ishkabible

« Democracy in Arab countries | Main | Skinnie McBinney's Travel Tips for Babies - Dental Health »

July 03, 2007

What will Catholics say?

A friend sent me an article from the New York Times about a suicide and asked, "What do Catholics think St. Peter will say?"

This is my response.

- - -
P-----,

Not sure what St. Peter will say, but Roman Catholics will say "God have mercy on his soul."

When you wonder what the Catholic Church says, you can always search the Catechism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a reliable source for the Church's teachings, as opposed to, for example, the New York Times, or Planned Parenthood, or "Catholics" for Free Choice, or broadcast television, etc.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

http://www.kofc.org/publications/cis/catechism/index.cfm

There seems to be an impression among many people that Catholics believe they are saints, when the exact opposite is true: Catholics know they are sinners, in need of God's mercy, forgiveness, and love.

P-----, hostility towards and intolerance of Catholicism and Catholics is around 2000 years old, and that hostility will be around until Judgment Day.

Most Roman Catholics are under no mis-impression that they are loved in or by the world. As JRR Tolkien said, "I am a Roman Catholic. I do not expect history to be anything but a long defeat."

A few more thoughts about the Catholic Church and Catholics:

- - - - -

"If you're not Catholic, and especially if you're an atheist or agnostic, then it makes sense to regard the church as just another worldly institution. After all, you don't believe in papal infallibility or the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit. But if you do believe in these ideas, what could it mean that you oppose the new pope and his adherence to tradition, other than that you're disappointed in or angry at God for not changing his mind?"

-- "Controversy in Reuterville," Best of the Web Today, James Taranto, April 20, 2005

- - - - -

The following is by my friend, Chuck Williams. It appeared as a guest commentary in the St. Paul Legal Ledger, October 19, 1999.

"Catholic Guy: Who's the establishment here?"

I'm writing this after a long couple weeks for a Catholic guy. First I heard from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and then I heard from Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Maybe it's just fatigue, but in the end, I can't get too worked up about Jesse. I'm a Catholic guy, and my governor thinks I'm a dolt: so what? Every politician thinks I'm a dolt. I'd rather have a governor who bellows that religion is for fools than a slippery president who parades around with a Bible. Besides, I'm used to the fact that if you ask Jesse a question, you're likely to get an answer, however wrongheaded.

That's in stark contrast to the board at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which hasn't come anywhere close to answering any of the questions that interest me about their funding fight with Mayor Giuliani.

I've always understood that art must be challenging and that the First Amendment protects it, so the more the board pontificates about that, the more I just sagely nod my head. But meanwhile, what I really want to know are other things. Things like, whatis it about pee and dung that gets the New York art crowd in such a happy tizzy? And why do they only pee and dung on things Catholic?

The first question probably has a cool avant-garde answer. I just don't know what it is.

Maybe that's because I'm a parent. I can't understand how any parent could see anything sensational in pee and dung. Your youngest kids are always dropping toys and other weird stuff in the toilet just to see what it looks like. And there's a friend who tells the story of walking into her kid's bedroom and finding he'd painted the wall with his own excrement. When she walked in on him, he was just beaming, pleased as punch. On the other hand, he was eight months old, or something like that. So even though I'm familiar with the concept of putting things in pee and getting artistic with dung, I still don't know what the deal is when it's a bunch of grownups who are getting off on it.

But even if I was smart enough to grasp the avant-gardishness of all this pee and dung, that still wouldn't answer my second question. I'd still be wondering how come it's always got to be Catholic stuff that's put in the pee and under the dung. My friend's kid used excrement as his medium and a wall as his canvas, and I can respect that. It makes some kind of sense in a pre-toddler kind of way. But if that's the fun spirit, you'd think the artistic community could at least do an occasional Jewish sculpture in dung, or place some non-Catholic stuff, like a Koran or something like that, in one of their big old bottles of pee. But no. It's always got to be Catholic stuff.

So I have to wonder. The artist and the board surely know that, since it's always Catholic stuff that's getting peed and dunged on, after a while some Catholics are likely to get the idea that all this Pissing on Christ and Dunging on the Holy Virgin is intended to insult their religion.

Look, I agree that everyone has a First Amendment right to Piss on Christ and Dung on the Holy Virgin to their hearts' content.

All I'm saying is that it does raise the question of why. Well, it does to some of us Catholics, anyway. And it's not a particularly shallow question, I don't think. I mean, if you know that what you're doing will insult somebody and you go ahead and do it anyway, it seems to me you'd expect that one or two of those somebodies might eventually demand an explanation.

But as far as I can tell, the museum's answer to that and every other reasonable question has been, "Shut up."

And then, even if the "why" is answered, even if the museum board or some brainy critic can explain how the artist has an avant-garde reason for insulting my religion (I'm not saying he doesn't), and even if he has a solid First Amendment right to insult my religion (and I'm saying he does), why must the board's supporters act shocked and appalled when I then say well, OK, but I still don't think you should use the government to force Catholics to pay the board to insult us. And it is brute force we're talking about here: if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail.

The appropriate answer to would-be censors is to say, "if you don't like it, don't look at it." Or just don't read it, or just don't listen to it. The reason that retort doesn't work here is that the Catholic guy isn't complaining that anybody's forcing Catholics to look at Dung on the Virgin. He's complaining that Catholics are being forced to pay for it. He's saying, go ahead and Dung on the Virgin anywhere you like. Just do it on your own dime, or on your fellow Catholic-bashers' dime. Just don't do it on the taxpayers' dime.

But to the wine and cheese crowd on the museum board, them are fighting words. OK, I admit I don't understand that reaction. But I'd still just shrug my shoulders if the board didn't go on to add farce to insult by assuming the ridiculous pose of a courageous little community being set upon by the heavy hand of the establishment.

That's just too silly to go unremarked. Because it's as clear as a jar of pee that it's the Catholic guy who's being stomped and insulted here -- and by people who make more money in a day than he does in a week. The museum board members are wealthy, powerful, socially and politically connected, and like lots of this country, and certainly much of the media, not too fond of the Catholic Church. They're the establishment, if anyone is, not the Catholic Church, with whatever pitiful, tenuous hold it may still have on 1999 American culture.

I mean, like another friend of mine once said, if you want to be counterculture, be a Catholic.

So here's what I'm saying. Picture the wine and cheese crowd gathering at some Brooklyn Museum of Art benefit. Then quick cut to somebody, anybody, in 1999 New York, who still gets up early to go to church, kneel in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and pray. Which depicts a smug and intolerant establishment?

Well, if you picked the devout Catholic on his knees before the Virgin, you're not alone. But I still don't get it.

- - - - - - -

[I]f my faith depended on the sinlessness of priests I'd be in big trouble. I have known cruel and vicious priests as well as men of great kindnesses. John Geoghan was my parish priest when I was a kid, and I see the names of my schoolmates in the paper as his victims. I am not a Catholic because of how priests behave. I've known some very holy priests, I've known some very bad priests. Most are kind of a mixture of the two like the rest of us.

So some very bad priests committed some very evil crimes against God's precious little ones. And in dealing with it, Cardinal Law, by his own admission, really bungled it. So I'm supposed to let that ruin my faith? Rubbish! My faith is built upon the rock of Christ, who declared Peter to be the rock and built His Church upon him. Peter, the first Pope. Peter who betrayed Jesus. Yes, that is my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against her. As we have seen the gates of hell will certainly try to prevail, but don't expect me to jump ship.
. . .
All priests sin. Surprise. Bishops, cardinals and popes too. (The pope goes to confession every week--do you think he needs to go more than you do?) Some priests commit crimes. They should be brought to justice. Some priests commit abominations and scandal. Jesus said, "Woe to him through whom scandal comes. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck." So if you think you're angry, chew on that.

"I am Not Ashamed," by John Mallon, Peter's Voice

- - - - - -

The Catholic Church is not a church reserved exclusively for latter-day saints. Nor is it a church that expects its ministers to be without fault. A universal church must expect trouble from universal sins. Catholics are not an elect, immune from temptation, but strivers after God who inevitably stumble and need forgiveness. The contretemps with Novatian and the Donatists highlights, again, the reality principle within the Church, and the church's dismissal of those who would limit its benefactions to the holy few, rather than the unholy many. In Oscar Wilde's memorable phrase--and Wilde himself a deathbed convert--"The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people the Anglican Church will do."

"Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church," by H.W. Crocker III, hardbound (Prima Publishing 2001), pages 38-39

- - - - - - -

Love and God Bless!

Posted at July 3, 2007 08:27 AM | Categories: Catholicism

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://twoseasmedia.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1051

Comments

Post a comment