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Thursday, March 15, 2012
Newsletter from the Oratory
The Ides of March
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Doctor Seraphicus
ON THE 14TH OF March, in 1588, Pope Sixtus V declared Saint Bonaventure to be a Doctor of the Church, commonly known as the “Seraphic Doctor.”
Saint Bonaventure (1221 – 15 July 1274), was the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans), a university professor, a theologian, a philosopher, a mystic, a bishop and cardinal, and could claim some credit for the brief reunion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. For such an admirable Saint, his patronage is limited mainly to those suffering from intestinal problems, for it seems that the humility of the Franciscans often extends beyond this life into the next. Ventura County, California, gets its name from Saint Bonaventure.
The world of the intellect, following the age of Bonaventure, could be likened to an angry, bitter divorce. Faith versus reason, science versus religion, Church versus state, man versus nature, body versus soul, liberty versus governance, aesthetics versus utility, and men versus women: these all have been opposed against each other, where “things fall apart” and “the centre cannot hold.” Modern man, trying to solve these problems, unwisely chooses solutions that makes things worse, leading to and not avoiding what has been called the “war of all against all.” It cannot be denied that the foundation of the modern Western world was set by the intellectual work of the Franciscans and the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, but where did things go wrong?
Saint Bonaventure the Franciscan, in his intellectual approach, could hardly be more different from his contemporary, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican. The intellectual approach of the Dominicans, based on logic, is seen to be highly rationalistic and systematic, while the earthy Franciscan approach is thought to be more mystical, closer to nature, and more open to divine inspiration. The supposed tension between these two intellectual approaches leads to much discord even today. But both men were close friends, as were the founders of their religious orders, Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic. Saints Thomas and Bonaventure even earned their doctorates at the University of Paris on the same day.
Both Saints were rational and mystical; both were close to nature and close to God, both were open to Divine inspiration and to the findings of science. The supposed opposition between the intellectual approaches of these men, depicted by the modern era, ignores the fact that both were good children of Holy Mother Church, obedient to the divinely revealed Faith, to the Rules of their order, and to the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. We shouldn’t forget that both men lived lives of deep prayer and exemplary virtue. Moderns get into trouble when they try to be more Franciscan than Francis or more Thomisic than Thomas, and most especially when they oppose the Church and the Pope and attempt to subvert the moral law.
One of Saint Bonaventure’s major works is “Itinerarium Mentis in Deum,” (Journey of the Mind into God). In the prologue, he reminds us that the intellectual life without a holy life is dead:
Therefore to the cry of prayer through Christ crucified,This work describes the ascent of the human being from the world of matter to God, as kind of Jacob’s Ladder that we climb with Christ. Not only is this a mystical, theological, and philosophical work, but it has served as an inspiration to artists:
by Whose blood we are purged of the filth of vice,
do I first invite the reader,
lest perchance he should believe that it suffices
to read without unction,
speculate without devotion,
investigate without wonder,
examine without exultation,
work without piety,
know without love,
understand without humility,
be zealous without divine grace,
see without wisdom divinely inspired.
Therefore to those predisposed by divine grace,
to the humble and the pious,
to those filled with compunction and devotion,
anointed with the oil of gladness,
to the lovers of divine wisdom,
inflamed with desire for it,
to those wishing to give themselves over to praising God,
to wondering over Him and to delighting in Him,
do I propose the following reflections,
hinting that little or nothing is the outer mirror
unless the mirror of the mind be clear and polished.
Sense, however, takes delight in an object perceived through an abstracted similitude either by reason of its beauty, as in sight; or by reason of its agreeableness, as in odor and hearing; or by reason of wholesomeness, as in taste and touch, speaking with appropriation. All delight, however, is by reason of proportion. But since a species is form, power, and operation, according to whether it is thought of as related to the principle from which it comes, to the medium through which it passes, or to the end for which it acts, therefore proportion may be considered in similitude, inasmuch as it is a species or form and thus is called "speciositas" [beauty], because beauty is nothing other than numerical equality or a certain relation of parts with agreeable color. Or else proportion may be considered as potency or power, and thus it is called "suavity," for active power does not exceed immoderately the powers of the recipient, since the senses are pained by extremes and delight in the mean. Or it may be considered, by thinking of species, as efficacy and impression, which is proportional when the agent by impression supplies what the recipient lacks; and this is to save and nourish it, which appears especially in taste and touch. And thus through delight the external pleasures enter into the soul by similitudes in a triple mode of delighting.Saint Bonaventure tells of the itinerary from material things, through our physical senses, through our apprehension of what we sense, our ordering of our thoughts and association with what we remember, through our judgement, which eventually can lead to the contemplation of divine things.
Oddly enough, Bonaventure is read and is admired by many Muslims, who consider him to be a profound theologian. I think this work, and others like it, can also serve to evangelize neo-pagans, who have a spiritual yearning but are repulsed by the media depiction of the Church and modernist catechesis.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Feast of Saint Gregory the Great
TODAY, in the old calendar, is the Feast of Saint Gregory the Great (ca. 540 – 12 March 604), who was elected Pope in 590.
Centuries before, the Emperor Constantine moved the capitol of the Roman Empire from the city of Rome to Constantinople in the East, and the western parts of his Empire, having little military protection, eventually went into great decline, being overrun with barbarians. Everybody was going to die, and Pope Gregory, who was formerly a Benedictine monk living a contemplative life, found himself gravely concerned with worldly matters:
”Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel.” Note that a man whom the Lord sends forth as a preacher is called a watchman. A watchman always stands on a height so that he can see from afar what is coming. Anyone appointed to be a watchman for the people must stand on a height for all his life to help them by his foresight.Once I was having a conversation with a Deacon, and this was interrupted by a phone call from a friend: the caller just found out that he was appointed bishop. The Deacon commented that it was the worst job in the world. Indeed, and Pope Gregory seems to agree. The bishop is forced to engage with the world, with wicked, willful men, in a manner that will allow the Church to thrive while still preaching the Gospel to the heathens. In this situation, a bishop must rely ever more on grace while acknowledging his weakness.
How hard it is for me to say this, for by these very words I denounce myself. I cannot preach with any competence, and yet insofar as I do succeed, still I myself do not live my life according to my own preaching.
I do not deny my responsibility; I recognize that I am slothful and negligent, but perhaps the acknowledgment of my fault will win me pardon from my just judge. Indeed when I was in the monastery I could curb my idle talk and usually be absorbed in my prayers. Since I assumed the burden of pastoral care, my mind can no longer be collected; it is concerned with so many matters.
I am forced to consider the affairs of the Church and of the monasteries. I must weigh the lives and acts of individuals. I am responsible for the concerns of our citizens. I must worry about the invasions of roving bands of barbarians, and beware of the wolves who lie in wait for my flock. I must become an administrator lest the religious go in want. I must put up with certain robbers without losing patience and at times I must deal with them in all charity.
With my mind divided and torn to pieces by so many problems, how can I meditate or preach wholeheartedly without neglecting the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel? Moreover, in my position I must often communicate with worldly men. At times I let my tongue run, for if I am always severe in my judgments, the worldly will avoid me, and I can never attack them as I would. As a result I often listen patiently to chatter. And because I too am weak, I find myself drawn little by little into idle conversation, and I begin to talk freely about matters which once I would have avoided. What once I found tedious I now enjoy.
So who am I to be a watchman, for I do not stand on the mountain of action but lie down in the valley of weakness? Truly the all-powerful Creator and Redeemer of mankind can give me in spite of my weaknesses a higher life and effective speech; because I love him, I do not spare myself in speaking of him.
— St. Gregory the Great, homily on Ezekiel
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Catholics and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
ONE OF THE MOST prescient secular observers of the political order in the United States was the French politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), in his classic book De la démocratie en Amérique (known in English as Democracy in America), published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840. He made a number of observations and predictions in this book:
Democracy used to be a system of local government where the citizens would decide amongst themselves whether or not a school would be built, or a road paved. Now it means something else, being a code-word for a centralized, all-powerful, relentlessly anti-religious state, where all of the people can vote, but none of the people but a few have real power. This is an unnatural state of affairs.
De Tocqueville bluntly stated that there will be two main factions in the future United States: Papists defending liberty and the irreligious clamoring for dictatorship, forcing the Protestants to one side or the other. This has been a long time coming, and we are seeing the development of this ultimate factionalism today:
- The United States and Russia would be the two major world powers.
- Slavery in the United States would be only stopped by acrimony, and that freed blacks, while nominally having the same freedoms and privileges as other Americans, would be subject to segregation. The Indians, due to their undemocratic traditions, would be forced to assimilate into the wider culture.
- The democratic foundations of the U.S. would be threatened by increasing industrialization, since men could no longer support themselves and their families by their personal ownership of property, but rather by relying on earning wages controlled by others. A new industrial aristocracy would be formed.
- The role of women in American society would diverge dramatically from Europe.
- Individuals would become increasingly isolated and more alienated from the wider culture.
- The emphasis on equality would stifle the intellectual life of the nation, particularly in the arts and sciences. The flourishing of both in the latter part of the 19th century, taking place after he wrote his book, seemed to contradict this prediction, but events closer to our current age rather confirm it, where “political correctness” stifles the intellect when making works of art, and which turns science away from the pursuit of the truth to instead supporting political agendas.
- The burden of taxation would eventually be largely put upon the broad middle class, often to pay for the needs of the poor. The laws of the land would continue to break up the accumulated wealth of the middle class.
- Democracy would lead to increased materialism in the U.S., which would lead to the acceptance of the religious doctrine of pantheism, which would lead to tyranny. We see this in the New Age and the uncritical acceptance of the zeitgeist, or spirit of the age. De Tocqueville thought that this tendency ought to be strenuously opposed, by returning to authentic Christian doctrine.
- The ignorant and the violent would dominate party politics, with prejudice taking the place of wisdom.
- Democracy would lead to an excessively optimistic idea of the perfectibility of Man.
Certainly things have changed, especially since 1968, following the widespread rejection of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, reaffirming the Church’s doctrine on parenthood. Particularly, the pantheism that developed in many Protestant denominations — making them lose their Christian character — is now widely found in the Church. Until lately, even many of our bishops accepted the consequential shift towards totalitarianism in government.I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as the natural enemy of democracy. Amongst the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of those which are most favorable to the equality of conditions. In the Catholic Church, the religious community is composed of only two elements, the priest and the people. The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all below him are equal.
On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak, it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but, reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may be said of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent, more than to render them equal.
Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if the sovereign be removed, all the other classes of society are more equal than they are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the Catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the governing powers of society, and to take his place amongst the civil gradations of men. This religious influence has sometimes been used to secure the interests of that political state of things to which he belonged. At other times Catholics have taken the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion.
But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the government, as is the case in the United States, than is found that no class of men are more naturally disposed than the Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions into the political world. If, then, the Catholic citizens of the United States are not forcibly led by the nature of their tenets to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are not necessarily opposed to them; and their social position, as well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these opinions. Most of the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance of taking a part in the government unless it be open to all the citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights must be respected in order to insure to them the free exercise of their own privileges. These two causes induce them, unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines, which they would perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and preponderant.
The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to oppose this political tendency, but it seeks rather to justify its results. The priests in America have divided the intellectual world into two parts: in the one they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which command their assent; in the other they leave those truths which they believe to have been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry. Thus the Catholics of the United States are at the same time the most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.
Democracy used to be a system of local government where the citizens would decide amongst themselves whether or not a school would be built, or a road paved. Now it means something else, being a code-word for a centralized, all-powerful, relentlessly anti-religious state, where all of the people can vote, but none of the people but a few have real power. This is an unnatural state of affairs.
De Tocqueville bluntly stated that there will be two main factions in the future United States: Papists defending liberty and the irreligious clamoring for dictatorship, forcing the Protestants to one side or the other. This has been a long time coming, and we are seeing the development of this ultimate factionalism today:
America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time (according to reports worthy of belief) the country in which the Roman Catholic religion makes most progress. At first sight this is surprising. Two things must here be accurately distinguished: equality inclines men to wish to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power which governs society. Men living in democratic ages are therefore very prone to shake off all religious authority; but if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind, they choose at least that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not radiating from a common centre are naturally repugnant to their minds; and they almost as readily conceive that there should be no religion, as that there should be several... The men of our days are naturally disposed to believe; but, as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent propensity which urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and the practices of the Romish Church astonish them; but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them. If Catholicism could at length withdraw itself from the political animosities to which it has given rise, I have hardly any doubt but that the same spirit of the age, which appears to be so opposed to it, would become so favorable as to admit of its great and sudden advancement. One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic. Thus there have ever been, and will ever be, men who, after having submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of authority, will seek to exempt several other parts of their faith from its influence, and to keep their minds floating at random between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe that the number of these thinkers will be less in democratic than in other ages; and that our posterity will tend more and more to a single division into two parts — some relinquishing Christianity entirely, and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.We see today that the various sects find themselves more clearly on one side of the line or the other, standing with Rome or standing in opposition to her.
[Book translated by Henry Reeve, Esq.]
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