way, too, as if I actually believe what the Church teaches?

A silly spokesman for the archdiocese said "the contract doesn’t require anything the archdiocese didn’t already expect of teachers."
Oh, the archdiocese assumed people knew.

"Hey, it only says tie and jacket required."

What You Oughta Know, according to the Pope Emeritus

I am probably the last one who would be interested in this to learn of it, but John Allen wrote a gem of a... well, it is hardly a book, more of a pamphlet,  back in 2007, that is well worth any Catholic's time, 10 Things Pope Benedict Wants You To Know

The ten things are, or perhaps should be, obvious to any inquiring Catholic, but they are profound, nonetheless, (Well done, as almost always, Mr Allen!) and a good synthesis, as far as I can tell with my limited knowledge, of the enormous outpouring of works of theological (and pedagogical!)  genius produced by this future Doctor of the Church.

They are that God is Love, that Jesus is Lord, that Truth and Freedom as well as Faith and Reason are complementary, that the Eucharist is the heart of the of our Christian lives, that Christianity is a positive message, (No! You mean that contrary to everything we've heard from the secular media that idea wasn't just  invented in the past year???? next you're going to try to convince me that Benedict has occasionally kissed a baby, or even smiled!!!!)that the Church should stay out of politics but MUST inform consciences, including those of politicians, that so-called "Catholic identity" does matter whatever the Winking Catholics might say,that Christ and His Church cannot be looked at as anything but inseparable, and that we must be patient. As the Father has always been. Anyway, good, good stuff.

One of the most striking aspects of Benedict XVI's papacy has been how determined he is to phrase his message in a positive key. To take one example, when the Holy Father visited Spain in July 2006, many expected a dramatic showdown with the Socialist government of Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose left-wing government has done battle with the Church on a variety of fronts: gay marriage, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, and public funding for Catholic schools. Many Catholics expected fire and brimstone from the pope. Instead, he was doggedly positive, concentrating on the Christian fundamentals, never directly engaging any of the issues that have divided Church and state.

Later, some German TV reporters asked Benedict what had happened. It's worth listening to his reply in full:

Christianity, Catholicism, isn't a collection of prohibitions: it's a positive option. It's very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today. We've heard so much about what is not allowed that now it's time to say: we have a positive idea to offer, [emphasis added] that man and woman are made for each other, that the scale of sexuality, eros, agape, indicates the level of love and it's in this way that marriage develops, first of all, as a joyful and blessing-filled counter between a man and a woman, and then the family, that guarantees continuity among generations and through which generations are reconciled to each other and even cultures can meet. So, firstly it's important to stress what we want. Secondly, we can also see why we don't want something. I believe we need to see and reflect on the fact that it's not a Catholic invention that man and woman are made for each other, so that humanity can go on living: all cultures know this.

I have been trying to explain to my CCD kids that hurdles and sections of guard rail look pretty much the same...

It is not just in America that we have "Winking Catholics"

Great Britain, in fact, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales seems to be loaded with'em.
Although Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth stated in an interview that denying Communion to someone engaged publicly in grave sin is an “act of mercy” and a “medicinal” remedy for Catholics, and that "when people are not in communion with the Catholic Church on such a central thing as the value of life of the unborn child and also in terms of the teachings of the church on marriage and family life – they are voting in favor of same-sex marriage – then they shouldn’t be receiving Holy Communion,” those bishops without chests hastened to reassure British pols that no, no, they had no intention of acting on the beliefs of the Church.... you know, as if they actually held them.

'Cause you see, receiving communion isn't an act of ultimate intimacy with our Lord Jesus Christ Who gives His Body and Blood for us for Catholics..... nah, it's more like sharing rubber chicken with the other Rotarians, and even some guests who aren't Rotarians, and in fact, think organizations like the Rotarians are kinda silly, and maybe even wrong about some things.

So it really doesn't matter what you do, or what you believe.

"I believe in.... no, no, not REALLY, it's just something we say!"

Some time ago I observed a group of catechumens, all of whom had been attending sessions for a minimum of four months, under the guidance of a Winking Catholic.
(You know the type, a transcript would reveal unimpeachable explication of magisterial teaching, so there would be no hints of the eye-rolling, smirking and finger quotes sketched in the air that accompanied the words to assure the newbies that, nah, we Catholics don't really believe that.)
Anyway, the degree to which said WC had communicated the splendour of truth to the catechumens can be gauged by one of them suddenly waking up and saying, "Wait a minute.... you're talking about Jesus as if he was God or somethin'."

There was an incident about which I was not going to write, had I not read about all the Winking Catholics with whom the poor teachers and clergy of the Diocese of Charlotte must deal.
I prepared a little more carefully for the CCD class on Matrimony than I had on any of the other sacraments, because I knew what a minefield it could be.
I actually wrote out talking points to make certain that I phrased things in positive rather than negative ways, (e.g., relationship of man and woman a permanent symbol of relationship of Christ and Church, rather than condemnation of homosexual relationships, which some in this age group would have no understanding of anyway, or discussion of decrees of nullity, ditto); that I used examples and pronouns in such a way that no one could feel personally attacked, judged, described;  that my statements were utterly in keeping with what the Church teaches -- but most of all, I planned several different iterations of the principles that unless the Blessed Mother pops in, everyone in the room is a sinner and that while sinful actions may be observed and even at times judged, ONLY God knows the heart and passes judgement on persons.
I had it better phrased than that, honest...
Anyway, the minefield was intensified by several children who asked, repeatedly over the course of the hour and a half, about divorce. There are enough students for whom I have multiple home phone numbers that I guessed there were probably irregular situations, but I was actually more worried because there are students with close relatives in open same-sex relationships.

None of this seemed to be an issue, however.

Phew.

Then every teacher in the program was sent a letter, thanks, we know it's a difficult and important job, but you need to teach your classes what the Church teaches, and we have resources to help you do exactly that, and if you can't, we thank you again but good-bye.

And because of that class I decide I must actually go to the priest who wrote the letter and ask, is it I? and was it on this subject?
Because it would not have completely surprised me completely if we had to revisit part of that lesson.

But no, everyone's quite pleased with how that week went, and there have been no letters from home.

Weeks pass.

Then a father arrives, can I speak to you in the hall, my kid says you said, I'll show you my marriage license, why did you ask him if....

Anyway, I was glad to be able to use the NYTimes blogging teacher line about, I promise not to believe every thing your kid tells me happens at home if you promise not to believe every word he tells you about what happened in class.

Anyway, all straightened out, and actually, in  conversation the two of us were able to discern what was really going on -- all of his closest friends parent's are divorced, ALL of them, and several very recently and every time anyone raises a voice the child becomes terrified that that are going to divorce, and maybe they aren't "really" married.

This guy seems to be doing a really good job not just of of living the Faith, but of trying to pass it on to his children.

Which is a WHOLE lot better than the You-Can't-Teach-My-Kid-That-Catholic-Stuff that seems to be going on elsewhere, particularly at Charlotte Catholic High School.

And to those parents, I would like to say what I said to some children in a parochial school choir I directed, when they all came in one week complaining that their parents had been upset by telling them that they were obligated to get their kids to Mass every Sunday, "I'm footing the bill for you to go to that school, they don't tell me what to do, I tell them."

Your parents are wrong. They pay less than 40 percent of what it costs for you to go to school here, and I and the little old ladies on fixed incomes and the young couples who don't have any children yet, who put money in the collection basket every week foot the bill for you to go to this school, and we are only doing that because we care that you are being brought up to be a good, faithful, practicing Catholic. If your parents just want an inexpensive alternative to a private school, I'm not going to subsidize it, and apparently the pastor and principal agree with me. Please tell your parents that.