tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post1173980678206663555..comments2024-01-22T01:52:37.473-06:00Comments on RENEGADE TRADS: Pluralism, Communion, Open versus Closed (Fundamentalist) Systems, and the Dangers of the LatterA Sinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-66540981611259848172013-01-29T18:41:26.830-06:002013-01-29T18:41:26.830-06:00At the end of the day a priest has to wear a cleri...At the end of the day a priest has to wear a clerical collar (or in the case of Orthodox priests, a Muslim tunic - also a purely historical development) simply because it comes with the occupation, just like a police officer, court marshall, army officer or judge ought to look more "authority-like" than the plaintiff or defendant. The authority comes from the person of the priest and not the garb, and you ought to judge individuals with respect to their "ministries," or rather, sacramental effectiveness, rather than focus blame simply on attire. Priests are also alter christi ministerially whether we like it or not, and a priest is good in my opinion, if he maximizes sacramental outreach regardless of his own weaknesses, opinions, training or professional or "ministerial" effectiveness. The priesthood IS just a job with a Divine twist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-7600035887521691652013-01-29T18:38:18.042-06:002013-01-29T18:38:18.042-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-53716909272125329022013-01-29T13:43:19.015-06:002013-01-29T13:43:19.015-06:00via Fr. Thomas O’Meara's NCR article: Sometime...via Fr. Thomas O’Meara's NCR article: <i>Sometimes wearing clothes seems to be a substitute for real ministry.</i><br /><br />This is an apt observation. It's simply wise nowadays to avoid wearing a collar or habit outside of a religious residence, monastery, or rectory. the lay brothers and priests of my high school wear street clothes outside of the school grounds. The Fordham Jesuits often wear business suits and ties when lecturing. Many priests (even "traditionally" inclined priests) I know only wear the collar like a business suit, and change into street clothes when not working in ministry. The decision to wear street clothes rather than a collar or habit has long been entrenched in the "Catholic world" I grew up in. <br /><br />I agree with Fr. O'Meara that a de facto laicity is more pastorally appropriate in a postmodern, even postchristian society. If I were in a supermarket or airport and saw a man or woman in religious garb, my first reaction would be that the person is perhaps unbalanced. Perhaps this is mere prejudice. I used to harbor a similar suspicion towards women in niqab (the full black hijab, eyes only visible) when at U of T. In any event, secular clergy and religious are not absolutely required by religious practice to wear the habit, unlike women and certain forms of hijab in Islamic jurisprudence.<br /><br />What I don't get is why rectors and spiritual formators admit men and women to seminaries or houses of formation who show signs of an eventual intention to wear their habits all the time. A desire to place the self on a superior level of authority or esteem is not only counterproductive pastorally but also psychologically suspect. <br /><br />Reap and sow. "Ban gay priests", receive sexually malformed men as candidates for the priesthood. Insist on a "public Catholic presence", court narcissistic candidates. Every day is opposite day for the Church's HR department. <br /> <br />Jordan/sortacatholicAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-62640402321457859012013-01-28T22:52:21.461-06:002013-01-28T22:52:21.461-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-81041218460762314992013-01-28T22:45:12.721-06:002013-01-28T22:45:12.721-06:00If only you were more Baroque in your views, A Sin...If only you were more Baroque in your views, A Sinner...There is really nothing odd about liking Candelabras and cherubic glory. If only you could embrace Eurocentrism, you would make a powerful ally...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-9782370829556728932013-01-28T22:41:07.685-06:002013-01-28T22:41:07.685-06:00The clerical collar makes the priest. It's sim...The clerical collar makes the priest. It's simply another identity that nobody really cares about until it is time to die.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-53568292808678825102013-01-28T21:31:21.591-06:002013-01-28T21:31:21.591-06:00Interesting take on it! This was in the NCR today:...Interesting take on it! This was in the NCR today:<br /><br />"New religious groups in the United States, along with some young members of older orders seem eager to wear a religious habit in public, not just on the grounds around a school but at airports or on the subway. What does a monastic habit or a cassock in public say to Americans at the beginning of the 21st century? It is not at all evident that the general public knows who this strangely dressed person is or even connects the clothes to religion. The symbolism is not clear and a message is not evident. The person does stand out, but as a kind of public oddity. Eccentric clothes instill separation. While some argue that odd clothes attract people, the fact is that more often than not they repel. Normal people are not attracted by the antique or bizarre costume, and ordinary Christians are not drawn to those whose special costume implies that others are inferior. Sometimes wearing clothes seems to be a substitute for real ministry.<br /><br />It is not clear how men wearing dresses and capes proclaim God's transcendence or the Gospel's love. A man's identity is something complex; the search for it lasts a lifetime. A celibate cleric gives up things that form male identity, like being a husband and a father. One cannot overlook possible links between unusual clothes and celibacy. Does the celibate male have a neutral or third sexuality that can put on unusual clothes? Are special clothes a protection of celibacy? Or are they a neutralization of maleness? Why would a man want to wear a long dress or a cape in public? Are spiritual reasons the true motivation?"<br /><br />http://ncronline.org/news/art-media/whats-message-runway-baroque-fashionsA Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-36672880758026711762013-01-28T21:19:29.608-06:002013-01-28T21:19:29.608-06:00It's like, can you imagine if some people trie...<i>It's like, can you imagine if some people tried to set up a "High Council of Gays"</i> [...]<br /><br />That's classic! I'd fail the 'authentic gayness' test for sure. I can't snap (slightly bent index fingers), I wear jeans from Costco, and the only time I say 'honey' is when I'm looking for sweetener for my oatmeal. <br /><br /><i>The problem I see today is that there is a miscognition recarding the "two out of the three" criterion for validly claiming an identity.</i> [...] <i>On the one hand, as I mentioned, this seems to have something to do with the strange phenomenon of homosexuals who think they can honestly deny that they are Gay just because they try to unilaterally refuse the identity/social construction into this category (even though they have the "objective" feature, which is the attractions, and are thus recognized by the rest of the Gay group as one of our own for that very reason).</i><br /><br />The SSA/ex-gay movement is also a crisis of group recognition as well as identity rejection. In fact, identity rejection is merely a vehicle certain (mostly Christian) groups employ in an attempt to restigmatize homosexuality. The goal of the SSA/ex-gay movement is not just to put individual homosexuals back into the closet, but re-conform (restore?) society so that all homosexuals are re-stigmatized.<br /><br />A much more visceral psychosocial reality has blocked the SSA/ex-gay attempt to re-create stigma. Many persons have realized that "traditional" attempts to integrate "gay" people into society, such as loveless and faithless marriages, have often destroyed families and communities. The new consensus is to simply recognize that forced gender/sex unions (so-called objective human relationships: "<a href="http://goo.gl/bzdif" rel="nofollow">an honourable estate</a>") carry a great degree of collateral damage. Perversely, SSA/ex-gay groups actively seek to increase their group recognition through the cultivation of ill-fitted mixed orientation marriages, for example. <br /><br />As a result, SSA/ex-gay groups have destroyed their identity credibility across all three criteria. Queer people see right through the pancake makeup of public lies (Haggard?). There has been no fundamental society shift back to LGBT stigmatization. And finally, mounting consensus suggests that a large part of human sexuality is genetic or determined early in life. <br /><br />This will not stop a dwindling number of diehard believers in "reparative therapy". For these persons, the reality of absolute identity dissonance must be denied at all costs unless a person experiences a crisis of faith and confession. <br /><br />Jordan/sortacatholicAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-20001026372943734922013-01-27T22:53:58.365-06:002013-01-27T22:53:58.365-06:00To resolve the "fundamentalist" issue, I...To resolve the "fundamentalist" issue, I simply follow Blessed John Paul II's notion of absolute and relative importance, as well as the phenomenological realism of Roman Ingarden. These are rich philosophical notions with much existential (that is, "ontological") import.<br /><br />From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:<br /><br />"Most traditional category systems, such as Aristotle's, lay out a single dimension of categories supposed to be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Ingarden, by contrast, develops a multi-dimensional category scheme by dividing ontology into three parts: formal, material and existential ontologies, corresponding to three distinct aspects that may be discerned in any entity (its formal structure, material nature, and mode of being respectively). These different formal, material and existential aspects of the object, studied by the different types of ontology, may thus be used to classify an object in any of three interpenetrating dimensions (although not all combinations among formal, material and existential modes are possible).<br /><br />The modes of being are defined in terms of different characteristic combinations of ‘existential moments’. The existential moments mostly concern either an object's temporal determinations (or lack thereof), or the different dependencies it bears (or does not bear) to other sorts of object. Indeed in drawing out his existential moments, Ingarden goes beyond Husserl's influential work on dependence to distinguish four different existential moments of dependence (and their contrasting moments of independence): Contingency (the dependence of a separate entity on another in order to remain in existence); Derivation (the dependence of an entity on another in order to come into existence); Inseparateness (the dependence of an entity that can only exist if it coexists with something else in a single whole); and Heteronomy (the dependence of an entity for its existence and entire qualitative endowment on another). In so doing, Ingarden develops one of the richest and most detailed analyses of dependence ever offered, providing distinctions in the notion of dependence that can clarify many philosophical problems including but certainly not limited to the realism/idealism problem.<br /><br />Ingarden's four highest existential-ontological categories or ‘modes of being’ are: Absolute, Real, Ideal, and Purely Intentional. The absolute mode of being could be exhibited only by a being such as God, which could exist even if nothing else whatsoever ever existed. The ideal mode of being is a timeless mode of existence suitable for platonistically conceived numbers; the real mode of being is that of contingent spatio-temporal entities such as the realist assumes ordinary rocks and trees to be; while the purely intentional mode of being is that occupied by fictional characters and other entities which owe their existence and nature to acts of consciousness. Thus the realism/idealism controversy can be reconfigured as the controversy over whether the so-called ‘real world’ has the real or purely intentional mode of being."<br /><br />In a retreat John Paul II gave to students at the Jagiellonian University while still Archbishop of Krakow, the deceased now blessed former Pope clarified that matters pertaining to God of absolute intentional importance, whereas those regarding relative truths are only of relative importance. Thus you can reconcile Absolute Truth with relative truths and truth cannot contradict truth. The error in belief occurs when we in our praxis attribute absolute importance to relative truths.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-86574947401189796802013-01-27T22:49:44.384-06:002013-01-27T22:49:44.384-06:00"If you believe in pluralism, your own belief..."If you believe in pluralism, your own belief in pluralism would (without further qualification) seemingly just become one more idea standing alongside others in the Marketplace of Ideas and thus not really accomplish anything (as competition only makes sense between actual concrete competing visions...<br /><br />But if you try to require it as a sort of metabelief for everyone as a condition of competition, then that itself has become a non-pluralistic dogma and rigged the competition, since many people do not want or hold such a metabelief; if we all have to support the free market of ideas in order to participate in it, how is this market truly free?"<br /><br />For any doctrine that one wants to believe, there is an infinite amount of arguments one can make to support it. Kolakowski calls this the "Law of the Infinite Cornucopia." I don't think pluralists claim anything more than this. Pluralism itself is simply an approach to philosophical thinking. To make it and relativism into an all-encompassing "meta-philosophy" is to commit an existential fallacy methinks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com