CATHOLIC MEANDERINGS…
Fiducia Supplicans
I have a few thoughts on the latest Pope Francis document, “Fiducia Supplicans”, granting blessings to homosexual and irregular romantic relationships… Namely, I think that what Pope Francis is doing with the term “blessing” is the same thing done with terms like “grace”, “vocation”, God’s “love”, and human “dignity”, among others—all of which, not uncoincidentally, rear their ugly heads in this document—: they’re all terms that have been expanded to encompass so many phenomena as to lose nearly all of their significance.
An impromptu blessing by a priest is, of course, always and everywhere, done without a moral inventory of the one seeking the blessing… I think Tim Gordon seems to be on to something with the joint- vs. severally- distinction that is nowhere found in this new document, and that constitutes a significant error.
I’m also intrigued by Fr. Gregory Pine’s take that Francis seems to be trying to play a middle position, rebuking the German Bishops seeking liturgical blessings for irregular partnerships, while staving off the other extreme (though unclear what this “extreme” is)… I think that Pope Francis trying to be a moderating force of the leftist impulse in the Church is an attractive idea to a devout, orthodox, perennial and traditional minded Catholic like I see myself as.
To me, however, the real chink in the armor of Fiducia Supplicans is one that goes much deeper, is much more pivotal to the entire argument, and continues to go entirely unrecognized: the insertion of the premise known as “God’s unconditional love”. This phrase, seemingly glossed over by everyone, right and left, is so unspeakably sloppy, and is the fulcrum of the entire argument. (It’s the fulcrum of many of the modern arguments rife with salvific error). As Thomas Aquinas makes clear: God’s love is not reactive, as ours is, looking upon the goodness of another and being drawn to it, desiring to unite ourselves to it (which is the act of “love”, viz. “union”); God’s love is causative of the good in us, and as such, is entirely contrary to the way in which we love. God’s love being unconditional suggests that He looks upon us no matter what the state we are in and is inspired to want to unite Himself to us by what He sees… Oddly enough, this would be weirdly narcissistic of Him to do at all, as He is the cause of everything good in us. No—a better term for God’s love would have to be something like “universal” or “ubiquitous”. God’s love is everywhere, and He is the cause of everything good in us. Everything evil, everything disordered, everything worthy of fault, in us, is of our making, and separates us from God. As St. Prosper puts it (a disciple of St. Augustine in the 5th century), roughly, “God’s love for us is not such as we are, but as we will be through His working in us” (Denzinger, p 75 or 77, at the bottom). I think that this sloppiness around mentions of God’s love—along with His “mercy”, our “dignity” (which, as Thomas so obviously observes is revoked by sin) and related topics such as that of “grace”, and even “vocation”—are where all the rot in our modern Church has crept in. My growing sense is that it will be the clarification of these myriad terms at a formal Bishops council, convoked by the (a future) Pope, in the future—that will anathematize a whole host of propositions around these things, yet to have been formally clarified by the Church to this point in her history, though entirely in line with everything true, everything good, and everything orthodox and perennial in the faith of the Church throughout its entirety—that the Holy Spirit will use to thereby straighten out so many of the errors and waywardnesses in our modern Church. These included.
Cosmic Skeptic
On this same thread I’ve stumbled upon a handful of videos of “Cosmic Skeptic”, aka Alex O’Connor, absolutely slaughtering the likes of Ben Shapiro and Trent Horn (in the videos I’ve seen so far) debating them. I hadn’t heard of Alex before these past few days—Though my British audience, courtesy of the great Will Knowland, may be far more familiar with him… Alex is an atheist that exposes the modern presuppositional errors of contemporary Catholics/religious individuals that have adopted the status quo, post WW2, post-enlightenment, “law of nations”, boomer/modern sensibilities. Speaking with Mr. Shapiro, Mr. O’Connor can’t fathom the oversight of God to not include a prohibition against slavery in His Ten Commandments. To his triumph, Ben Shapiro isn’t quick enough to distinguish that a blanket ban on idolatry is categorically more legitimate as it is graver than any sin of the flesh—or of another person— is or can be. The Ten Commandments perfectly, and systematically, proscribe all the possible categories of offenses one can do against God, or one’s neighbor:
1-3 crimes against God:
Thought Against God
Speech Against God
Action Against God
note: an act of the will is any “word, thought, or deed (action)”, ergo, any act of the will against God is grave matter.
Disobedience of Rightful authorities (familial, civil, or spiritual)
5-8 crimes against persons:
Harm another’s person
note: 6, 7, and 8 entail extensions of a person. 6 & 7 external extensions; 8, psychological extension.
Harm another’s spouse (extension of self)
Harm another’s property
Harm another’s name/reputation
9-10 prohibition against internal movements toward the crimes of 5-8 (specifying those external extensions of a person, #6 & 7)
Desire to cause harm to another’s spouse
Desire to cause harm to another’s property
So we see how the Ten Commandments are hermetically sealed—they are perfect in their systematic expression of crimes against Charity (love of God; love of neighbor). Now where would a prohibition against slavery fit? Where would potentially improper relations toward others fit in? Systematically? Can one person not have a relationship of authority toward another? Can they not have a relationship of economic authority? Can they not have a relationship of spiritual or psychological authority? Can they not have a relationship of moral authority? Is there any form of authority that could be categorically excised, and thereby intrinsically wrong, to be delineated in God’s Commandments?
The answer is of course not! But the real failing of Mr. O’Connor is that he thinks he is more moral than God…
…Ben Shapiro, after being exposed by Mr. O’Connor, goes so far as to invoke the 70+ volumes of the Talmud, each multiple inches thick—according to him—, discussing moral development in the Jewish worldview, to quell the momentum of Mr. O’Connor’s no-holds-barred tarring and feathering of his intellect. R.I.P. Ben Shapiro. Or like a soldier reading off lists of the away-at-war dead to families back home at the dawn of the 20th century: “Ben Shapiro, deceased”.
“Trent Horn, deceased”, is another one.
He could not handle Mr. O’Connor’s “nonresistant non-believer” objection because he couldn’t muster it up in himself to flat out say that there’s no such thing as a nonresistant non-believer. Thomas Aquinas says that if, in the first instant of a person having possession of their faculties of reason (i.e. around age 5 or so) they don’t immediately turn toward God, and hold fast to Him from that point forth, BOOM!, they commit a mortal sin. And of course he’s completely right!
This is what fallen nature means. This is how grave our situation is. This is how desperately we are in TOTAL need of a savior to be right before God.
…So you mean to tell me that someone separated from the grace of the sacraments (an avowed atheist) is going to have the moral acuity to remain in a defacto state-of-grace, making himself worthy of the experiential triscuits of faith, that, albeit, are neither the purpose, nor the proof, of God, that Mr. O’Connor so desperately desires, and all the while just “not believe in God”…? It’s an absurd proposition if you know what you’re really talking about.
Every mortal sin de facto makes you an enemy of God, and if you then become a non-believer, you are by definition a resistant non-believer. It’s not possible to be a nonresistant non-believer. But because Trent Horn doesn’t want to tell him that he, Mr. O’Connor, is not seeking God in earnest (further proof of which, btw, is compounded when all he asks for is that he get to have a momentary, “direct experience of God”… “not even to ask too much of Him (God)”—his words, not mine—… which would be the beatific vision… Um, dude, point blank: you’re not seeking God in earnest.), Trent concedes the whole point to him and gets demolished in the debate. You think you could reject God and not be guilty of a mortal sin?!?! Absolutely inane.
Mr. O’Connor seems to be the divine means of exposing this rot in our modern understanding—and not as if by his (Mr. O’Connor’s) design. He presumes to think he, Mr. O’Connor, is more moral than God—and for some reason, back to Mr. Shapiro, Ben Shapiro concedes this point to him, holding that this modern conception of morality, that categorically proscribes slavery as an intrinsic evil, is indeed greater than that of God’s morality in the Bible, but by way of claiming that this modern, exulted, morality is actually the morality God was bringing us toward all along. What a bunch of insane nonsense this all is…
Suffering, Suffering, Suffering.
At the end of the day, the failing in all the above is a fear of suffering that has led to a misinterpretation of this most central point of the whole Christian faith—and the single greatest delineator of itself from all the other religions in our world—that of the divine ordination of suffering. Fear of suffering has moved people in our day and age to consign suffering to a mere unintended side effect of existence. A “bug” in the system… Something we wish were otherwise than it is… Something God tolerates, but wishes weren’t so… Nothing could be further from the truth! Suffering is not a “bug”, but a “feature”! Up until twenty minutes ago everyone in the Christian world knew, and intuited this… Christianity alone recognizes—explicitly, at that—that suffering is divinely ordained by God. Further, as Thomas Aquinas points out: natural evil comes from God; moral evil comes from man. Most of the “horrific evils” these people speak of are natural evils (cancer, tragedy, disease, death, early death, unwarranted death, etc.)—and they undoubtedly come from God. He doesn’t “wish they were otherwise”: He is the author of them (and all His ways are merciful if viewed through the lens of eternity). And then, as St. Paul’s Letter to the Hebrew’s informs us: it is suffering, which material creation is uniquely subject to, that makes God deign to become man, rather than an angel, as more befitting His nature to endure than otherwise. Suffering, suffering, suffering. Our Churchmen & women have lost their sense of the divine profundity, the holy remedy, the incalculable grace, that suffering is and have tried to abandon it. And with it, they’ve lost the narrative, and they’re losing the Church.
…Therefore—it would make sense that God would send us more suffering that there might be some elect few that would be transformed amidst it all, unto glory. +
Prayer of St. Elisabeth LeSeur (*Servant of God*, technically)
Dear God, grant me sufficient sufferings that I might be conformed to Your image and made to Your glory.
Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, cut off and cast out; every branch that bears fruit, prune, that it might bear more fruit. (Jn 15:2)
Not my will, but Your will be done. (Lk 22:42) +
Thanks AJ!