Catholicism as True Enough

 Couldn't agree more with the Maverick Philosopher.  Choose your religion or denomination according to whether you think it is true that it will lead you and those in your care on the path of salvation.  His latest post verbatim:

Catholicism is true enough to provide moral guidance and spiritual sustenance for many, many people.  So if you are a lapsed Catholic, you could do far worse than to return to the arms of Holy Mother the Church. And this despite the deep post-Vatican II corruption. Better such a reversion than to persist in one's worldly ways like St. Augustine who, at age 30, confessed that he was "still caught fast in the same mire by a greed for enjoying present things that both fled me and debased me." (Confessions, Bk. 6, Ch. 11, Ryan tr., p. 149)

 But if you are a Protestant like Tim McGrew or James Anderson, should you 'swim the Tiber'?  Some branches of Protestantism are also good enough and true enough to provide moral guidance and spiritual sustenance.  And this despite the problems of Protestantism.

I should think that practice is more important than doctrine.  Better to remove the lust from your heart than to write an erudite blog entry about it.  The doctrines will always be debated and contested.  Does the Incarnation make logical sense?  Is it perhaps true whether or not it makes sense to the discursive intellect?  We will never know here below.  

Would it not be folly to postpone the reform of one's life until one had solved intellectual difficulties that we have good reason to believe cannot be solved in our present state?  Orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy.  Three elements of Christian orthopraxy: follow the Ten Commandments; avoid the Seven Deadly Sins; observe the Two greatest Commandments.

  

Funny Story About a Conservative Catholic Priest

Unlike a number of my posts, this will take a conversational tone.  All names have been edited so that the people involved will remain anonymous.

There’s a guy I’ve known quite for over a decade but only over the internet.  He used to be Nazarene—thus our original connection since I attended a Nazarene school as an undergraduate—but converted to Catholicism.  Moderate-Conservative, catholic, philosophy professor (less conservative than I on economics but not by a ton), E.M.  Anyhow, I began seeing all of these hilariously funny, and sometimes completely politically incorrect memes that this guy shared [more un-PC than even I WOULD SHARE!] on E.M.'s Facebook wall and "friended" him a while ago, Father L from NY.  E.M. messaged me today about something else and somehow this guy comes up, Father L, because in the 70’s he went to Franciscan U. of Steubenville near where I grew up.  Here’s what E.M. said about Father L:

Fr. L went to Franciscan as an undergrad.

Very funny guy--he said once he was there at the beginning of the charismatic renewal.  He said everyone there was either part of that movement or there to belong to a drinking fraternity--he then paused and said, "I belonged to two fraternities myself."

He was a prison chaplain for a while.

I asked Fr. L if he had ever dated---he said, “Oh yeah--in fact, I think I was engaged for about 20 minutes at a bar one time."

Fr. L grew up in NYC, I think Brooklyn or the Bronx.  His dad and a few of his uncles/brothers/cousins (I can't remember the combo) were cops.  He said he was kind of pushed toward the priesthood because he was the runt of the litter, even though he is 6'5 and about 270. He says most of the cops in his family were 6'6 or taller.

One time after Mass [where he was the priest], in the basement for donuts and coffee, this somewhat unstable guy who attended from time to time (now deceased) started going into a liberal political diatribe with some old ladies who were trying to avoid him.

Fr. L asked him to cool it.

The guy refused and then starting saying, "No one here cares about the Holy saints!  They only care about Fox News and St. Bill O'Reilly!"

Fr. L said, "That's not true--we also commemorate St. Sean Hannity [who I [E.M.] actually don't like, but whatever]."

Then the guy kept going off and Fr. L walked up to him, purple in the face, and screamed,  “I said, 'Enough!!!!'  You will not come in and terrorize my sheep this way!"

When the guy started to back up, Fr. L said, "I HAVE COMMANDED YOU--SHUT UP OR LEAVE THIS HOLY CHURCH!"

Then the guy stomped off, and Fr. L turned back to a young couple with a now terrified child in their arms, to whom he had been talking originally, and said very calmly, "Now, where were we?"

Then he saw the mortified child and said, "What’s the matter, little one, haven't you ever heard mommy and daddy yell before?"  To which they said, "Well, not quite like that."

My wife was there and was very impressed, though.

This Pope and the Church catholic

From the Mav Phil:

I hope the Church is not about to commit 'suicide by pope.'  Pope Francis might do well to meditate on the following truths from the pen of the agnostic philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski.  The following from an interview:

It would be silly, foolish, to object to the Church on the grounds that it is "traditionalist". The whole strength of the Church is that it is faithful to its tradition - otherwise, what is the Church for? If the Church is going to become a political party which merely adapts its beliefs to changing opinions, it can be safely dismissed altogether, because there are political parties doing such things. If the Church is there to sanctify and bless in advance every change in intellectual and moral fashion in our civilisation, then again - what is the Church for? The Church is strong because it has a traditional teaching, a spiritual kernel, which it considers its immutable essence. It cannot just yield to any pressure from people who think that whatever is in fashion at the present moment should immediately be adopted by the Church as its own teaching, whether in the field of political ideas or of daily life.

I think the Church is not only right in keeping its historically shaped, traditional identity. Its very role, its very mission on earth would become unclear if it did not do that. And so I would not be afraid at all, and I would not take it as an insult, that critics describe the Church as traditionalist or conservative.

There must be forces of conservatism in society, in spiritual life, by which I mean the forces of conservation. Without such forces, the entire fabric of society would fall apart.

[. . .]

In my view, there is no way in which Marxist teaching could be reconciled with Christianity. Marxism is anti-Christian, not contingently, not by accident, but in its very core. You cannot reconcile it.

There is no Christianity where no distinction is made between temporal and eternal values. There is no Christianity where [the word 'where' is wrong; should be UNLESS] one accepts that all earthly values, however important, however crucial to human life, are nevertheless secondary. What the Church is about essentially is the salvation of human souls, and the human soul is never reducible to social conditions.

There is an absolute value in the human person. The Church believes that the world - the social world, the physical world - is merely an expression of the divine, and as such it can only have instrumental or secondary value. Without this, there is no point in speaking about Christianity.

I don't want to hear the pope talk about  global warming or capitalism or any other topic he knows nothing about.  Let him stick to faith and morals.  Let him show that he understands that Christianity is not just another load of secular humanist claptrap.  Let him demonstrate that he understands Kolakowski's point that this world has only instrumental or secondary value.  Let him preach on the Last Things.