Friday Miscellany

"I go to Rome to be crucified again."

Jones vs. Voris

In an hour-long interview with a YouTuber, Eugene Michael Jones repeats much of his anti-Voris rant verbally. (For those interested, I reviewed that book at length here and here.) The strangest new thing he says in this video is that it's much better to be an off-camera writer than an on-camera opinionater, in terms of avoiding excesses of vainglory. See around the 35-minute mark, where Jones opines that writing more readily lends itself to reflection than talking to a camera. My experience of reading many blogs—not to mention Jones's essays—argues otherwise.

Papal Intentions

Sometimes I wonder at what point it becomes questionably moral to pursue a plenary indulgence. As we all know, such an indulgence requires praying for the pope's monthly intentions. P. Francis's most recent prayer intention is that all countries would be successfully bullied into accepting refugees. In a month when we are encouraged to pray for the dead and win indulgences for their repose, it is most unfortunate that the pope has tried to guilt Catholics everywhere into asking God to fulfill his questionable vision of world politics.

Tolkien's Love Story

May 2017 will see the publication of Dr. Tolkien's story of Beren and Lúthien as a standalone tale, much as his son did with The Children of Hurin. I think that many of his stories work better separated from their original Silmarillion framework than as cogs in a larger machine, and I expect this will be one such example. Maybe I'm just looking forward to the version of the story where Sauron is a giant evil cat.

Descent into Hell

Mel Gibson has officially confirmed plans for a sequel to The Passion of the Christ, which, for all its flaws, remains my favorite religious movie. He hints at the inclusion of Jesus's descent into the Limbo of the Fathers as a kind of dramatic backdrop to what could otherwise be an action-light story. One hopes that Gibson will not present a Balthasarized version of the Descensus Christi ad Inferos, but only time will tell. I am also expecting good things from his new film Hacksaw Ridge.

The Ghost of Counter-Reformation Past

Speaking of the legacy of Hans Urs von Balthasar, a blogger at Bp. Barron's Word on Fire website has written a rather scathing criticism of the celebration of Reformation Day. There's no mention of the pope's imprudent gestures in this regard, but it's good that even clericalist-leaning apologists are willing to break ranks with the usual back-slapping now and then.

Robert Barron: A Bishop for Today's Church

Fr. Barron at the Taj Mahony

Origen would be remembered as a saint if not for two spectacularly bad ideas: that the soul pre-exists the body and that because of the soul's pre-existence all beings with souls, right down to Satan in Hell himself, will one day be saved in an act of restoration. True, he was condemned without a specific citation to his works by an ecumenical council and there have since been efforts to restore his name, most notably by Benedict XVI, but the lingering doubt over his beliefs persists. Neither one has been explicitly condemned wholesale. Origen was a chain between St. Clement of Alexandria and later writers like St. Gregory of Nyssa, who also believed in universal salvation. In Origen, the Church had its first great thinker. Even St. Vincent of Lerins asked, "Who would not rather be wrong with Origen than right with anyone else?" The spiritual life of the Church stood athwart his condemnation at the Second Council of Constantinople and ignored it for the most part until after the middle ages. The various local rites of Latin Christianity read his works during the Divine Office, most notably Sarum dedicating his commentary on Matthew to Christmas Eve. In the Greek Church, his book on prayer has always been read. None would doubt his luminous place in the history of the Church if not for those two bad ideas, which is why it is so irritating that he has resurfaced in some circles precisely and exclusively because of those two bad ideas. 

Modern conservatives are fond of complaining about President Obama, understandably, because he promised to change America "fundamentally." The America of this president, candidates will clamor, is one of identity politics, mediocre quasi-socialism, limp-wristed foreign policy, and a passive aggressive hostility to his own armed forces. They are absolutely right, so why are they complaining? Leaders in democracy are no better or worse than the people who elect them. They are who we are. They give us want we want. They want whatever we want. Christianity in the media age is no different. Although not a democracy, Christian belief has caught the bug of 1776. The Church of England has been in full communion with political correctness for some time. The Eastern Orthodox have generally resisted it in the old world, although Kallistos Ware, Anthony Bloom, and a handful of others have made remarkable progress in the West. And in the Latin Catholic Church we have modern episcopal conferences which, fine institutions which will not affirm political correctness, but will leave it uncorrected. Enter Fr. Robert Barron.

Fr. Barron's name has floated on the internet for years. He used to make watchable movie reviews and ten minute commentaries on modern issues from a Catholic perspective. At some point he discovered that large sums of money were available to fund projects and his Catholicism series was born. Catholicism was supposedly an evangelization tool, but it is more often a visual spectacle viewed by Catholics with neo-con politics to affirm their perspective on things, a feel good movie. Fr. Barron took Origen out of the dustbin of history some time ago not for his book on prayer or his commentary on Matthew, but for his defective reasons for believing all men will be saved. The appeal behind feel good movies and tepid theology disguised as ancient thought (the purification process latent in the older belief behind universalism is conveniently forgotten) is feeling. Sweet, sugary and smooth feeling. 

Fr. Barron has been made an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he will be fortuitously near cameras ready to capture his every idea about Origen, his every thought on blasphemer and heretic Hans Urs von Balthasar, and his every gripe with the assault on the first amendment. He is what the American bishops perceive modern Church-goers want to hear: more or less Catholic with a lightened attitude and some progressive ideas that will keep Aunt Marge out of the eternal flames. He is what we are. He wants what we want. Yes, this selection by Francis' men is almost assuredly a reward for promoting a moderate pro-reform and pro-spirit of the Council line when "continuity" and traditionalism were both popular under Benedict. He was faithful to the Church they wanted all along, and now he has been granted our hearts' desire.

This torpid brand of religion demands little of the faithful and even less of the unfaithful. Rather than demanding conversion of heart and mind, it tells us that we are all saved, but should encounter God for the sake of experiences of holiness. By contrast, Mattins today for St. Mary Magdalen tell us of a woman who encountered holiness, embraced it, converted in repentance, and found heaven only after this baptism into Christ:

"At first when she sought Him, she found Him not; she went on searching, and so it came to pass that she found Him; and this was so, to the end that her longing might grow in earnestness, and so in its earnestness might find what it sought. Hence is it that the Bride in the Song of Songs saith as representing the Church: By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. We seek on our bed for Him Whom our soul loveth, when, having got some little rest in this world, we still sigh for the Presence of our Redeemer but it is by night that we so seek Him, for though our mind may be on the alert for Him, yet still He is hidden from our eyes by the darkness that now is."