Fortress Church or Missionary Church?

An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published 19 August 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)

Shaw’s Thesis

      Everyone wants to know what Pope Francis is really up to.  Is he the warm and fuzzy fulfillment of the “Spirit of Vatican II”?  Or, is he really another John Paul II or Benedict XVI in “progressive” clothing?  Who knows?  Russell Shaw comes up with as plausible an answer as any – really, better than most.  The Pope, he says, wants “to reshape the Catholic Church as a Missionary Church” (“Wanted: An American Missionary Church – Soon” here at The Catholic Thing).  Shaw cites Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, in which the Pope says:

All of us are called to take part in this new missionary “going forth.” Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all “the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel” [20]

“This”, Shaw tells us, “should be taken seriously”.  But he also adds that “taking up the challenge of being a Missionary Church would be a far more demanding – and exhilarating – project than this one-dimensional version of Francis and the Church” (he’s referring to the fluffy, easy-going, “who am I to judge?” image of the Pope popular with progressive types both in the Church and in the secular media).

     I don’t doubt that Shaw is correct that Pope Francis intends to encourage a more missionary ethos in the Church; it is also true that putting this ethos into practice is no easy task.  The Pope, quite properly, has presented a general direction; he has not dictated a concrete program or detailed plan, which leaves room for Catholic commentators like Mr. Shaw (and me - and you, if you’d like) to toss out our own ideas. 

The Assimilated Church and the Fortress Church

     Shaw turns his discussion at this point to the Church in the United States (although this discussion can apply to westernized countries in general).  Here is how he characterizes the issue:

Taking him seriously also could be a matter of survival, or something close to it.  Certainly, unless American Catholicism remakes itself as a Missionary Church, actively engaged in outreach to the world, it could become a rapidly, and irreversibly, shrinking ecclesiastical entity.

     The alternatives to a missionary Church for American Catholics are two and only two: the Assimilated Church and the Fortress Church.

Papal fortress at Avignon

Shaw goes on to explain that

In the Assimilated Church, most Catholics will have been homogenized into the values of American secular culture and become parts of it.  Indeed, many American Catholics already have chosen this option . . .

The Fortress Church, on the other hand,

Is fundamentally different.  If this is to be the future, Catholics will have largely withdrawn – psychologically, spiritually, and even physically – from contact with secular culture, raising the ecclesiastical ramparts against its influence as they retreat.  The Fortress Church is already disturbingly evident in some elements of the new Catholic subculture that’s begun to emerge.  It is a survival tactic born of desperation.

By contrast, while American Catholicism as Missionary Church will also be committed to opposing secular values incompatible with the faith, it will work hard to preach the Gospel, attract adherents, and, where, possible, evangelize the culture itself.

This is where Mr. Shaw takes a wrong turn.  I agree with what he says about the Assimilated Church - one might argue that many, maybe most, American Catholics are there already.  It seems to me that in the case of the Fortress Church, however, he’s putting up a straw man.  I don’t doubt that such a thing is a possibility; a fortress mentality may well take hold in the case of some individuals or in isolated pockets of the Church. What I’ve seen of the “emerging Catholic subculture”, however, looks only superficially like the Fortress Mr. Shaw is bemoaning above, and in fact bears a much greater resemblance to his description of the Missionary Church.

The Valley Forge Gambit

     It’s hard for me to be too specific about those things Shaw finds "disturbing" in that emerging “subculture”, because he doesn't give any specifics.  I’m supposing that he means things such as homeschooling, doing away with television, attending the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and other apparent “retreats” from the societal norm. These things, however, don’t necessarily mean closing oneself off from the larger world.  In fact, just such measures may be necessary if one is to be an effective missionary to the world, which includes both Assimilated Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

     A historical analogy may help illustrate my point.  In 1776 George Washington led his large and enthusiastic but largely untrained army against a combined force of British regulars and Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Brooklyn [here].  His inexperienced Continental Army was simply not prepared for the shock of its encounter with professional soldiers, and collapsed in a disastrous rout. After Washington was subsequently driven from New York, he withdrew his army to the relative protection of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Had Washington and his army stayed in Valley Forge, of course, the war would eventually have been lost.   Instead, temporarily safe from enemy attack his army was able to reform, refit (at least after Congress voted the funds) and receive solid military training under the supervision Friedrich Von Steuben, a European soldier who had served as an officer in Frederick the Great’s Prussian Army.  As a result, a much better prepared Continental Army met the British two years later at the Battle of Monmouth [here] and fought them to a standstill, and but for the inept leadership of one of Washington’s subordinates, General Charles Lee, might have won a decisive victory.  As it was, the British withdrew leaving Washington in possession of the battlefield.

Von Steuben drilling American troops at Valley Forge 

     This, I suggest, is a better analogy for what is happening among many American Catholics than Shaw’s fortress.  The culture at large has become toxic: anti-family, anti-morality . . . anti-God.  It is dangerous to immerse ourselves in it, deadly to allow our children to be formed by it.  We need to equip ourselves properly before going out into such a world, or else we’ll fare no better than the Continental Army did in the Battle of Brooklyn. In fact, we may be more likely to be converted by the world than we are to convert it.  We need some space and time in a healthier atmosphere, away from the temptations and onslaughts of the secular world.  We need to train ourselves in our faith, both its meaning and its practice.  We need our own Valley Forge, and perhaps the spiritual equivalent of a Von Steuben, before we can be that Missionary Church that Pope Francis is calling us to be.  And that's what the subculture that Shaw sees emerging is all about.

Did Someone Say “Clericalism”?

     Russell Shaw, who has been a fine observer of and commenter upon the Catholic scene in the United States for a long time, has got this one wrong because he only sees part of the picture.  He is correct, I think, in his description of what the Missionary Church should look like, but he believes that our biggest problem is “clericalism” (!) in the form of a “passivity” that assumes that the ordained clergy will do all the heavy lifting:

Thus a plan of action designed for execution only or mainly by Church professionals won’t do the job.  Unfortunately, this is what we’re all too likely to get from the clericalized  cadres of today’s American Catholicism, indoctrinated as they are in the merits of lay ministry and cut off from the experience of a robust lay apostolate directed to engagement with the world.

With all due respect to Mr. Shaw, he seems completely unaware of the ecclesial movements (Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, Focolare, etc.), composed mostly of lay people, and most of which have an explicit goal of better equipping the laity to witness to Christ “out in the world”.  He makes no mention of a whole Apologetics Industry that includes Catholic television, radio, print publications, and more online resources than can be listed here.  None of these resources, created and staffed overwhelmingly by lay persons, existed fifty years ago at the time of the Second Vatican Council.  I regularly listen to one Catholic radio program that at least once a week has programs restricted to calls from non-Catholics, or from Atheists, or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage callers – and they never seem to run out of such callers.  That’s hardly a fortress mentality.  And it’s worth pointing out that homeschooled students tend to be more socially involved than the population as a whole, both as teens and adults (see here and here).

What Do You Want First, The Good News Or The Bad News?

     Am I saying that all is well, and that the Church in the United States is the picture of spiritual health?  No, indeed.  The statistics that Mr. Shaw cites to illustrate the decline of the Church are real and sobering:

According to the Official Catholic Directory, from 1998 tom 2013 the annual number of Catholic marriages dropped from 289,000 to 164,000; infant baptisms from just over 1 million to 763,000; enrollment in Catholic elementary and secondary schools from 2.7 million to barely 2 million; and enrollment in non-school religious education from 4.3 million to 3.4 million.

The logical end point of assimilation is to become so assimilated that one ceases to be Catholic altogether.  At the same time, there’s a growing core of lay Catholics who are committed to living a truly Christ-centered life, and who are likewise committed to bringing the faith in its fullness to both their fallen-away brethren and to the wider world.  They fit very nicely, in fact, Russell Shaw’s description of the Missionary Church: “committed to opposing secular values incompatible with the faith, [working] hard to preach the Gospel, attract adherents, and, where, possible, evangelize the culture itself.”

There lies the future of Catholicism.

"I Tremble For My Country When I Reflect That God Is Just . . ."

“And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . .”  - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781.

    Among the most wonderful of the many graces God has bestowed on me in this lifetime is the privilege of fatherhood.  In just a few short years I’ve seen my children go from the enchanting helplessness of infancy to robust young man and womanhood.  I’m always a step (or two, or three) behind the curve, it seems: I constantly find myself surprised not only by how big they are, but by how they’ve grown on the inside.

    Which brings me to the topic of this post.  My son John, now sixteen years old (just short of seventeen) has developed a number of interests: movie-making, writing, science, apologetics, Thomistic Philosophy (he likes to peruse some volumes of the Summa Theologica we picked up at a library book sale), and current events.  Given the decline of morals and the decay of social institutions all around us, he recently found himself, like Jefferson, trembling for his country in the face of God’s justice, and decided, as the proverb says, that it’s “better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”  

    In John’s case, that light is a prayer candle: given that so many of our problems are rooted in the decline of faith, he is urging as many people as possible to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for the sake of our country.  We live in the United States, but we encourage those of you living in other parts of the world to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for your own country as well, because we are all experiencing many of the same things, and we are all subject to God’s justice. My Son has set up a web page HERE explaining his idea, and I have agreed to help him spread the word.  Please take the time to look at John’s page, and join us in this prayer campaign.  

    Thank you, and God Bless.

'Crux Fidelis' attributed to King John IV of Portugal

"The Crucifixion" by Eugene Delacroix

    King John IV of Portugal can claim many distinctions: his acclamation as King in 1640 marked the beginning of the conflict that eventually freed Portugal from the domination of the Spanish Habsburgs; during his reign the Portuguese Empire reached its greatest extent; he was a great promoter of culture, amassing a great library, lavishly patronizing the arts and even, we are told, authoring his own musical compositions.  

    Whatever his merits as a composer, however, he seems not to be the real author of the best-known piece attributed to him.  The beautiful setting for the Crux Fidelis performed in the clip below (much like the Ave Maria commonly attributed to the 16th century composer Giulio Caccini, but which was probably a product of the twentieth century) seems to have been composed by someone less illustrious and more recent: “no known manuscript of the work exists, and it was first published only in 1869, in France. On stylistic grounds, it is generally recognized that the work was written in the 19th century“ (see here).

    Fortunately, the Pseudo-John was himself (or herself?) a gifted composer.  “King John’s” Crux Fidelis, whatever its provenance, has earned its place as a favorite Lenten hymn.

 The words of the hymn, by the way, are much older than the music.  They are a part of a larger work, Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis by St. Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century Bishop of Poitiers (this hymn also provided the inspiration for St. Thomas Aquinas’s Pange Lingua).

Crux fidelis, inter omnes

arbor una nobilis:

nulla silva talem profert,

fronde, flore, germine.

Dulce lignum, dulces clavos,

dulce pondus sustinet.

Faithful cross, above all other,

One and only noble tree:

None in foliage, none in blossom,

None in fruit thy peer may be.

Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,

Sweetest weight is hung on thee!

Are you Ready For "Real Funny Jokes About Abortion"?

(An earlier version of this Worth Revisiting post was first published in September, 2014.  To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)

“Be Sober, be watchful.  Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  Resist him, firm in your faith.”  (1 Peter 8-9)

     In my recent discussion of an essay by Ezekiel Emmanuel supporting the idea that we should not try to keep people alive beyond 75 years old, I said:

The more often such opinions come from such sources, the less unthinkable such opinionThes become in the wider world until they eventually become commonplace.  We have seen this strategy employed to perfection in recent years in regard to the redefinition of marriage. 

The Successful Game Plan

 

They aren't laughing . . . 

   The picture-perfect example of how to bring about a massive change in public perceptions and sentiment, in fact, has been the Gay Rights movement, which eventually built the stunningly successful Gay Marriage campaign.  The strategy was explicitly laid out almost three decades ago in 1987, in an article by Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill (later expanded into a book) called “The Overhauling Of Straight America” (entire article here). Kirk and Pill call for a graduated media campaign to change public opinion, starting with making homosexuality seem commonplace by talking about it constantly, particularly in the entertainment media; then by portraying homosexuals as victims, at which point they can enlist supporters outside their own circles by appealing to a sense of justice, and only then seeking to destroy the credibility of any critics by using their media reach to portray opponents  as ignorant haters, bigots, etc.  Anyone who has been paying attention for the last three decades has seen this strategy play out precisely as scripted (we are now in the final “destroy the opposition” phase).

     This idea didn’t start with Kirk and Pill, of course, nor with the Gay Rights movement.  Some might recognize the ideas of master “community organizer” Saul Alinsky, who in turn was simply putting a groovy spin on long-standing communist agitprop doctrine - the need to use the entertainment media to shape public opinion explains why the communists were so interested in Hollywood in the thirties and the forties.  Kirk and Pill also saw the potential of the entertainment industry, but they had a resource that was not available to Stalin-era agitators: television.  Therefore:

Where we talk is important. The visual media, film and television, are plainly the most powerful image-makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan horse might be passed. As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message--of normalcy.

“Desensitization” was necessary before the public would accept the rest of the gay rights program, and television did in fact prove to be the perfect medium (feel free explore the links here if you don’t believe that this strategy was employed to the fullest).

If it worked for Gay Marriage, why not abortion?

Mindy Kaling

     This brings us to today, and the curious case of Mindy Kaling, as recounted by Brent Bozell [article here]. Mindy, Bozell tells us, “not only stars in her own sitcom on Fox called 'The Mindy Project,' she’s in charge of it.”  Her character on the show is an OB/GYN.  Professional feminist and pro-abortion activist Amanda Marcotte sees Kaling’s show as a ready-made vehicle for the same sort of desensitization that the Gay Rights people carried out so successfully:

Abortion is actually a perfect topic for a half-hour comedy because it touches on so many themes that comedy writers love to mine for the laughs . . . How easy it is, if you let go of the fear of getting letters from anti-choice nuts, to make some really funny jokes about abortion.

     The problem for Marcotte is that most people, even those who are generally in favor of legal abortion, don’t see the humorous potential in the intentional slaughter of innocent life in the womb (including a huge number of women who have direct experience of abortion, such as the women from "Silent No More" pictured above).  Kaling herself, who doesn’t appear to be pro-life but does seem to know her craft, at first politely rejected the idea of using her show “to make some really funny jokes about abortion”, telling an interviewer: “It would be demeaning to the topic to talk about it in a half-hour sitcom”.  Unfortunately for Mindy, nobody is allowed to sit on the sidelines for this battle, and the abortion industry and its cheerleaders turned up the heat.  Soon she was apologizing for her failure to humorously promote abortion on her program, and has now reached the point where she says she “has faith” that she will find a “hilarious take on abortion that’s saying something new.”  Don’t worry, folks, “The Mindy Project” will be rolling out its abortion laugh-riot any day now.

     This is not the first recent attempt by the abortionists to follow the gay marriage media  playbook: there was the Abortion Comedy “Obvious Child”, and creepy “comedienne” Sarah Silverman has been trying to mine the laugh-potential of abortion for some time.  “Obvious Child”, however, was much more popular with pro-abortion movie critics than it was with the public, so maybe Anthony Esolen is right [see here] that the average person’s innate common sense won’t allow too many of them to be taken in too deeply by the Culture of Death for too long.  Maybe . . . but I’m not sure that he isn’t underestimating the power of people in our fallen state to convince themselves of just about anything, especially if it means the orgy can continue.  Be that as it may, brace yourself: I suspect we’ll be seeing more and more of the “lighter side” of abortion from the entertainment media in the future. Be sober and be watchful . . .

    

Lent Points To Purgatory

The 1st Sunday of Lent

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

     One of the things that confounds people outside of Catholicism is the way Catholic Christians tend to understand that things which are true can be true in different ways, as in, for instance, the traditional Four Senses of Scripture. This multi-faceted Catholic Vision doesn 't apply only to Biblical interpretation, but to all sorts of beliefs and practices.  A good example is the Season of Lent, in which we see the patterns of the next world reflected in this one.  
     On the primary level, Lent is about where we are right now. We understand that we are prone to sin, that we must undergo a period of preparation, and of spiritual cleansing, before we can experience the joy of Easter.  And so through various penitential practices, including the sacrament of Confession, the “giving up” of various things, devotions (e.g., the the Stations of the Cross), and works of charity we seek to acknowledge and express sorrow for our sins,  and to turn away from attachment to worldly things, so that we can turn instead to God.

     The logic of these Lenten practices also applies in the next life, in Purgatory.  The word Purgatorium means a place of cleansing. The Catholic belief is that Purgatory is both a completion of temporal punishment (penance), and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," for  those "who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified" (CCC 1030). That purification is sometimes described in terms of removal of our remaining attachment to sin, so that we are prepared to meet our Lord in the unfiltered light of Heaven.  If we need Lent here, where we see dimly as through a mirror, the same is certainly true in the next life where, God willing, we will as see Him face to face (see 1 Corinthians 13:12).  

     Our tradition tells us that the greatest Saints are taken directly from this life into the Presence of the Almighty.  Most of us, however, even if by God's Grace we find ourselves bound for Heaven, have reason to expect a detour through Purgatory. That’s something to keep in mind as we go through Lent here in this world: if it’s appropriate to purify ourselves in preparation for the Feast of Easter, how much more so for the Eternal Supper of Lamb in the New Jerusalem?

A Musical Gem - Zelenka's Miserere

The Prophet Nathan confronts King David with his sin 

     One of the things I aim for in my bloggery is to share some gems from the Catholic Tradition that are not as well-known as they deserve to be. For centuries Catholic artists have been creating beautiful things to honor God. We have accumulated a vast treasury of works of unequaled loveliness – including a veritable horde of the most beautiful music ever conceived. Sadly, most of it, it seems, is rarely heard today.  
     Take the piece below, for instance, by the Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745), which is a musical setting for Psalm 51, also known as the Miserere.
     Tradition tells us that this psalm was composed by King David as an act of penance after he ordered the murder of Uriah, one of his officers, so that he could marry the man's wife. Because of it's penitential character, Psalm 51 is always included in Morning Prayer on Fridays, and is also closely connected with the Season of Lent.  It has become my custom to post a couple different musical interpretations of this psalm at the beginning of Lent every year (I have also posted Antonio Lotti's version here on my other blog, Principium et Finis).
     Zelenka was a highly regarded composer in his time, but never received the recognition of some of contemporaries such as J.S. Bach (Bach himself is reported to have been a friend and admirer).  Zelenka was rediscovered by his fellow Czech, the composer Smetana, a century and a half ago, and over the past few decades his reputation and audience has been steadily growing.  His work is known for its innovative harmonics and use of counterpoint, which are evident in the powerful, moving Miserere below.
     

Lent Prepares Us For Grace

Isaiah's lips are cleansed (Giovanni Battista Tiepolo)

    It’s a commonplace that nobody is perfect.  At the same time, it’s clear from Scripture that the God who is perfect prefers (with the exception of Incarnation of the Eternal Word Himself) to use imperfect human instruments to spread His Good News.  We are reminded of this curious feature of Salvation History in all three of this past Sunday's Mass readings, in which we see the Prophet Isaiah and the Apostles Paul and Peter all proclaim their unworthiness . . . and the Lord’s determination to use them as his mouthpieces nonetheless.

    All three use similar language.  Isaiah, after seeing the Lord on his throne surrounded by Seraphim cries out:

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!

For I am a man of unclean lips,

living among a people of unclean lips;

yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5)

Likewise St. Peter (whom Christ has chosen to be the chief of his Apostles) says, after Jesus has miraculously multiplied his catch of fish: “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8)  

St. Paul speaks in the same vein when he tells the Corinthians:

Last of all, as to one born abnormally,

he appeared to me.

For I am the least of the apostles,

not fit to be called an apostle,

because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:8-9)

    It is quite true, of course, that they are unworthy, but the Lord knows perfectly well what their shortcomings are; he is happy to give them what they need to fulfill his mission.  Jesus shows his power to purify immediately after Peter’s protestation of unworthiness:

. . . there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him. (Luke 5: 12-13)

We see the preparation of Isaiah more directly:

Then one of the seraphim flew to me,

holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it, and said,

“See, now that this has touched your lips,

your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

As the cleansing with a hot coal suggests, the purging of sin can be an uncomfortable process.  But there’s more: St. Paul goes on to tell us:

But by the grace of God I am what I am,

and his grace to me has not been ineffective.

Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;

not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.(1 Corinthians 15:10-11)

God bestows his Grace on those who consent to be tempered into his instrument.  

    

Caravaggio's "Conversion of St. Paul"

There’s a lesson for us here. Suffering comes whether we are willing or not: look at the case of Jonah, who in the course of running from the Lord’s summons undergoes quite a deal of hardship (including being swallowed by a sea monster and vomited up after three days).  God’s Will is accomplished nevertheless, but Jonah is able to appreciate neither God’s great act of Grace in sparing the one hundred twenty thousand plus Ninevites, nor His lesser Grace of sending a shade plant for the comfort of the reluctant prophet himself. The Ninevites has been saved, but we are left wondering about the salvation of Jonah.

    When I heard these readings at Mass yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of them in terms of the upcoming Lenten season. There’s a part of me that resents the (admittedly small) sacrifices and austerities of the Penitential season.  The experiences of Peter, Paul and Isaiah help to put my own life in perspective. The mild hardships we take upon ourselves during Lent are a reminder to us that our sufferings can prepare us to serve God, and that our patient endurance cultivates our hearts to receive His Grace. And as we saw above, St. Paul tells us that God’s Grace makes us what we are: who am I to refuse?