Happy Halloween

Of course, it would not be Halloween here at Καθολικός διάκονος without posting a version of the the late, great Warren Zevon singing "Werewolves of London"- this is "Werewolves of New Jersey," a shout out to all my beloved friends still reeling from Hurricane Sandy. I know in Jersey, Gov. Christie, who's not going to personally miss out on any candy, has designated Monday, 5 November as Halloween in that state this year. So, hey, if you haven't yet, make a donation to Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, or any other organization that does great work helping those who need it.

With no further delay, Zevon from a 1982 performance in Passaic, New Jersey:

Have some fun and always remember, "if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

A note of reform for Reformation Day

It is often overlooked that in addition to being Halloween (All Hallows Eve, or All Saints Eve), it is also Reformation Day. It was on 31 October 1517 that the Augustinian monk and Bible scholar Martin Luther, with whom I share a patron saint (St. Martin of Tours, whose liturgical memorial falls on my birthday, 11 November- Luther was born on 10 November 1483- this is why he was named Martin) nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenburg. There is some dispute as to the door of which Church he nailed his document, addressed to the local bishop and entitled Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, which came to be known simply as "The Ninety-five Theses," but it is typically taken to be the Church of All Saints.

door of All Saints Church Wittenburg, Germany

In July 1520, Pope Leo X answered Luther's disputatio with the papal bull Exsurge Domine (i.e., Arise, Lord). It is no exaggeration to say that, at least in 1517, it was not Luther's intention to divide the Church, but work towards meaningful reform within the Church, which remains ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda until our Lord returns in glory. At least on my view, if the Council of Trent is the counter-Reformation Council, then the Second Vatican Council is the Reformation Council.

Today I read an interview on Zenit with His Eminence, Cardinal Koch, who is head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian unity, in which he discussed the possibility of a Lutheran Ordinariate, along the lines of the various Anglican Ordinariates now being established, like the one for the U.S., The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.

Towards the end of the interview, Cardinal Koch discusses Vatican II, or rather the proper way of interpreting the council. He refers to the Holy Father's tremendously important speech to the Roman Curia delivered in December of 2005, in which he spoke of a "'hermeneutic of reform', of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us." His Eminence said,

the Pope calls his interpretation of the Council not 'hermeneutics of continuity' but 'hermeneutics of reform.' It is a question of renewal in continuity. This is the difference: the progressives profess a hermeneutics of discontinuity and break. The traditionalists profess a hermeneutics of pure continuity: only that which is already noticeable in the Tradition can be Catholic doctrine, therefore, practically, there cannot be a renewal. Both see the Council equally as a break, even if in a very different way. The Holy Father has questioned this understanding of the conciliar hermeneutics of the break and proposed the hermeneutics of reform, which unites continuity and renewal

For those being pummeled by Sandy

I am praying for those affected by Hurricane Sandy. I have many friends who live in states on the Eastern seaboard. This is a picture taken in the aftermath of the fire in Queens caused by the storm. The fire destroyed 80 houses.

I am praying for the help of our Blessed Mother and the intercession of St. Medardus of Noyon, who is the patron saint of weather. He was a bishop who lived in France in the 5th and 6th centuries. The story is told that when he was a child Medardus was sheltered from heavy rains by the wings of an eagle that hovered over him.

We'll keep praying, especially as we come upon the holy days this week, All Saints and All Souls. So, to my friends and any affected by the storm who may read this, I pray not only that God blesses you and keeps you, but that through these circumstances draws you closer to Himself.

MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS SAVE US!

Seeing how your holy and powerful maternal intercessions and safe haven for the storm tossed, count us worthy of your prayers during this season of uncertain and threatening weather. Beg your divine human Son to grant us mercy, forgiveness, health, safety and salvation over the coming months. For He is sure to listen to you, His mother, the woman whom all generations call blessed. Amen.

Bonhoeffer and theology

We are not observing a Year of Faith this year to celebrate "faith." After all, one does not have faith in faith. The occasion and focus of this particular Year of Faith is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, an amazing event in the life of the Church. So, the purpose of this year is to focus on the Council, to study, discuss, and seek to more fully and faithfully incorporate the documents of the Council in the life of the Church. Generically, of course, every year is a year of faith.

For some reason, the combination of the Year of Faith and Synod on the New Evangelization have put me in a very ecumenical state-of-mind, as my posts about the interventions of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican bishop of Sheffield, England indicates. Today I received in the mail my copy of Dr. Ferdinand Schlingensiepen's Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. In the preface to his book Dr. Schingensiepen wrote something about Bonhoeffer that put me very much in mind of Good Pope John's rationale for calling Vatican II (the thought crossed my mind that it would've been most wonderful had Bonhoeffer lived long enough to participate in the Council as an ecumenical observer):

To be able to live, to act, and to die as Bonhoeffer did requires traits that even he did not inherit, but rather acquired in youth, in his parents' home and during his time at university: intellectual curiosity, an incorruptible sense of right and wrong, and the courage to make uncomfortable decisions with potentially dangerous consequences. In these ways Bonhoeffer is an example for others, and of interest even to people who no longer expect anything from the Church. However, they must be prepared - with intellectual curiosity of their own- to become engaged with what, for Bonhoeffer theology was. Bonhoeffer wanted to expose theology to the fresh air of modern thinking. He insisted that the message of the Church must always apply concretely to the reality of the world. Timeless truths he considered useless, for "what is always true is precisely what is not true today"

Of course, that last phrase requires a lot of unpacking, perhaps even a close reading of his Ethics. I think it also has something to do with the question about how something timeless can remain anything but an abstraction. In Christ, after all, eternity entered into time, thus bringing God not just near, but right in our midst ("and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" John 1:14a- which literally means "tents among us").

It strikes me that it was fresh air Bonhoeffer, and to a greater extent, Karl Barth, who engaged in the same struggle, brought to Protestant Christians through their critique of the stale style of dogmatics formulated by Bonhoeffer's professor Adolf von Harnack and others, which, it seems to me, was a factor in them acting courageously.

A confused response to being culturally struck

Recently there have been a number of "things" I have encountered that have struck me in such a way as to make it virtually impossible for me to synthesize and so make something coherent out of them. Besides, I don't really have the time I used to have to write. As a result, I will limit myself to two of these encounters and see where that leads.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar meets Mickey Mouse

The first is an installment of Martha Gill's "Irrational Animals" column, which she writes for the U.K.'s New Statesman. Her post, entitled "How God corrupts creatures great and small: Only Mitchell and Webb's Bad Vicar can save them".

The second cultural artifact (how's that as a substitute for "thing"?) is Béla Tarr's 2011 film The Turin Horse, also known as Nietzsche's Horse.

In seeking commentary about Tarr's movie, I came across a post by blogger Katie Smith, who captures what she aptly describes as "the heart" of the film by posting a monologue that gives great insight into what Tarr is trying to show.

This gets at the heart of Nietzsche's critique of Christianity, with which Balthasar, whose doctoral dissertation, which was not in theology and was entitled Apokalypse der deutschen Seele (i.e., Apocalypse of the German Soul), was quite sympathetic.

Speaking about how everything is in ruins, Tarr has one of his characters, Bernard, say, "it’s about man’s own judgement over his own self, which of course God has a hand in, or dare I say: takes part in. And whatever he takes part in is the most ghastly creation that you can imagine." While Gill highlights "[t]he skewing effect of a compassionate God can be seen even on lower, pettier levels. In exams, students who believe in a forgiving deity are far more likely to cheat, and in lab studies, Christian participants who spend ten minutes writing about God’s merciful nature showed increased levels of petty theft when assigned a money-based task afterwards. More recently, a comprehensive study found that crime rates are significantly higher in places where people believe in divine redemption."

I would reference Gill's remarks to the writings of Peter Hitchens, whose adult conversion to Christianity began with a memorable viewing of Roger van der Weyden's Last Judgment painting.

I can't leave you wondering about the Bad Vicar...

The bottom line is, people like the Bad Vicar aside, orthodox Christianity really doesn't have a lot trouble reconciling these things. Too often in contemporary discourse we consider these issues in isolation. Nietzsche did not do this because he possessed the learning necessary to comprehensibly engage such large matters.

When it comes to religious belief, no matter the kind of theism is being considered, there is a tendency to philosophically short-circuit these issues. Gill does this when she writes that "Religious morality is not quite like other kinds of morality, because instead of consulting your sense of right and wrong, you’re consulting the moral sense of an invisible being who takes sides depending on who believes in him the hardest." This is certainly not a fair statement about Christian morality. This is what make the Bad Vicar's comically un-pastoral harangue ring with no small amount of truth.

UPDATED: Disruption and societal deconstruction

This morning while looking at my Facebook newsfeed (makes me sound very tech savvy, does it not?), I saw an article posted by one of my many insightful friends, Sharon. Her tumblr blog quaerere deum is really stunning. She daily demonstrates that a picture is not worth merely a million words, but can move us beyond words. When she resorts to words she posts only that which is worth reading and considering. The article she pointed me to, entitled "Travis Shrugged," by Paul Carr, is short, but no less profound for its brevity.

In his short piece, Carr goes some short distance towards explaining why so many people, especially fairly young, well-educated people, develop what I can only describe as a kind of solipsistic libertarianism. The broad features of this view strike me as economic Darwinism, and being societally atomic (i.e., individualistic), failing to grasp the inevitably interpersonal nature of human society and so leading to a kind of dystopia (i.e., how does letting X do A affect Y?)- a kind of socially destructive utilitarianism.

I certainly don't want to co-opt Carr for my own purposes, but reading his article, especially his description of the purpose of legislative regulation (i.e., "Laws don’t exist merely to frustrate the business ambitions of coastal hipsters: They also exist to protect the more vulnerable members of society"), brought to mind the fact, even the memory of which is rapidly fading, that at the root of Western civilization, what makes it identifiable as a single entity (i.e., "Western civilization"), is Christianity, which, among other things, affirms that we are each others keepers.

On a practical, even political level, this makes it important to identify those who hold or run for office who are willing to do the bidding of these folks, who can't have the common good in mind because, much like Heidegger's view of human nature, they don't see the common good as real, let alone binding. On their view, society is best served by everyone doing what is best for one's self and not worrying about how that might impact the other, the whole.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, citing Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (paragraphs 26 & 71), defines the common good as "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily," also states that "In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to the human person:

"'Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already justified, but gather instead to seek the common good together'" (par. 1905).

Along these lines, it is not insignificant that Rand's most famous and influential follower ever is Alan Greenspan.

Concerning altruism, Carr points out that Rand wrote "the issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence." In her ideological novel Atlas Shrugged, Rand famously wrote: "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." It's short step from there to Gordon Geckko's insistence

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed...

In Christian theology, of course, we do not call such an approach to life altruistic, but properly "Christian," characterized by selfless love, agapé, caritas, even kenosis, or self-emptying. We are only disciples of the Carpenter from Nazareth to the extent that we live an other-centered life.

The article concludes with a recognition that responding to this emerging state-of-affairs in a truly human manner is not easy:

I’ve written before that to be truly disruptive (small ‘d’) the startups must have a moral dimension, even when that jars with the pursuit of profit. It’s just hypocritical for me to argue that on one hand while sidestepping those same ethical choices myself. And so, as of about ten minutes ago, the Uber app has taken its place in the dustbin of services I’ll just have to live without, at least while the company’s founder continues to celebrate the ugliest face of capitalism

Carr's honesty is refreshing, recognizing, as he does, how easy it is to be complicit in all of this (the digital age variant of North/South polarization). He is quite correct, at least on my view, to describe this in his subtitle as "The creepy, dangerous ideology behind Silicon Valley’s Cult of Disruption" and not just because Halloween is almost here.

UPDATE: A friend, who is also a brother deacon, someone whose intelligence and judgment I trust, and who works in the tech industry, informs me that "disruption theory" as applied to business is not necessarily underpinned by Rand's Objectivist philosophy and so does not inevitably lead to the kinds of things Carr writes about with regard to Uber. I certainly claim no extensive expertise in any kind of business theory. Nonetheless, I do find myself wondering what effect this particular business model has on things such as labor. It is important to point out that that is not really the focus of my post, which is, rather, the attraction of Objectivist philosophy in a society and culture in the throes of not only losing any memory of its Christian foundations, but losing any transcendent understanding of the human person altogether, keeping in mind that, being the personalist I am, one person is no person.

"'Ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn'"

Since it's the Friday before All Hallows Eve, the first of our annual 3-day Fall festival, The Smith's "Cemetry Gates" is our Friday traditio.

I was going to see Morrissey on my birthday, but my plans fell through, which means always go with your original plans and don't ever double-clutch, things sounding great usually turn out terribly, or not at all, as Morrissey would no doubt tell you. Don't ever confuse optimism for hope or pessimism for despair. Optimism usually being the cause of me feeling hopeless.

They were born/And then they lived/And then they died/It seems so unfair/I want to cry

Morrissey's recent appearance on Colbert, was, well, interesting, which is what he brings to the table...

Suffice it to say there is much about which he and I would disagree, but I find him interesting, that is, not boring and I still love his music after all these years.