You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt.
Leviticus 19:33-34.
This comes out on a Sunday morning.
Faithful Catholics are going to Mass today, as required by the Church, or went last night. These are the readings for the day, which will also be read in some "main line" Protestant Churches that use the Catholic lectionary:
Reading 1
Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10
Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which consisted of men, women, and those children old enough to understand.
Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate, he read out of the book from daybreak till midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand; and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.
Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.
He opened the scroll so that all the people might see it— for he was standing higher up than any of the people —; and, as he opened it, all the people rose.
Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, "Amen, amen!" Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD, their faces to the ground. Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. Then Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra the priest-scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people: "Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep"— for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further: "Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!"
Reading 2
1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Brothers and sisters: As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body, "it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body, " it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you, " nor again the head to the feet, "I do not need you." Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this.
But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.
Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?
Gospel
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."
Faithful Orthodox using a different calendar will hear three readings as well, those being John 20:19-31, 1 Timothy 1:15-17 and Matthew 15:21-28.
Donald and Melania Trump, and their son Barron, aren't going to hear any readings today, as they're not going to Church. Melania is a non observant Catholic (her marriage to Donald Trump is invalid in the eyes of the Church) and Trump is from all observances non religious, in spite of Evangelicals having proclaimed him, with no evidence to support it, a man of God.
I find myself in a peculiar situation, in that as a Catholic who firmly believes that Episcopal holy orders are "completely null and utterly void", I'm rising to defend an Episcopal Bishop, and moreover one that I don't really know about in general.1
Moreover, as a Catholic who also believes that women may not be ordained to the priesthood, I'm rising to defend a female Episcopal cleric.
And in doing this, I'm recalling a homily delivered by a local young, highly orthodox, Catholic priest, that the being the "four things God hates homily".
Let's start off by recalling that, highlighting the part that applies here:
Because I've referenced it more than one time, but apparently never posted it (cowardice at work) I'm going to post here the topic of "the four sins God hates". I'm also doing this as I'm getting to a political thread about this years elections and the candidates, in the context of the argument of "Christians must. . . " or "Christians can. . . "
First I'll note using the word "hate", in the context of the Divine, is a truncation for a much larger concept. "Condemns" might have been a better choice of words, but then making an effective delivery in about ten minutes or less is tough, and truncations probably hit home more than other things.
Additionally, and very importantly, sins and sinners are different. In Christian theology, and certainly in Catholic theology, God loves everyone, including those who have committed any one of these sins, or all of them.
This topic references a remarkably short and effective sermon I heard some time ago. The way my 61 year old brain now works, that probably means it was a few years ago. At any rate, it was a homily based on all three of the day's readings, which is remarkable in and of itself, and probably left every member of the parish squirming a bit. It should have, as people entrenched in their views politically and/or economically would have had to found something to disagree with, or rather be hit by.
The first sin was an easy one that seemingly everyone agrees is horrific, but which in fact people excuse continually, murder.
Murder is of course the unjust taking of a life, and seemingly nobody could disagree with that being a horrific sin. But in fact, we hear people excuse the taking of innocent life all the time. Abortion is the taking of an innocent life. Even "conservatives", however, and liberals as a false flag, will being up "except in the case of rape and incest".
Rape and incest are horrific sins in and of itself, but compounding it with murder doesn't really make things go away, but rather makes one horror into two. Yes, bearing a child in these circumstances would be a horrific burden. Killing the child would be too.
The second sin the Priest noted was sodomy. He noted it in the readings and in spite of what people might like to say, neither the Old or New Testaments excuse unnatural sex. They just don't. St. Paul is particularly open about this, so much so that a local female lesbian minister stated that this was just "St. Paul's opinion", which pretty much undercuts the entire Canon of Scripture.
A person can get into Natural Law from here, which used to be widely accepted, and which has been cited by a United States Supreme Court justice as recently as fifty or so years ago, and the Wyoming Supreme Court more recently than that, and both in this context, but we'll forgo that in depth here. Suffice it to say that people burdened with such desires carry a heavy burden to say the least, but that doesn't make it a natural inclination. In the modern Western World we've come to excuse most such burdens, however, so that where we now draw lines is pretty arbitrary.
Okay, those are two "conservative" items.
The next wasn't.
That was mistreating immigrants.
This sort of speaks for itself, but there it is. Scripture condemns mistreating immigrants. You can't go around, as a Christian, hating immigrants or abusing them because of their plight.
Abusing immigrants, right now, seems to be part of the Conservative "must do" list.
And the final one was failing to pay workmen a just wage. Not exactly taking the natural economy/free market approach in the homily.
Two conservatives, and two liberal.
That's because Christianity is neither liberal or conservative, but Christianity. People claiming it for their political battles this year might well think out their overall positions.
As I noted, two conservative items, and two liberal.
No murdering, no sodomy, no abusing immigrants, and no cheating people on their pay.
A homily nearly guaranteed to make everyone uncomfortable or angry.
Seems like everyone claiming to carry some sort of Christian banner in the deep Trump camp is only comfortable with one of those, now days.2
Bishop Budde directly addressed Donald Trump, and for that matter J. D. Vance. You may have read what she said, but invoking the Jimmy Akin Citation Rule, you'll let you hear it for yourself.
This is homily is profoundly Christian. There's nothing in it that any Christian can condemn. So why are people condemning it.
Well, because it is profoundly Christian. She asks for mercy for the different, downtrodden, and immigrants.
Gasp!
Donald Trump, who is trying to yank citizenship from the "natural born", is taking exception to a Christian cleric's plea for mercy for everyone his policies impact.3 4 Of course, he also ignored her comments about calling people names, accusing her of not being "smart", a frequent accusation by Trump (who might not be comfortable with his own smarts).
Well, this gets directly at the hypocrisy of some supporters of Trump who continually evoke religion, and particularly those who are in a certain evangelical camp.
For years now, we've been told by these people, including a fair number of clerics, that Trump, who has no discernable connection to any religion as an adult, doesn't seem to practice any religion, who is a serial polygamist with a horrific history towards women, and who is a member of the class that Christ warned less of a chance of getting to Heaven than a camel through an "eye of a needle", was a "Godly man".
This has been a complete fraud. There's no evidence that Trump is religious. He attended Church only fourteen times during his first term of office. He was confirmed a Presbyterian when he was young, a denomination he says he's no longer part of, but John Calvin would give him a dope slap for his personal conduct if he came back from the grave.5
What they really mean is they see him as somebody who going to restore and invoke a certain John Brown view of muscular evangelical Christianity. Their religion is heavily mixed with right wing politics, and they see themselves as leading a march out of a metaphorical immoral Kansas.6 Trump is just, in their view, a God sent vehicle to get this done.
Put another way, as I've mentioned before, they see Trump as a sort of Cyrus the Great.7 They don't care that he isn't a Christian, as he's going to back their "Christian values".
And their values, frankly, express a deficit of Christianity.
This is something we've seen before in the United States and it dates back, really, to the country being a protestant nation founded by migrating, and often dissenting, protestant sects. If you looked at the "Pilgrims", for example, they really weren't all that nice. Oliver Cromwell's Calvinism formed a background to a lot of the early religious history of the US, and Cromwell definitely wasn't nice. Indeed, he ended up being so hated in his own country that the location of his head remains a secret, something imposed to prevent people from digging it up in anger.
In the past, Southern "evangelicals" were often backers of segregation. Carrying forward to the current times, they see many of the descents from Christian moral standards, such as the intrusion of homosexuality into society in general and the pulpit in particular, as abominations. At the same time, however, they continue to see things that they've widely accommodated as not much of a problem, at least not openly. You aren't going to hear, for example, any evangelicals condemn divorce. Locally I know at least two people who "lived in sin" and were really active members of a major evangelical church. I've sort of known one person carrying the banner of Christian morality who is married to a divorced woman who is herself extremely right wing, which while common in the US, is something Christ specifically prohibited.
You really don't get the pick and choose option here.
The New Apostolic Reformation has embraced Trump in spades. They feel that he'll, to put it in an old fashioned fashion, drive the Sodomites from the land and restore and impose a Evangelical Christian order. A lot of them seem perfectly comfortable with policies that will hurt, at a human level, a group of people who are largely darked skinned, even if they don't hold personally racist views.
To be perfectly fair, a lot of American Catholics, completely dim on the nature of the New Apostolic Reformation, are going right along with this and supporting it, so we are far, far from being free of accusation here ourselves.7b
That fact in and of itself will have some infesting implications. The Episcopal Church is a "main line" Protestant religion that was once a major force in the country, but which accommodated itself to an ever growing list of things Christians have always considered sinful. In the 1930s the Anglican Communion remained so close to Christian tradition, and close the Apostolic Christian tradition at that, that it caused a king to resign his thrown over divorce. Now it doesn't worry much about divorce and is okay, in many places with homosexual "marriage". Hence the accusation of "woke" aimed at the Bishop, even though she did not say a single thing that could be regarded as being woke in her homily.
I note this as Hispanics have come into the country they have been attracted to protestant and quasi Christian faiths in some numbers. This isn't hugely surprising, even though the majority of Hispanics are cultural, if not practicing, Catholics, as these faiths seem more "American". It's notable that in the novel, but not the movie adaptation of it, The Godfather Michael Corleone figure was disappointed when his protestant wife converted to Catholicism and started raising the children in that faith, as he hoped that they'd be members of the more "American", at that time, Episcopal Church. Indeed, Catholics aspiring to be in the upper middle class in fact often did that until the 1960s, when Kennedy made being American and Catholic seemingly okay.8
In reality, it never actually became okay, as the Church will not accommodate itself to the culture of anyone nation, something that became increasingly obvious after 1973's Roe v. Wade decision.
It's been noted that Hispanics voted for Trump in large numbers this last election, a shift in political alignments that we predicated here quite awhile back. That reflects their cultural conservatism, which is to say that it reflects their cultural Catholicism.9 What they probably were not ready for is the degree of outright hatred a significant number of the Maga crowed have to anyone who isn't a White nominal protestant. This started to become evident when Anne Coulter, a serious Presbyterian told Vivek Ramaswamy recently that she'd vote for him, but he isn't white. Indeed, he's an Indian American Hindu. Ramaswamy got the message and bailed out of the doggy agency, realizing that there was no future for him there. He's going to run for the Governorship of Rust Belt Ohio where voters will likely inform him that he's not white, as its okay apparently to say that once again.
Indeed, there are a lot of under the breath mutterings about Usha Vance who isn't white, and who is a Hindu. Oh my.
Chances are good that the Trump interregnum will have an impact on the Evangelicals in a major way, starting with this. There isn't really a home in a lot of those churches for Christians who hail from a culture that didn't arise in Great Britain during the English Civil War. When the disaster of Trump blows up, it's going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of things associated with his movement, and most likely a lot of Hispanics out of the pews.
To be a real Christian, of course, has always meant that you didn't have a home in the world, and it still does. It has also always meant that you'd be hated. People want to hear that they can get rich on Earth and that its a sign of approval from Heaven. They want to hear that some people don't really count, up to the point of their deaths, whether that be through neglect or judicial execution. They want to be told that unnatural sexual unions are hated by God, but shacking up and affairs, as long as the plumbing is correct, aren't really a big deal. They want to be told they can pay as little to their employees as they can get away with, and that's just God's plan. And they want to be told they can hate the stranger, even the infant ones, if they weren't born in the right place.
They want "Christian values", as long a they weren't the ones Christians were martyerd for, and they're easy to do. They're okay with the Sermon on the Mount, as long as it doesn't mean they really have to go to Church to hear it, and can stay home and watch football.
Now, does this apply to all Evangelicals? Certainly not, and not by a long shot. About 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump, but not all of them hold such views by any means. 58% of Catholics voted for Trump, that being a majority. A lot of that may be explained in both instances by Democrats hugging the bloody body of abortion, which should be a lesson to them and one which we warned here was a mistake to do. And quite frankly much of what has come about was due to the developments brought about by Obergefell, which we warned would occur.10
So, horrified by a moral decay that became obvious with Obergefell, but having accommodated itself to a flood of moral decay that came before that, the American Civil Religion turned to an irreligious man who has no capacity for deep thought at all and who started whining, but only after some of his backers whined first, that a "woke" minister was interjecting religion into politics.
Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
Ronald Reagan.
Footnotes:
1. The phrase is from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Apostolicae Curae holding Anglican ordinations to be invalid.
I'm not hostile to Episcopalians, I'd note, I just agree that Pope Leo XIII was correct. Apparently a lot of Episcopalians have over the years as there's been efforts to convey validity by cross ordinations from other churches that can demonstrate Apostolic succession, something the Methodist have done as well. Some Anglican male priests do have valid holy orders, however, particularly if they were formerly Catholics.
2. Trump reinstated the death penal for certain Federal offenses. The Catholic Church generally takes the view that its obsolete and while the state is allowed to impose it under certain conditions, those conditions no longer exist in the modern world.
3. This is clearly a legally deficient argument and has been stayed by a court.
4. Of interest, already there's been arguments that Trump's proclamation also deprives Native Americans of citizenship, a nasty shocking proposition. This because Trump's AG office holds the view that birthright means "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US.
Of interest, if that's correct, Ted Cruz is not a U.S. citizen. He was born in Canada.
5. Presbyterians do allow for divorce, as a last resort, in cases of adultery, which Trump has experience with, or abandonment.
6. Catholics that have been backing this best fear, as this camp is traditionally highly hostile to Catholicism, and many of its members wouldn't regard Catholics as Christians at all, even though Catholics are the original Christians.
7. This analogy really fails. Cyrus the Great wasn't a bad man, in the context of his times and station. He wasn't Jewish, and of course he lived well before the time of Christ, but he was charged with freeing the captive Jews under his dominion.
That's why some Evangelical Christians see Trump as a Cyrus. Cyrus enormously benefitted the Jew, but he wasn't Jewish. So, to those in the New Apostolic Reformation, Trump will be a Cyrus who lets them bring forth a new Evangelical Protestant nation.
Well, Cyrus would regard Trump as a pussy. Moreover, Trump is just making us look like clowns and stands a much better chance of tainting Evangelical Christianity irredeemably.
7b. Having said that,yanking the citizenship of the native born was the topic of an address by Catholic Cardinal Cupich.
He's not alone in this. Other US Catholic bishops have made statements on this issue, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned Trump's actions on immigration as well.
The Church does not maintain there should be "open borders", as some on the far left do. Rather, it holds that immigration should be governed by four principles:
First Principle: People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.
Second Principle: A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration.
Third Principle: A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
8. There was also a trend like this that followed World War Two with some returning US servicemen joining the (ironically) Lutheran Church as well as the Episcopal Church which seemed more American and local.
While widely missed, there's a counter trend today with young conservatives and traditionalist joining the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and some very devout Evangelicals joining the Orthodox Church after being exposed to the early history of the Church.
9. I've already seen one video clip by a Hispanic Trump voter horrified over the deportations, claiming he promised to do no such thing.
No he didn't. But this is an interesting example of how people convince themselves a politician holds their own views because he holds some views that they like.
10. We specifically stated:These justices have perhaps assumed too much if they've assumed that they can now act so far that Marshall would be horrified, and I'd be surprised if, long term, this decision doesn't either mark the beginning of a Cesarian court and a retreat of American democracy, or the point at which the roles of the Court began to massively erode in favor of a more Athenian democracy.
I didn't go last night as I intended to go whoop it up on the town.1 I've never been big on celebrating "New Years" anyhow, although we did last night with family and sort of extended family, as we have a at this point another person in the second half of their twenties whose pretty much incorporated into the family, but not officially or by blood. Anyhow, it was pretty low key and I was in bed before midnight. I think last year I made it to midnight to observe the fireworks some neighbors set off. This year I did not. I'm amazed that the same people, who really like fireworks, set them off again, as we've had hurricane force winds for the past day or so.
Anyhow, the reason I'm posting this comment is due to a particularly troublesome year for American Christianity in 2024.
American Protestants don't like to believe it, but the United States is and has always been a Protestant Country. It's so Protestant, that the Protestants can't recognize that, and even people who claim to have no religion at all are pretty Protestant. Even a lot of Catholics are pretty Protestantized and I've known some fairly secular Jews who were fairly Protestant.
Protestantism is a pretty big tent, with there being all sorts of tables within it, and with some of the tables really not liking others. For much of the country's history the Episcopal Church was the dominant Protestant Church, which made a lot of sense. The Episcopal Church is, of course, part of the Anglican Communion and the English descent is dominant in American ancestry. Supposedly this is 26% of the population now, but that figure is probably inaccurate by at least half simply because people whose ancestry stretches back away have simply forgotten it and is not celebrated the way other ancestral inheritance is. I'm of overwhelming Irish ancestry but even I have a little English ancestry of the Anglo Norman variety, brough in through Ireland.
Anyhow, as in the 18th Century most residents of British North America were from Great Britain, most were members of the Church of England, outside of Canada, where of course they were French and Catholic.
The Episcopal Church has never been in the only Protestant Church in what is now the US, however. Right from the beginning there were bodies of dissenters from the established church who came here to be able to practice their faith without being molested for it. That doesn't mean they were keen on others practicing their faiths, and they often didn't tolerate other Protestants at all. But they were there, and that gave rise to a sort of rough and ready loosely organized Protestantism in some regions, particularly the American South. These groups really prospered following the American Civil War as they hadn't gotten behind the war the way Southern Episcopalians had. These groups really spread across the nation following the 1970s. Looking back, its amazing to realize that growing up I knew exactly one Baptist kid (he's now a Lutheran) and the three big Protestant churches in this category didn't exist here. Wyoming is the least religious state in the US, but at that time almost all the Protestants I knew were Lutheran or Episcopalian. I knew a handful of Methodists and of course Mormons, but Baptists or Assemblies of God? Nope.
So what's this have to do with 2024?
The Election of 2024 saw a really strong association of Evangelical Christianity, which is very much an American thing, and the vote. It's distinctly different than anything that's occurred before.
Evangelical Christianity has been nationally significant in elections since at least 1950 or so, but it wasn't until 2024 that the "Christian vote" meant the Evangelical vote outside of the American South. Because they are fractured, they are not the largest Christian body in the country. Oddly enough, while 67% of the population self identifies as Christian, and something like 44% identify as Protestant, Catholics are the largest single denomination.
The back story to this however is that the Reformation, which started in 1517, is ending.
The Reformation was able to start in the first place due to a large element of ignorance. This can't be said of Luther, who wasn't ignorant, but who was opinionated and wrong. Luther opened the door, however, to people like Calvin, Zwingli and Knox who were fundamentally ignorant in certain ways.
The spread of cheap printing and ultimately the Internet makes ignorance on some things much more difficult to retain. For centuries bodies of Protestant Christians held to sola scriptura and a belief that they were like the first Christians, even though there's always been Christian texts dating back to shortly after Christ's crucifixion.2 Now, all of a sudden, anybody can read them. This has in fact caused a pronounced migration of really serious sola scriptura Christians to the Apostolic Churches, as well as a migration by serious "mainline" Protestants. Some bodies at this point, like very conservative Anglicans and Lutherans, are mostly Protestant out of pure obstinance.
The ultimate irony of all of this is that the mainline Protestant churches have collapsed in many places. Part of this is due to the massive increase in wealth in the western world which has hurt religion in general, but part is also because it gets to be tough to explain why you are a member of one of these churches if you can't explain a really solid reason to be, as opposed being in an Apostolic church.
At the same time, and not too surprisingly, similar forces have been operating in the Evangelical world in the US. As already noted, quite a few serious Evangelicals are now serious Catholics or Orthodox. Others, however, have retreated into a deep American Evangelicalism that is resistant to looking at the early Church, even though they are aware of it. This is rooted, in no small part, to the go it alone history of these bodies.
At the same time that this has occurred, the spread of the American Civil Religion has grown which sort of holds that everyone is going to Heaven as long as they aren't bad. Serious Catholics and Orthodox can't accommodate themselves to that but Evangelicals have attempted to, while at the same time realizing it really doesn't make sense.
Obergefell, as we noted, was the watershed moment. At that point, Christians of all types were faced with realizing that the US had really strayed far from observing its Christian origins, or at least the Christian faith, with there being all sorts of different reactions to it. In Catholic Churches there was the realization that we really hadn't become as American as we thought, and we weren't going to. Trads sprang up partially in reaction with now every Church having its contingent of Mantilla Girls giving an obstinate cultural no.
In Evangelical circles it helped fuel a militant conservatism that expresses its most radical nature in the New Apostolic Reformation which believes that we're on the cusp of a new Apostolic age, which will be Protestant in nature, and more transformational than any prior Great Awakening. They believe that the United States is charged with a Devine mission and some have concluded, as unlikely as it would seem from the outside, that Donald Trump is an improbable Cyrus the Great who will bring this about.
The support of Southern Episcopalians for the Southern cause in the Civil War damaged in the South to such an extent that the non mainline churches, like the Southern Baptist, came up as a major force after the war. The Baptists and Protestant itinerant preachers had warned during the war that wickedness was going to bring ruin. It seemed that their warnings were proven by the results of the war. Episcopal linking to a wicked cause diminished their credibility.
Donald Trump is not Cyrus the Great. Mike Johnson is not standing in the shoes of Moses. This will all have a bad end. Or it might. As noted, the Reformation is dying and in some ways this is the last stand of it. Those linking their Christianity to a man like Donald Trump are pinning their hopes, and their faith, on a weak reed. The question is what happens when it breaks and how much damage has been done, including to Christianity in general, in the meantime.
Moreover, the question also exists if you can claim to bear a Christian standard while not observing parts of the faith that are established but uncomfortable, let alone contrary to what is now so easy to determine not to be part of the early faith. Can those who clearly don't live a Christian life really be the shield wall against decay?
Footnotes:
1. As with my observation on Christmas in The Law and Christmas, being a Catholic puts you in a strange position in regard to the secular world, or rather the larger American culture. Lots of people start celebrating New Years pretty darned early on New Years Even, which means as an employer you start to get questions about whether we're closing at noon and the like, pretty early on. And also, while in the popular imagination people hit the bars at night, quite a few people have celebrator drinks here and there by late morning in reality. If your concern is getting to a vigil Mass soon after work, you aren't one of those people. And if you are one of the people hitting Mass in the morning, you aren't having a late night.
2. Sola scriptura never made sense and is obviously incorrect in that the New Testament itself mentions traditions outside of the written text. But the Bible, moreover, which is the scripture that "Bible Believing" Christian's look to is the version that was set out by the Catholic Church as the Canon of Scripture. Nowhere in the Bible does is there a Devine instruction as to what books would be included in the Bible.
Indeed, this position is further weakened in that Luther put some books he personally didn't like in an appendix, and later Protestants removed them. That wasn't Biblical. Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox Bible contains the Prayer of Manaseh, I Esdras, II Esdras, III Maccabees, IV Maccabees, Odes, and Psalm 151 and the Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon some pre Christian Jewish books the others do not. While Catholics can explain why the books they include in their canon and can explain the relationship to the other Bibles, Protestant "Bible Believing" Christians flat out cannot. All of the texts in the Orthodox Bibles are genuine ancient texts without dispute. Moreover, there are early Christian writings which are genuine that are wholly omitted from any Bible. The Sola Scriptura position just accepts the King James version of the Bible on the basis that it must be the canon on a pure matter of faith, which is not relying on scripture alone.
But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious,callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good,traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.
For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.
Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth—people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.
But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be plain to all, as it was with those two.
2 Timothy, Chapter 3.
A very interesting Canadian agriculturalist whom I follow on Twitter (I don't care with Elon Musk calls it), who is also an Eastern Rite Catholic, noted that he, like me, didn't watch the Olympic opener (as will be noted, I watched the very start of it, grew bored, and wondered off). So he, like me, was left with the media accounts, of which there are plenty, including video, of a group of drag queens mocking Da Vinci's The Last Supper. He goes on to make the point that the sex laden transvestite portrayal was likely calculated to offend, but that The Last Supper is not an icon, which is quite correct.
But, with some exception, the Latin Rite lacks icons. While not the same, the great Medieval and Renaissance works of art in the West tended to be commissioned by the Church, so they have an association with it. Put another way, in order to offend to the degree as denigrating an icon, there'd be little other choice. 1 Again, it's not an icon, but part of a set of religious works of art commissioned by and associated with Christianity in the West.
It's hard to grasp why this would occur, but the outrage in the Catholic Church, and there is a lot of it, is justified. So is the embarrassment in some French circles, particularly French conservative ones. The French far right came with in a gnat's breath of taking over the French government two weeks ago and the ultimate makeup of the upcoming French government is still unknown. Had this happened before the election, I have a strong feeling that the French far right would be forming a government now.
That provides a topic for another thread, which we will address, but we'll note here. Part of the rise of National Conservatism and Christian Nationalism, and even just far right populism, is due to debauchery such as this.
The Olympics itself was quick to claim that the portrayal wasn't not of The Last Supper, which of course is an Italian, not a French, Renaissance work, noting on Twitter:
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.
Hmm. . . Dionysus is a Greek mythological figure, not a French one. . .
Dionysus was the Greek god of is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. His Roman equivalent was Bacchus. While celebrated in Roman times, the Romans also restricted unofficial celebrations dedicated to Bacchus due to the excess he was associated with it.
Whatever else Dionysus may stand for or have stood for, it certainly had nothing to do with being against violence between human beings. He really had a lot more to do with booze, drunkenness, sex and insanity, and its interesting that the ancient Greeks linked all of them together. Eirene or Irene was the divinity associated with peace, but she didn't engage in drunken excess.
Another Olympic official also reacted with a series of excuses that were fairly lame. Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, said the display was about "inclusion".
When we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone, questions are raised. Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.
Whatever diversity means, it doesn't mean "being together". At least to some significant degree, it means being apart, and in the modern era, when this is being self defined in a way contrary to nature, it literally means being a Dionysus until one's self.
Jolly noted:
In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.
Um, okay.
Le Filip, the winner of Drag Race France season three, probably got it more accurate.
I thought it would be a five-minute drag event with queer representation. I was amazed. It started with Lady Gaga, then we had drag queens, a huge rave, and a fire in the sky. It felt like a crowning all over again. I am proud to see my friends and queer people on the world stage.2
Whatever a person thinks of it, Le Filip grasped it better than Jolly did, quite frankly.
For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.o
St. Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 3.
A portion of France, particularly urban France, has waged war with the Church and Christianity since the failed French Revolution. Like all the revolutions that were conducted by populist mobs, their god was their belly and they turned on the Church. The same is true of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Mexican Revolution. The Church stands for the proposition that there is something greater, much greater, than us, where as populism of the left and right, at the end of the day, doesn't. Modern "progressivism", heir to the extreme left that arose in 1798 and 1917 has the same ethos, rejecting anything outside of ourselves and rising each person to an individual Bacchus no matter how much a person's own nature may be corrupted in one fashion or another, as individual natures are the only thing that matters. The portrayal at the Olympic opener celebrated that ethos shamefully mocking Christianity in favor of a world outlook that goes no deeper than a person's gentiles. Their glory, is their shame.
The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God’s glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls.
St. Padre Pio.
I'll be frank that I quit watching the opening ceremonies of Olympic games some time ago. I think the last one I actually watched was the Moscow Olympics, which is now quite some time back. They've ceased to make sense to me. The Olympics are ostensibly about sports, not about the glorification of the country where they're held, or drag queens. Indeed, I've frankly lost interest in the Olympics themselves for some reason.
This really reinforces that view, particularly as to this particular Olympics.
I feel they should just be permanently placed in Greece, for the summer games.
Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.
Galatians, Chapter 6.
I suspect most of the viewing audience will simply regard this attack on Catholicism as part of the show, shrug it off, and move on. In doing so, they benefit from the liberal culture the Church created in the West and the fact that central to the Christian worldview is turning the other cheek. In contrast, France has a very large Muslim population that nobody would dare attack in such a fashion, a cartoon depicting Mohammed for instance famously resulting in murder. There will be no drag queens taking on an Islamic topic. None. Islam doesn't turn the other cheek. Likewise, Hinduism, which of course would be completely foreign to France, can't be attacked in this fashion either without almost immediate retribution.3
Catholics aren't going to do that, nor will the rest of the Christian world.
Which doesn't mean that the offense should be ignored.
Footnotes:
1. One religious image that has endured this is the tilmahtli associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Back when there was a print Playboy magazine, the company issued a Mexican edition with a Mexican woman featured on the cover replicating the image in a pornographic fashion, which brought a firestorm of criticism.
That, and this, give credence to those who claim a diabolical origin to these events.
2. Are there no French singers to do an Olympic opening? Why Stefani Germanotta as the opening act? That alone is embarrassing for France.
Having said that, the Marseilles was beautifully sung by Axelle Saint-Cirel. They should have just stopped right there.
In case anyone wonders, my watching of the show was basically bookended by those two acts. I grew tired of the masked boofador running over roofs and wondered off to take a shower and watch something else.
3. One religion that has endured something like this is the LDS, Mormon, faith. Target of the satiric comedic The Book Of Mormon, it's basically shrugged it off, probably figuring, correctly, that as a minority religion, it might actually benefit from being mocked, as it at least puts a spotlight on it. I'd guess, however, that Mormons aren't keen on the portrayal, and while I've never seen it, and I'm not a Mormon, I'm not either. As noted, nobody would put on a Broadway satiric "The Koran", nor should they.
By this time, most observant conservative Catholics are either so fatigued from Papal issuances that they either disregard them, or cringe when they come out. They seem to come out with a high degree of regularity.
And, while we don't technically have a new one, a "study document" issued by the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity has put out something that has the Pope's approval to be issued, that being something that looks at the role of the Papacy itself:
Now, it's a very large document, so I'm not going to attempt to put it all out here, and I haven't read all of it either. So, we're going to turn to The Pillar to find out what it holds. The Pillar states:
What does it say?
Helpfully, the text has a section summarizing the four sections (beginning on p106).
1) Regarding responses to Ut unum sint, the document says that the question of papal primacy is being discussed in “a new and positive ecumenical spirit.”
“This new climate is indicative of the good relations established between Christian communions, and especially between their leaders,” it says.
2) Concerning disputed theological questions, the text welcomes what it calls “a renewed reading” of the classic “Petrine texts,” which set out the Apostle Peter’s role in the Church.
“On the basis of contemporary exegesis and patristic research, new insights and mutual enrichment have been achieved, challenging some traditional confessional interpretations,” it notes.
One particularly controversial issue, it says, is the Catholic conviction that the primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established de iure divino (by divine law), “while most other Christians understand it as being instituted merely de iure humano” (by human law).
But the document says that new interpretations are helping to overcome “this traditional dichotomy, by considering primacy as both de iure divino and de iure humano, that is, being part of God’s will for the Church and mediated through human history.”
Another enduring obstacle is the First Vatican Council. But the document says that here too there has been “promising progress,” thanks to ecumenical dialogues that seek “a ‘rereading’ or ‘re-reception’” of the Council’s decrees.
This approach, it says, “emphasizes the importance of interpreting the dogmatic statements of Vatican I not in isolation, but in the light of their historical context, of their intention and of their reception — especially through the teaching of Vatican II.”
Addressing this point in a June 13 Vatican News interview, Cardinal Koch said that since Vatican I’s “dogmatic definitions were profoundly conditioned by historical circumstances,” ecumenical partners were encouraging the Catholic Church to “seek new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention, integrating them into an ecclesiology of communion and adapting them to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”
“There is therefore talk of a ‘re-reception,’ or even ‘reformulation,’ of the teachings of Vatican I,” the Swiss cardinal explained.
3) Summarizing the document’s third section, the text says that fresh approaches to disputed questions have “opened new perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reconciled Church.”
Crucially, the document suggests there is a common understanding that although the first millennium of Christian history is “decisive,” it “should not be idealized nor simply re-created since the developments of the second millennium cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges.”
From the ecumenical dialogues, it’s possible to deduce “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century,” the text says.
One is that there must be an interplay between primacy and synodality at every level of the Church. In other words, there is a need for “a synodal exercise of primacy.”
Synodality is notoriously difficult to define, but the document describes it at one point as “the renewed practice of the Synod of Bishops, including a broader consultation of the whole People of God.”
4) Among the practical suggestions for a renewed exercise of the ministry of unity, the document highlights the possibility of “a Catholic ‘re-reception’, ‘re-interpretation’, ‘official interpretation’, ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.”
It also stresses appeals for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome, especially between his patriarchal ministry in the Church of the West and his primatial ministry of unity in the communion of Churches, both West and East.”
“There is also a need to distinguish the patriarchal and primatial roles of the Bishop of Rome from his political function as head of state,” the text says, adding: “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the pope in his own particular Church, the Diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy.”
The new document appears months after Pope Francis restored the title “Patriarch of the West” among the list of papal titles in the Vatican’s annual yearbook, after it was dropped by his predecessor Benedict XVI.
Commenting on that development at the June 13 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Koch said that neither Francis nor Benedict XVI offered detailed explanations for the change.
“But I am convinced they did not want to do something against anyone, but both wanted to do something ecumenically respectful,” he commented.
Another suggestion is for the Catholic Church to further develop its practice of synodality, particularly through “further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.”
Finally, the text mentions a request for regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level, in a spirit of “conciliar fellowship.”
What does that mean?
Well, frankly, I don't grasp it.
Without having read it, I sort of vaguely grasp that the Pope, who recently revived using the title Patriarch of the West, is sort of modeling this view of the Papacy on the Churches of the East, sort of. In the East, each Church is autocephalous, with the Patriarch of Constantinople holding a "first among equals" position. I don't think the Pope intends to fully go in that direction, but vaguely suggest that the synodal model of the East should apply more in the West, and that as Patriarch of the West, perhaps the entire Apostolic Church could be reunited, and perhaps even sort of vaguely include the "mainline" Protestant Churches, by which we'd mean the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.
It sort of interestingly brings up the Zoghby Initiative of the 1970s, in which Melkite Greek Catholic Church bishop Elias Zoghby sought to allow for inter-communion between the Melkites and the Antiochian Orthodox Church after a short period of dialogue. His position was, basically, that this reunion could occur with a two point profession of faith, those being a statement of belief in the teaching gof the Eastern Orthodox churches and being in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops "according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."
Thing was, there really were no limits. In the first thousand years before the separation it's pretty clear that the Pope was head of the Church. Indeed, from the earliest days that was recognized.
Bishop Zoghby's initiative went nowhere and he's since passed on, but this sort of interestingly recalls it. His effort received criticism from figures within Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church, although a few Eastern Catholics admired it. Here, I'd predict that conservative Catholics are not going to be too impressed.
Additionally, a recent problem barely noticed in the West is that the recent focus of Pope Francis on blessings for people in irregular unions, which is widely interpreted to mean homosexuals, has not only upset conservative Catholics, but Eastern Churches in some cases have backed away from the Catholic Church. One Eastern Bishop who was getting quite close to Rome came out and stated that Fiducia Supplicans basically prevented any chance of reunion with his church.
This gets back to some things we've noted here before. One is that this Papacy seems very focused on Europe, although the fact that this also looks towards the East cuts against that statement a bit. Having said that, a good deal of the early focus of this Papacy was on European conditions, which have continued to be a problem as the German Church is outright ignoring Pope Francis to a large degree. Loosening the role of the Papacy may stand to make those conditions worse, and probably won't bring the mainstream of the Lutherans and Anglicans in. Which gets to the next point. The Reformation is dying.
Seemingly hardly noticed is that the real story in Christianity, to a large degree, is the rapid decline in the old Reformation Protestant churches. People like to note "well Catholic numbers are declining too", but frankly real statistical data shows that while there may be a decline, it's slight. Indeed, what appears to be occurring in the Western World is that conversions to Catholicism offset departures. That's not growth, but what that sort of shows is the decline in cultural affiliation with a certain religion and, at least in the US, the end of the byproduct of the Kennedy Era Americanization of the Church. Indeed, at the same time this is going on, the growth in Catholic conservatism and traditionalism in younger generations has grown too big to ignore.1 At the same time, Eastern Catholic Churches are gaining members from outside their ethnic communities, and the Easter Orthodox are gaining adherents from conservative Protestants who are leaving their liberalizing denominations.
This is a study document, so it's not a proclamation. Twenty years ago or maybe even ten, I would have thought this a really good idea. My instinct now is that its time has passed. While conservative Catholics hold their breaths about the upcoming next session of the Synod on Synodality, there's sort of a general sense of marking time here as well, and indeed, an uncomfortable one. The current Papacy has is very near its end, everyone knows this, but it puts out a lot of material that's of a highly substantive, and often controversial, nature. Much of this is going to have to be dealt with after this Papcy concludes. Both the volume and speed at which things are occurring may reflect this, as that knowledge operates against the clock, but it might also be a reason to slow down at the Vatican level, or even put a bit of a time-out on things.
Footnotes:
1. Indeed, I was at Confession recently on an average Saturday and noted that as I was there a young woman with her two children were waiting in front of me, with both children saying Rosaries and the mother wearing a chapel veil. Her mother came in and also was wearing one, and a stunning young woman of maybe 20 came in also wearing one. Every woman, and most of them were young, were attired in that fashion.
It's a minor example, but very notable. This is becoming common.
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