Secularity and Secularism

As I saw the first banners announcing Season's Greetings and Happy Holiday's I thought of an idea for a post about the secularization of society. It seem's that I was not alone as there appeared a very good column in the National Catholic Register this week by Father Alfonso Aguilar, LC. Here a couple highlights and I encourage you to read the rest.

“Silencing or abandoning God or confining him to the private sphere is undoubtedly the defining theme of our bleak times in the West. There is no other movement to be compared with it, not even the loss of the moral sense.”

Pope Benedict seems to agree. Secularization is a constant theme in his speeches and writings. “Secularization, which presents itself in cultures by imposing a world and humanity without reference to transcendence, is invading every aspect of daily life and developing a mentality in which God is effectively absent, wholly or partially, from human life and awareness,” the Holy Father said to the members of the Pontifical Council for Culture on March 8, 2008.

“This secularization is not only an external threat to believers, but has been manifest for some time in the heart of the Church herself. It profoundly distorts the Christian faith from within, and consequently, the lifestyle and daily behavior of believers.”

Secularism, instead, is intrinsically wrong — it intends to achieve an absolute independence of temporal affairs from God and his moral law. It pretends to replace God’s role with man’s. Secularity affirms the autonomy of the earthly spheres from religion but not in opposition to it. Secularism intolerantly seeks the annihilation of religion.

The most appalling expression of secularism might be found in the silent distancing of entire populations from religious practice and even from any reference to the faith. The Church today is confronted more by indifference and practical unbelief than by atheism.

Christian Faith and the Necessity of the Sacred

Some further thoughts from Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music.

The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time. “Always” can only come from “once for all”. The Church does not pray in some kind of mythical omnitemporality. She cannot forsake her roots. She recognizes the true utterance of God precisely in the concreteness of its history, in time and place: to these God ties us, and by these we are all tied together. The diachronic aspect, praying with the Fathers and the apostles, is part of what we mean by rite, but it also in­cludes a local aspect, extending from Jerusalem to Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Rites are not, therefore, just the products of inculturation, how­ever much they may have incorporated elements from different cultures. They are forms of the apostolic Tradition and of its unfolding in the great places of the Tradition. [The Spirit of the Liturgy SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000),p. 164]

I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy, which at times has even come to be conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: in that it is a matter of indifference whether or not God exists and whether or not He speaks to us and hears us. But when the community of faith, the world-wide unity of the Church and her history, and the mystery of the living Christ are no longer visible in the liturgy, where else, then, is the Church to become visible in her spiritual essence? Then the community is celebrating only itself, an activity that is utterly fruitless. And, because the ecclesial community cannot have its origin from itself but emerges as a unity only from the Lord, through faith, such circumstances will inexorably result in a disintegration into sectarian parties of all kinds - partisan opposition within a Church tearing herself apart. This is why we need a new Liturgical Movement, which will call to life the real heritage of the Second Vatican Council. Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977 (SF, CA: Ignatius), p. 149.

Modernist Heresy - Alive and Well

St. Pope Pius X spoke of the heresy of Modernism as the "synthesis of all heresies." He wrote the encyclical letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis condemning its errors and "in order to expose before the whole Church, in their true colors, those men who have assumed this bad disguise."
While it did great damage to the movement it was not fully destroyed but driven underground where it has reappeared in recent times, most recently in that period following Vatican II, by those invoking the "spirit of Vatican II." Evidence of this is found in many place and frequently the articles and comments made by readers of the National Catholic Reporter. While not imputing or suggesting any of these people is guilty of heresy it nonetheless true that their statements resemble those that were previously condemned.

In an effort to make the encyclical more understandable to the average layman, the Rev. J. B. Lemius O.M.I. prepared "A Catechism of Modernism" in the question and answer format common to the catechetical method of instruction. This small treatise was warmly received by Pope Pius X and he gave his hopes of it being widely distributed. It was originally published in 1908 for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith in NY.

Q. Is it not, then, the duty of the Church to shape herself to democratic forms?
A. We are living in an age when the sense of liberty has reached its fullest development, and when the public conscience in the civil order introduced popular government. Now there are not two consciences in man, any more than there are two lives. It is for the ecclesiastical authority, therefore, to shape itself to democratic forms, unless it wishes to provoke and foment in intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind.

Q. What finally is the great anxiety of the Modernists?
A. Their one great anxiety is, in consequence, to find a way of conciliation between the authority of the Church and the liberty of believers.

Now let us look at the, CHARTER OF THE RIGHTS OF CATHOLICS IN THE CHURCH, which belong to an organization called Association for Rights of Catholics in the Church. It's members are a venerable who's who of dissident Catholic groups: CCC (Coalition of Concerned Canadian Catholics) CITI (Celibacy is the Issue) CORPUS (a national association for a married priesthood) CORPUS-Baltimore CTA (Call to Action) Dignity/USA FCM (Federation of Christian Ministries) New Ways Ministry Pax Christi-Maine Quixote Center Renewal Coordinating Committee WOC (Women's Ordination Conference) Christenrechte in der Kirche (Germany) Droits et Libertes dans les Eglises (France) European Conference for Human Rights in the Church (federation of eight national organizations)

Here are a few of their demands:

Preamble

The Church as a People of God, and not individual Christians only, is called to give witness to the love commandment. This responsibility entails, especially, the renewal of the Church's own structural organization where it is seen to foster injustice and to deny to some Catholics the rights of persons and the freedom of Christians.2 "Justice is love's absolute minimum" (Paul VI). The institutional Church, as a human society, can therefore no longer justify an authoritarian and patriarchal order appropriate to earlier stages of human development.

No. 28. All married Catholics have the right to determine in conscience the size of their families and the appropriate methods of family planning.
No. 29. All Catholic parents have the right to see to the education of their children in all areas of life. (C. 226:2)
No. 30. All married Catholics have the right to withdraw from a marriage which has irretrievably broken down. All such Catholics retain the radical right to remarry.
No. 31. All Catholics who are divorced and remarried and who are in conscience reconciled to the Church have the right to the same ministries, including all sacraments, as do other Catholics.

Beauty and the Search for Truth and Goodness

Throughout his pontificate Pope Benedict has emphasised the relationship of beauty to culture. Yesterday he sent a Message to Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, to mark the annual public session of the Pontifical Academies. The Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Literature "dei Virtuosi al Pantheon", which is organising the event this year, has chosen the theme: "The universality of beauty: a comparison between aesthetics and ethics".

"We are reminded of the urgent need for a renewed dialogue between aesthetics and ethics, between beauty, truth and goodness", the Pope writes, "not only by contemporary cultural and artistic debate, but also by daily reality. In fact, at various levels, there is a dramatically-evident split ... between the two dimensions: that of the search for beauty - understood however in reductive terms as exterior form, as an appearance to be pursued at all costs - and that of the truth and goodness of actions undertaken to achieve certain ends.

"Indeed", he adds, "searching for a beauty that is foreign to or separate from the human search for truth and goodness would become (as unfortunately happens) mere asceticism and, especially for the very young, a path leading to ephemeral values and to banal and superficial appearances, even a flight into an artificial paradise that masks inner emptiness".

The Holy Father goes on to recall how he has on various occasions underlined the need "for a broadening of the horizons of reason" in order "to regain an understanding of the intimate link binding the search for beauty to the search for truth and goodness. ... And it such a commitment applies to everyone, it applies even more to believers, to the disciples of Christ, who are called by the Lord to 'give reasons' for all the beauty and truth of their faith".

The beauty of the works undertaken by believers "to render glory unto the Father", in accordance with Christ's mandate, "demonstrates and expresses ... the goodness and profound truth of such gestures, as it does the coherence and the sanctity of those who accomplish them. ... Our witness must, then, draw nourishment from this beauty, ... and to this end we must know how to communicate with the language of images and symbols ... in order effectively to reach our contemporaries".

Benedict XVI also mentions the recent Synod, during which bishops "emphasised the perennial importance 'beautiful witness' has for the announcement of the Gospel, and underlined how important it is to know how to read and scrutinise the beauty of works of art inspired by the faith ... in order to discover a unique path that brings us close to God and His Word".

Finally, the Holy Father mentions John Paul II's Letter to Artists, "which invites us", writes Pope Benedict "to reflect upon ... the fruitful dialogue between Holy Scripture and various forms of art, whence countless masterpieces have emerged". Finally, the Pope launches an appeal to academics and artists, reminding them that their mission is "to arouse wonder at and desire for beauty, to form people's sensitivity and to nourish a passion for everything that is a genuine expression of human genius and a reflection of divine beauty".

How to Engage Culture When There Is No Culture to Engage

Prof. Anthony Esolen of Providence College wrote an insightful essay "The Last Embers of the Fire" which can be found over at Inside Catholic. It deals with the struggle to "engage culture" when culture as properly understand does not exist.

We Catholics are commonly urged to "engage the culture"; not to flee for monasteries of our own making, but to work within the institutions of mass media, mass education, mass marketing, and mass entertainment to advance the banners of Christ, our King.

I do not wish to criticize those who toil at that thankless task. Nor will I suggest that their work will be futile; no true service of the Lord can be without fruit. But I do believe we have mistaken the signs of the times. We seek to engage a culture, when there is no culture to engage. Our task is rather to revive the memory of what a culture is.

One of my goals with this blog is renewing the ideal of authentic Christian chivalry which likewise depends on a renewal of the Christian culture which gave birth to it during the Middle Ages. As challenging as this is we can and must look to the Catholic Church to reform our culture and society. Pope Benedict understands this and has begun a process of reform in the Church that will allow it to transform culture rather than be transformed by it as has happened over the past 40 years.

A wonderful book on the topic of culture is the Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper. In our fast paced world we have forgotten how to relax, to find leisure where we can reflect and contemplate God's goodness.

Musical Tribute for Christ the King

The following clip is for the Feast of Christ the King at Gloria.tv

Feast of Christ the King

Today is the Feast of Christ the King under the new calendar. I posted previously under the old calendar but wanted to show some different pics of Christ as King. This icon is from the Church of the Holy Archangels, an old Orthodox Church in Sarajevo.

Dissenting Catholics Play Conscience Card

Fr. Z at his excellent blog, WDTPRS, dissects the letter to the editor (NY Times) from Jon O'Brien, Pres. Catholics for a Free Choice. According to Jon O'Brien,who is upset with Pres. Bush and his rule to protect the conscience of healthcare providers who oppose abortion/birth control etc., his definition of a well-formed conscience trumps all including the clear teaching of the Catholic Church. In the twisted logic so representative of so many people today Mr. O'Brien makes the statement,

Catholic teaching also requires respect for others’ consciences. Doctors and pharmacists cannot dismiss the conscience of the person seeking a medication or a procedure to which they themselves may object. For example, they may not ignore the needs of patients who may not be Catholic, or who have made conscience-based decisions to use contraception.

What utter insanity. So often we hear that the problems we face in "our times" are not unlike those of prior generations and we shouldn't be overly concerned. But as dark as those times were I can't imagine that they were so devoid of rational thought as we are currently. How can a person honestly say that conscience trumps all but we must respect the conscience of others who might disagree with us, so long as that they respect me while I don't have to respect them. Seriously what is wrong with saying "I believe in birth control (I don't) but you don't so I will respect your decision and buy my poison someplace else." Obviously for Mr. O'Brien and his chorus of dissenters we can't have that. Check out Fr. Z for a complete analysis and the proper instruction of what the Catechism truly teaches about a well-formed conscience.

Here are a couple relevant extracts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, regarding man's freedom.

1747 The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in religious and moral matters, is an inalienable requirement of the dignity of man. But the exercise of freedom does not entail the putative right to say or do anything.

1776 "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." Gaudium et Spes 16.

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment englightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments acording to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

The Glorious Liberties

The recent elections have brought us cries of protest from those who disliked hearing the Church offer moral guidance on the issues of primary importance. They felt it was an imposition on their free will. But as Chesterton said, "We do not want a religion that is right when we are right. What we want is a religion that is right when we are wrong." Archbishop Sheen wrote a short commentary on the true meaning of freedom, The Glorious Liberties.

The laws of the Church are not limitations imposed upon us, but rather the gateways to freedom. The Church does not dam up the river of thought; she builds dams to prevent it from overflowing and ruining the countryside of sanity. She does not build great walls around rocky islands in the sea to prevent her children from playing; she builds them to prevent her children from falling into the sea and thus making all play impossible. . . We are enslaved if you will, but only at one point. We are slave to the Kingship of Christ. But that one point is like the fixed piont of a pendulum and from it we swing in beautiful rhythm with the freedom of Him Who can do all things. The root of all the liberties of the Church is the most glorious liberty of all --- the freedom to become a saint. Fulton J. Sheen

The State and the Kingship of Christ

For the first time in years a signifcant number of our Bishops have stood together and publicly proclaimed the moral teaching of the Church and its relevance in the recent elections. Although ignored by many Catholics who preferred the unjust moral equivalence of several law and other professors to the teaching authority of the Church's Bishops it was encouraging for many us to see them acting as true shephards. Many were criticized for becoming too involved in politics and violating a fictitious idea of the separation of Church and State. While certainly each operates in a distinct role it is wrong to deny the Church its legitmate place in preserving right order in society through its mission to preach the Gospel.

Thomas Storck wrote an article in The Catholic Faith originally published in 1996 and now available at The ChesterBelloc Mandate. Below is an excerpt of that article. It is a common error particularly among our Catholic politicians to deny the Kingship of Christ while elevating "The State" to His place.

This is the encyclical Quas Primas, on the Kingship of Christ, issued on December 11, 1925. To try to understand Catholic social teaching apart from the Kingship of Jesus Christ is to have only a partial and one-sided view of the matter. For "all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ." Moreover, "It would be a grave error...to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures commited to Him by the Father, all things are in His power."9 If we develop these points we can see that, looked at as part of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, nothing that mankind does, either individually or corporately, can be alien to Christ's law and his kingly rule.

Therefore the Church, as the mystical extension of the Incarnation, is not doing anything foreign to her mission when she provides guidance for bringing about the realization of Christ's Kingdom in the affairs of men. We are all Christ's subjects, and as such we are bound to make our institutions and our customs reflect him. Catholics should not dare to have a conception of business or economic life that is based either on practical atheism or on a deism that sees God as simply a distant Creator, who left a kind of clockwork universe that runs by itself, as in Adam Smith's "invisible hand." Just as we would not allow the sexual appetite to rule itself, on the grounds that since it was created by God somehow it would ultimately work everything out for the good, so we cannot allow the appetite for economic gain to have free rein.

For as Pius XI taught, "Just as the unity of human society cannot be built upon 'class' conflict, so the proper ordering of economic affairs cannot be left to the free play of rugged competition."10 For to do so would be to think and act as if, whenever men gathered into societies or groups, including nations, somehow they could forget the kingly law of Jesus Christ. If it is wrong to hurt the person living in the next house, it is likewise wrong to hurt my employee or even my competitor, for are we not brothers and are we not all subjects of our common King? And if we cannot see how it is possible not to hurt them in order for myself to survive in the business world, then we need to rethink our approach to economic life and change the demands that our economic system makes upon each of us. For more basic and more demanding than any of its strictures are the moral law and the fundamental principles of justice and charity.

The laws of physics describe how particles of matter move and react under certain conditions. Because these particles do not have free will, they have no choice about their behavior and they cannot be blamed for what they do. The so-called laws of economics, however, are about the actions of free human persons.11 Because of this freedom they can yield or refuse to yield to their various concupiscible appetites. The laws of economics are descriptions of what human beings will generally do if they yield themselves fully to their concupiscible appetite for gain. But whenever this appetite for gain runs counter to the law of Christ, it is entitled to no more respect than when the sexual appetite similarly runs out of bounds. And just as with the sexual appetite, we must curb our appetite for gain if our activity is likely to bring harm or disruption to a social order that supports a civilization of love.

If the Kingship of Christ Jesus over all men and over every aspect of human affairs is a fact, not merely a fancy which we use to decorate our piety at appropriate times, then this fact requires our utmost attention, and all the other activities and institutions of human existence must be shaped to recognize that Kingship. Thus we see that far from being something extra added onto Catholic dogma, the social teachings are integral parts of the realization of the Lordship of Jesus Christ the King. Every year we celebrate the feast of the Kingship of Christ and thus every year we have a new opportunity publicly to reaffirm these truths. But every single day we have the opportunity not just to reaffirm them, but to try to see how they can be put into practice. Otherwise, how can we avoid the condemnation of that Supreme Pontiff, who said of social modernism, "We condemn it as strongly as We do dogmatic Modernism?"