Read this editorial from the National Chismatic Reporter (NCR) first and then read my comments at the end. I think this actually hits the nail on the head apart from the gratuitous negative broadside of the most wonderful Archbishop Charles Chaput and his conservatives.
An archbishop’s right-wing funk
Charles J. Reid Jr. | Aug. 17, 2013
Viewpoint
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put into words the anxiety many right-wing Catholics must be feeling at the extraordinary popularity Pope Francis has been enjoying. In an interview with John L. Allen Jr. on NCRonline.org, Chaput, speaking on behalf of his conservative followers, said that members of the right wing of the Catholic church “generally have not been really happy about his election.” The pope, Chaput stated, will “have to care for them, too.”
What worries Chaput in particular is the sudden interest in the new pope from unfamiliar quarters. Practicing Catholics love the pope, of course, “but they’re not actually the ones who really talk to me about the new pope. The ones who do are nonpracticing Catholics or people who aren’t Catholic or not even Christian.” And why should this be so? Chaput has his suspicions: Yes, these outsiders are thrilled by the new pope’s friendliness and his warmth, but “I think they would prefer a church that wouldn’t have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine.”
Wow. Where do we start? We could talk about the parable of the prodigal son, since Chaput truly sounds a great deal like the adventuresome young man’s older brother, the one who stayed home and toiled with his father and grew resentful when the old man slew the fatted calf upon his brother’s return. Or we could talk about the shepherd who rejoiced over finding his lost sheep.
But let’s focus instead on what it means to be an evangelical church. For some time now, decades really, the church has been turning in upon itself. This is most especially noticeable in conservative circles. The culture is seen as hostile. The ambient culture is “pagan,” to use Chaput’s description. Indeed, he has even called some Catholics pagan in their approach to the faith.
But shouting “pagan, pagan” is no way to win souls. And this is evidenced by even the briefest consideration of Catholic membership statistics. Catholic membership has grown in Africa, but it has lost members in Latin America to more enthusiastic forms of evangelical Protestantism. And in the United States, Catholic membership would be in decline were it not buoyed by immigration.
The right wing’s favored response to these dismal trends is to blame the left. But the right wing needs to know that it has controlled the church hierarchy for some three decades now. It is the right wing that must look in the mirror. A stricter form of boundary police will not attract outsiders; it will repel them. Indeed, it has.
Francis has gotten the message and the tone just right. Jesus, after all, came not for the saved but for the sinners. He dined with tax collectors. He routinely and frequently forgave prostitutes. He was followed in his evangelizing by women who did not come from respectable homes. He promised the water of eternal life to a woman who was even then living out of wedlock.
The new evangelization about which so many on the Catholic right speak is not about new and better forms of border security. It is about the imitatio Christi -- the imitation of Christ. Like Christ, Francis means to be evangelical, and that means finding people where Christ found them -- in desperate shape, in need of forgiveness and love -- and offering them hope.
MY COMMENTS: On another post I told the orthodox Catholics to take a "chill pill" concerning Pope Francis because the heterodox are trying desperately to make us think that Pope Francis is heterodox. Of course he isn't; he's Catholic!
The editorial above does this precisely, but it also says: What worries Chaput in particular is the sudden interest in the new pope from unfamiliar quarters. Practicing Catholics love the pope, of course, “but they’re not actually the ones who really talk to me about the new pope. The ones who do are nonpracticing Catholics or people who aren’t Catholic or not even Christian.”
Then he takes Archbishop Chaput out of context and quotes the good archbishop: “I think they would prefer a church that wouldn’t have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine.”
But this is the direct quote of Archbishop Chaput to John Allen's question: How do you explain the enthusiasm beyond the usual suspects?
I don't know how to interpret it, quite honestly. I think part of it is genuine appreciation for the pope's extraordinary friendliness and transparency. But also, I think they would prefer a church that wouldn't have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine, and they somehow interpret the pope's openness and friendliness as being less concerned about those things. I certainly don't think that's true. I think he's a truly Catholic man in every sense of the word, but I think people are hoping that he'll be less concerned about the issues that separate us today.
Archbishop Chaput upholds what is turning out to be true, Pope Francis is Catholic! The Holy Father calls himself a "son of the Church" and in the context of his pastoral statement on gay priests/Catholics, he refers everyone to the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a more nuanced teaching. In other words on that flight with pagan reporters he hooks them on his pastoral savvy and then refers them to the Catechism. How brilliant is that? Isn't that what parishes should do? We must show the love of Christ for pagans and sinners and then in our catechesis refer them to the Scriptures, Tradition and Natural Law of the Church as we become the means by which God's grace can call them to conversion, repentance and reform and renewal!
Pope Francis must be understood in the context of Jesus' and His ministry which now occurs through us, through the Church. We are to go to the periphery, (and this doesn't mean just the financially poor, uneducated or street people) but to the pagans and sinners, the spiritually sick and dying and let them know of the love of God and His Son's sacrifice which make possible the gift of eternal life as one lives out one's holiness in the true Church!
The NCR editorial gets it right in the last two paragraphs but forgets that conservatives don't disagree with it, what they disagree with is not making clear what sin is to those we evangelize, but trusting in God to work with the sinner in God's time to bring about repentance and true belief in God as revealed by the Magisterium of the Church, the pope and bishops in union with him and to include all popes and bishops when they teach the truth!
Being pastoral is the "worm, hook, line and sinker" of evangelization, which Pope Francis knows very well, but being evangelistic once the fish is hooked is to feed them the truth, the very hard truth, about God, about sin and evil and about the Church being necessary for the salvation of anyone's body and soul; that hell is real too if one knows the truth about God and about oneself and chooses with full consent of the will to reject the Church and her Magisterium.
If we make racists, adulterers and fornicators Catholic by our evangelization and yet do not call them to renounce racism, adultery and fornication, to renounce the falsehoods and false gods of their lives, like materialism and hedonism, what good is the new evangelization and those who love the pope but not the truth? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but good intentions must always lead to the true God and His true Church and the truth about conversion, repentance, reconciliation and the call to live holy lives as the Catholic Church teaches us how to do this!
23 comments:
"But the right wing needs to know that it has controlled the church hierarchy for some three decades now."
He can't be serious.
If the "right wing" truly had controlled the hierarchy, we might have had a hierarchy that would have stopped the freefall in vocations, Mass attendance, dissent and sexual abuse by clergy. A true "right wing" Catholic bishop would have insisted on orthodoxy in his diocese. Except for a couple of bishops in Nebraska (where vocations continue to flourish) most of America's bishops have tolerated EVERYTHING. Oh sure, if some wayward priest gets too vocal in challenging the Church on some moral issue the Vatican might occasionally step in as a last resort, but other than that, the Church has been in a state of chaos.
Somebod is very confused here.
What strikes me more than anything about this editorial piece, is the extreme ameropolitical lens through which the author views the church. It's almost like you have democrats and republicans campaigning for Pope. As I read "but conservatives have controlled the Vatican for 30 years" I struggle to understand what that even means. Did John Paul II get elected democrat then switch his flag some how?
So WHO are all of these "right-wing"k bishops that controlled the Church in recent years anyway?
Was Cardinal Bernardin a secret right-winger?
How about Cardinal "musical parishes" Law?
Cardinal Mahony? You remember, the Cardinal who tried to change the Mass with "We Gather Faithfully Together?"
Maybe it was the Hawaiian bishop, Ferrario, who tried to excommunicate six people for attending an SSPX mass?
Could it be the previous two archbishops of San Francisco who have turned their heads at local Catholic politicians who support abortion rights and homosexual "rights"?
Maybe he means the current archbishop of Los Angeles, who permits a heresy-fest called The Religious Education Congress and seems capable of only speaking out on immigration rights.
Are these the right-wingers that have controlled our Church?
That last paragraph, Father, is the exact reason I have found my patience slowly eroding away for those who suggest sin is an acceptable thing in our lives.
My background is an awful one, and looking back I don't want want anyone telling me it was "okay" to be the way I once was. To do so is to ignore the harm that comes from many of the sins we commit—even if those sins seem minor.
Regarding "“I think they would prefer a church that wouldn't have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine.”
I have heard, repeatedly, with my own ears, priests who grossly misrepresented the faith, repeatedly, on major points of doctrine, to these prodigals in settings like RCIA. Birth control is fine. The Mass is hocus pocus. We will definitely have women priests soon. You don't need to go to confession. Etc. Some of these same priests castigated those who showed a belief in the established doctrines.
Priests of this sort are trying to accomplish in fact what the "Reformers" claimed was accomplished by Constantine and the pagans: a pagan corruption of the Church. So yes, I'm going to keep saying "pagan, pagan." The Church can't evangelize anyone if she compromises her beliefs and teachings--or, if she does, that evangelization will be worthless at best and damning at worst.
Chaput is right to worry. Those who see this development as a good thing (including those who think the Church has been under the control of "conservatives," whatever they mean by that word) are either delusional or enemies of the Church.
The type of evangelization that is allowing this is, at best, dysfunctional.
What really struck me about this post was the line "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". It seems to me that 90% of the homilies I have heard in the past couple decades have been "all we really need are good intentions, and we will have God's glory and salvation".
I wonder if one of the biggest problems for the Church in our times will be the forced politicization? I mean, being forced to view the Church solely through the prism of modern political labels is one of the tactics His enemies used against our Lord. It is easier for man to qualify things with these labels, but we should reject them for the same reasons our Lord rejected them - the Church is a mystical Body that surpasses such labels. When we let those outside the Mystical Body impress these labels, we thereby let them dictate the terms of the conversation. And by making that conversation purely political, that is worldly, we are bound to lose in the eyes of the world because the world will reject us.
Furthermore, we mustn't fall into the same trap as the media, who see everything the Pope and bishops do as exemplary for the Church. We have seen the damage this labeling causes in the fallout from the sexual abuse crisis. As the laity, we have to assert that we are just as much the Church as the priests, bishops, and Pope. This is precisely the point of evangelization - demonstrating this reality while submitting in obedience. But, we cannot hang on every word and action of the Pope since, to borrow from our social teaching, we believe in subsidiarity: the local parish and the domestic Church are the locales of our salvation - with those around us to whom were evangelize by actions and well-placed words. If we really want to be traditional, to be authentically Catholic, we probably need to pay more attention to supporting our local priest than analyzing the Pope. We are in communion with Pope because our local priest is ordained by a bishop who is in communion with the Pope. I think this is actually one of the lessons from Vatican II that might be legitimately applied...
This is a ploy. Because the last three Popes all believe in God, the Incarnation, the Real presence, and the bodily resurrection of Christ, they are called "right wing." Thus, if the hierarchy=Pope, then yeah. But, this is the ploy. It can hardly be said that the USCCB and other Bishops Conferences around the globe are conservative. The Left wants us to think the "right wing" controls the Church...to placate conservatives and stir up Leftists. What pure BS.
I am uncomfortable with the politicising and Balkanising of our Church. It makes me uncomfortable for AB Dolan to criticise the Pope in a left handed sort of way. The same for AB Chaput, although I think that both should have said what they said, just in a private manner. the claim that the right wing has controlled Church Hierarchy for thirty years is just flat wrong; it based on the author's stereotypes of who does things like banking fraud, etc. Unless he thinks the battle against pederasty is a conservative issue.
This is a battle between what is allowed and what is encouraged. It would seem to me that a spirit of poverty would bring about a spirit of reverence and humility, neither of which are found in sedevacanists or Clown Masses. I hope our Pope will grow in that direction.
Politicization of the Church was started by politicians. The USCCB culpable in this also because it failed to discipline the offending senators, presidential aspirants, and other grab-bag of political operatives who exploited or tried to exploit the faith of the electorate for their own selfish ends.
In many ways this is a US phenomenon. Our Bishops are the only party to this controversy who can correct the impression that the Catholic Church can be used for cheap political ends.
It is better late than never.
I would agree that the "right wing" was in control if we had a Pope Pius XIII (Malcolm Ranjith) and more bishops in the mold of Raymond Burke, Alex Sample, the retired Fabian Bruskewitz, Morlino, Finn, and Cordileone. Such is not the case now and has not been for the last thirty years, nor even the last fifty years.
Right and Left depend on where you stand.
Anonymous 2,
You'll notice that I put the term "right wing" in quotation marks--I just see these guys as orthodox Roman Catholic bishops (whose thinking is not dominated by the "spirit" of Vatican II).
Sample and Cordileone especially are examples of the post-Vatican II generation (my generation) of bishops and I predict that we will see more and more of their type. Consequently, over the long term, where I "stand" will begin to look less and less "right wing."
Gene: Have you considered the possibility that this _isn't_ a ploy? That the theologies of modernists can be sp extreme that if a pope believes in the Incarnation, the Real Presence, and the bodily resurrection of Christ, then in their eyes he _is_ "right wing?" I find that thought extremely disturbing.
"Right and Left depend on where you stand."
And, there you have it, ladies and gentleman, another relativistic performance by a member of our legal profession. Thank your lucky stars you have representation!
Gene,
Are you telling us that Anonymous 2 is one of my colleagues in the legal profession?
As to what I wrote, I was merely pointing out that, as time marches on, the episcopate will become more and more populated with individuals with whom you (and I) would be more in agreement as to style in liturgy, catechetics and administration.
Oh, I completely agree, Anon 5. I have no doubt that progressives think that anyone who really believes in God, the Incarnation, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the Judgement at the end of time is, in fact, "right wing," reactionary, and to be scorned and attacked. Those on the Left only see the Church as a tool to be used to further their humanistic/socialist goals. I cannot repeat enough that these people are enemies of the Church and of you and me just as surely as if they were coming after us with guns. Until we believe that and respond as we might to real potential enemies, nothing is going to change.
Yes, Joseph, Anon 2 is anointed with the same legal grease as you...LOL!
But--but, anointed with grease?!? Gene, you sound like LUTHER!!(and, I know I'll never measure up to his level of bravery and holiness but what about St. Thomas More?)
Gene said: “‘Right and Left depend on where you stand.’
And, there you have it, ladies and gentleman, another relativistic performance by a member of our legal profession.”
And, there you have it, ladies and gentleman, another failure by Gene to think through and understand what is actually being said instead of always trying to sniff out the “enemy” and consequently leaping to conclusions.
Of_course_Right and Left depend on where you stand. How else to explain Gene’s own point that “progressives think that anyone who really believes in God, the Incarnation, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the Judgement at the end of time is, in fact, ‘right wing,’ reactionary, and to be scorned and attacked”? It is because of where they stand on the “Left-Right” continuum that such “progressives” (if we really must use such labels) consider these “orthodox” positions to be to the “Right.” By the same token, it is because of where_they_stand on that continuum that some “traditionalists” consider various “orthodox” positions to be to the Left (see Father McDonald’s 4:30 comment in the next post.
Is this relativist? Well, of course it is, and rightly so since we are necessarily talking about positions on a continuum of positions. But this is quite different from “relativism” in the sense of denying some absolute standard by which to measure those positions. In that regard, sometimes those more “to the Left” will be closer to that absolute standard; in other cases, it will be those more “to the Right.” And this is so even if they themselves might deny that such absolute standard exists.
I trust I have now made myself sufficiently obscure. =)
Oh, and Gene, it seems I have to repeat something I needed to say several threads ago. Here it is again (and I apologize to all if this seems to be uncharitable, but I see no other alternative given the recurring tendency to project an unintended meaning into what I say):
Sometimes I have the sense that you treat what I say as presumptively coming from “an enemy.” Perhaps I have been too indirect before. Now I will be more direct. I appreciate many of your contributions to the Blog but not this sort of thing. Please STOP it. I am getting really, really tired of it. Thank you.
Once again (I post this in both threads), I am sorry you are so befuddled. It is because of your sliding up and down your "continuum" that no one can tell where you stand.
There is no "continuum" of Christian belief. You either believe the Gospel and the articles of the Creed or you do not. There may be a continuum with regard to how these beliefs are implemented in behavior and society, but it is a rather narrow one.
You may not appreciate "this sort of thing," but you brought it on by your ridiculous and irritating appeasement, middle-of-the-road, everything must be taken seriously attitude. I do not appreciate waffling, noncommittal academic ramblings. I simply will not address you directly anymore...unless you address me.
To anyone interested: For my response and the continued exchange, please see the next thread, where this line of exchange was posted by me inadvertently yesterday.
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