Protestantism first and foremost is the rejection of God's life and governance, centered on the sacrifice of the Mass, which is the very form in which God-made-flesh is made present in this world. Protestantism is a reversion from Christianity towards the form of belief into which the faith of Israel had degenerated during the period of Christ's earthly life. It is a way of holding to the "forms of faith, though denying its substance". Without the sbustance of faith, Protestants rely first on the holy scriptures, but of course actually rely on the anti-Catholic interpretations that would prevent the scriptures from obliging them to return to the Church. All of Protestant scholarship for its half-millennium of life is devoted to evasion of the central issue of the heresy to which they are so attached, and which came to define life for so many. In culture, it has to take the form of a sort of permanent revolution, as each successive stage of Protestantism must be abandoned & its former lights attacked as insufficient Christians who failed to arrive at the purity of the gospel. In our times, in our advertising culture, this has to be accompanied by persistent re-branding. In my life, I've the particular variety I know best go from "Jesus people" (in the '70s), to "evangelicals" (in the '80s and '90s) and now to "emergent Christianity" in the latter years of this decade. Protestantism is constant vacillation between rapid propagation and acceptance of motives & behaviors which have no root at all in Christ, but which have to be attributed to Him and to spiritual growth, and utter brutal stagnation. The heroic leader of two years ago becomes the villain of the present hour; those liberal Protestants who regarded the Archbishop of Canterbury as a strong voice againts Roman incursion now revile him because he maintains that his church can only recognize male-female marriages, not same-sex unions as marriage, and he's attempting to use what remains of his position to shore up this bastion. Protestantism is also egocentrism, because without any real roots, they have to assemble fragments of traditions and wear them as decorations advertising their own identity. They attach this identity to profession of Christ, but it isn't Christ who is important, but their own vision of Christ which matters. Hence they can only ever assemble with people of similar tastes.
These are a few of the things that define Protestantism, which underlie the innumerable, the endless self-definitions of its leaders, professors, officials, and pastors.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Catholic, not "Catholic Christian"
Another sign of Catholic abnegation in contemporary discourse is the use of the term, among Catholics, of "Catholic Christian". Militant Protestants, "biblical" Protestants, fundamentalists and evangelicals, have come to define the word "Christian" and Catholics sheepishly began calling themselves "Catholic Christians", ceding it to the enemies of the Faith. One finds it, absurdly, used by notable Catholic preachers in the US, and, of course, among ecumenists.
We need to call ourselves Catholic only, and vigorously, but not rudely or arrogantly, and we must make it clear that what is called "Christian" now is foreign to Christ, that it harms rather than helps souls on their way to God, that the 'Christians' only reflect rays of the sun of grace and have no source of light within their churches.
We need to call ourselves Catholic only, and vigorously, but not rudely or arrogantly, and we must make it clear that what is called "Christian" now is foreign to Christ, that it harms rather than helps souls on their way to God, that the 'Christians' only reflect rays of the sun of grace and have no source of light within their churches.
Not born on the Fourth of July
The catechism for Catholics in the US offers a number of profiles of American Catholics and their contribution to the faith. Many Catholics who arrived as immigrants were rejected and marginalized by the dominant white Protestant culture. This is still the case, but sadly, many people of Irish or Italian descent who were themselves at first suspect & hated for their allegiance to the Church, have quietly absorbed Protesant xenophobia, as well as the Protestant form of nationalism. Before one begins to pray for the deliverance of Protestants from Protestantism, we have to ask God to help us see our bondage to the idolatry that is embedded in our society. We need to put an end to the Protestantism in ourselves, to remove the log from our own eyes before we can do anything for our vocally Protestant neighbors.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the national messianic vision was blunted as Americans came to grips with the reality of the treatment of ethnic groups within our borders and of nations which resisted being drawn into the post-WWII, internationalized version of Manifest Destiny. In the 1980s, that national messianism was re-instated and embraced, and both Democratic presidents have embraced it with the same enthusiasm as the Republican ones.
But from the viewpoint of the Faith, the nationalist mission of America has been to Protestantize the world. Her first imperial wars were against Latino countries in order to deliver them from bondage -- by which they meant bondage to "Romish superstitions". The early imperial presidents were unabashed about their belief in the superiority of anglo-saxon, Protestant 'civilization' to the 'decadent' Catholic civilization of the old world. Those who wave the flag on patriotic holidays fail to recognize that the "Novus ordo seclorum" which is on the great seal means "a new, anti-Church, anti-Catholic" order, one in which democratized (and wealthy) Protestants were to finish the work that England had begun of trying to end the presence of the Church & her influence & authority in the life of humankind.
The newest turn on this has been the attempt to enlist the Medieval stance towards Islam in a Protestant crusade for keeping the US as the central economic and military power. Sadly, many traditional Catholics in France have been misled into supporting America's war in the Middle East and South Asia because they see her imperialist pols as favoring "Western" civilization. "Western" civilization is itself a euphemism for "anglo-protestant" civilization, having no real root in the old order of Christendom. Even though the Church has more freedom to operate in the US than it has elsewhere in Europe, that freedom is a temporary grant, so long as the Church doesn't threaten the oligarchic order which is actually in place.
We want to be child of our land, "patriots", but a Catholic patriotism can have nothing in common with the militarist displays and invocations of America as the "last, best hope on Earth" that have become essential to all presidential speeches since Reagan. Despite the attachment of conservative and neo-conservative Catholics to this new imperialism, America was and is simply Protestantism writ large & active on the world stage. America is not some form of ancient Israel, but America's nationalist mythos requires it to be so, and this attaches American nationalism to its variety in the anti-Christian state called "Israel". Just as the Church, not America, is our true homeland, as the Church and not the civitas of Rome was St. Augustine's, so there is no Israel but the Church, and the artificial country created by international fiat 63 years ago and maintained at America's expense (and the expense of its victims) has no claim to the name except by racial descent. As St. Paul said, all born of Israel are not Israel, but the circumcision of the spirit -- baptism, faith -- are the criteria for owning the name.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the national messianic vision was blunted as Americans came to grips with the reality of the treatment of ethnic groups within our borders and of nations which resisted being drawn into the post-WWII, internationalized version of Manifest Destiny. In the 1980s, that national messianism was re-instated and embraced, and both Democratic presidents have embraced it with the same enthusiasm as the Republican ones.
But from the viewpoint of the Faith, the nationalist mission of America has been to Protestantize the world. Her first imperial wars were against Latino countries in order to deliver them from bondage -- by which they meant bondage to "Romish superstitions". The early imperial presidents were unabashed about their belief in the superiority of anglo-saxon, Protestant 'civilization' to the 'decadent' Catholic civilization of the old world. Those who wave the flag on patriotic holidays fail to recognize that the "Novus ordo seclorum" which is on the great seal means "a new, anti-Church, anti-Catholic" order, one in which democratized (and wealthy) Protestants were to finish the work that England had begun of trying to end the presence of the Church & her influence & authority in the life of humankind.
The newest turn on this has been the attempt to enlist the Medieval stance towards Islam in a Protestant crusade for keeping the US as the central economic and military power. Sadly, many traditional Catholics in France have been misled into supporting America's war in the Middle East and South Asia because they see her imperialist pols as favoring "Western" civilization. "Western" civilization is itself a euphemism for "anglo-protestant" civilization, having no real root in the old order of Christendom. Even though the Church has more freedom to operate in the US than it has elsewhere in Europe, that freedom is a temporary grant, so long as the Church doesn't threaten the oligarchic order which is actually in place.
We want to be child of our land, "patriots", but a Catholic patriotism can have nothing in common with the militarist displays and invocations of America as the "last, best hope on Earth" that have become essential to all presidential speeches since Reagan. Despite the attachment of conservative and neo-conservative Catholics to this new imperialism, America was and is simply Protestantism writ large & active on the world stage. America is not some form of ancient Israel, but America's nationalist mythos requires it to be so, and this attaches American nationalism to its variety in the anti-Christian state called "Israel". Just as the Church, not America, is our true homeland, as the Church and not the civitas of Rome was St. Augustine's, so there is no Israel but the Church, and the artificial country created by international fiat 63 years ago and maintained at America's expense (and the expense of its victims) has no claim to the name except by racial descent. As St. Paul said, all born of Israel are not Israel, but the circumcision of the spirit -- baptism, faith -- are the criteria for owning the name.
Saving Protestants from themselves
It's easy to talk with Protestants in one way, depending on how friendly they are towards generic varieties of Christianity. While there are still many who buy books like "A Woman Rides the Beast", the latest in Luther's line of attacks on the Church, the sole Church, as the domain of the anti-Christ, there are many who are happy to embrace Catholics, as long as the Catholics aren't particularly Catholic or never make any attempt to convert them. It's perfectly OK to be doing the opposite, of course, because not very far below the surface politeness, in any conversation or any relationship, is a well of animosity, venom, spleen, blasphemy, and detestation of all the sacred truths and sacred things which comprise the Church's ritual, devotion, and culture.
Many Catholics, perhaps most, fool themselevs today by underestimating this. Those most involved in conservative politics fool themselves into thinking that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate is far more amenable to Catholic life & teaching than the current President, when in fact she's a member of a radically anti-Catholic Protestant sect which regards only "biblical" Christians as fit for public office. In working with conservative Protestants & trying to maintain a common front with them politically, conservative Catholics fail to reckon with the reality that, given power, Protestants of any & every variety would feel themselves obliged to circumscribe both Catholic political rights and the rites & practices of the faith. The Holy Father, except among those who are nearing conversion themselves, still is "their king in Rome with the pointy hat" (as Daniel Day-Lewis as the Butcher in 'Gangs of New York' calls him).
Among themselves, they'll still refer to the conversion of a Protestant to the Church as "perversion" -- one does not convert to the Faith and the Church Christ instituted. True faith, for any Protestant who still values the Reformation in any manner or to any extend, requires deliverance from the papacy, deliverance from the cult of the Saints, deliverance from the insistence that Christ renews His sacrifice at every valid mass. And of course they can be more accommodating to those Catholics who have no belief in Purgatory, who want women to serve as priests at the altar, who think clerical celibacy is a monstrous aberration, and who want to 'democratize' the Church. By 'democratization' of the Church, they mean the transfer of authority to their kind of clericalism, university & seminary trained, middle and upper-middle class married people, preferably female in order to counter the misogyny of the Church (despite their old accusation that the Church was "run by women", i.e., celibates & because we have such ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin).
Recent popes, when they have fought for the Faith, have fought with one hand tied behind their backs, because they have declined to fight Protestantism, because they viewed secularization, moral relativism, and militant forms of atheism as more pressing problems, and believed, like Paul VI, that they could find some common generic Christian grounds with Protestantism without at the same time compromising Catholics or harming the Church.
But failing to combat Protestants, and taking part in 'ecumenical' prayer services and issuing joint decrees with them, does harm the Church and harms the faith of those who want to be faithful Catholics and want to live & die in her. Paul VI watered down the mass and watered down all the devotions of Catholics in order to do so; John Paul II at least helped foster a return of Marian ardor (but refused to attack fake apparitions) and the recitation of the Rosary, but continued the practice of pretending that there could be no division. His and his successor's policy has been "ut unim sint", which in reality is the Protestant agenda -- the Church is to bargain away her spiritual authority over all those who claim the name Christian but who reject the very sacraments that alone can bring us salvation.
That is the nub of the problem. Catholics are silenced by the practice of refusing to evangelize non- and anti-Catholic Christians. There are some apologetic organizations engaged in arguing with Protestants on the basis that the Church alone is the fullness of Christian teaching & faith. But none, aside from the Society of Pius X, insist that Protestantism is the path to damnation, and that the 'elements of holiness' that official documents continue to claim remain in Protestant communities are just that, elements that can't bring forgiveness of sins much less salvation to the soul.
The Holy Father has just decided on the formation of a new pontifical institute for evangelization of countries where the practice of faith has diminished so greatly. Happily, it comes shortly after the mandarin of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper, has been retired from the ecumenical office -- hopefully, as a prelude to it being shut down forever (tho' it's hard to imagine Benedict XVI taking that step). I hope that it will not fall prey to the illusions that have all but destroyed the Church in France, Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe, and which have contributed to introducing poisons into her daily life in America.
Loving Protestants means that one must hate Protestantism. Loving someone afflicted with cancer means hating the cancer that will kill them. Protestant beliefs, under every and any form, kill the soul, and however pleasant or Christ-loving or devout many will appear to be, or may even be in reality, they are cut off from the Tree of Life, are dry branches fit only for the fire. Our Lord came to kindle a fire on earth; He came to bring a sword of division, setting family members against one another as they were confronted with His claims. To present a Jesus that in fact is only trying to get those who call His name to be 'one' removes the Passion, removes the unity of the sacrifice of the Mass with the sacrifice of Calvary. No one can love Christ's saving action on Good Friday without also loving the sacrifice of the altar, any more than they can love the Son and hate the Father, any more than they can claim to love God while refusing Him the name of the Father or refusing Christ the designation of God the Son.
Christ is on the altar and in the tabernacle and in our souls by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We should not pretend that this is not so, or that He's truly present in sacrament & sanctifying elsewhere. He is our Lord and acts where He will, and is not confined to our actions and plans, but the Church is His instrument of salvation, His true body on earth, and those who claim to be part of the body of Christ without being penitent and receiving absolution, without submitting to God's will, His ministers, His forms & conditions, are lying to themselves, and we can't help them do that by smiling & pretending that all is well. Our pope has given a foundation to begin evangelizing anew, rather than simply calling for new evangelization. We should as well.
Many Catholics, perhaps most, fool themselevs today by underestimating this. Those most involved in conservative politics fool themselves into thinking that the former Republican vice-presidential candidate is far more amenable to Catholic life & teaching than the current President, when in fact she's a member of a radically anti-Catholic Protestant sect which regards only "biblical" Christians as fit for public office. In working with conservative Protestants & trying to maintain a common front with them politically, conservative Catholics fail to reckon with the reality that, given power, Protestants of any & every variety would feel themselves obliged to circumscribe both Catholic political rights and the rites & practices of the faith. The Holy Father, except among those who are nearing conversion themselves, still is "their king in Rome with the pointy hat" (as Daniel Day-Lewis as the Butcher in 'Gangs of New York' calls him).
Among themselves, they'll still refer to the conversion of a Protestant to the Church as "perversion" -- one does not convert to the Faith and the Church Christ instituted. True faith, for any Protestant who still values the Reformation in any manner or to any extend, requires deliverance from the papacy, deliverance from the cult of the Saints, deliverance from the insistence that Christ renews His sacrifice at every valid mass. And of course they can be more accommodating to those Catholics who have no belief in Purgatory, who want women to serve as priests at the altar, who think clerical celibacy is a monstrous aberration, and who want to 'democratize' the Church. By 'democratization' of the Church, they mean the transfer of authority to their kind of clericalism, university & seminary trained, middle and upper-middle class married people, preferably female in order to counter the misogyny of the Church (despite their old accusation that the Church was "run by women", i.e., celibates & because we have such ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin).
Recent popes, when they have fought for the Faith, have fought with one hand tied behind their backs, because they have declined to fight Protestantism, because they viewed secularization, moral relativism, and militant forms of atheism as more pressing problems, and believed, like Paul VI, that they could find some common generic Christian grounds with Protestantism without at the same time compromising Catholics or harming the Church.
But failing to combat Protestants, and taking part in 'ecumenical' prayer services and issuing joint decrees with them, does harm the Church and harms the faith of those who want to be faithful Catholics and want to live & die in her. Paul VI watered down the mass and watered down all the devotions of Catholics in order to do so; John Paul II at least helped foster a return of Marian ardor (but refused to attack fake apparitions) and the recitation of the Rosary, but continued the practice of pretending that there could be no division. His and his successor's policy has been "ut unim sint", which in reality is the Protestant agenda -- the Church is to bargain away her spiritual authority over all those who claim the name Christian but who reject the very sacraments that alone can bring us salvation.
That is the nub of the problem. Catholics are silenced by the practice of refusing to evangelize non- and anti-Catholic Christians. There are some apologetic organizations engaged in arguing with Protestants on the basis that the Church alone is the fullness of Christian teaching & faith. But none, aside from the Society of Pius X, insist that Protestantism is the path to damnation, and that the 'elements of holiness' that official documents continue to claim remain in Protestant communities are just that, elements that can't bring forgiveness of sins much less salvation to the soul.
The Holy Father has just decided on the formation of a new pontifical institute for evangelization of countries where the practice of faith has diminished so greatly. Happily, it comes shortly after the mandarin of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper, has been retired from the ecumenical office -- hopefully, as a prelude to it being shut down forever (tho' it's hard to imagine Benedict XVI taking that step). I hope that it will not fall prey to the illusions that have all but destroyed the Church in France, Germany, Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe, and which have contributed to introducing poisons into her daily life in America.
Loving Protestants means that one must hate Protestantism. Loving someone afflicted with cancer means hating the cancer that will kill them. Protestant beliefs, under every and any form, kill the soul, and however pleasant or Christ-loving or devout many will appear to be, or may even be in reality, they are cut off from the Tree of Life, are dry branches fit only for the fire. Our Lord came to kindle a fire on earth; He came to bring a sword of division, setting family members against one another as they were confronted with His claims. To present a Jesus that in fact is only trying to get those who call His name to be 'one' removes the Passion, removes the unity of the sacrifice of the Mass with the sacrifice of Calvary. No one can love Christ's saving action on Good Friday without also loving the sacrifice of the altar, any more than they can love the Son and hate the Father, any more than they can claim to love God while refusing Him the name of the Father or refusing Christ the designation of God the Son.
Christ is on the altar and in the tabernacle and in our souls by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We should not pretend that this is not so, or that He's truly present in sacrament & sanctifying elsewhere. He is our Lord and acts where He will, and is not confined to our actions and plans, but the Church is His instrument of salvation, His true body on earth, and those who claim to be part of the body of Christ without being penitent and receiving absolution, without submitting to God's will, His ministers, His forms & conditions, are lying to themselves, and we can't help them do that by smiling & pretending that all is well. Our pope has given a foundation to begin evangelizing anew, rather than simply calling for new evangelization. We should as well.
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