The Traditional Mass, Too, Depends Upon the Priest

I want to pose this article as a thought experiment. This means I am not trying to argue a point I absolutely agree with, nor drawing any hard conclusions. I am merely following a train of thought to see where it leads and if others agree, and—if not—why.

It is often repeated that the very structure of the Novus Ordo lends itself to abuse and irreverence while the Traditional Latin Mass is impervious to such innovations. This is because the Traditional Mass has a "built in" structure of reverence, whereas the Novus Ordo is a blank slate; it has so many options and vagaries that it essentially becomes whatever the celebrant wishes it to be. Ergo, while the Novus Ordo can (by design) be endlessly improvised and created anew according to the whims of the celebrant, the Traditional Latin Mass has its own unity that comes down to us from Tradition and must simply be received.

It seems, however, that the conventional wisdom that the Traditional Latin Mass is inherently immune to novelty is incorrect. It seems that the reason the TLM is not subject to innovation is not because the structure prevents it, but because the priests who celebrate the TLM are not the sort of priests who would innovate.

Currently, priests who celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, whether diocesan or part of a fraternity, do so because they believe the traditional liturgy is a perfect act of worship. They choose the traditional Mass because they have come to treasure everything the traditional Mass is and stands for. The love the old liturgy. Therefore they (rightfully) have a deep fidelity to the liturgy and its formal structure. And hence they would never dare impose their innovations upon it. 

But this is only because they have no desire to change the Traditional Latin Mass, not because the Traditional Latin Mass itself is impervious to being changed.

Let us suppose that after Francis, we were to get a hypothetical Pope Pius XIII who mandates that the Roman rite return to the Tridentine liturgy. The Novus Ordo is suppressed. The TLM becomes the normative Mass across the entire west. Deo gratias.

If that were to happen, the Traditional Mass would then no longer be celebrated exclusively by priests who are devoted to liturgical excellence. Rather, every slip-shod parish priest who was accustomed to carelessly fumbling his way through the Novus Ordo is now saying it. Charismatic priests accustomed to incorporating drums and tongues into Mass are now saying it. Retirement age priests who just don't care and can no longer keep track of the shits they don't give are now having to say it. And most are not saying it out of deep love for that liturgical form, but merely from ecclesiastical dikat.

Furthermore, this is all being overseen by the same crop of bishops who have always exercised minimal interest in the liturgy and are likely, at best, to give the new regime a mere shrugging adherence. And it would be rolled out to the same apathetic Boomer congregations that are ubiquitous throughout the Novus Ordo world today.

What would the Traditional Latin Mass look like in these hands? What would stop it from being improvised? Is there anything inherent in the liturgy that would save it from being mutilated?

As far as I can see, the answer is no. A priest can violate the rubrics of the old Mass just as much as he can the new, the only difference being that the terms upon which he violates the New Mass are much more ambiguous. The integrity of the liturgy ultimately depends upon the integrity of the priest saying it, regardless of the specific liturgy being said.

Now, it could be argued that there was no a widespread problem with liturgical innovation prior to Vatican II, so this is good evidence that the Traditional Latin Mass would never have this problem in the future. While this is true (although I should say it is most true of the period between the Council of Trent and Vatican II), this was due primarily to the formation of the priests in those times. They were formed in such a way that respect for the integrity of the liturgy was paramount and innovation would have been unthinkable. Bishops enforced this, popes safeguarded it, and congregations expected uniformity.

So again, the integrity of the liturgy comes down to the will of the priest saying it. It has been observed that a priest following the rubrics of the TLM fades into the background. He allows the liturgy to glorify God through him, becoming, as an individual, of no importance. This is all true...if the priest follows the rubrics. But for that to happen, you need priests who are disposed to follow the rubrics to begin with. Would we have that if the TLM were suddenly mandated universally?

The point is that bringing back the Traditional Liturgy alone would be insufficient unless it was accompanied by a general spirit of metanoia throughout the entire Church. I understand that when we talk about the formation of priests to love the liturgy, that it is not so one-sided. A priest is formed to love the liturgy. And the liturgy itself forms that priest. In a certain sense, merely exposing priests to the traditional liturgy and requiring them to say it will instill in them a respect for it. But we cannot assume this effect will be universal, given the state of the Catholic priesthood. There needs to be a general turn to tradition that is bigger than the liturgy.

Thus, to some degree, the success of the Traditional Latin Mass is just as dependent upon the particular priest saying it as the Novus Ordo, the only difference being in the Traditional Latin Mass the disposition of the priest to do the liturgy correctly is simply assumed whereas in the Novus Ordo it is not. But, if we assume the good liturgical sense of a priest saying the TLM, it is only because today the TLM specifically attracts priests who are already disposed to respect the liturgy. This would not be the case if the Traditional Mass was mandated across the entire Church.

That's my thought experiment. Very interested in your observations and critique. God bless you.

The Novus Ordo and Conversion

Following up on my last post about the problem of the "reverent Novus Ordo", it was brought up in the comments that perhaps the Novus Ordo as some usefulness as a "transitional" liturgy that might appeal to Protestants in the process of returning to the Church. The argument in favor of this would be that a great many Protestant converts (myself included, even though I am not technically a convert) came into the Church through exposure to the Novus Ordo. Thus, even if the Traditional Latin Mass were re-enshrined as the normative Mass of the Latin rite, perhaps the Novus Ordo could be retained as a sort of liturgical "lobby" that converts pass through on their way to the Traditional Latin Mass.

One could of course respond by citing the innumerable multitudes of Protestant converts who returned to the Church before the existence of the Novus Ordo, most of them because of the radical difference between the Traditional Latin Mass and their own worship. For anyone who wants to read some examples of this, I highly recommend Joseph Pearce's book Literary Converts, which chronicles in fascinating detail the veritable army of English converts that entered the Church between 1850 and the Second Vatican Council.

But I also want to appeal to my own experience here, because I am among those who came into the Church through exposure to the Novus Ordo. It made me question to what degree the Novus Ordo itself was an aid in my conversion. Do I have the Novus Ordo to "thank" for being Catholic today?

To examine this question, we must first take a necessary detour through some of my personal history:

I was baptized Catholic as an infant but never raised in the faith, by which I mean I was never taken to Mass, never made a First Communion, and so forth. I came to Christ when I was 19 through the evangelism of a Protestant friend of mine. My first real experience of Christianity was in the sphere of what I would call Protestant house-church Pentecostalism. I returned to the Catholic Church when I was 22 years old as a result of personal study and prayer. It would be laborious to catalog the various winding paths that led me to the Church, but I can sum them up in three points:

(1) Historical study convinced me that the early Church was Catholic, or at least nothing like the Protestant gatherings I was accustomed to

(2) I was frustrated with the subjectivism and anti-intellectualism inherent in Pentecostalism and Protestantism in general; the Catholic Church, on the other hand, possessed a rich intellectual tradition

(3) It became evident to me that no Protestant hermeneutic suited the Sacred Scriptures and that a Catholic hermeneutic seemed a much more natural and holistic way to approach the Bible.

I also had a few mystical experiences which seemed to aid my reason and push me back towards the Church, but I have no wish to write about those here. So setting aside mysticism, the primary reasons I found my way to the Church were intellectual—they had to do with facts historical or exegetical and were grounded in the assumption that faith and reason were meant to reinforce each other. Facts that I believed about the Church and had learned from my study.

As I began my journey towards the Church, I began going to Mass. My first experience of the Mass was of course the Novus Ordo, as I didn't even know the Traditional Latin Mass was a thing. But more importantly, I did not understand that the Novus Ordo was not the historical Mass.

As I was studying the history of the Church, everything I was reading about was of course in the time of the traditional liturgy. When I read about St. Philip Neri going into ecstasy at Mass, it was the traditional Latin Mass. Or the Mass that St. Isaac Jogues offered in the wilderness, suffered, and died to bring to the Iroquois. Or any of the great stories from our heritage. It was always the traditional Latin Mass.

I certainly did not know any of this. Pre-conciliar texts of course did not know there was going to be a Novus Ordo in the future, and hence they did not refer to the Mass of the ages as the "traditional Latin Mass", but simply "the Mass", as they had no conception there would ever be any other. And post-Conciliar texts—anxious to stress continuity between the pre and post-Vatican II Church—simply spoke of the Novus Ordo as if it were essentially the same Mass the Church had always celebrated. Since pre-V2 texts were unaware of future rupture and post-V2 texts were eager to downplay rupture, the result was that I studied my way into the Church without ever realizing there was a rupture. I had no understanding that the Novus Ordo was not the traditional Mass.

But, upon reflection, all of the reasons I wanted to be Catholic in the first place were due to what I read about the pre-Conciliar Church. Consider this: I knew from my historical studies that the language of the Church was Latin. I loved this. I loved the idea of the universal Church having its own sacred, universal language that could breach the gap of culture and geography and undue the division of Babel in the sacred tongue of Latin. I actually went back to college and studied two semesters of Latin because I thought I would need it to be Catholic. I smile when I think of my naivete then, assuming the entire Church still used Latin! Silly me. But that was the impression I got from my historical studies.

There's many other examples—Gregorian chant, missionaries who actually wanted to make converts, popes who stood up to the trends of the world instead of embracing them, religious orders who wore traditional habits and were still faithful to their orders' charisms, a biblical exegesis that took the Scriptures seriously, architecture that reflected the glory of God instead of the ugliness of modernity, lots of pious devotions practiced at the parish level. Yes, I know I am leaving out the biggest thing, that is, the Mass of the ages. But keep in mind, I was not yet aware that the new Mass and old Mass were different.

At any rate, the simple point is this: the Church I read myself in to was the pre-Conciliar Church. 

And as an aside, have you ever noticed that many classical Protestant objections to Catholicism also all presume the pre-Conciliar Church? Like, objections about Marian veneration, use of Latin to "keep people from reading the Bible", belief in the Real Presence, veneration of statues, etc. Following historical precedent, today's Protestants generally attack a Church that no longer exists. They expend so much effort attacking the veneration of statues which the vast majority of parishes removed or relegated to mere decoration. They publish long, impassioned rebuttals to belief in the Real Presence—a belief that 69% of Catholics no longer hold. It seems to be the case that, just as I read myself into a pre-Conciliar Church, so do Protestants attack a pre-Conciliar Church. Either the NuChurch does not threaten them, or perhaps, being outsiders, they are simply unaware of how much things have changed in our household. Who knows.

Now, when I actually got into the Catholic Mass and started experiencing the Novus Ordo, it did actually move me deeply. But the reason it impressed itself upon me was not anything particular to the Novus Ordo, but merely the fact that there was a liturgy at all. Coming from a Pentecostal background, the mere existence of a structured liturgy, liturgical year, fixed readings, a Eucharistic rite, etc. were deeply impressive. But upon reflection, what impressed me most was just liturgy qua liturgy, not anything special about the Novus Ordo. 

After I got into the Church, I obviously noticed the dearth of Latin immediately. And the absence of chant. And bad music. And many other things that we associate with what is loosely called "Novus Ordoism" these days. This was disappointing, but at the time I thought this state of affairs was peculiar to my parish. Eventually I found a parish that did what I called a "reverent Novus Ordo" and I thought things were fine.

As happens with many converts, it was only when I started to realize how little the current rite resembles the old rite than my mind changed. After I had been Catholic for five years, I of course had learned about the Second Vatican Council and the Novus Ordo and everything, but I assumed that the Novus Ordo was basically the same as the Traditional Latin Mass. I assumed that perhaps 90% was the same and the changes only superficial. Crazy, I know! But, in my defense, this was pre-Summorum Pontificum, and I had very little opportunity of ever actually experiencing a traditional Mass for myself. And, as I mentioned above, every piece of contemporary literature on the subject—generally from the Catholic Answers-New Springtime-EWTN quadrant of Catholic intelligentsia—stressed pre and post-V2 continuity. It was stressed to a degree that, in retrospect, I now find ridiculous at best and deceptive at worst. But the end result was that I was ignorant of the true depth and breadth of the rupture. 

Eventually I met another Catholic, just a DRE at the time but now the eminent Dr. John Joy, who gave me copies of Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy and Michael Davies' Liturgical Timebombs. These books finally opened my eyes to how much had actually been gutted from the Tradition. How the prayers were changed. The calendar. The sacraments. Literally everything. The Pauline Reform was not a cosmetic make-over. It was almost an entirely new edifice.

Around that time I also got a hold of the actual day books of the Second Vatican Council. The day books were essentially the daily logs of the day-by-day proceedings of the Council: what bishops spoke on what days, the subjects they spoke about, the exact vote tallies on the different proposals and documents, and so forth. In reading these, I was astonished by the way the liberal faction had dominated the procedures of the Council. I couldn't believe the unplugging of Cardinal Ottaviani's microphone during his speech actually happened. And many other instances of chicanery. Yet there it all was. This led me to Ralph Wiltgen's The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, which helped make sense of what I had read in Council day books and pulled the entire history of the Council together in a cohesive narrative. 

At a certain point, it dawned on me that the sad state of affairs I had lamented in some of my local parishes was not confined to to those parishes. It was, in fact, the state of the Church globally. This was an incredibly depressing realization, but it ultimately led me to the study of the Traditional Latin Mass, which at that time was still only offered under the Indult. When I was able to compare the prayers of the TLM to the Novus Ordo, the difference was night and day. "Why wouldn't anyone want to pray like this?" I thought to myself in astonishment at the obvious superiority of the old prayers. 

The curtain finally fell when I had the following realizations:

(1) The Church I had fallen in love with through study was the traditional Church, which for all intents and purposes no longer existed.

(2) Whatever it was that had replaced the traditional Church was not only different, but also inferior to it in every way. Those things I liked about the contemporary Church were precisely those facets of traditional Catholicism that had survived despite the rupture of the Conciliar era. 

(3) Finally, this displacement of tradition was not some accident of history, but was a very deliberate act of erasure—of intentional cultural warfare waged against the Church by one of her own factions. 

The Church I had read my way into simply did not exist. It's hard to explain the degree of frustration I felt. Not just frustration, but, a sense of having been robbed. Yes, robbed; for to intentionally cut off the great stream Tradition is to commit the sin of theft against future generations, who are thereby deprived unjustly of a heritage they ought to have inherited. Destroying tradition is to commit theft against future Catholics.

Was the Novus Ordo responsible for bringing me back to the Church? Only in an indirect way, in the sense that I found a few scattered remnants of tradition within the contemporary Church that nourished me enough to secure me in the faith. I do not therefore think the Novus Ordo is a good "transitionary" Mass for people who were in my situation. The fact that God used it to my advantage does not mean it would be to the Church's advantage in general. To use another example, I came into the Catholic Church through the bridge of Pentecostal Protestantism. Pentecostalism was the step God used to bring me to the Catholicism, which was a good thing. But that God used Pentecostalism for my good does not mean I view Pentecostalism as an objective good that I would recommend.

God can bring good out of anything, but it does not follow that those things are goods.

The Problem of the "Reverent Novus Ordo"

For much of my life as a Catholic, I attended what most would call a "reverent Novus Ordo." For some Catholics who have never seen a NO that wasn't a clown show, the concept of a reverent Novus Ordo may come as a surprise, but I assure you they exist, though they are rare. What does a reverent Novus Ordo look like? In my experience, they may incorporate some or all of the following elements:

• The ordinary of the Mass said or sung in Latin
• Exclusive use of the Roman Canon ("Eucharistic Prayer 1")
• Prevalence of women veiling
• Chant replacing hymns
• A Latin introit
• An asperges rite
• Beautiful vestments
• Almost exclusive reception of Holy Communion on the tongue
• Centrally located tabernacle
• Reception of communion kneeling at altar rails
• Solid, sacrificial looking altar (i.e., no flimsy "table altar")
• Beautiful, traditional architecture and decorum
• Orthodox preaching and catechesis
• Traditionally vested male altar servers
• Cultivation of spirituality that is Marian and Eucharistic
• Congregation dressed appropriately and reverently
• St. Michael Prayer after Mass

I have been consistent over the years in my opinion that the Novus Ordo is not intrinsically irreverent; that is. We know a statistical majority of Novus Ordo liturgies are cringy at best and irreverent at worst, but still the NO can theoretically be celebrated in a way that befits the dignity of the liturgy. Maybe you disagree with this, but whatever. That's not the point of this essay. And of course, the Traditional Latin Mass is superior in this regard in every way, and that is without dispute. But the point is that it is possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo in a way that is reverent and dignified, and that for many Catholics these sorts of Novus Ordo liturgies constitute a real and positive source of spiritual nourishment and offer a true, if very imperfect, connection with the Catholic tradition.

However, even if this is all true...it's an awful defense of the Novus Ordo. There is one overarching reason that looms like an elephant in the room—the fact that even the best Novus Ordo liturgy is only such because of the personal preference of the celebrant.

The rubrics of the Novus Ordo definitely allow for a reverent celebration. But the word "allow" is the crux of the problem. It allows for all the most reverent options if the celebrant so chooses to use them. And the same rubrics that allow for reverence just as easily allows for the most banal, goofy, or irreverent options if the celebrant so chooses. The Novus Ordo is liturgically libertarian. It elevates the principle of choice for the sake of choice as the determining principle of the liturgy. This ensures that the quality of one's liturgical experience is determined not by the structure of the rite itself, but by the whims of the celebrant. Even when the celebrant chooses to use the most reverent options—which might be good for that particular liturgy—overall it is a bad state of affairs because the stability of that "reverent Novus Ordo" is always in question.

To be blunt, this means that only one person stands between that reverent Novus Ordo and the complete upending of the parish's liturgical life. A few examples from my own history:

My parish had a traditional pastor for over a decade. He did what I would describe as a "reverent" Novus Ordo, and (after the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum) he also celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass. All his liturgies of both forms used the neo-gothic high altar. The parish did have a table altar, but the pastor had removed this and put it in storage. Well eventually, that pastor left and we were assigned a temporary parish administrator until a permanent pastor was assigned. The interim guy immediately put the table altar back. Both clerics could cite documents in support of their decisions: the original pastor rightly noted that the text of the Missale Romanum assumes that the celebrant is facing ad orientam and hence presumes a fixed wall altar, not a table altar. The interim administrator could cite the GIRM, which specifically says that the altar "should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people" (GIRM 299). It all depended on the personality and preferences of each man, which document they chose to go by, and how they interpreted said documents. When a new pastor was finally assigned, he (again) removed the table altar. If he ever leaves, a new pastor could just as easily put it back again.

Another story: Years earlier, when I first returned to the Church, I was attending Mass at what was then the most traditional parish in my region. The pastor said a Latin Novus Ordo, where everything other than the readings and homily was chanted in Latin. I loved this. It was my first exposure to anything approximating the Catholic liturgical tradition. Well, eventually that pastor was removed and we got another one, a very low-energy "don't rock the boat" sort of guy. Prime bishop-material. Anyhow, once the new priest got in, guess what was the first thing to go? I don't think Latin has been spoken in that parish ever since.

The point is this: Even when the Novus Ordo is done reverently, it is as an exercise of the pastor's personal taste—and the elevation of the celebrant's preference above all other considerations is perhaps the original sin of Novus Ordoism. The Novus Ordo at its best is still an exemplar of what is worst about it. What bizarre irony.

How different is this from the Traditional Latin Mass, where the celebrant becomes irrelevant! The reverence of the Traditional Latin Mass is not the product of subjective preference, but is built into the structure of the rite itself. The Traditional Mass does not have a contingent "allowance" for reverence; it simply is reverent. The reverence isn't the product of getting just the right pastor in, building the right congregation over the years, and making the right choices amongst a sea of options. The reverence of the Traditional Latin Mass is not the end to be attained, but a foundation that is taken for granted and built upon. It is where we begin, not where we end. 

Reverent liturgy is not something Catholics should have to fight for, much less leave to the whims of one man's liturgical preferences. It should be our birthright as sons and daughters of the Church.

What Madness Washed Them Away?

Kirstin was a friend of mine from long ago—a companion of the raucous days of my youth and the bygone years when I was a just a secular kid in public high school, doing the things all secular kids did in the 90s. We met in gym class. Both of us had an aversion to running, so we found each other on the track in the early morning walking leisurely with the sports-averse kids while all the jocks passed us by lap after lap. We took to each other naturally; I was a punk rock kid with a skater mohawk, and she was a hippie girl with long, scraggly hair down to the small of her back.

We hung out a lot, both one and one and socially. We shared a common friend group and lived nearby. I got to know her sister and her mother. Nothing romantic ever emerged between us, but we sincerely enjoyed each other's company. She came from an Italian family and was feisty and opinionated. I was a burgeoning intellectual who was always up for a good argument or any sort of rich conversation. We never agreed on everything, but that was okay, because we had that sort of mutual fondness that makes friendship sweet and easy. We spent many late nights with friends in 24-hour diners sipping coffee and talking about anything and everything to the haze of cigarette smoke, back when you could still smoke in restaurants. We went on that way for about four years, weaving the memories that would become the tapestry of our adolescence. It was a very sincere and wholesome friendship.

Once when we were about 18 and it was the dead of winter, Kristin and I went to a party at some house where we didn't know the people there very well; they were mainly older guys of college age or even older. Booze flowed freely and Kirstin and I were soon inebriated. As the night wore on, some of the college guys began to get aggressive towards Kirstin. They were inviting her back to their rooms for sex, harassing her, and boasting that they'd have her that evening. We were too drunk to drive, and many party-goers were just crashing wherever they could find a spot. Kirstin confessed to me that she was terrified of going to sleep there in such a vulnerable state. There was one drunken guy in particular who was being extremely predatory. We discussed various options, like sleeping in the car, trying to drive home drunk, etc. We eventually decided to sleep together on a large couch. There was a sofa that there was broad enough for two people to lay down side by side; Kirstin laid on the inside, and I laid on the outside, sort of spooned up to her, in such a manner that no one could approach her without climbing over me first. We passed the whole night that way, sleeping peacefully, chastely, and without incident.

The following morning, we awoke at dawn when everyone else was still sleeping and left in her car. I still remember driving down the road as the sun crested the trees, with that "I am hung over and slept in my clothes feeling" while she smoked with the window cracked in her car and we listened to Blind Melon and talked about what happened. She was exceptionally grateful for my presence there that night and what I had done. I don't know what would have happened otherwise, but she firmly believed that my presence alone had stopped her from being assaulted or raped. And that night became like...a special moment of vulnerability that gave our friendship a unique depth and mutual respect.

Well, after high school we fell out of contact. I entered a spiritual crisis and converted to Catholicism. She moved to Europe. We had no communication for many years. With the advent of social media we reconnected, albeit from a distance and we did not have much interaction. I mentioned she was always kind of a hippie growing up, and as an adult she had definitively embraced the Left side of the political spectrum. But that was okay. I have a great diversity of friends from all different backgrounds. I saw her when she returned stateside once or twice. And I rejoiced with her when she got married to a wealthy European businessman and became a very well-to-do lady. My heart broke with her when she was diagnosed with a degenerative nervous disorder a few years back that affected her cognitive function. I prayed for her.

In short, life went on for her and I and affected our friendship much the way the passing of time affects many friendships. We strayed, we drifted, but the bonds that we forged in youth remained, buried beneath the accumulation of time.

Two months or so ago, on a Facebook post about Black Lives Matter, she suddenly emerged on my thread spewing vitriol, accusing anyone who would not get behind BLM of being racist, and demanding anyone who would not support BLM to unfriend her. I did not argue with her, although I modestly challenged her on a few points.

A few days later I noticed I was unfriended. All that personal history just...evaporated.

And I could tell many similar stories.

What happened to my friends?

What madness has washed them away?

If you have similar stories, please share in the comments.

In Memoriam: James Larson (1941-2020)

I apologize it took me so long to get around to this, but I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the memory of a brother and friend in the Lord who passed away in July. I am speaking of Mr. James Larson, a friend and collaborator, who died on July 6th. He died of heart failure while doing what he loved: writing an article about the Church. He was found dead seated at his desk, his Bible open to the book of the prophet Jeremiah. The final, unfinished article he was working on when he passed has been published on his website, Rosary to the Interior. You may view his obituary here.

Mr. Larson was a prolific and insightful writer who was making valuable contributions to the conversation about the Church in crisis back when I first took up blogging well over a decade ago. I stumbled upon Larson's original website, War Against Being, when I was first delving into traditional Catholicism (War Against Being is still up, although it looks like Larson ceased work on it in 2017 to devote energy to his other website). The premise of War Against Being was that the crisis in the Church was not essentially about liturgy but rather metaphysics, specifically, a deliberate abandonment of the metaphysical principles enshrined in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The darkness within the Church was metaphysical. I felt like his writings really got to the philosophical heart of contemporary problems in a way few others did.

This itself was not a novel concept; many others had said the same, and there are other very scholarly writers doing admirable work in the same vein (for example, Dr. Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, Ph.D of the blog Ite Ad Thomam). But what struck me about Larson's work was not necessarily his level of erudition or the iron-clad logic of his argumentation, but the almost prophetic quality I found in his writing. Anyone who has dug through Larson's expansive corpus knows what I mean. He was a man of deep spiritual insight who always looked at things from the perspective of the supernatural, regardless of the subject matter. When reading Larson's works, I always felt like I was getting a look "behind the curtain", so to speak—a privileged view into what was "really going on" behind it all. His writings not only informed, they nourished. They took a broad view, looking at the Church today from the perspective of heaven.

I remember when I discovered War Against Being I was still working for the Church as a DRE. I poured through every article and was deeply stimulated by them. Many concepts for some of my most perennially popular articles were first put into my head by Larson. For example, the observation that the theology of Joseph Ratzinger is fundamentally Teilhardian was an insight I picked up from Larson and would develop in my subsequent essays. Or my articles identifying the real problem with evolution being a denial of the metaphysical concept of substance. The whole genesis of my ebook Laudato Si: The 40 Concerns of an Exhausted Layman came from Larson's observations about naturalism in the thought of Pope Francis. And much more. Even his more trifling ideas were insightful, like his observation that the papal "Year of" phenomenon always ends up jinxing whatever it is trying to draw attention to, which I subsequently explored in my own essay (see: "Children's Crusade and the Age of Mercy", March 2015). His contribution on my own thought are truly difficult to measure.

Sometime after I read everything on War Against Being and began work on my own humble blog, Larson and I got into contact. I do not remember how or who contacted whom, but we struck up a rich and rewarding email exchange that spanned many years. My communication with Larson was always solely about spiritual matters and our mutual hobby, writing. Literally. We never talked about anything else. He never asked about my family, my work, or anything else, nor I him. Our friendship was solely focused on our writing. I came to admire him very much as a writer and thinker. I admired his insight and lucid style; as an older gentleman, Larson admired my ability to navigate the new media publishing world successfully. Speaking of age, I have to say, until James Larson died, I never knew how old he was. I knew he was older; being in my 30s when we started talking, I assumed he was in his 50s. I did not know I was engaging with a septuagenarian (Larson was 79 when he died last month).We never bothered to ask our ages in all our years of communication. Not that it would have mattered, but I realize now in retrospect that he has a sort of timeless feel about his character and the way he spoke and wrote that made it hard to pinpoint his age from his writing alone.

After some time I asked Larson if he had ever considered self-publishing his writings in book form. Larson was initially skeptical, as for him, "self-publishing" evoked images of junky spiral bound notebooks from Staples. I tried to convince him of the contemporary advances in self-publishing and offered to help walk him through the process and publish anything he wished. To my astonishment, he produced a largely unpublished draft of a work he called War Against the Papacy. Over the next several months I worked with James to self publish War Against the Papacy, which I published through my own publishing imprint Cruachan Hill Press in April, 2015 (click here to buy the book). I remember how giddy James was when he saw how professional the book layout looked compared to how he imagined a self-published work would look.

War Against the Papacy is very characteristic of Larson's thought and why I was attracted to him to begin with. War Against the Papacy is a traditionalist defense of the papacy which nevertheless avoids all the standard traditionalist arguments and even critiques some traddy canards, like the trad obsession with Cum ex apostolatus officio, the 1559 bull of Pope Paul IV that doesn't have even one fourth of the import that many traditionalists seem to think it does.

Larson had an interesting relationship with traditionalism that very much parallels my own. Though Larson fully accepted and understood the chaos of the post-conciliar Church, he had very little in common with what I would consider the vanguards of traditionalism in the English speaking world. He was very much in the camp of "I agree with your conclusions, but not the arguments by which you came to your conclusions." He loved the traditional Mass but had little interest in liturgical arguments; he thought the contemporary hierarchy had been taken over by the forces of darkness but had no sympathy for the SSPX or Lefebvre. He thought Pope Francis acts in a spirit completely antithetical to that which is proper for the successor of St. Peter but never questioned the validity of his pontificate and considered any variant of Sedevacantism to be unthinkable for a Catholic. Like the Prophet Jeremiah, whom he died reading, James was ultimately a contrarian, beating his fists against the wind amidst a generation that had little interest in his conclusions and less patience to understand the rationale behind his arguments. But that never stopped him from continuing to patiently,  persistently beat nonetheless.

Not to say Mr. Larson was flawless in his writing or his opinion. And we certainly disagreed on a few issues, though it was never so substantial that I felt any hesitancy promoting his work. As I've often said, there is no "Trad Magisterium", and I welcome many divergent points of view on issues Catholics of good faith can disagree about. James was always an outsider whom other trads respected but did not quite know what to do with. Perhaps that's something that resonated with me as someone who has alternately been praised or ostracized by larger trad outlets depending my adherence to Trad Groupthink in a given year.

In December of 2017, Mr. Larson launched his new website, Rosary to the Interior. Rosary to the Interior was started from Mr. Larson's conviction that "We are at a point in the history of the Church in which none of the normal apostolates which sustain the life of the Church—catechesis, proper intellectual formation, all sorts of organizations in defense of faith and morals, apologetics, etc. seem to possess the power to resist and defeat the enemy" (source). It was a prayer crusade (organized by lay people and certain participating clerics), to pray the Rosary on specific Marian feast days for the intention of the purification of the Church. I helped promote the endeavor when it was first announced. James was ardent in his devotion to the new endeavor to the end of his life. As mentioned above, he died while writing an article for the site.

Unfortunately, I fell out of contact with Mr. Larson in his latter years. My life was changing and I no longer had the time to keep up with James' output, which became more frequent in the last two years. Nor did I devote much time to our correspondence. He still faithfully emailed me every time he wrote something, though. I miss those emails now. Usually just a simple "I just wanted to let you know I published a new article", and then a link. It was nice to know he was still out there writing, even if I couldn't give him more attention. He wasn't asking for any promotion, just wanting to let an old friend know that he'd created something new. Alas, I seldom had the time to read his newer material. I will definitely make the time now.    

If I had to choose a favorite work from James, it would be a piece from War Against Being entitled "St. Francis of Assisi: They Pretended to Love You So That They Might Leave You." This was one of his works I have come back to multiple times over the years. I think it is a good exemplification of everything I admired about Mr. Larson's writing. I hope you'll give it a look.

Requiescat in pace, Brother James. I'm sorry I fell out of contact with you in the end. I pray for the repose of your soul and ask the same of all who stumble across this post. And—if you are now gazing on the everlasting hills from the halls of light—please remember my poor soul, which will someday, God willing, join you before too long.


+AMDG+

When a "Good Priest" Goes Bad, and What We Can Take Away from the Case of Fr. Leatherby

 

Editor's Note: Maximus is a long-time collaborator of the USC blog who has recently begun contributing again. He has advanced degrees in theology and a long history of working for the Church at various levels. On this feast of St. Maximus, we are glad to welcome this guest post.

The recent account of things coming to light in the Sacramento Diocese should be disturbing to any member of the Faithful, and particularly those who would consider themselves "conservative" or "orthodox" Catholics. The story starts off as a familiar one: a conservative priest is removed from ministry allegedly for being too conservative. Those on the right defend the priest, vilify the local ordinary (who is decried as a liberal or anti-life or any other number of easy labels for political expediency), and persist in a campaign to "get their priest back". Those on the left decry the hypocrisy of the right, by manifesting the double-standard held by the defenders on the grounds that "at worst, the it's only a sin between heterosexual, consensual adults". The right shouts back and says, "but those gay priests got off without a warning!"

A mess to be sure, and what-about-ism cannot be the way forward. Inevitably, events transpire that begin to leak so-called facts, and then the cycle concludes with a trial by public opinion, an even more divided laity, a distrust in the hierarchy, and a tarnished witness of the Body of Christ to the world.

We've heard this before.

At the risk of contributing to the undue continuance of the news cycle around this issue, I'd like to comment upon a few important details that may get lost in the noise, in hopes that we can do better in the future.

1) It seems that there has been a real failure -- or at least a manifestation of the real poverty -- in our canonical systems. It may not be popular, but I believe His Excellency, Bishop Jaime Soto when he says that the process has extended out of his hands. It is also not surprising that the family and local congregation would support a priest who is by all accounts conservative, charismatic, and a sign of contradiction in our world over and against a local ordinary, who, like so many ordinaries in the Church today, is not known personally by the community but is perhaps seen as a distant administrator rather than a shepherd.

2) AND YET, to focus on the moral issue and the lagging canonical process that has not yet been resolved IS TO MISS THE POINT ENTIRELY. The primary documents that were either distributed publicly or else leaked demonstrate in abundance that the recent confirmation of excommunication by the Bishop is not at all in relation to the moral life of a priest, but rather is a far graver crime than that of morals. While inappropriate relationships in the closed forum undoubtedly cause damage to the individuals involved and consequently to the Body of Christ, the crime of schism is a direct assault on the whole of the Body itself. Moreover, the public manifestation of errant teachings brings with it the consequence of leading so many members of the faithful astray, who, through little fault of their own simply wish to follow the pastor they trust -- even if that is off a cliff.

3) The public airing of the allegations pertaining to the alleged moral indiscretions of the priest is an injustice to all. As difficult as it has surely been for the lay faithful not to have received any specific clarifications on the allegations from the Bishop, IT IS NOT THE RIGHT OF THE FAITHFUL TO KNOW THESE THINGS. The priest, even though suspended, has a right to a good name. In the modern West, we are too quick to project our alleged "right to a public trial" on to the processes of the Church. And yet, we have no such right to know. Let us imagine, for a moment, that Fr. Leatherby, who admits his guilt on the one hand but on the other strongly objects to the degree of the guilt to which he is being accused, is telling the truth. Will he be able to get a fair trial? And if so, would he be able to ever exercise ministry again? Not in any country that has access to the Internet.

4) The specific allegations revealed in the Catholic Herald bear a haunting resemblance to another story made public. This concurrence of stories about two conservative clerics who both studied at the Pontifical North American College in Rome at the same time should bring up alarm bells for the reader. How did these priests come to fabricate these "rites" and plan to carry them out on the faithful? Is there a network of predator conservative priests being formed at the NAC? Or, is this simply a case of "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," who latched onto a story floating around at the time she was being questioned? Frankly, I don't know and I am trying not to be overly curious -- we shouldn't even know these details, and this is the entire purpose of a tribunal process: to discover the truth insofar as it is able to be discovered, and to pass a judgment on the thing without the scrutiny of voyeurs from the outside.

5) If the report from the Diocese, that they would support Fr. Leatherby's request for laicization, is correct, this too is an injustice. It is an injustice because the trial regarding the crimes of a moral nature need to be brought to their proper conclusion for the sake of the alleged victims. It is an injustice because the crime of schism of a priest should be given a just sentencing, not a get out of jail free card so that this priest according to the order of Melchizedek can start up his own "independent 'catholic' church" with valid but illicit sacraments. It is an injustice because it may very well be that the salvation of Fr. Leatherby is dependent upon the tough love of a Mother rather than a laissez-faire policy regarding schism, one which embodies the spirit of the age, with the instruction"you go and do you, and that's okay".

Some other, secondary, remarks:

1) If the individual crime of schism is a serious one, the "Bene-vacantism" represented here is not a serious schism, but a fashionable idea that will die off in due course. Its telos is either sedevacantism outright, or else it is merely a weak tantrum akin to a teenager who lashes out after having done something wrong. Those who follow this route will most certainly be reconciled before the final judgment -- indeed, Fr. Leatherby's letter indicates that he is open to the possibility of correction of an error of fact (i.e.: who is in fact the pope). For the student of history, it should not be a surprise that when two people style themselves as pope in their external adornments and titles, that there would be confusion in the minds of the faithful. Let us pray that this... situation... does not endure for too much longer.

2) The 350+ lay faithful who have been led astray need some serious pastoral accompaniment. It may be that the Bishop is too distant and perceived as the bad guy to directly lend a hand, but perhaps their pastor/s can be given the Bishop's confidence and support in this effort.

3) We should pray for Fr. Leatherby, for his renunciation of error, and that he will be granted the grace of humility, to seek the solitude of a monastery where he might pray and offer penance for his grievous wounds on the Body of Christ. Perhaps, following the lead of His Excellency's invocation, those who are concerned for this priest (and not merely titilated by the thrill of a good priest gone bad) would consider a novena for his repentance and conversion. Considering the time of year, I would propose holding this novena from the Vigil of the Assumption (Aug. 14th) through the feast of the Queenship of Mary (Aug. 22nd). Here's a good novena.

In conclusion, I earnestly hope that there is justice for all involved in what has now become a 3-ring circus. Schism is never a good thing, and this should not be obfuscated because of alleged improprieties that have not yet been given a final judgment. That these two would be conflated, or that schism would even be eclipsed by crimes of a more private nature, simply does not bode well about the outcome.

Oremus pro Ecclesiam!

Examining "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin"

Throughout Church history the maxim "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" has served as a general principle from which to understand the Christian's obligation to love people while detesting the sins those people may commit. Many erroneously think the quote is from the Bible; in fact, it comes from a letter of St. Augustine of Hippo in which he says "Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum", which literally means "With love for mankind and hatred of sins" (Letter 211).

Even if it is not strictly biblical, the proverb is a more or less accurate summary of biblical teaching. There are many examples we could cite where we are commanded to love sinners. By way of example, let us look at 1 John 1:9-11, which clearly teaches we are to love others:

"He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes"

And later in 1 John 4:21, it says, "And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also." So, we are to love one another if we claim to love God. We could cite many other passages that command us to love our neighbor, but I do not think this is necessary. This principle is without dispute.

However, we are also to hate sin. This, too, is indisputable. Ephesians 5:11 tells us, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." Sin is to be exposed; it is a corruption and contamination (Tit. 1:15; 2 Cor. 7:1). It separates us from God and grieves the Holy Spirit (Isa. 59:2, Eph. 4:30). This is why we are told to hate it; Psalm 97:10 enjoins us, "Let those who love the Lord hate evil." The Psalms also tell us that God hates the company of sinners (Ps. 26:5). A hatred of sin is a necessary precondition to a healthy reverence for God: 'The fear of the Lord is to hate evil" (Prov. 8:13).

I think, however, the biblical verse which best joins these principles together is Leviticus 19:17, which says:

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him."

Here we see the obligation to love our brother and refrain from hating him, with the corresponding obligation to "reason" with him if we see him sinning, not only because of the obvious reason that sin is destructive, but because there is a real danger that we will bear guilt for that person's sin if we make no effort to turn them from their vice (cf. Ezekiel 33).

Thus, a Christian cannot be supportive or even indifferent to the sins of another. That doesn't mean we must be judgmental or prying—but it does mean our fundamental orientation must always be towards identifying sin, working to overcome it, and helping others do the same. We do not settle with sin. We do not make truces with it. We do not manage it. We work to eliminate it through the grace of God. This is why the traditional Catholic Act of Condition says "I detest all my sins." Sin is to be the object of detestation. It separates us from God and makes true happiness impossible.

Ergo, we hate sin, but we love the sinner.

It seems simple. Perhaps not always easy to practice, but it's not a difficult concept to grasp.

Nevertheless, the principle has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. If you Google "love the sinner hate the sin", some of the top articles that come up are pieces arguing that the concept is unworkable and that Christians should retire the saying. And in my recent article on the reasons people leave the Church, the persons in question who had left the Church cited "love the sinner, hate the sin" as an unworkable proposition.

For example, this article "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin? Why Christians Should Retire Their Favorite Phrase." In this piece, the author (apparently some sort of progressive Protestant) argues that the principle "love the sinner, hate the sin" is manipulative and meant to make the "lover" feel morally superior to the sinner by allowing them to express negative judgment whilst maintaining the facade that they are "loving."

The central critique in this article is that the principle is transactional—forgiveness is "exchanged" for amendment of life, which causes love to be viewed as something reserved for those who are "good enough." Love, the article says, must accept uncritically. "To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” 

He also argues that "love the sinner, hate the sin" can be used to justify judgmentalism "associated with bigotry and intolerance." It enables the "lover" to condemn the "sinner" while still feeling like they are a loving person because their judgmentalism is actually "love."

As we can see, at its core, there is a redefinition of values: "Love" is redefined as uncritical acceptance. And we can see that this concept of love is detached from any notion of the good. It does not consist in willing someone to attain their highest good, but in merely extending uncritical acceptance. It is not fundamentally transformative.

But there is also an essential confusion of terms. He says "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is unworkable and then critiques persons who refuse to extend forgiveness unless someone makes an amendment of life first. These are two radically different ideas. Christians are always enjoined to forgive, and to do so regardless of whether the sinner has repented. This is the example Christ gave us on the cross: "Father, forgive them. They know not what they do"  (Luke 23:34). A Christian who refuses to forgive someone on the premise that their penitence isn't sufficient isn't practicing "Love the sinner, hate the sin"; they are simply not exercising Christian forgiveness. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is not about forgiveness for past sins; it is about how we exercise ongoing love towards people in our lives who are sinning in the present.

Furthermore, even if the definition of love as uncritical acceptance of a person "exactly the way he or she is, right here and now" is deficient, "uncritical acceptance" is not contrary to "Love the sinner, hate the sin." We can absolutely accept people as they are, right here and now, with full empathy while still hating their sin. Have any of you dealt with an addict close to you? Maybe a brother or sister? You always, always accept and love that person. The more you love them, the more you accept them in their brokenness. But do you love your sister's alcoholism? Do you love your brother's heroin addiction? Do you love your son's gaming addiction that keeps him locked in a basement in front of a screen 17 hours a day?

Of course not. You hate these things. What's more, you hate them to the degree that you love your sibling. Those who have had relatives or close friends suffer through addiction understand this. So ultimately, the article above is creating a straw man by saying, "You must forgive without condition and accept people where they are at" as if that proves anything. All Catholics should agree that we forgive without condition and accept people where they are at. But "Love the sinner, hate the sin" does not preclude us from doing either of those things. It does mean that we have to love the person whilst understanding that that person may struggle with certain vices or behaviors that are inimical to their authentic good. These we must not accept. In fact, to accept them would be to enable that person in their problems, to make them worse...and ultimately not love them.

We will have more to say on this, but I want to look at a second article, this one from Psychology Today entitled "Why Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin Doesn't Work by Dr. Gordon Hodson. Dr. Hodson says that the principle is ultimately about allowing us psychological justification that "enables some people to maintain their negative attitudes without feeling like a prejudiced person." To that end, "Love the sinner, hate the sin" actually is a vehicle of promoting hate, especially towards groups Dr. Hodson defines as "sexual minorities."

This article is full of problems. It reduces the idea of "sin" to focus specifically on so-called "culture war" issues and offers no comment on how the principle applies to, say, gossip, drunkenness, pride, or other such vices. He seems to infer that Christians do not take these sins seriously anyway.

Second, in assuring us that the principle "doesn't work", we might except some definition of what constitutes "working"? How are we judging whether such a principle succeeds or fails? The article assures us that "Love the sinner, hate the sin" fails precisely because it "promotes hate" and engenders a sense of moral superiority. However, when we look at what Dr. Hodson means by "promoting hate", we see that he defines hate as having "negative attitudes" about sexual minorities. Now we can see the real nature of the argument: "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is not problematic because it doesn't help us love the sinner, but because it enjoins we should hate the sin. The only viable solution is "Love the sinner, affirm the sin." The reason it "doesn't work" isn't because it fails as a mechanism to help love people despite their flaws, but because it isn't Woke to view certain behaviors negatively.

So, to wrap this up, I want to turn this on its head. Instead of looking at critiques of "Love the sinner, hate the sin," I want to critique the critiques and demonstrate why they don't hold water:

1. The Sinner is Identified with His Sins

This is honestly the biggest problem with these critiques and is ultimately behind every criticism of "Love the sinner, hate the sin." One of the most revolutionary ideas in Christianity is the notion that a man is not the sum of his sins—a man's worth or value is not determined by the sins he commits, but by the price that was paid for his redemption by the blood of Christ. Every human being has tremendous value as someone redeemed by Christ. God wants to take our sins and throw them behind His back (Isa. 38:17). We are not our sins, we are not defined by our sins, and our sins are not our personhood.

Secular people, however, ultimately define themselves based on their sins. Identity politics has morphed into a broad identitarianism where people are totally identified by their sins—especially the things they do with their genitals. For seculars, what you do with your genitals is who you are. There is no intellectual space for anything like, "I love you even though I disagree with your behavior," because in their mind, if you loved, you would affirm the behavior as well, because the behavior is the person.

Without going down a rabbit-hole on the subject, it is sufficient to say a Christian ought to reject any sort of anthropology that tends to identify people solely by their sins. Obviously we are all sinners; obviously we struggle with specific sins. But to bind up my essential personhood with those sins is an idea is profoundly anti-Christian. Yet all of these critiques presume that the person is essentially the sum of their behaviors, whether they acknowledge them as sinful or not.

2. No Concept of the Good

These objections to "Love the sinner, hate the sin" often do by jettisoning the concept of individual good from their considerations. We never see any discussion over whether it is good that so-and-so is living a sinful lifestyle, or what constitutes the highest good for a person struggling with habitual sin. There is seldom any consideration given to "How do I actually help so-and-so overcome this sin?" These sorts of considerations are abandoned in favor of helping the sinner to feel good about about where he is currently at. Good becomes a feeling instead to be experienced here and now rather than an objective state to be strove for. Hence they can never actually deal with objective questions of morality.

3. Affirmation = Love

Speaking of love, those who object to "Love the sinner, hate the sin" generally have a hard time disentangling love from affirmation. Love, in its most general definition, is sincerely willing the good for any person. That may or may not always be affirming, however. Love often requires the telling of "hard truths" or expressing disagreement about a person's decisions. This should never be an excuse for coldness, uncharity, or a lack of empathy—and honestly, I think traditional Catholics can do better in this regard, as there is a tendency to think that so long as we are speaking the truth it doesn't matter how much of an assface we are whilst speaking it.

Even so, there is this idea that love should never be confrontational, that it should never make a person "feel bad." Bad feelings mean one is not being affirmed, and if one is not feeling affirmed then one is not feeling loved, because love is a feeling of affirmation. This idea is so inimical to the Christian faith, I am surprised so many Christians fall for it. The very beginning of conversion is a feeling of discomfort or disquietude with our current condition that reaches a critical point and causes us to cry out to God for change. Why is it always assumed that a person ought never to feel bad about themselves or their situation? Feeling bad about where one is at is the genesis of change.

We also must keep in mind, when we truly love someone, it is possible for them to still feel affirmed in as a person while confronting them about their behavior. Any teacher knows how to do this. Any good parent or boss knows how to do this. It's the technique that is at the heart of "Love the sinner, hate the sin." It's mystifying that some people can't grasp this.

4. Doesn't Deal With Actual Bible Verses

We will also notice that these people and articles who disapprove of "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" very rarely deal with the actual Bible verses in question. Sure, they might talk about Jesus's dialogue with the woman at the well—and of course "judge not" and "love your neighbor" get trotted out—but they never deal with the plethora of Scripture passages that teach hatred of sin. This is a common problem you run across with people who want to make Christianity a series of platitudes: sketching out very vague, general principles ostensibly based on the Bible while passing entirely over scores of Bible verses that contradict said platitude. It's fine and good to talk about Christians being a force for positive change in the world, but what does the Bible actually say about a Christian's relationship with the world? Or the touchy subject of shunning. "Shunning people is mean and unchristian, mkay?" Alright...but what do the Scriptures actually say about shunning?

These moralizers don't care what the Bible actually says so long as they can take the moral high ground with their obnoxious platitudes. Similarly, people who say "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" isn't a Christian response to sin have not sufficiently studied what the Scriptures say on the subject. They simply toss a Gospel story out there and interpret it via some milquetoast hermeneutic without the context of the rest of the Scriptures. As an exercise in biblical exegesis, critiques of "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" fail miserably.


As always, there's more we could say. Of course, the most important sin we have to hate is our own. We are called to love ourselves and hate our own sin first of all. Needless to say, our attempts to implement the principle when it comes to our brethren work best when we have mastered it in our own lives.

Drop a comment below if you have anything to add, either in support or critique. Even if I hate your comment, I will still love you anyway.

On the Ridiculous Extension of the Term "Pro-Life"

Today I am going to follow up on one of the points I made in my previous post ("On Wokeness and Reasons People Leave the Church", July 2, 2020). In that article, I noted that the current progressive "Woke" mindset essentially creates and controls the very terms of the discourse it purports to have. Woke ideologues dictate one and only one way to address some social ill and then attack their opponents as uncaring if they do not affirm that specific, particular means of addressing said social ill. It is a ridiculous confusion of the means with the end. We all agree on certain ends, but disagree on the means to attain them. Woke politics insists we identify the end with the means with the result that the window of acceptable discourse is narrowed until there is only one socially tolerated position to hold on any given subject: the Woke position.

This slipshod thinking has made substantial inroads into Christianity in this country as well. The infection has spread so far for various reasons, including⁠—

(A) Contemporary Christians don't have a firm moral foundation to their beliefs; they often do not understand why they believe the things they believe and hence are easily swayed from them when some progressive ideology offers an ostensibly "better" explanation for its ideas.

(B) Christianity in the United States is too politicized (left and right) with the effect that Christians are especially susceptible to partisan influences, even without knowing it.

(C) Western affluent Christianity has lost sight of what it means to be "at enmity with the world" (Jas. 4:4). Instead, Christians seek the approbation of the world. They covet a sense of "with-it-ness" when it comes to contemporary issues. They want to look good in the court of public opinion, which necessarily means they seek for that praise on the world's terms. It also makes them sensitive to attempts of worldly people to "shame" them for not living up to the arbitrary definitions of "goodness" established by the virtue-signalling  social media influencers (Related: "Shepherds for the Whole World", USC, May 29, 2015)

(D) The post-conciliar Church has lost its spine when confronting the culture, instead opting to go with the flow and band-wagon behind whatever the zeitgeist says is the dominant issue in any current year. The Church has also lost its credibility on moral issues in light of the sex abuse scandal and is hesitant to try to reclaim it, meaning substantial support from the institutional Church in this struggle is practically non-existent.

The cumulative effect of these conditions is that huge swaths of the Christianity—Protestant and Catholic⁠—are not only taking their moral cues from pop culture, but allowing that culture to define the very parameters of public discourse. The result is a reorientation or "re-branding" of Christian ethics to align them more with secular values while simultaneously applying historical revisionism to the Church's past to try to diminish her triumphs in the realms of socio-economics and culture.

One of the plainest examples of the re-orientation of Christian ethics in light of modern values is the way Christians of late have stretched the term "Pro-Life" to mean almost anything and everything. Have you noticed this trend lately, especially among your Catholic friends of a more progressive stripe? It manifests itself in a very predictable pattern: 

1. The progressive media really wants people to get behind some cause.

2. There is push back from Christians who don't agree with progressive program.

3. Your progressive acquaintances mobilize to apply virtue-signalling and social-shaming to get reluctant Christians on board by trying to argue that the thing under consideration is actually a sensible Christian option;and not only sensible, but really the only "truly" Christian option.

4. The conclusion is then drawn that if you are really a Christian who "claims" to be Pro-Life, you will support the progressive agenda.

This tactic has the effect of removing from the disputant the burden of defending his position and instead shifts that burden to the Christian Pro-Lifer by making his very faith and convictions the locus of debate. Thus, instead of "Ought one support the BLM protests?", the argument instead becomes "Is Jim really a good Christian like he claims?" The original point in dispute is simply taken for granted and now Jim, rather than the question of BLM, is what is being scrutinized. Jim is now personally on the defensive.

I used the example of BLM, but there are all sorts of progressive causes people use this argument to bludgeon us with. For example, did you know you are not really Pro-Life if you don't support the following:

• Increased funding for public education
• Expansion of Medicaid benefits
• Illegal alien amnesty 
• Opposing the Trump travel bans
• Vote by mail
• Student loan forgiveness
• Covid-19 lockdowns, compulsory social distancing, and masks
• The George Floyd/BLM protests
• Increased funding for mental health programs
• Investment in inner city infrastructure and community programs
• "Defunding" police departments
• Laws making it more challenging to acquire firearms
• Progressive environmental legislation
• #NeverTrump
• Eating meat
• Abolition of the death penalty

I have seen each of these issues as a variable in the sentence "You're not really Pro-Life if you don't support ______________________." You probably have too. It's a hammer people use to beat Pro-Lifers over the head to try to guilt them into supporting their obnoxious policy positions.

I, however, am not so interested in why people do this—clearly its to drive a political agenda—rather, I am more interested in why so many otherwise intelligent Christians buy into it and allow their own sincerity to become the point under debate. Why can't they see what's going on?

The reason actually goes back to the origin of the Pro-Life movement in this country. The Pro-Life movement was founded to oppose the legal sanctioning of abortion, which is the murder of a child in the womb (or sometimes out of the womb) of its mother. Abortion is an evil and barbaric practice, intentionally killing and innocent person in the place that should be the safest for them.

Nevertheless, at the time Roe v. Wade was decided, the opponents of abortion recognized that the winds of change were moving in a generally pro-abortion direction. Not wanting to seem reactionary or like crusty barnacles merely opposing everything new, instead of calling themselves Anti-Abortion, they opted for the term Pro-Life. This was a marketing ploy; it's better and more palatable to public opinion to be "for" something than merely against it. It makes you look more "positive."

In its original context, Pro-Life meant to oppose the intentional killing of human beings, which is murder. Understood this way, it covers both abortion (murder at the beginning of life) and euthanasia (murder at the end of life). This is what it means to be Pro-Life: to oppose legalized murder.

The problems, however, is that the term "Pro-Life" gradually expanded, and this was in some sense inevitable given the decision of the movement to market itself that way. What began as just a choice of words for marketing and public relations eventually became internalized many Pro-Lifers. They did not think of themselves as merely anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia, but as supporters of "life." And what does that mean exactly?

Well, to support life means to oppose death, obviously. So anything that caused "death" could reasonably construed as a so-called "life issue." This is how we developed the awful theology of the "Seamless Garment," also known as the idea of the "consistent life ethic", which was the extension of opposition to "killing" to other areas besides abortion and euthanasia. This began not in the culture, but in the Catholic Church itself, where its most perfect exemplification was the sudden opposition of the hierarchy to the death penalty—despite the inconsistency with Scripture, Catholic tradition, and moral theology. The modern opposition to the death penalty was driven entirely by an equivocation about the terms "death" and "killing", specifically, an inexcusable inability to distinguish between killing generally and murder in particular, between justified and unjustified killing. But it didn't matter; how could people who "claimed to be Pro-Life" support something that intentionally inflicted death? Bad optics, bruh.

Thus, the first "you're not really Pro-Life if you don't also support" was foisted on us by our own hierarchy, and the change has been pronounced: a look at this comparison of the Catechisms of 1992, 1997, and 2018 makes plain how profound the shift really was. For more on the Seamless Garment, I recommend "The Corrupt Theology of the "Seamless Garment" from the Coalition for Thomism blog.

There's also this immature inability to distinguish between the intentional taking of life as the primary end of a moral act (e.g., murder) and states of affairs which may incidentally bring about a loss of life as unintended consequences (e.g.,  permissive gun legislation which allows millions of people to access and use firearms responsibly but also results in the unintended or accidental deaths of others). People who get tripped up on this sort of stuff need to go back and study basic ethics and in the meantime stop posting their stupid memes.

But to return to Pro-Lifers for a moment, regarding the terms "killing" and "life", we saw above an equivocation on the term "killing." It was inevitable that we would see something similar surrounding the term "life." A Pro-Lifer in general and a Christian in particular support "life." In arguments about contraception, we say we are "open to life." We encourage women considering abortion to "choose life." What this originally meant was to oppose intentional methods of snuffing out life or preventing its emergence. In other words, "life issues" are those which address the question "Whether life should exist?" Abortion, contraception, euthanasia, physician assisted suicide, as well as matters surrounding denial of care. These are "life issues."

But what we began to see happen, I'd say around ten years ago, was a blurring of the concept of life so that the existence of life got conflated with quality of life. "Well so what, Boniface? Life is life." Psshh. Don't be so daft. Actually, these are two radically distinct concepts: the former concerns the right of a living thing to continue in existence, the latter has to do with what sort of existence that thing will have. Quality of life is about whether your life will be easy or difficult, what sorts of opportunities you will have, what your environment will be, your education, what one can expect in terms of socio-economic mobility, and so on. All of these things are very important, and should be of concern to all people of goodwill—but, (a) they are not "life issues", and (b) there is such a diversity of opinion about the best way to succeed in these areas that it is impossible to paint any one solution as the only one permissible, much less (c) be able to anchor one's entire Christian or Pro-Life "cred" to any of them.

Still, none of that mattered. "You're not really Pro-Life unless you also support ________" was such an easy position to stake out, Pro-Lifers were so woefully unprepared to defend their positions against it, and its strength so formidable that in a very short time it has become the tool of choice for progressives—Christian or otherwise—to demoralize Pro-Lifers into supporting or at least not opposing a whole host of progressive policy objectives. At the same time, it has diluted the term "Pro-Life" to where anything whatsoever that could have any bearing on quality of life, income, or education in even an incremental way is now a "life issue." The implications become ridiculous. "What? You don't think an unlimited number of migrants from anywhere and everywhere should be allowed to settle here to improve their lives? HoW cAn YoU clAIm tO bE so pRo-LiFe!?????"

And what is the end game? The goal of all this manipulation is to create a social atmosphere in which progressive policies are a fait accompli; they are to be held up as the only reasonable and permissible social positions for a Christian Pro-Lifer to hold—so self-evident that you have to be a stupid bigoted racist misogynist homophobic moron to not think the same. It's all part of a massive funnel-operation to whittle down the realm of acceptable public discourse to a single set of (liberal) policies, outside of which there can be no discussion, no debate, and no other alternatives, least of all by Christian Pro-Lifers, who will immediately abdicate their moral credibility by not "really" being Pro-Life or Christlike if they walk outside the ever narrowing boundaries—functioning like the explosive collars from the 1987 Schwarzenegger flick The Running Man, which are attached to prisoners' necks and rigged to blow up the moment the prisoner steps over the boundary of the prison camp.

This, then, is the tired, pathetic end of the "consistent life ethic", a philosophy that went astray the moment its proponents became too incompetent to distinguish between killing in general and murder in particular. Once this distinction was obliterated and Catholics started arguing against "killing" and for "life" without any qualification whatsoever, it became inevitable that sooner or later the same band of useful idiots would start confusing the right to life with quality of life and suggesting that every single issue that could possibly have any bearing on quality of life was ergo a "life issue"—and that good Catholics needed to virtue signal their Pro-Life cred by supporting whatever pet issue the secularists were yammering about in current year at the expense of not being considered "really" Pro-Life. And (because of reasons A-D listed at the top of this article) most Pro-Lifers were ill equipped to respond and did not fully process the bait and switch that was being imposed on them. And at the end of the day, they wanted to be pat on the head by the world and told "You, too, are good people."

I'm sorry if I seem bitter, but myself and others have been calling out this nonsense for years, in some cases decades. But the reality is that the more this is pointed out, the worse it seems to get. Continued discussions don't make people think harder or reflect deeper; rather, they just get dumber. And as the moral foundations of Catholic ethics get murkier and murkier, more Catholics fall for this ridiculous "You're not really Pro-Life if" argument. And thus the specter of progressivism grows, lurching ever forward, covering everything in its path.

So, maybe I am angry that so many otherwise educated Catholics seem to not only fall for this nonsense, but are practically tripping over themselves to do so. I don't understand—how can you really claim to be intelligent and fall for this ruse?

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On Wokeness and Reasons People Leave the Church

The other day I was stunned when an acquaintance of mine announced on social media that she and her husband were leaving the Catholic Church. People leaving the Church is not exactly big news, but I was surprised because this was a family that looked like they were "doing it right" according to the commonly accepted external indicators of what constitutes a "good Catholic family": lots of kids, devout, deeply involved in homeschooling, attended the Traditional Latin Mass,  family were regular participants in parish life and personal devotions, etc. Doing the Catholic family thing for 30 years.

Then, all of the sudden, an announcement via Facebook that the husband and wife were jointly leaving the Church⁠—and not for Protestantism or some other brand of Christianity; they stated that their objections to the Church were pretty much endemic throughout Christianity as a whole. As far as I can tell, they are essentially agnostics now.

At any rate, this post is ultimately not about these folks. People do what they are going to do, and I obviously pray for them and wish the best for them. I am very interested in the comments they made in their public posts about the reasons leading up to their decision, however. These I would like to examine, not in terms of judging or criticizing these peoples' decision, but rather in the abstract. Their reasons are reasons we have heard many times before from many other people who have lost faith; they could have been spoken by any one of the millions of ex-Catholics. Therefore consider them in that light. They are subjects I have grappled with as well. After we look at these issues, I will offer some reflections on "external indicators" of faith as predictive of certain outcomes.

The (public) posts contained a lengthy explanation of their rationale, which could be boiled down to three issues:

(1) The scandal of clerical sex abuse
(2) The scandal of unanswered prayer
(3) The scandal of Catholics not acting with charity

Sex abuse was listed as the top reason why they were choosing to leave the Church. But it was not simply the presence of clerical sex abuse, but rather the radical insufficiency and breakdown of the prevailing conservative narrative about sex abuse that pushed them over the edge. The husband described how for years he had toed the party line on clerical sex abuse, with talking points like "It's just a few bad apples", "There's pedophiles in every profession", "Even Christ had His Judas", "The percent of abusers in the Church isn't any higher than in the general populace", "It's the devil trying to attack the Church and make it look bad," etc.

These sorts of talking-points are what I would loosely refer to as the Neo-Cath answer to clerical sex abuse. I understand this paradigm very well. It is one I used to profess for years. It is comforting because it reassures us that nothing is wrong in our house that is not common to all houses; it casts the Church as the good guys fighting off a demonic attack manifest as biased reporting from a hostile secular press. The demonic attack is fundamentally from outside.

Unfortunately, this narrative is completely false. The husband explained (rightly) that the incidence of abusive priests is much higher within the Church than society at large. That its not confined to dioceses run by a few "bad apple" bishops but that it is ubiquitous throughout the Catholic world. The culture of secrecy around sex abuse is a plague in which the highest members of the hierarchy right up to the pope have been complicit in. The devil was trying to destroy the Church with attacks, but not by means of unfair media bias, but rather from the pedophilic rot within the clergy, which was way more common than previously assumed. The demonic attack was internal. The shock of realizing this was faith-shattering.

I remember back in 2002 when the Cardinal Law sex abuse scandals broke, I was repeating the same talking point. "Other denominations have just as many pedophiles...every profession has its bad apples, etc." Then I read Michael Rose's Goodbye, Good Men and the scales dropped from my eyes. I realized that the abuse culture was being actively cultivated and perpetuated by a homosexual clique within the hierarchy (in the Vatican, but also local dioceses) and that the bishops were complicit in not only covering it up but actually promoting it. Since then, nothing has surprised me. Now when I hear about things like Msgr. Luigi Capozzi's drug-fuled gay orgy at the Vatican, I shrug and think, "Yup. That's how it is." I don't like it by any means, but I guess I am saying is that uncovering a lot of this filth over the years has left me in a place where I am not surprised by anything any more.

This is why I think it's not helpful to get too invested in the "just a few bad apples" narrative. It's way worse than that. The darkness runs so much deeper. And if you've sheltered yourself from that reality, you're going to be pretty jarred when the truth emerges, as it inevitably will. I'm not saying a more realistic assessment of that would have helped these people, but it has definitely helped me. And that's ultimately what this post is about: not about these folks who lost faith, but about how I have found help in dealing with these same issues.

They also mentioned the scandal of unanswered prayer. And they gave a few examples, things like despite praying for their children and offering Masses for them (Latin masses!), a few of them grew up to become atheists. It seems that prayer didn't affect anything—that despite years of pious prayer, sacrifices, Masses, and devotion, all the words and lamentations poured out to our Lord were so many words just dumped into the void. I think every Christian has had this experience at some time or another; I've had my share of prayers gone unanswered, but I've also had my share of answered prayer as well. I've even experienced (what I consider) miraculous interventions in my life. One of the reasons why I embraced Christianity to begin with when I was 19 was that I witnessed a handful of what I can only describe as miracles. But I've also realized that sort of thing is not normative; miracles, or even prayers answered in exactly the way we hope they will be answered are little treats that happen occasionally, like spiritual candy, but can't be assumed. I have always personally taken the approach that God doesn't owe me anything, not even my own continued existence. He doesn't owe me the lives of children, he doesn't owe me happiness in this world or anything whatsoever. If I live another year without getting bone marrow cancer or go another day without getting hit in the crotch with a golf club, it's sheer grace. God can do whatever He wants to me or anyone else for whatever reasons He chooses and I have peace with that.

I guess I am saying that I have divested myself of the idea that my faith in God will guarantee any specific temporal outcome whatsoever.

The third reason was Catholics not behaving with charity. They elaborated several facets to this scandal. One was just a "Too many hypocritical Catholics makes for a toxic environment" sort of objection—but another was more along the lines of "If grace was efficacious and all of these people spend their lives praying and going to Mass, one would assume they would get better with time?" Yes, obviously as educated Catholics they knew that one has to be disposed to receive grace, but still...what they perceived to be the total lack of transformative power of grace in the lives of people they knew over a long period seemed to be a strong argument that what the faith says about grace is bunk.

I can't speak for anybody else's index of grace; I personally have never been bothered by the idea that we must be disposed to receive grace. It makes sense to me, and if it so happens that 90% of Catholics I know aren't disposed to receive grace, that's just the way that it is. But I don't think that's the reality. I definitely see grace working in the lives of people I know who take their faith seriously. And as I get older I am learning to see it more operative than ever, especially in the small things and little victories. Last winter I had a profound insight into God's grace in me after making a general confession. The victories of grace are often imperceptible, unless you have "eyes to see." It is seldom in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the "still small voice" (1 Ki. 19:12). This is where I have learned to expect it.

The interesting thing, however, was when these folks went into the details of why they though so many of their fellow Catholics were uncharitable. We've all experienced unkind Catholics, especially if you blog or publish anything online (believe me, I know); occasionally, I have probably been one of them myself. That's sort of par for the course. But these people mentioned something interesting—basically, that Catholics had by and large failed to adopt the appropriate responses to racism and LGBT issues, which demonstrated that they ultimately lacked love. For (they said) if Catholics were more "loving", they would have been more eager to embrace these causes. It follows that the reticence of Catholics to do so—indeed, their outright hostility to such causes—is a damning condemnation of Catholics' lack of love. Indeed, it is a mark against the Church's very concept of love, where "loving the sinner" is bound up with the idea of "correcting the sinner." As many others who have left the Church have said, this couple ultimately stated that "Love the sinner, hate the sin" was an unworkable proposition. Love needed to be reevaluated in a manner that was not so corrective—meaning, more woke. Basically, they were arguing that Christians aren't woke enough.

Here we come to what I see is grave danger to faith, and one that will only be more dangerous as time goes by: the redefinition of moral values to align them with secular mores. This merits some fleshing out.

It has been long known that liberalism takes sins and redefines them as rights or even as virtues; e.g., the sin of abortion is a "right", contraception is "responsibility", separation of Church and state is a strength, and so on. We are used to liberalism taking BAD things and calling them GOOD. And imperceptibly people adjust their values accordingly over time, if they are not vigilant. This is why so many Catholics think separation of Church and state is great, or that contraception is no big deal, or that homosexual so-called marriage is just fine, etc.

But, liberalism also takes GOOD things and redefines them as BAD, or at least as deficient. St. Teresa of Calcutta's work among the poor wasn't that great because she focused on individuals, not on addressing the systemic causes of poverty. The traditional family structure is not ideal because it reinforces patriarchy. Missionary work is actually deplorable because it can result in the eroding of native cultures. The Christian view of "love the sinner hate the sin" is dangerous because it facilitates judgmentalism. These concepts flow logically from the basic principles of liberalism and serve to undermine the Church's moral position by pulling the rug out from under it—suggesting that the historical Church's humanitarian, educational, or social victories were really not victories at all.

Now, if the good is redefined as bad, then a new good must lifted up to take the place of that which was displaced. In today's incarnation of liberalism, this is where the politics of Woke fit in. One is perceived as "good" to the degree that one can get behind the Woke social agenda; to the degree one won't, one is racist, homophobic, sexist, or whatever the capital sins of liberalism are. This is a creeping problem among the curious demographic of "progressive" Catholics—you know who I mean; the ones whose social media walls consist of 80%+ SJW posts and whose religious posts even have a social justice bent to them. The ones who post preachy, moralizing Twitter screenshots with no commentary other than "THIS" and who clog your feed with graphics whining that "We need to stop doing THIS and start doing THIS instead", and "If you're not doing THIS, you're part of the problem."

But perhaps the biggest fallacy liberalism and Woke politics foist on us is to habitually conflate the end with the means. For example, everyone agrees that we want to address the problem of poverty (end). Liberals will insist on their own specific methodology for addressing poverty in the form of various government programs (means). Then they will insist that if you do not support their specific means, you are not "really" in favor of the end. If you don't support the BLM agenda in particular, you are not against racism in general. If you aren't in favor of vote by mail, you favor discrimination. If you do not agree with every specific premise of the #MeToo crusade, then you are not against sex abuse. If you don't want universal government sponsored health insurance, you don't "really" care for the sick. If you aren't for generous, easy immigration laws in particular then you are a racist in general. If you are skeptical of particular policy proscriptions based on a specific climate-science study, you are "anti-science." If you "really" cared about the poor, you would favor increased funding for various programs. If you were really as loving as your religion claims, you would support various LGBT causes. If you were really Pro-Life, you would support increased funding for public schools, teachers' unions, cancellation of student debt and all variety of things loosely relating to education because somehow education—like a ton of other stuff—is now "also a life issue" (this is going to be a future post—extending "Pro-Life" to mean just about anything).

See how all of this confuses the end with the means? Societal problems are identified, and then one and only one means to address them put forward as the anointed solution. The "national conversation" progressives are always yammering about never happens. Instead we simply get a national lecture, we are told authoritatively that there is only one path forward, and any dissent whatsoever means you don't "really" care about said issue. Weak minded people (desperate to prove they have not committed a racism and fearful of public-shaming) trip over themselves lining up behind whatever the social media Ministry of Truth has decided is the hot button topic in [CURRENT YEAR]. It's a means of relentlessly shoving through social change while bullying dissenting people into silence.

I predict that such "Woke" Christians will eventually lose their faith altogether. We could certainly already say that a liberal Catholic has already suffered an overthrow of faith to the degree that they are affirming principles contrary to Catholic truth. But what I mean is that, ultimately, we will see a lot more of what I described at the top of this post: Christians formally repudiating their Faith because Christianity is not Woke enough, because they have allowed their judgment of what is "good" and what is "moral" to be defined by the culture at large. And when Christianity is judged against these standards and inevitably found wanting (because Christianity historically does not share these novel value judgments), these people will choose Wokeness over Christ in order to feel accepted, to feel that they are "making a difference" or are on the "right side of history."

There's more I could say, of course, but all of this merely reemphasizes the need to take your moral bearings from Catholic Tradition, not one's Twitter feed. And to remember that there is always more than one way to address a problem. If you find yourself believing there is one and only one way to approach a societal problem, such that you have lost the ability to presume the goodwill of those who disagree with your particular pet program, you'd best stop and prayerfully reevaluate how and why you form the opinions that you hold.

Finally—and this is an important message for traditional Catholics—although God gives us a rough set of blueprints for what an ideal Catholic life looks like from the outside, we ought not to assume that any of these external indicators guarantee us any specific outcome. Your marriage won't necessarily be happier if your wife stays home instead of working. Your kids won't necessarily keep the faith because you went to the Latin Mass. You won't necessarily have less struggles with various sins because prayed the "right" prayers. There is no set of boxes you can check that guarantees any particular outcome. To be sure, certain external things can make certain outcomes more likely, but how we manage our lives and our faith is ultimately always a matter of internal transformation, not box checking. It's not about just following the script. You have to take responsibility. You have to cultivate the virtue of prudence. You are not going to be divested of the terrible responsibility for your own soul and your own failings by going through a list of external indicators of "what good Catholics do." Doing such things will always be good, but their goodness does not guarantee you any temporal outcome. They do guarantee you a more beautiful soul, if you do them rightly disposed. But it is best to give up the idea that your life is going to unfold according to a certain design just because you "followed the rules."