Theology of the Body is not Catholic Teaching

The title of this essay is admittedly a bit provocative, but it is my hope that this will lead to the article being shared with well-meaning Catholics who seem to be muddled on the authority of John Paul II's teachings on human sexuality known as "Theology of the Body."

The immediate impetus for publishing this essay was a recent exchange I had with a young woman who was telling me that "the Church's teaching" on some point of sexual ethics was such-and-such. I told her that I had never heard that such-and-such was the Church's official position, and as if to prove her point she referred me to a citation from a Christopher West book on Theology of the Body. She was surprised when I told her that Theology of the Body is not official Catholic teaching and that Christopher West is certainly not any sort of official organ of Catholic dogma. This was actually news to her; she had been under the impression that Christopher West was some sort of authoritative interpreter or what she took to be a dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Therefore, let me say it again plainly: the teachings known collectively as Theology of the Body are not authoritative Catholic teaching. In this essay I hope to explain why—but contrary to many traditionalist critiques of Theology of Body, I will not in any way be addressing the content of John Paul II's teaching on the subject. So don't get excited; this is not going to be some take-down of the content of Theology of the Body. I think the argument that Theology of the Body is not authoritative can easily be made by an appeal to the manner in which it was communicated by the late John Paul II without ever having to wade into the morass of critiquing the principles of TOB.

Before we begin, it is necessary to understand the background of TOB and why John Paul II thought the Church needed a new grounding for sexual ethics.

Prior to the post-Conciliar era, Catholic sexual ethics were largely centered on the procreative ends of the sexual act viewed through a Thomistic-Aristotelian framework. Those things which were conducive to the natural ends of the sexual act were permissible, those that hindered the fulfillment of those ends were not. This is all well and good, but from the point of view of John Paul II, this approach had two distinct downsides:

(1) The pedagogy of Catholic sexual ethics tended to be reduced to a series of "don'ts" grounded in mere obligation and obedience.

(2) The sexual act tended to be discussed only with reference to things external to the spouses themselves (i.e., the procreation of children, or the obligations laid upon the couple by God and the Church).

The first point is admittedly a problem I have often seen in older Catholic literature on relationships and sexual ethics. There is a Fr. Lovasik flyer or pamphlet on Catholic dating that is essentially one long list of prohibitions. Catholic sexual ethics are weakened when they are reduced to simply telling single people "Don't fornicate! Don't fornicate! For the love of God, DON'T FORNICATE!"

The second objection holds some validity as well; people want—I would argue need—to have intrinsic motivations for their actions. Appeals to authority or the procreation of children, even though they are perfectly valid, are not always enough for some people to get on board. For example, people whose only substantial argument against divorce are that it can harm the children don't have much of an argument when addressing an infertile couple considering divorce. Similarly, in education, it is not sufficient to tell a student "You must learn this material because if you don't you will get grounded by your parents and won't be able to get into college." Both of those things may be true, but they are what we would call extrinsic motivations; students do not truly learn and internalize material—do not truly enjoy and embrace education—unless they have an intrinsic motivation based on wanting to know the material for its own sake because it is interesting to them.

Pope John Paul II wanted to give Catholic couples an explanation of the Church's sexual ethics that was not based on an ethics of obligation or reference to procreation alone. Now, the Church's tradition already had some raw material for this in the concept of "the good of the spouses" as one of the ends of matrimony. John Paul II sought to elaborate on this aspect of the sexuality and chose as his point of reference the school of thought known as Personalism or Phenomenology. It is beyond the scope of this article to give a comprehensive account of Personalism as a philosophy, but it suffices to say that Personalism takes an approach to ethics that makes the reference point of moral actions the dignity of the human person (if you've noticed the ubiquity of the phrases like "human person" and "dignity of the human person" in modern Catholic literature, it is due in large part to the influence of the introduction of a Personalist vocabulary into Catholic thinking).

I am neither pro nor anti-Personalism; and please don't spam the comments with links or YouTube videos arguing one way or another on it. It's not relevant. The point is, John Paul II thought the Personalist vocabulary could help provide Catholics with a fuller picture of sexuality that could fill out the traditional approach by using the good of persons as a point of reference. In other words, instead of just telling Catholics what they should not do regarding sex, John Paul II wanted to tell them what they should do, and more importantly, why they should do it. This goal is at the heart of Theology of the Body. And it's not an ignoble goal. Catholics ought to understand what they should be doing and why with regards to sex. Too many Catholic couples are crippled with debilitating anxiety, uncertainty, ignorance, and embarrassment about sex—and I am talking about traditional Catholics as well as mainstream Catholics.

But I digress. So, John Paul wanted to deliver a fuller explanation of the Church's ideas about human sexuality using Personalist ideas to help build a more anthropological case for the Church's teaching that would give Catholics a deeper intrinsic motivation to live out the Church's integrated vision for marriage, sexuality, and family life. These ideas he fleshed out in a series of Wednesday audiences spanning five years, from September 1979 to November of 1984. It was this series of speeches which were later collected and termed Theology of the Body.

Why is Theology of the Body not an authoritative teaching of the Church? Catholics know (or ought to know) that papal statements carry different levels of authority. An ex cathedra declaration is infallible; papal encyclicals and apostolic exhortations where the pope intends to teach authoritatively are of very great authority as well. These are the sorts of papal teachings that command the assent of the faithful; ex cathedra teachings demand the assent of the Catholic faith, while others call for human assent.

But below this, there are teachings of the pope that are of lower authority. This could include letters (such as John Paul II's "Letter to Artists") or formal addresses (John Paul's "Address to Scientists of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences"). In these sorts of teachings, the pope is often speaking as a private theologian, or even if he is speaking as pope, he is speaking on matters that are more particular and are not considered universal teachings of the Church. Often times he is giving his opinion on a matter. These letters may later be collated into a single body of teaching and granted a higher level authority (Dictatus Papae of St. Gregory VII and the Syllabus of Errors of Bl. Pius IX were both authoritative documents composed of excerpts of papal letters), but the excerpts of the letters were later elevated to this level of authority by subsequent papal acts.

A still lower level of papal teaching comes from verbal statements made by the pope in the context of homilies, audiences, ad limina visits, and other formal occasions. In a papal homily or audience, the pope is speaking merely as a pastor and private theologian. Now, if we recall, TOB was originally this level of communication. It was a series of speeches given in the pope's Wednesday audiences. These audiences were subsequently compiled by independent authors—for example, Christopher West—and marketed as "The Theology of the Body." This has given the illusion of a comprehensive, single corpus of thought to what was essentially a series of homilies on a common theme given over many years. Some Catholics even think Theology of the Body is an encyclical.

A collection of papal speeches cannot be an authoritative teaching of the Church. Though John Paul later reiterated some of the themes from the TOB audiences into his encyclicals, there has never been the sort of wholesale elevation of his particular audience statements to the level of authoritative teaching, such as occurred with Dictatus Papae or the Syllabus of Errors. Theology of the Body is essentially a very popular collection of papal speeches, but it does not constitute "the teaching of the Church" anymore than if we took a collection of Francis' scattered statements on ecology, smooshed them into a single volume and called it "The Theology of the Earth." Such would not be Catholic teaching, no matter how popular it was.

Incidentally, speaking of Pope Francis, there is a level of papal teaching even lower down on the food chain than speeches and homilies: that is unplanned, informal, "off the cuff" remarks. And yet these very sorts of statements are somehow supposed to constitute the most important teachings of the Franciscan pontificate. This just demonstrates how backwards things have become where Catholics feel free to ignore the authoritative teaching of the Councils but a pope's comment on an airplane is treated like a fifth Gospel.

At any rate, regardless of what you think of the content of Theology of the Body, it should be clear that TOB is not any sort of authoritative Catholic teaching. It is essentially a compilation of papal speeches that has gained a broad popularity among contemporary Catholics. I do not blame the young woman for thinking TOB was authoritative; the way it is trumpeted about, the lauds that are heaped upon it, and the ubiquity of Christopher West materials gives the impression that this collection of speeches has way more weight than it does. If only the Church would push authentic liturgical renewal with the same vigor that TOB is popularized!

Mainstream Catholics who think TOB is Catholic dogma are simply wrong—as are trads who will inevitably come back with "Theology of the Body is modernist heresy!" and other such nonsense statements. Ultimately, TOB is merely one pope's idealized pet project for better explaining Catholic sexual ethics to modern man, no more, no less. 

The USCCB and the Real Presence

The USCCB has been lamenting the fact that only 1/3 of Catholics in the United States believe in the Real Presence, according to a recent PEW survey. Lifesite News published a great article about how the faithful, when the bishops asked how to remedy this, overwhelmingly suggested a return to traditional practices. 

It is really frustrating to see the shoulder shrugging of the bishops on this question. I don't know if their "let's ask the faithful" was an attempted display of humility—like when Pope Francis asked for the prayers of the people at his papal election—but it comes across as desperate and grasping for straws: like the financial manager of a failing investment firm emailing his clients and saying, "I don't know guys, I'm stumped...anyone here got any investment ideas?" 

As long as I have been following affairs in the American Church (around 2002), the failure of U.S. bishops to sufficiently promote traditional piety has always been infuriating to me. Sure, some of the better ones may give lip-service to traditional liturgical practices and devotions, but when it actually comes to using their authority to do something, very few will. Even my own bishop—who celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass and has been a relatively good pastor compared to others in this country—has done very little in way of actually changing anything at the parish level.

An individual bishop has broad authority over the celebration of the sacred mysteries within his diocese. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says:

"The diocesan Bishop, who is to be regarded as the high priest of his flock, and from whom the life in Christ of the faithful under his care in a certain sense derives and upon whom it depends, must promote, regulate, and be vigilant over the liturgical life in his diocese. It is to him that in this Instruction is entrusted the regulating of the discipline of concelebration (cf. nos. 202, 374) and the establishing of norms regarding the function of serving the priest at the altar (cf. no. 107), the distribution of Holy Communion under both kinds (cf. no. 283), and the construction and ordering of churches (cf. no. 291). With him lies responsibility above all for fostering the spirit of the sacred Liturgy in the priests, deacons, and faithful" (GIRM 387).

Let us unpack this a bit.

The bishop establishes norms for who may assist the priest at the altar; if we look at GIRM 107, cited above, the bishop has total discretion over who may serve as acolyte, lector, cantor, sacristan, and extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and in general regulate the conduct of all who serve at the altar or handle Holy Communion. If he wished, a bishop could do the following:

• Direct all who serve the altar to reverence the Eucharist with a genuflection (instead of a bow) unless they are physically incapable of doing so.
• Phase out female altar servers and return to male-only servers, as Fr. Joseph Illo did in San Francisco.
• Mandate that all servers wear the cassock.
• Direct cantors and scholas within his diocese to use only traditional chants during communion, as well as avoid any hymns which refer to the Eucharist as "bread and wine" or speak of the altar as a "table."
• Do away with EMHC, or at least reduce their ranks or offer stricter guidelines of when they can be utilized.

GIRM 283 says "The diocesan Bishop may establish norms for Communion under both kinds for his own diocese." In theory, a bishop could go back to a more traditional practice of reception whereby communion under both kinds is reserved for special occasions or communities. Apart from any supernatural considerations, merely making the reception of communion under both species rarer, as well as restricting who may handle the sacred species, would psychologically elevate the importance of Holy Communion in the minds of the faithful—and that is before we even begin to consider the graces that would come through such changes.

But I think the individual bishop's greatest mechanism for using his authority to promote Eucharistic piety is found in GIRM 291, which gives the bishop authority over "the construction and ordering of Churches." GIRM 291 says:

"For the proper construction, restoration, and remodeling of sacred buildings, all who are involved in the work are to consult the diocesan commission on the sacred Liturgy and sacred Art. The diocesan Bishop, moreover, should use the counsel and help of this commission whenever it comes to laying down norms on this matter, approving plans for new buildings, and making decisions on the more important issues."

So the bishop, through his diocesan commission on liturgy and sacred art, can lay down norms for how churches are to be constructed or remodeled and can even mandate that all such plans must be personally approved by himself. The implications of this are astounding when you think of it. Any bishop could:

• Create a diocesan commission on liturgy and sacred art whose members are all wholly committed to the restoration of Eucharistic piety and make this the matrix through which they view all changes to church structures.
• Direct all parishes to replace table altars with wall altars suitable for ad orientem celebration.
• Mandate all tabernacles be placed in the center of the sanctuary.
• Approve only sacred art that is traditional and tasteful.
• Establish certain norms for the appearance and materials of sacred objects such as altars, ambos, etc. that ensure a traditional aesthetic.
• Prohibit the use of "Resurrectifixes" in parish sanctuaries.
• Decree that every parish must have—and utilize—a functional altar rail.
• Only allow traditional stained glass windows, not weird 1960's Pablo Picasso looking window images.
• Mandate all parishes must have pews with kneelers; no more chairs.
• Approve only those renovations which are based on some sort of traditional design (i.e., no more space ship churches).
• Establish a fund for the express purpose of helping less well-off parishes pay for the most important restorations.
• Decree that all monstrances meet certain artistic standards and aren't ugly, modern looking objects.

And these are only considering the prerogatives that flow from a bishop's specific authority over church buildings and those who serve at the altar. If we step back and look at a bishop's general competency over his flock as pastor of the diocese, he has even more opportunities. He could:

• Celebrate his own Masses in the cathedral in such a way that offers the faithful an exemplary model of Eucharistic piety.
• Insist on these norms when he travels and celebrates Masses in the parishes of his diocese.
• Go on a tour of all his parishes promoting Eucharistic adoration and Eucharistic chapels.
• Call for more Eucharistic processions as well as preside over more of them personally.
• Hire individuals in the offices of religious education and catechesis who are committed to the truths of the Eucharist and promoting Eucharistic piety and decree that all such catechists working in parishes be committed to a similar vision—and encourage and back up pastors to dismiss such catechists as do not affirm these things.
• Ensure that proper Eucharistic doctrine is taught in diocesan seminaries; forbid the use of such texts as question or belittle the understanding of the Eucharist.
• Make Eucharistic adoration a regular, structured part of the formation of seminary candidates and in general instill in seminarians a love for the Holy Eucharist. 

Now, thus far we have only considered what an individual bishop can accomplish. But the initial complain we twere evaluating came from the USCCB, the national episcopal conference of the United States. When we look at what a national episcopal conference has the authority to do, the scope of episcopal negligence becomes more appalling. GIRM 390 says:

It is up to the Conferences of Bishops to decide on the adaptations indicated in this General Instruction and in the Order of Mass and, once their decisions have been accorded the recognitio of the Apostolic See, to introduce them into the Missal itself. These adaptations include

• The gestures and posture of the faithful (cf. no. 43);

• The gestures of veneration toward the altar and the Book of the Gospels (cf. no. 273);

• The texts of the chants at the entrance, at the presentation of the gifts, and at Communion (cf. nos. 48, 74, 87);

• The readings from Sacred Scripture to be used in special circumstances (cf. no. 362);

• The form of the gesture of peace (cf. no. 82);

• The manner of receiving Holy Communion (cf. nos. 160, 283);

• The materials for the altar and sacred furnishings, especially the sacred vessels, and also the materials, form, and color of the liturgical vestments (cf. nos. 301, 326, 329, 339, 342-346).

Directories or pastoral instructions that the Conferences of Bishops judge useful may, with the prior recognitio of the Apostolic See, be included in The Roman Missal at an appropriate place.

This is extremely broad. The USCCB could call for universal communion on the tongue and kneeling. In such places where the Missal says standing or kneeling are acceptable, they could mandate kneeling. The could ordain a specific set of approved chants for Holy Communion. According to the last bullet point, the USCCB could direct that only traditional liturgical vessels and vestments be used.

Now, of course, all of this has to be approved by the Holy See with the Apostolic recognitio if it were to actually be incorporated into the GIRM in use in the United States, and who knows how that would go. But that's beside the point; the fact is, they have never even tried.

This is why the episcopal hand-wringing over "What can we do about Catholics' lagging belief in the Real Presence?" doesn't arouse my sympathy. The contemporary American hierarchy has made no effort to solve the problem because they are too dependent upon the masses of quasi-believing Catholics to keep the diocesan apparatus functional—and they fear the backlash of what would happen should they try to actually change things. And so nothing happens, and they wonder why the problem persists; to again quote Ned Flanders' parents, "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."

Let us pray for our bishops, that they will find the courage to do what needs to be done and trust in God to give the increase where man has sown and watered.

Chesterton's Cause is Dead

This week his Excellency Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton, U.K. announced that he would not be opening a Cause for the beatification of G.K. Chesterton. The bishop listed three reasons, two of which are excellent and the third of which is nonsense:

"That conclusion is that I am unable to promote the cause of GK Chesterton for three reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, there is no local cult. Secondly, I have been unable to tease out a pattern of personal spirituality. And, thirdly, even allowing for the context of G K Chesterton’s time, the issue of anti-Semitism is a real obstacle particularly at this time in the United Kingdom" (source).

I want to address these concerns one at a time before offering my own opinion on the matter.

The first reason given by Bishop Boyle is lack of a local cult. This is actually one of the best reasons to not advance a candidate to the altars. Remember that the entire process of canonization is supposed to begin with the existence of a stable local cultus. The process of canonization is essentially supposed to take that cultus as a starting point for proposing that the candidate's cultus be extended to the Church Universal (for an extensive study on this, please see our article "Canonization and the Early Church"). The lack of any local cultus really is an exceptionally strong reason a person should not be advanced to regional or universal veneration. A universal cultus is proposed to the faithful based on the existence of a stable underlying local cultus. And it makes clear that Chesterton's universal popularity does not equate to a religious cultus. So I absolutely approve of this rationale.

The second reason given is that the bishop was "unable to tease out any pattern or personal spirituality." My goodness, if this isn't a great reason for not opening someone's Cause, I don't know what is. I have to say, based on his writings and based on what I know of his life, GKC never struck me as a man with a disciplined spiritual life. He struck me as incredibly insightful, capable of perceiving profound beauty, and of elucidating timeless truths in a manner unparalleled, but he never struck me as a personally holy man. His writings are treasured beyond question; but if we are considering him for sainthood, then I am more interested in questions like how often did he go to confession? How often did he pray? What kinds of penances did he do? Did he go to daily Mass? Adoration? What were his personal devotions like? Was his spiritual life orderly? What was his spiritual reading like? Did people who knew him consider him holy—not just good-natured, jovial, or charitable, but holy? And here the man in charge of investigating GKC says that he can't find any pattern of personal spirituality. If that's true, then that's a pretty darn good reason for not proposing Chesterton for veneration. Have we lowered the bar so much that a person who has no pattern of personal spirituality is considered a good candidate for sainthood?

I often hear proponents of Chesterton's sainthood arguing that his profound writings are sufficient evidence for his sanctity. "His insights are astonishing! What more proof do we need?" This reasoning is naive. Way back in 2009 I wrote an article on Chesterton's beatification ("Blessed GK Chesterton?"), and even then I had reservations due to the fact that people were tending to misunderstand the nature of sanctity, substituting instead the idea of a Chesterton as a "role model" and citing Chesterton's writings in lieu of any evidence of real holiness. Ten years ago I said:

I appreciate the praise of Chesterton's work, but a beatification is about the man, not is work. I once heard (I think on EWTN, maybe on some Catholic Radio station) a certain lay apologist make the errant claim that St. Thomas Aquinas was canonized solely by virtue of his writings and not because of his personal holiness. Anyone who has studied the canonization proceedings of any saints from the 13th or 14th centuries knows that everything revolves around personal sanctity. Saying Chesterton was innocent and humble, and then going on to praise his writing, is really not enough for me to jump on the bandwagon, however much I love Chesterton...

I love G.K. Chesterton. His writings have moved me profoundly and have been very formative in my intellectual and spiritual development, both when I was a young man and to this day. Furthermore, I know countless souls who have similarly benefited from his works. But the writings do not the whole man make. This is about supernatural virtue, not profound writings. It does not matter whether it is Chesterton, or Cardinal Newman, Fulton Sheen, Mother Teresa or Paul VI. We should not be afraid of asking questions about these people, because ultimately we want God to be glorified, and God is glorified by true sanctity, not by papering over or dismissing valid objections. (source)

Now, the third reason the bishop gives is a nonsense reason. The issue of "anti-Semitism", which he goes on to say is a "real obstacle particularly at this time in the United Kingdom." With this comment, he is admitting that this might not have been an obstacle in another time or place, but because of the current socio-political climate with its endemic political correctness, Chesterton's comments on Jews—even understood in the context of their time—make him persona non grata in the milieu of modern, hypersensitive 21st century Britain. This is especially ridiculous because we expect a beatification or canonization to be about the objective state of a person and whether or not they can be considered holy and worthy of veneration. When the bishop cites things like the current sensitivity level in a specific country, he is moving the discussion from the objective realm to one of pure subjectivity. Is Chesterton a saint or not? Depends on the zeitgeist I guess. So I think this argument is a bad one. And I don't believe Chesterton was actually anti-Semitic. But the bishop thought opening his Cause might upset some Jewish Brits. So there it is.

Interestingly enough, the bishop did not bring up what I consider to be another good argument against Chesterton's canonization, and one that was discussed a lot a few years back—namely, Chesterton's famous intemperance with food and drink. No, I am not saying that just because he was large. No, I am not saying this because he smoked and drank liquor. I am saying this simply because existing biographical accounts present him as a man who lacked temperance when it came to food and drink. Now, I know there is going to be some ignorant commentator who says, "Uhhhhh...yeah but St. Thomas Aquinas was overweight...duhhhhh." THIS. IS. NOT. ABOUT. CHESTERTON'S. WEIGHT. I do not look at an overweight person and go, "Ugh, they must be intemperate." Weight may be an indication of intemperance, but cannot establish it. Rather, this is about the well-documented anecdotes of his intemperate and even gluttonous behavior when it came to food and alcohol.

Back in 2014, I wrote an article about this ("This is Not About Chesterton"); a person who lacks a fundamental cardinal virtue cannot be considered saintly, and based on the extant biographical and anecdotal evidence about Chesterton, the man certainly did not possess temperance when it came to food and drink. Or if he did possess it, it was certainly not in a heroic degree. I wrote then:

"Remember, a saint possesses not only natural virtue, but supernatural virtue. This means, of course, faith, hope and charity to a heroic degree, but it also means that even the saint's natural virtues are elevated and oriented towards supernatural ends. For example, a virtuous man has formed the habit of prudence, which is the virtue of being able to identify and pursue the good in particular circumstances; i..e, of making good decisions. The saintly man, however, not only exercises natural prudence, but also demonstrates supernatural prudence; i.e., the virtue of prudence ordered towards supernatural ends, meaning exceptional discernment and good sense in spiritual matters.

Now, since supernatural virtue is a requisite of sainthood, and since grace builds on the natural virtues, it follows that a person who lacks even one of natural cardinal virtues cannot be "saintly" in the strict sense. Natural virtue is the foundation of supernatural virtue; if a natural virtue is obviously lacking, they cannot possess the supernaturalized version of that virtue which is built upon the natural. We may still have an exceptionally virtuous person, but nevertheless one with a major defect that makes it inappropriate to classify them as a saint. A person certainly cannot possess supernatural temperance if they lack even the natural virtue of temperance" (source).

I recommend reading the above cited article in its entirety as a background to this essay. Needless to say, my own position on this matter is that G.K. Chesterton, regardless of his indisputably brilliant writings, is not a suitable candidate for sainthood. I think Bishop Peter Boyle made the correct call in refusing to open a Cause, even if one of his reasons was specious. And I think people who want to ignore this and push through with a GKC canonization need to step back and consider all these matters and actually address them rather than just dismissing them. This isn't about ramming through "our guy." I adore GKC. He was an exceptional man and one of the greatest English writers ever. But not a saint. You don't need to be saintly to be a great writer. All you need to be is...a great writer. Heck, I'm no shabby writer myself, but that doesn't mean I'm an upstanding, exemplary Catholic. I'm just a so-so Catholic who happens to be good at explaining things. Get that concept through your heads.

Some objections:

"You can't trust a modernist bishop like Boyle to make the right call."

I know nothing about Boyle, but the fact is it's his call to make. And if God wants this to happen, then it will happen someday, regardless of Bishop Boyle. Also, you can't complain about the laxity of modern canonizations and then simultaneously complain that in this case the bishop was too strict with his criterion. To do so makes it look like we are only complaining about canonizations we don't like, which is what most Trads do, to be honest. "We mistrust modern canonizations, unless they are of someone we approve of." Are the canonization criteria too strict, or aren't they? If they're not strict enough, then you should rejoice that they screened out GKC. If they're already too strict, then that applies for Paul VI and John Paul II and Romero as well and these candidates all legitimately passed muster.

"It's just because Chesterton smoked and smoking is bad now."

No, the bishop doesn't mention that at all. Actually deal with the arguments put forward instead of obfuscating them.

"Oh, so you don't think G.K. Chesterton should be canonized but you accept the canonizations of men like Paul VI?"

Irrelevant. This is about GKC, not whomever else was canonized. Also, Paul VI is already canonized, while GKC never even made it to a beatus, so they are certainly in two different categories. And when Paul VI was not yet canonized I argued against his canonization as well. The fact that Paul VI made it to canonization is no argument that GKC should.

"Saints aren't perfect."

They are certainly not. But too often we can use this phrase to basically drop all standards. Saints are not 'perfect.' They do have sin. But, while they are not perfect, a saint is someone we expect to have attained a degree of victory over their sin. While I would never argue that saints must be sinless, I would also argue that a person who has capitulated to sin in one aspect of their life should not be considered a saint. Saints are those who, while having sin like all of us, labor to attain victory over that sin. There are compelling arguments to suggest that Chesterton fundamentally failed in his battle against drunkenness and gluttony, which signifies a lack of temperance. If this were true, Chesterton did not have victory over these vices but rather succumbed to them—they may even have contributed to his death (see also: "Saints Aren't Perfect", USC, 2013).

Bottom line is we can respect and laud and honor Catholic heroes without insisting that they be canonized. It is good that Bishop Boyle refused to open Chesterton's Cause because he really was not a saintly man. An exemplary writer? A light in the darkness? A bold apologist? Absolutely to all three. A saint? It does not appear so.

The Church Doesn't Need More Women's Involvement

One of the sacred cows of liberal Catholicism is the unwavering belief that the Church is dominated by men and that women are voiceless and passive in an institution run by the patriarchy. To that end, there are endless proposals being tossed about to get women "more involved" in some sort of "official" capacity. There is always talk about utilizing the particular "gifts" women have to offer the Church and how much we will all benefit by hearing the woman's "voice", et al.

There's always this recurring idea about a female diaconate (by the way, for an excellent theological explanation of why this cannot be, please see Fr. Ripperger's article On the Unity of Holy Orders). We're going to see a lot of this nonsense being bandied about at the upcoming Amazon Synod; the Pre-Amazon Synod meeting in Rome spoke of the "the indispensable mission that women have", and the document "urges the Church to identify the type of official ministry that can be conferred on women." Now these comments were made solely with reference to the Amazon, but that doesn't really matter; we all know the end game is to shoe-horn women into an official ministerial role as a means of eventually force-feeding women's ordination to the entire Church.

A while ago I was traveling and compelled to attend a random Novus Ordo parish to fulfill my Sunday obligation. As I sat there during the Mass, I watched the procession of young, female altar servers preceding the elderly priest into the sanctuary. I listened to the readings done by female lectors. The organ was played by a female organist, the hymns and psalms sung by a female cantor. Two young girls brought up the gifts at the offertory. During the announcements he mentioned the religious education program, whose director was a woman. He thanked a female parishioner for organizing the floral arrangements around the altar. At communion time, two female EMHCs distributed the sacrament along with the priest. After Mass, I looked at the congregation and wondered how many men I saw would be attending Mass of their own volition if their wives were not dragging them there—in how many homes was the woman the functional spiritual leader of the family?

I later visited the parish website and saw that the organizers or contact persons for 10 of the 19 ministries listed on the website were women—even for the Knights of Columbus, which  found bizarre. Only two ministries had male contacts; the rest just said "Call the office", where no doubt the inquirer would be put in contact with a female secretary. And children attending CCD classes would most likely be taught by female catechists.

And in all my years as a Catholic I can say with confidence that this situation is normative in most parishes. When I was a Youth Director and DRE, I remember going to a meeting of all the DREs in the diocese and I was one of only three men. The rest were all middle aged (or elderly) women. I have noticed a similar trend among parish Youth Directors. The same is true for the moribund National Catholic Youth Ministry organization: according to their site, 57% of the national leadership of the National Catholic Youth Ministry organization is female, including their executive director. Women are broadly represented in the regional chairs of the NCYM (43%) and hold 75% of the at-large chairs. You may like Catholic youth ministry, you may hate it, but either way the fact is it is dominated by women.

This experience really made me stop and ponder, in what sense can anybody claim that women are underrepresented in the Catholic Church? Anyone who walked into an average Catholic parish and got involved to any degree would get the impression of a Church completely run by women. Women already dominate the Church at almost every level. If you add to this the prevalence of women in Catholic education, the ratio of women to men becomes staggering. 

And it's not just at the parochial and academic level. At our dioceses as well women are broadly represented, usually at or far above their societal demographic. According to the staff director of my diocese, 50% of the diocesan staff are women. A very fair representation of the general demographic! However, if you remove the ordained from the equation and look only at laypeople, the percentage of women working in the diocese rises to 60%. In other words, 6 out of every 10 lay people involved in administering the diocese are women. They represent a majority of the lay folks currently managing the diocese. Women are running the place.

Please tell me how women are underrepresented? How their voices are suppressed? The average Catholic is going to hear the Word of God read by a woman, worship to music played and sang by women, have their kids catechized by women, probably receive communion from a woman, deal with women in parish and diocesan administration, and interact primarily with women volunteers and employees at all levels of Church.  In many places, deacon's wives are also elevated to an unofficial, semi-ministerial role in "couples ministry" with their husbands, so Catholics often receive baptismal or marriage prep from women. But I guess because there is one, statistically tiny office women are excluded from—the ordained—then they are completely oppressed. 

Even among the ordained, however, women are not without their influence. I don't want to be too particular so I will stay to vague generalizations here—but even in the priesthood I have noticed that parish priests who are surrounded by women staff are often completely cucked by them.

Several years ago, I was traveling up the coast of California visiting the old mission parishes ahead of the canonization of St. Junipero Serra. I visited the lovely mission of San Antonio de Padua, the only one of the missions where I felt a spirit of genuine Catholic piety was still alive. Within the old church there was a mural painted in the early 19th century. It depicted a priest (perhaps Fr. Serra) posing at the altar with several of his servers and other eminent men of the mission. In the late Rococo style, the figures are all looking out of the painting at the viewer. The priest has rugged, hard features and a dark beard. The servers are all robust young men with dark eyes and evidently Spanish or Mexican, some of them sporting beards or pointed mustaches. They are all kneeling in white surplices with ornate lace trimming, hands folded. There are also a few men in secular dress, apparently landowners or local magistrates, wearing sashes and holding swords. All of them are standing or kneeling before the altar, looking out, a half dozen or so. It really struck me what a manly enterprise Catholicism was at that time and place—looking at this old portrait, I could clearly grasp its appeal and why men of that time would have wanted to be part of this.

This is nothing against women by any means. I'm not one of those "back to the kitchen" Catholic men. But my friends, the crusade to "finally" get women "involved" is a farce. Women are pretty much already running the show at every level; at least they are heavily represented to such a degree that nobody can sincerely argue that the Church is excluding women from involvement. The Church is already inundated with women. We don't need more women involvement. If anything, we need more male involvement. It is men who vanished from Catholic administration, schools, parish life, and liturgical service as servers, cantors, etc. And many of our priests, if they are not part of the homosexual clique, are far too effeminate. A entire gender has been silently atrophied away while progressives lament that the atrophy has not been extreme enough.

A Church without the active engagement of an entire gender is a Church on life support. Our Lord requested that we pray for vocations by asking God to send workers into His harvest; these days we need to pray also for the much more basic petition that one of the two human sexes merely shows up. What times indeed.

Duodecimus Anniversarius

Good heavens...has it been twelve years!? Indeed it has; twelve years of blogging here at Unam Sanctam Catholicam, my friends. It was June 29, 2007 when this blog was launched. I was a young man working as a Director of Religious Education at a parish in the Diocese of Lansing. I remember for some time I had been frustrated with what I was experiencing in the churches around where I lived. I was baptized Catholic as a child but had no faith formation; I returned to the Church in 2002, receiving my First Communion at the tender age of 22. 

But over the next few years I started to realize that the Church I had studied and prayed my way back into did not look the same as the Church I was experiencing on the ground in parish life. I had read about all the "riches" supposedly unlocked by the Second Vatican Council, but was extremely disappointed that the most vibrant aspects of the Church's tradition were notably lacking from parish life. Why was there such a paucity of Latin? Why was I hearing contemporary guitar music or Protestant hymns instead of Gregorian chant? Why were so many homilies so wimpy on Catholic dogma? Why did those in charge of the Church seem to lax when it came to promoting the Gospel? And most alarmingly of all, why did so many Catholics seem uninterested in their spiritual heritage?

When I returned to full communion with the Church in 2002, I had just kind of assumed that the Church I'd read about in my studies still existed. But by 2005ish there was a kind of disquiet and spiritual rut I was in. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But it almost felt like a conspiracy...a conspiracy of silence about the Church's history and customs. As if traditional Catholicism was that one relative that we don't talk about because he's in prison. I remember 2005 was my senior year of my undergrad and that year I had completed a historical research project on the Second Vatican Council. I had studied the actual daybooks of the Council and read the interventions and came across the story of Cardinal Ottaviani's microphone being disconnected. This led me to Ralph Wiltgen's The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, which was really the point where I started to realize what happened in  Rome in 1962-1965 was more revolutionary than I had hitherto understood.

But the transformative moment came in June of 2007 when I was hired as a DRE and had the privilege of reconnecting with Dr. John Joy, who at the time was not Dr. Joy but just a young dude working for the Church and preparing to go study abroad with his family. John and I had been friends back from our days at Ave Maria College and managed to catch up. John helped me understand that what I was really missing was the vital connection that any serious Catholic needs to the Church's tradition. He gave me a copy of Msgr. Klaus Gamber's book Reform of the Roman Liturgy, as well as Michael Davies' Liturgical Timebombs. He also introduced me to other valuable works like Msgr. George Agius' Tradition and the Church and the works the the Dominican theologian Servais Pinckaers on Christian ethics and the morality of happiness. Understand, before I was introduced to these authors I had primarily been reading Jimmy Akin and Scott Hahn sort of books, which, while having some value, left me profoundly undernourished. These works John introduced me to had a very profound effect on my thinking and helped me to crystallize some things in my head that hitherto had been vague, unformed sentiment. They helped me really reconnect with the foundations of the Catholic faith and understand more about what my spirit was lacking and where to find it.

But John also did something equally formative—he introduced me to blogging. It being 2007, I still did not have the Internet in my house so I was oblivious to he existence of a traditional Catholic blogosphere, which in those days was still in an inchoate, latent phase of development. But John introduced me to three blogs: the New Liturgical Movement, Rorate Caeli, and a particularly entertaining blog run by some eccentric crank out on the west coast called Athanasius Contra Mundum. 

Learning of the existence of traditional Catholic blogs was revolutionary. See, before I started reading them, I was under the impression that my own frustrations with contemporary Catholicism were more of a matter of personal taste. I did not realize that there was a rather substantial sub-group within Catholicism who felt the same, and not as a matter of mere sentiment, but as a coherent, alternate vision for what the Church could and ought to be, grounded in its history and traditions and faithful to its own charism.

In other words, I realized I was not alone.

And then I was like, "Imma blog also."

And so, here I am, 12 years later, with 1,808 essays and 3.5 million pageviews across two different sites under my belt, still rolling with this weird hobby of mine—and pleasantly surprised that so many of you are still along for the journey.

God bless you all, blessed Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and prayers for another year of blogging!

Book Review: Infiltration by Taylor Marshall

A few days ago, when I spoke negatively about Dr. Taylor Marshall's book Infiltration on this blog's Facebook page, people responded with hostility, confusion, and consternation. Dr. Marshall's book purports to offer a causal explanation for the current crisis in the Church. It invokes Freemasonry, Fatima, Paul VI, and a whole slew of subjects important to traditional Catholics. Why speak poorly of the work, then? The man is doing a good thing for the Church; why knock it? Is this more of the  "circular firing squad" dynamic at work?

What is said is important, but how it is said matters quite a bit as well. When one is making certain historical assertions, this becomes desperately important. Cause and effect need to be clearly and indisputably linked by well-documented and universally accepted sources. The scholarly threshold is high. You can certainly publish a historical work where cause and effect are  not clearly demonstrated, where allegations are not documented thoroughly, where sources are questionable or non-existent—but what you have is not a work of history, but of gossip or innuendo.

Unfortunately, Infiltration is a work full of innuendo. It would be tedious to expand upon every unsubstantiated innuendo Dr. Marshall presents as fact; below I am posting a review from my friend Kevin Tierney who writes on this site occasionally. His review gets to the point much more lucidly and quickly than anything I would write. But I do want to expand upon what I mean by "innuendo" and why I think books like Infiltration are ultimately harmful to the traditionalist cause.

An historical argument by innuendo will usually start with a predetermined assertion and then try to prove it by appealing to causal factors which, taken on their own, do not rise to the threshold of establishing a certain cause and effect relationship. The author typically knows this but, rather than admitting the connection is tenuous, the author tries to bolster his claims by resorting to innuendo in lieu of actual facts. A classic example of this is well known historical sensationalist and journalist Graham Hancock, author of such books as Fingerprints of the Gods about Atlantis. Or we could take his book The Sign and the Seal on the Ark of the Covenant. In this book, Hancock opines that we really don't know what was inside the Ark, but points out that ancient cultures used to worship meteorites. He also speculates that a radioactive meteorite could have caused some of the effects we read about in the Old Testament associated with the Ark (e.g., making Moses "glow", killing people who touched it, etc). Now, does Mr. Hancock have any proof that the Ark contained a radioactive meteorite? Of course not. Could such an assertion ever be proven? Most likely not. But that is not going to stop Hancock from simply "throwing it out there" and then moving forward with his line of argumentation with the latent assumption that this implication is trustworthy. In essence, he makes a radically unverifiable statement, shrugs and says "maybe", but then moves ahead anyway on the working assumption that the hypothesis is correct, creating the illusion that an argument has been made when really only an innuendo was proffered.

In Dr. Marshall's Infiltration, you will see many such arguments. You will see the Siri Thesis rehashed, with no proof other than to retell the story because "legend says." Paul VI is alleged to be an Alinskyite on the premise that Cardinal Montini and Saul Alinsky were mutual associates of Jacques Maritain. It is asserted that John XXIII was referring to the children of Fatima when he referenced "prophets of doom", even though Marshall offers no proof of this and despite the fact there are many other more plausible explanations. He reports that Paul VI was a sodomite, on no evidence other than retelling the gossip of French diplomat Roger Peyerfitte who says he knows of an actor who said he had a homosexual relationship with Paul VI. In other words, it is pure hearsay. Marshall is just reporting what other people gossip about. It's historical writing of the shoddiest form. Tabloid material.

I like Dr. Taylor Marhsall. I'm happy he has gravitated more towards the traditionalist camp. And I know people will inevitably say that myself or Mr. Tierney are harming the traditional cause by ripping this book. On the contrary, it is the existence of books like Infiltration which do damage to the traditionalist cause by making us look like a bunch of conspiracy theorists for whom a certain narrative is more important than the facts. It's highly likely that anyone I gave this book to in hopes of convincing them of our cause would walk away shaking their head. I don't deny the book is entertaining and engaging; but as history, it's a huge fail. And please don't tell me "He's just trying to do a good work for the Church." We can't play loose with the truth in service of the truth. When I was in college, I wrote a paper on the Protestant Reformation for my history class. It was a blistering critique of the Lutheran movement. I thought my professor, a militant Catholic, would heartily approve of it. Instead he lambasted it ruthlessly. My citations didn't prove what I said they proved. Connections I inferred were not sufficiently demonstrated. Too much reliance on secondary sources and not enough on primary. He ripped it to shreds. It didn't matter that I was "trying to do a good thing for the Church." And he was right to destroy it. The scholarship of that paper was garbage. Its shoddy reasoning and weak citations were actually more damaging to Catholicism than supportive of it. And that's always been my approach as well. You can show me a book that argues 100% in line with things I believe, but if it's scholarship and citations are sloppy I'm still going to say it's bunk. Even if I happen to agree with a lot of Taylor Marshall's conclusions, he offers no compelling reason why I ought to believe them.

Well, that's enough for my introduction. I guess I should actually get to Kevin's review.

Review of Dr. Taylor Marhsall's Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within by Kevin Tierney

How does one explain the crisis in the modern Church? This is a subject that has taken up endless amounts of discussion. After this review, we will spend even more hours, but God willing, not too many. During that time, in addition to discussing the root causes of the crisis, we will discuss how present these problems, and what one can do to solve them. In having that discussion, a wide variety of viewpoints will be presented.

Taylor Marshall has given his own viewpoint in Infilitration: The Plot to Destroy the Church From Within. This is a 250 page work with 50 pages of appendices, in addition to a glowing foreword by Bishop Athanasius Schneider. By appearances alone, this is a serious and sober book. Yet as with many things, appearances are deceiving. Infiltration fails as a serious and sober look at the problems facing the Catholic Church. More importantly, the ways in which it fail can have real consequences for how that crisis is perceived, and for those who advocate it along these lines.

Yet in reviewing this work, we must be careful. We must avoid being like Dr. Jeffrey Mirus, whose review of Infiltration was less a review on the book and more on his belief that Taylor Marshall is a moron. There is no valley so low to which Mirus will not stoop in his quest to insult Dr. Marshall, no pettiness he will not engage in to further his belief that Marshall is a crazy uncle. Sadly, many people have picked up on this review, and are promoting it. While this no doubt makes them feel good and superior, I doubt its actually reaching anyone who has actually read the book, or who isn’t absolutely certain of the intellectual capacity (or lack thereof) of Dr. Marshall. In this review, I want to avoid those pitfalls. This is a bad book, but we need to explain why exactly it is bad, even if you agree with the authors overall conclusions about there being a modernist crisis in the Church.

A PARANOID MANIFESTO

In his rejection of a certain theological position, Marshall says he rejects it because it “does not present a consistent theological narrative” for the present crisis. For Marshall, the narrative is what matters above all else. The narrative about the crisis matters more than the actual crisis, which is almost secondary. Unlike most traditionalist polemics, Infiltration spends a shockingly small amount of time talking about the problems the Church faces. Instead, he is concerned most with telling you what the cause of these problems are. The cause of these problems are a hyper-organized and almost omniscient cabal of secret societies (the Carbonari, Freemasons, the Sankte Gallen Mafia, among many others) carefully and calmly putting together a plan to take over and subvert the Church. The blueprint of this plan is the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita, written in 1859. Marshall’s job is to trace a straight line from this document up until 2019, and show how it explains everything about the current crisis.

The problem with conspiracy theories is they adopt an approach of paranoia in their reading of history. In every event, they see otherwise invisible narratives—and if you look hard enough, there are signs of these narratives, signs the author will gladly tell you about if you spend the money for their book. Hence he begins his narrative by asking why lightning struck the Vatican the day Benedict resigned the papacy. Was it connected to the Vatican banking scandal? Was it about sex abuse? Doctrine? To Marshall, that lightning strike means something. To the reader, that strike might also mean something: a weather pattern developed in the earths atmosphere that was conducive to strong storms, and one of them produced a bolt of lightning which struck the Vatican. That possibility is never once mentioned by Marshall.

Another problem is that it gives the enemy far too much credit. That secret societies exist, and that they are often hostile to the Catholic Church is no doubt true. Yet Marshall presents these societies less as the dangerous threat that they are, and more as cartoonish supervillains who are all powerful, hyper organized and disciplined, and every action done is followed verbatim by a plan written 160 years ago. Anyone who has studied the history of these societies for even a second will be skeptical of this. The movements of secret societies and radicalism spends just as much time knifing each other as they do trying to attack their common enemy. They splinter into factions upon factions. If anything, that’s what makes the assault on the Church so difficult from these groups: it is highly decentralized. Even today you could excommunicate and jail every member of the Sankte Gallen Mafia (the liberal group that by their own admission and boasting were the ones who lobbied and organized for Pope Francis during the recent conclave), and the crisis would continue without missing a beat. The problem isn’t so much a central playbook they are following, as there are a bunch of highly motivated individuals whose only thing they agree upon is a disdain and loathing for tradition and the Gospel.

HABITUAL LOGIC LEAPING

For Dr. Marshall, one of the biggest problems the Church faced was the loss of the Papal States.  For a variety of reasons (although not important enough to elucidate in great detail in the book), the Papal States are central to everything.  It goes without saying that Dr. Marshall would not be happy about the Lateran treaty which gave rise to the modern Vatican City and the protection of the city from outside threats, in exchange for the pope relinquishing claims on everything else that comprised the Papal States.  The absurd assumptions that follow upon this are legion: for example, did you know that Ambrogio Ratti took the papal name Pius XI to rebuke his two predecessors named Pius?  Did you know that he took the name explicitly because he would solve the tensions with Italy that they failed?  And did you know that this Lateran treaty unleashed a demonic army that infiltrated the Vatican, culminating in the pontificate of Pope Francis, a Masonic Manchurian Candidate?  This is all just fluff; Marshall nowhere gives evidence that Ratti chose Pius XI as a slight towards his predecessors, or that Pius XI viewed himself as repudiating their failed policies.  He takes frequent leaps of logic to arrive at these conclusions.  He’s a habitual logic leaper.  Often, it is harmless.  Other times, he says things like the following:

Flanked by representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism, Pope John Paul II opened the Jubilee Year of 2000. One year later, he would be diagnosed with Parikson’s disease and begin his slow, painful descent into death (Infiltration, pg. 192).

Now, maybe God really did punish John Paul II with Parkinsons for mistakes regarding ecumenism. I would be very careful in writing that opinion in public though. As in, don’t write that in public. It's unprovable and a tremendous leap of logic; yet Marshall seems to imply a causal relation here that the reader is invited to uncritically accept.

BIASED REPORTING
             

In addition to seeking out the emanations of penumbras of various events in the Church, Dr. Marshall will also inform the readers of various theological controversies. Yet the way he does so is, quite frankly, fundamentally dishonest. In discussing “infiltration” of the Sacred Liturgy, he states his belief that the prayer “for our dearly departed… and all who died in your friendship” you hear during one of the Eucharistic Prayers is “seen” as promoting universal salvation. Nowhere does he mention who sees this, and where they record that view. Nowhere does he state if he agrees with that view or not. It is just “seen” by some. Yet for the purposes of his narrative, that “seen” is then treated as a verifiable fact. Elsewhere, he says it is “still debated” whether Vatican II’s decree on religious liberty gives a divine right to engage in idolatry. He nowhere mentions where this is “still debated.” He nowhere mentions what side of the debate he finds himself on. He is simply noting some impersonal passive debate going on somewhere. Yet, for purposes of the narrative, the Church, in a decree from an ecumenical council, gave divine sanction to idolatry. Yet if you press him too hard on this, he will fall back on saying the text “seems to suggest” it, and then just continue onward as if it is undebatable truth. The problem with both is clear: they are very much not established truths. If they are not established, then there’s a real chance his “infiltration” narrative is incorrect. Debating such a mindset is impossible. It is heads he wins, tails you lose. Even if one is disposed to agree with Dr. Marshall's fundamental arguments here, he offers no reason why you should believe them.

Marshall responds to these criticisms by hinting that people are afraid of his work and his conclusions, while other defenders point to the fact Bishop Schneider endorsed the work. That Bishop Schneider endorsed this work is tragic. Yet it is a reminder that staunch doctrinal orthodoxy does not always translate into sound judgement. Just as Christopher West was (wrongly) endorsed by several orthodox bishops, so it is with this work. As far as the conclusions, I am not "afraid" of those conclusions. I have no problem believing that people have tried to undermine the Gospel from within positions of the Church. If you don’t believe that, you haven’t been paying attention the past 50 years.

Yet there is a right way and a wrong way to respond to those conclusions. Sound evidence and logic matters. We must be careful to present the facts as they happen, and when we are engaging in speculation, make clear we are doing so, and make sure that speculation is backed by sound evidence. If we don’t, it becomes far too easy to paint critics as a bunch of crazy reactionaries and as Alex Jones with incense. Nobody is expecting a modern day Iota Unum, a dry manifesto 800 pages long outlining the problems with the Church’s surrender to liberalism. (Yet it is a great book!) We badly need a book outlining in easily readable fashion the problems the Church is facing, and how to confront them. (You see almost nothing in how to confront the problems from Marshall, outside of pious generalities.) Infiltration is not that book.

There's Always a Priest Shortage in Missionary Areas

The ostensible reason the ordination of married "elders" is being discussed for the Amazon is because of a critical priest shortage in the region.

Let us set aside for a moment the fact that the ideologue of the Amazon Synod, Bishop Fritz Lobinger, has stated that the priest shortage is not the real reason for the proposal to ordain married men; let us look at the historical background of "priest shortages" in general.

The Amazon is more or less a missionary region. I do not deny there is a priest shortage there. But there have always been priest shortages in mission areas. How is this a new problem? Mission territories generally don't have the population density or Catholic base to produce a sufficient level of indigenous priests. This is why evangelical efforts in mission countries have typically been spearheaded by foreign priests supported by subscriptions or donations from the faithful in more thoroughly Christianized areas. This is just common sense.

Let's review some history:

• There was a shortage of clergy in Samaria during the Book of Acts; the Bible says even after they had converted there was nobody in the territory to administer Confirmation so the Apostles had to make a trip up to them (Acts 8:14-17).
• There was a shortage of missionary priests willing to go to Ireland prior to it's conversion, even though there were already small bands of Christian Irish living there before St. Patrick.
• There was a shortage of priests in Anglo-Saxon England during the time of its conversion; priests sent from Gaul often times refused to cross the Channel and go over to Britain. Some of St. Augustine of Canterbury's own companions refused to leave Gaul.
• There was a shortage of priests in Germany during the Carolingian era. Missionaries like St. Boniface were constantly sending back to France, Italy, and Britain for more helpers.
• There was a shortage of priests to Asia during the 13th century Mongol period. It was not uncommon for friars sent east to abandon the journey before reaching Mongol territory.
• There was a shortage of priests in Japan during the period of the Christian persecutions. Japanese Catholics went generations without seeing a Catholic priest. 
• There were priest shortages in New Spain (Mexico) for many years until the Spaniards really started coming over en masse. Catholic converts sometimes went a year or more without access to the sacraments. 
• There was a shortage of priests among the Jesuits who evangelized New France. A single priest such as St. Isaac Jogues or Fr. Marquette might be in charge of thousands and thousands of miles of territory.
• There was a shortage of priests on the American frontier for most of the history of the United States. Priests traveled along exceptionally broad circuits, sometimes covering thousands of miles, in order to minister to their flock. Their letters to Europe are full of pleas for more priests to aid them in their work.  

I'm sure we could come up with many more examples. But the point is there have always been priest shortages in mission areas. The situation in the Amazon is absolutely not unique. In none of the situations listed above did anyone in the Church ever seem to think the solution was ordaining married men. Even in the case of New France, where Jesuits were being killed by Iroquois while simultaneously being expected to administer an ecclesial territory the size of Texas, there was no suggestion or ordaining married men, Jesuit novices were still required to put in years and years of training before ordination, and the speedy ordination of indigenous peoples was rejected—even though any one of those could have "solved" the problem by providing more priests to minister to the faithful.

But historically the Church has not viewed this as a problem that you solve by throwing more warm bodies into the grinder. Christendom was not built on the mentality of, "we need someone to do this job...meh, you'll do."

Of course, this is not really about a shortage of priests in the Amazon anyway. But...whatever.

Guest Post: "Revisiting Our Concept of Authority" by Kevin Tierney

Today I am featuring a guest post from my friend and colleague Kevin Tierney on the subject of stepping back and revisiting our attitudes towards authority within the Catholic hierarchy.

Kevin is a writer living in Brighton, Michigan. His works have appeared regularly on Catholic Exchange and other venues. You may follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@catholicsmark).

* * * * *

As the USCCB meets to discuss how best to implement new norms regarding sexual abuse, is everyone ready for the predictable debate about if homosexuality or clericalism are the big problem causing the crisis? I’m not, it’s a tired debate. I also think it can be sidestepped if we go a little deeper. I think that if we want to solve the problems the Church is beset it, its going to require us to go deeper, as uncomfortable as it makes us. I speak of the problems we Catholics have in articulating authority.

Before you reach for your “I would not believe the Gospel if not for the authority of the Catholic Church” (you don’t understand that quote) from Augustine, let’s talk about what authority is.  In most debates today in the Church, “authority” is a question of “who has the power” or “who can compel you to do something.”  Hence a critic of the pope is said to be undermining his authority, because people will not look to him for guidance if they hear he’s a bad pope.  The authority of the bishop is viewed in terms of the authority to execute justice and to direct policy in his diocese. To use a musical analogy, the priests and laity are instruments, the bishop is a conductor.  Or on a higher level, the pope is the conductor, and everyone else are the instruments.  In the words of one Catholic writer, we must become “the kind of Catholics Pope Francis wants us to be.”   To use an old analogy, the pope or bishop is the potter, we are the clay.  You may think that this situation would change under a “traditional pope”, but I am not that optimistic.

Even worse, authority is treated as a zero sum game.  To the extent the pope exercises authority, it comes at the expense of the bishops, or vice versa.  This was precisely the reasoning Rome gave in demanding the USCCB suspend any of their previous reforms, as these reforms would not give Rome a free hand to propose their own later reforms.  Rather than treating the reforms as a baseline that would be maintained but also adapted to meet local situations (strengthened where necessary), these were put forth with the expectation they would be the final word, and the USCCB has made clear that when they meet, do not expect much if any daylight from Vos Estis and their position, despite the fact they are freely clear to mandate additional reforms or additional mechanisms to make the rules more efficient.

This view of authority is, to put it bluntly, not Christian in the slightest.  To the extent it is believed, it is a religion that is not Christianity. It finds no basis in the Scriptures or Tradition. Worse, it is condemned explicitly by our Lord in the Gospel of Luke.  Yet this attitude has become a part of contemporary Catholicism.  To demonstrate why it is wrong, we must consider two questions:  what is the purpose of authority, and how is authority exercised?  

In a scene that could be repeated countless times throughout human history, the Apostles argue among themselves over who the best is, no doubt hoping the winner of that argument can catch Christ’s attention and be confirmed as the best.  Being the best involves prestige, authority, recognition, in a word, power.  Christ’s answer to this display is instructive for us:

“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. (Luke 22:25-27)

The very concept of authority that we have is the very concept of authority Christ is concerned about.  In the political economy, it makes sense to understand authority primarily in the sense of who has power, and how that power can be wielded. That kind of understanding has its limits in the realm of the Church, which at its core is a family.  When the head of the family is primarily concerned with showing off his authority and reminding everyone else of their subservience, that family does not function.  Rather, for us, the point of authority is of service, not dominion.  In the Bible, whether it be the Gospels or the epistles of the Apostles, authority is described in terms of “making firm”, “setting straight”, never in the sense of imposing order or imposing a vision others must conform to.  The authority of the Apostles was not doubted (well at least not by the orthodox believer), but to understand authority in the terms of wielding and exercising power would have been foreign to them.

 In regards to how power is distributed or exercised, this case becomes even clearer.  Does Christ view the role of Peter as to transform his brethren into a different kind of Christian?  Is it to endlessly dictate policy to his brother bishops?

“Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)

The role of Peter is fundamentally a role of supporting the Apostles, helping them remain firm against the attacks of the devil.  Sometimes that will involve settling disputes, and it will involve compelling obedience.  Yet the Bible avoids such grandiose visions of authority for a reason.  We see this line of thought continued within the Church fathers.  While many look at the local bishop as a conductor of the tools of his diocese, St. Ignatius of Antioch looks at it differently:

"For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, you may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that you are indeed the members of His Son" (Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter IV)

Ignatius is the man in the earliest Church who laid out the clearest vision for the local bishop.  He presented the strongest vision of the monarchial episcopate in the Fathers.  Yet he also rejects the notion of authority present so often in the Church of our authorities as conductors of a symphony.  Rather, he is the harp that the strings attach themselves to.  The harp doesn’t direct the strings, but without the firmness of the harp, the strings cannot work together to make music.  Once the music is made, the faithful join in and then the symphony is produced.  The conductor is God, not the Bishop.

I sincerely believe that abandoning this model of authority has gotten us into a lot of trouble, especially in the present crisis.  Faced with the activities of robber bishop Michael Bransfield, the financial council of the diocese was “passive.”  Outside auditors were afraid to challenge him, “because of the Bishops position.”  Popes made serious mistakes in handling the abuse crisis, but hey, its their Church, they can run it as they see fit, right?

None of this is written to deny the pope’s authority, nor his jurisdiction.  Nor is it to deny that on prudential issues, the pope does indeed have a wide authority to take action (or not) as he sees fit.  Yet just because someone is given a position of authority, does not mean that authority should be wielded without question, or without a suggestion that it be wielded better.  Imagine if bishops stood up to the code of silence regarding abuse?  Imagine if diocesan employees refused to cooperate with the shuffling of predator priests while hiding it from the community?  Imagine if the financial practices of bishops were vigorously challenged by individuals who had just as much a stake in the success of the Church as the bishop does?  In terms of power, yes, bishops and the pope can make moves that others cannot.  Yet it is the job of the entire people of God to ensure that such authority is always used in the service of unity and making firm, and to never transform the local diocese or global church into the plaything of potenates.

Show Us Your Indignation

The big news in my home state of Michigan last week was that five Catholic priests in the dioceses of Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Detroit had been arrested for various sex abuse crimes--including a priest I had actually profiled on here eleven years ago for wearing a Detroit Red Wings logo on his chasuble.

This Sunday I went to mass at the parish where one of the priests had been from. Now, to make it clear, this priest was long gone from ministry in the diocese; the charges related to his time at this parish back in the 1980s, so he was not currently involved with the parish. Still, there were still a lot of parishioners around who remembered and loved this priest. The news of his arrest was a bitter reckoning.

The celebrant for the Mass was Fr. Tony Smela. Fr. Tony is an excellent priest int he Diocese of Lansing who has not been ordained too long. He is also a friend of the Traditional Latin Mass; the first EF Mass I attended of his was an All Souls Day Requiem Mass in 2018.

Anyhow, there is a lot of indignation these days about the response of the institutional Church to these clerical abuse scandals. Episcopal responses are usually cold, overly bureaucratic, and concerned more with protecting the hierarchy than addressing justice for the victims or identifying the source of the abuse. "We deeply regret" sorts of apologies feel stale; reforms were too often meaningless gestures, "cover your ass" accountability protocols, new norms that root out the rot entirely. 

The reason these responses have left so many Catholics frustrated and demoralized is because there is one vital ingredient lacking: INDIGNATION. I have heard lots of episcopal apologies in my time. Oh, I can tell the bishops are embarrassed by sex abuse. I can tell they are frustrated. I can tell they are concerned. But what I have seldom seen from them in any sense of outrage, of righteous indignation, of disgust. You get the impression that they are trying to "manage" a crisis rather than raise their voices in lamentation with the children of God.

Back to Fr. Tony. Fr. Tony gave what I felt was the ideal response to news of these priests' arrest. When it was time for the homily, he preached unflinchingly on the subject and was very animated. It was clearly visible how upset he was. He was disgusted, and he let it show. He accused the arrested priests of betrayal of the Church and their vocation. He was visibly shaken with indignation. It was evident how hurt and angry this clergyman was, who as a priest, suffers in a unique way whenever the reputation of the priesthood is tarnished. He called out the hierarchy for their failures; he accused the Vatican of failure. The man was angry and not afraid to show it. The righteous indignation that is so often lacking in episcopal apologies was clearly present here.

But he did not leave it with just denunciation and harsh words. He spoke of Christian forgiveness and the healing available in Christ. He left us with the sense that, even though we are rightly horrified, in God's grace and strength we can all move forward.

The result was that instead of thinking "Here comes another lame clerical apology" I felt profoundly that Fr. Tony was one of us. One of the sufferers. I felt solidarity. I felt like he understood. Really understood. And I felt more confident that we would overcome this. I obviously was still deeply saddened by the news, but I left the Mass with a strong sense of healing.

If you are a bishop reading this or someone who works in the communications department of a diocese that crafts statements to the public, please understand this: we want--we need--to see your disgust and indignation. I don't want any more lame "we deeply regret" apologies. I want to see that, as a pastor and a son of the Church, a bishop is personally horrified by this sin. I want to see you cry with desolation at the state of the Church as our Lord wept over Jerusalem.

Also, if you know Fr. Tony and appreciate his response to this and his ministry in general, please let him know.

+AMDG+