Happy New Years!

And if anyone says anything about Holy Days, I'll kill them.

i

In what ways is God like and unlike the imaginary number?

I had this thought, today, contemplating the Eastern essence/existences/energies distinction (which I consider quite useful and correct), and the notion that God in His incomprehensible essence (ousia) is beyond all categories and dualities, even the being/non-being duality (From what I understand, the Orthodox would emphasize that it is only in His hypostases that God can be said to "exist," while the essence is "hyperbeing".) Of course, the West would formulate this by saying that "to be" is God's essence, also not incorrect, and also essentially apophatic; equivalent to saying nothing more than "God is God" basically...

"Crazy" versus "Mainstream"

One thing that can be incredibly frustrating for me is the notion of the "mainstream" and the sense that, if ideas are outside it, they can simply be laughed at or dismissed, very often as "crazy."

This, I think, is especially a problem for those on the Right as opposed to on the Left. Though I'd like to think I avoid easy placement into either of those categories, my "default" attitude or narrative definitely tends towards the conservative. I am a traditionalist after all, and think an optimistic view of historical progressivism is incredibly naive; we do not "know better now" on human/moral/spiritual questions, not at all.

Either way, I think this problem is bigger for the Right perhaps because the common progressivist narrative means that the Leftists can be seen as edgy "revolutionaries" whose ideas have never really been tried, who may be "proven right" in the future like their progressive-banner-carrying fore-bearers, whereas those voicing more traditional opinions are seen as advocating something that was "tried and found wanting" (even though, in reality, they were never really tried, or else there is no real evidence that the "failure" in the past was anything more than a contingency in certain historical circumstances that may no longer exist...)

However, there are a lot of crazy ideas out there (and just as many in the mainstream as outside of it!) If sanity is defined by normativity, we've got a huge problem, because today's normativity sucks. And yet, unfortunately, a division of the world into "fringe" versus "mainstream" opinions has a tendency to marginalize even legitimate ideas by constructing them as hand-in-hand with truly absurd ones.

I've worried before about this sort of "martyrdom of ridicule" affecting Catholics, even my own friends. No longer does the threat of violence deter people from the faith (because we have a narrative where overt persecution like that, at least, is heroic and noble), but rather what deters people most seems to be a sort of incredibly powerful social shaming or intellectual bullying that causes most people to want to conform to what is "mainstream" in opinion; a smugly patronizing toleration can in this way be more undermining than active oppression. And many of those who do reject this conformity are then of a pathologically oppositional bent, are disgruntled "outsiders" who have an attitude of defiance towards the world, and axe to grind with society, and their neuroses in this regard can then be used to discredit any ideas associated with them in a self-fulfilling prophecy. (I myself know I need to watch out for this).

For example, I recently attended a meeting of the Pilgrims of St. Michael (the "White Berets" who publish the Michael Journal) in Toronto. Now, if you've been a consistent reader of this blog, you will know that I'm a big supporter of the Social Credit monetary reform proposals, and think they make sense of a financial system that has become an obfuscated game detached from reality. I think some common sense (and adherence to the social teachings of the Church on things like usury) would help establish a more economically just and equal world through the elimination of debt-money, etc, which also would have a profound effect on the very way people viewed their relation to labor and material goods (and the meaning of life in general).

So I went to this meeting expecting to hear a lot of solid stuff about monetary and banking reform and getting the word out about the social credit proposals. Instead I go and it's clearly a lot of crack-pots all pushing conspiracy theories in long-winded ramblings, touching here and there on how the bankers are abusing the system through exploitationist financial wizardry, but otherwise sounding totally bonkers. It would have been fascinating and hilarious if it didn't get so tediously boring after the first hour.

Luckily, I'm enough of a rational being to realize that association with kooks doesn't suddenly legitimatize an idea. I'm absolutely still convinced, on its own merits, that Social Credit is basically common sense, and that there is no reason to dismiss the idea of changing the current financial system just because it is the status quo supported by the "serious" men in suits (duh! They benefit from it!) and the smug "academic" economists of the pro-capitalist-apologia camp (who seem to believe that just because they can explain with complex mathematical models how the current system works, that this for some reason means it is the way the system should work.)

However, for many people, the sort of nuttiness I witnessed would cause them to throw out the baby with the bathwater and immediately dismiss the ideas about monetary reform. Mind you, I'm not saying there aren't connections between the corrupt, usurious financial system we currently have, the military-industrial complex and wars, and the networks of power among corporations, politicians, and the media. There clearly are, but I think the connections are much more the accumulation of the rotten effects of self-interest and greed playing out sociologically and geopolitically, and don't require any sort of particularly organized or "deliberate" conspiracy. In fact, I think it is the emergence of these evil structures from so many disparate and even competing interests that makes the whole situation even more terrifying; Satan's army has always been divided against itself, has always wrought destruction through its own Babel-chaos rather than through organized evil.

Nevertheless, it is extremely concerning how good ideas can be "tainted," as it were, by their contingent association together with other ideas that may be, actually, entirely unrelated. I've heard people who see, for example, that Republican conservatives in the US both are against abortion and deny global warming and evolution...use the obviously idiotic latter positions to conclude that the former pro-life position is idiotic (because only obvious idiots, meaning those who deny global warming and evolution, seem to hold it).

Likewise, I fear that the crediteers themselves are probably Social Credit's own worse enemy (the same, of course, can be said for trads and traditionalism) because of how they discredit (a nice little pun there) the whole thing through their other crazy ideas. And this, of course, serves the interest of the "mainstream" status-quo powers-that-be, who have an interest in marginalizing good ideas which threaten them, who prefer to neuter us with that "martyrdom of ridicule" rather than actively persecute.

To sum things up, I found a good quote explaining this phenomenon in a recent article about the Republican primary candidate Ron Paul (of whom I am a rather strong supporter, inasmuch as I do feel I have a duty to not simply withdraw from politics entirely, even as imperfect as all candidates will always be) and the recent attempts to discredit him, to delegitimatize him through ridicule or classification as "fringe" or "a kook" (because the attempts to simply dismiss him through a patronizing tactic of merely ignoring him failed) based on some old newsletters of his:

So why were Ron Paul or his ghostwriters engaged in racism and conspiracy theories? And why did Ron Paul allow this?

The first answer is simply that marginal causes attract marginal people.

The Gold Standard and non-interventionism have long been pushed to the fringe of our politics, and ambitious people tend to dive into the mainstream. That means that some of the 'talent' that marginalized ideas attract will be odd and unstable.

There are two strategies for dealing with this problem. You purge your movement of cranks to preserve credibility and risk alienating a chunk of supporters. Or you let everyone in your movement fly their freak flag and live with the consequences. Ron Paul, being a libertarian, has always done the latter.

I think this is a huge problem. Today, talented people (driven by ambition) dive into what is "mainstream" or socially acceptable or popular, taking sides within narrowly defined pre-packaged ideological platforms (of liberal or conservative, usually), in this culture war of identity politics...rather than actually considering each idea on its own merit or trying to form a consistent philosophy from foundational axioms and logic. Even the politicians who portray themselves a "outsiders" or "mavericks"...are always actually entirely "mainstream."

And when most of your intelligent people "sell out" (sell their souls, really) in this manner to the "mainstream," when most of the people in power are more concerned with conforming to media-mass-marketed ideologies (that are conveniently self-serving)...then your society is stuck in a mire that only a radical revolt against this malaise could overthrow. But radicals, by the very fact of being willing to stand up and say the emperor is naked on one thing...also often tend to be the sort of people who take oppositional or non-conformist stances on a lot of things (even though in most other cases that is unnecessary). This is the problem of freakiness.

It takes a radical, someone unconcerned with being "normal" or holding socially acceptable positions, to overthrow the status quo, or at least to stand against it consistently with a voice that can gradually influence the "mainstream" horizons to expand to include it or drift in its direction. Indeed, it often takes a sort of freak. But most of the sort of people willing to be radicals, willing to take a freakish stand on one thing...are, correlated with that, crazy in general (and not merely "crazy like a fox"). And hence a difficult catch-22.

Good For Bishop Johan Bonny!

Rorate Caeli threw a hissy-fit today over this completely innocuous quote by a Belgian bishop:

I fully understand it. The Church can not avoid the debate about the criteria for ordination. Personally, I strongly believe in the value of the unmarried priesthood and a full availability for Christ and the Church community. But I also think that the ordination of a number of married men or deacons to the priesthood can be an enrichment for the Church. In the eastern Catholic Churches married priests are more the rule than the exception. That fact is therefore not unfamiliar for the Catholic Church. The ordination of women to priests is theologically far more difficult. In the west that concern is present in broad layers of society, but worldwide the support is extremely small. But I do think that there needs to be more discussion about the place and role of the woman in the Church. Women must be allowed to take on responsible duties in the Church, on all levels.

Okay, so he didn't say "theologically impossible," but only said "far more difficult." He also seems to suggest some notion that level of "support" somehow matters in whether we do it (and if the support did materialize worldwide, is he saying we then could do it? Ordination of women to the priesthood is impossible regardless of support level).

Still, the statement is in-itself entirely non-controversial, and I'm glad bishops are starting to say stuff like this. I think you have to say it when the average age of priests in your diocese is 75-80! Either the criteria for ordination must be loosened, or you collapse institutionally!

The fact that Rorate Caeli keeps acting like suggesting married priests is heresy and lumps it with other forms of actual dissent...means they're flying their crazy flag again. I did however find interesting the comment from the user Gabriel regarding the priesthood in the East:

For the record, I don't support the current movement to allow married priests within the Latin Rite. With that said, I sense more than a bit of derision toward the Bishop's choice to reference the unbroken tradition of the Christian East to allow married priests and deacons so long as the marriage occurs prior to ordination. (There are some variants even within the East. For instance, the Slavic Churches generally don't allow elevation to the Subdiaconate until marriage.)

Even so, there's room for some nuance here. For centuries, priests in the East (and I am referencing the Orthodox specifically, though this generally applies to Eastern Catholics as well) functioned as civil servants, serving the Liturgy once-a-week (and on some feast days) and performing baptisms, funerals, etc. Spiritual guidance was largely left to the monasteries and many monastics heard confessions more regularly than parish priests (secular clergy). Most secular clergy held what we would call "second jobs," either teaching or, in rural areas, tending to farming in order to support their families. The concept of a "full-time priest," which most Catholics take for granted, was simply not the case unless one lived in a major urban center or had a monastery near the village. Even in the U.S. today, most Orthodox parishes are open on Sundays (and maybe Saturday night for Vespers) and that's it. Most missions have a difficult time supporting priests because it means supporting their families as well. Moreover, the common assertion made by Orthodox (and some Eastern Catholics) that a married priesthood is superior because the priest can better relate to his flock strikes me as dubious. Yes, that may be true in some instances, but there are plenty of terrible married clergy in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches.

I would also add that married priesthood in Orthodoxy (I can't speak on this in Catholicism) has some other downsides which few comment on. There is a longstanding joke within Orthodoxy, particularly in America, of the nervous seminarian praying his bishop won't ordain him before he can lock-down a bride (which isn't as easy as you'd think, given what the future will look like). There's also a tendency in Orthodoxy to treat the priesthood as a jacket you put on and take off, similarly to a pastorate at a Protestant church. This is reinforced, intentionally or not, by the fact that defrocking is a far simpler process in the East than the West; people quit being Orthodox priests all of the time, and there are no repercussions for it.

I, of course, have often suggested the notion that a married priesthood, as well as a part-time volunteer priesthood (ala the permanent diaconate), are absolutely essential at this point in history if we're going to save the Church from demographic collapse. I also think defrocking should be much easier, and that we must eliminate this idea that a priest can never be "fired" (to the point that some dioceses even give a sort of "alimony" to laicized priests, even as they are shamed and banned from all public service in the church), which protectionism was clearly a huge factor in the abuse crisis. The Orthodox get many things right.

Two Years

Today is the two-year anniversary of this blog. This second year has had only half as many posts as the first (still quite a lot!) and things are definitely slowing down (though I do have a whole backlog of post ideas I hope to get around to now that the Christmas rush is over and life is settling into a more regular routine), but truly I can say that this experience has changed the course of my life in some extremely concrete ways, especially as regards the relationships I've formed through networking with readers. My message, looking back, is pretty much the same as last year really, so I won't repeat; beyond that, I'm praying for all my readers, and please pray for me.

Two Important Statements

The New Liturgical Movement today has two letters posted that I consider very important in their implications and in what they indicate about the current atmosphere or direction in the Church.

The first was the rather incredible statement from Cardinal Ranjith saying:

It is my firm conviction that the Vetus Ordo represents to a great extent and in the most fulfilling way that mystical and transcendent call to an encounter with God in the liturgy. Hence the time has come for us to not only renew through radical changes the content of the new Liturgy, but also to encourage more and more a return of the Vetus Ordo, as a way for a true renewal of the Church [...] the time has come for us to be courageous in working for a true reform of the reform and also a return to the true liturgy of the Church, which had developed over its bi-millenial history in a continuous flow.

This is rather astounding, it seems to me. We have a Cardinal calling for the new liturgy to be radically changed (in content, which is to say in the text and rubrics itself, and not merely in the ars celebrandi, as so much of the useless "reform of the reform" idea has focused on before).

But, more than that, he's also essentially saying that the old liturgy is better, more fulfilling, that the "time has come" to basically go back to it, and that it is actually the "true" liturgy of the church (the Latin church, at least; I have my own mixed feelings about a Cardinal from Sri Lanka pushing Tridentinism rather than that region of the world using traditional Indo-Syrian liturgies as would seem appropriate...but that's another gripe for another day).

This is a rather strong statement to be coming from a Cardinal!

The other was this letter from the Institute of the Good Shepherd that outlines their own self-defined role (approved by the Church) as offering "constructive critique" of the modern status quo in the Church (both liturgically and doctrinally), yet in full and regular communion. I once coined a similar idea, "His Holiness's loyal opposition," of which this reminded me.

I've discussed before, in regards to the question of Vatican II and continuity, that if there is to be any reconciliation on these matters (and of the Church with Her own history and tradition) an attitude along the lines of "this is a prudential question, Catholics are free to debate this" is going to be key (on questions such as Church-State relations, institutional diplomacy with other confessions, pastoral approach, theological style, etc). This attitude of the Institut du Bon Pasteur seems like an example of that, a positive development.

The Magic School Bus, Dolly Parton, Recycling, and One of My (Sort of) Favorite Christmas Songs...

I couldn't find just this clip online, so I had to make a video with only a still image, but the whole holiday special is now available here.

Internal Dialogue

Often I come up with post ideas in the form of hypothetical conversations I have. I don't know if anyone else does this (I assume some people do), but my internal life has increasingly become, from my childhood self-speaking imaginary, more and more a dialogue, usually with a few important figures in my life whose voices I have internalized and with whom I (in my mind) have "practice" discussions.

I also vaguely imagine myself speaking to St. Thomas Aquinas quite a lot, but oddly not in theological type discussions (as I assume we already agree there); rather, my "conversations" with St. Thomas usually involves "explaining" various aspects of the modern world (technological, political, social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, etc) that a medieval would find baffling.

I'm sure this is really about reconciling, for myself, these developments (which can seem so discontinuous with ideas of an organic human "default" imagined as medievalesque) in some sort of rational contextualization to prove, to myself, that we're still living in the same civilization, the same humanity, the same reality. That, ultimately, the same human (and, of course, Christian) Reason, of which Aquinas (in the Summa) in some sense symbolizes the supreme historical voice (in my imagination at least)...can still accommodate all of it. That the basic framework or paradigm, while it may need to be "expanded," does not need to be "overthrown."

Now, all these sorts of internal discussions (about topics both lofty and mundane, sacred and profane) are not nearly as rich as actually talking to the real human beings, of course. Really, this small "cast of characters" serve as little more than Socratic interlocutors who agree with me or ask questions or raise the objections I anticipate, but their main point is just to help me consider how I'd present an argument to this or that person or type of person (the "type" the specific person represents to me) in a manner that assumes the common ground or set or presumptions or experiences we already share based on our relationship.

This helps me flesh out ideas, and it also allows me to "rehearse" potential conversations in real life (often with those people themselves) and to prepare a script I can use in actual conversation. Or, rather than a script, it's more like a whole tool-box or repertoire of pre-prepared ideas or structures or anecdotes or analogies or particular turns of phrase I can deploy in conversation or debate in a dynamic fashion.

And, indeed, very often these internal conversations are continuations, in a l'esprit de l'escalier sort of way, of conversations I had in real life, sometimes recently, sometimes from months and months prior. As I implied above, only real conversations with real human beings are ever truly "generative" for me creatively (you will notice that many of my posts here start with "I was having a discussion the other day...") There are some pretty famous movies that are just conversations like this, that capture the energy and dynamism when two people really "click" conversationally, but there is nothing comparable to actually being an active and integral participant in mind speaking to mind and heart speaking to heart; this is Trinitarian relationality at its best.

And yet, of course, it does not end with the conversation itself in this life. Rather, the conversation brings up a variety of arguments and ideas and threads that usually are not (and, for time constraints, cannot be) resolved in the original conversation itself, but which ferment and continue playing out in my head for days or weeks afterward, but definitely set in motion and "fueled by" the original conversation (and sometimes by follow-up conversations).

Sometimes the direction these takes is quite surprising, and sometimes this involves the input of several unrelated conversations, with different people, juxtaposed over the course of days leading to an even richer coalescing of ideas in my mind. Just recently, combined with the enthusiasm from some positive emotional factors, one of these "brainstorms" has been occurring, which has "activated" an energized a variety of previous conversations and ideas, and this has spawned a variety of ideas for posts that I'd like to write if I find the time.

For now, though, Merry Christmas to all, especially those of you in my life with whom dialogue has been so productive, and the synergy so creative and transformative.

Our Lady's Virginity In Partu

The New Theological Movement has a post on the Virgin Birth which lays out the orthodox dogma and then goes on to interpret it in the traditional pious manner (ie, in the most extraordinarily miraculous and literal way), but some interesting points have been raised in the comments thread.

I wrote a reply there which I'll re-post (and maybe expand on a bit) here. These are just thoughts and musings, really, I don't have any firm claims or conclusions on any of this yet really, and if I slip into anything heretical sounding it is unintentional. I am, however, quite frank in my physiological descriptions, so be warned if you are squeamish or think such biologizing of Our Lady is indelicate. Anyway, my thoughts:

The virginity "in partu" is certainly dogmatic.

I do wonder, however, how much of the specific theories or implications about what "virginity in partu" concretely means...are dogmatic.

That (to use the frank biological terms) Mary's hymen was not ruptured, at least, seems unquestionable. If the dogma of her virginity in partu is to have any meaningfulness to it rather than just being an empty tautology, that seems to be the bare minimum.

As Cardinal Ratzinger himself once said, "The cavalier divorce of 'biology' and theology omits precisely man from consideration; it becomes a self-contradiction insofar as the initial, essential point of the whole matter lies precisely in the affirmation that in all that concerns man the biological is also human and especially in what concerns the divinely-human nothing is 'merely biological.' Banishment of the corporeal, or sexual, into pure biology, all the talk about the 'merely biological,' is consequently the exact opposite of what faith intends. For faith tells us of the spirituality of the biological as well as the corporeality of the spiritual and divine. On this point the choice is between all or nothing. The attempt to preserve a spiritual, distilled remainder after the biological element has been eliminated denies the very spiritual reality which is the principal concern of the faith in the God become flesh."

So, clearly, for Mary to be a real "sign" or signifier...we have to be talking about physiological and not just moral virginity. The outward sign must signify the inward reality in our Sacramental understanding of the world and our typological system.

However, I'm tempted to wonder just how much is necessarily implied beyond that.

Indeed, the way the Fathers and Theologians (and even the post on NTM) speaks...it sounds sometimes like these men didn't or don't have a terribly good understanding of the female anatomy...

For example, physiologically speaking, the hymen and the cervix are two different things. Saying that Mary's hymen was not ruptured and that her "womb was not opened"...are two very separate physiological claims.

The womb is always "open" a bit before pregnancy, that's how menstruation happens (though this interesting article, from which I got the Ratzinger quote, explores that very question about Our Lady under the appropriate title "Where Angels Fear to Tread"). And certainly, while there is an understandable symbolic connection between physiological virginity, in the sense of an intact hymen, and moral virginity (ie, though one can happen without the other, first penetration and rupturing of the hymen often coincide)...there is no immediate connection between the stretching of the cervix and lack of sexual intercourse (it is not the "closure" of the womb, the uterus, which is immediately affected by sexual experience, but only of the vagina).

[All this also brings up the question, as an aside, of just what constitutes even "moral virginity." The Catholic Encyclopedia, following Aquinas in the Summa, defines it as, "the absence, in the past and in the present, of all complete and voluntary delectation, whether from lust or from the lawful use of marriage; and the formal element, that is the firm resolution to abstain forever from sexual pleasure." It should be noted that, strictly speaking, under such a definition any willful sexual pleasure, not merely intercourse but even just solo masturbation, would forfeit the aureole; as Aquinas says, "whether copulation takes place or not." This may disturb some of you accustomed to the "pop cultural" definitions of virginity which (at their most "technical") refer only to penetration or (at their broadest) only to genital interaction with another person. Then again, this "theological" definition also thankfully sees women who are raped as still potential moral virgins and it is, of course, only a total lack of any willful venereal pleasure which makes sense as an internally consistent moral category.]

Either way, there are some strange questions raised if we insist that her womb, her uterus itself (and not merely the seal of her virginity, ie, the hymen) remained "closed" afterward. Do we mean the mucus plug (which only would have developed with pregnancy in the first place) never released (ie, water breaking)? And then what happened to the umbilicus, the placenta, or the fluid of the amniotic sac? Did they all pass out miraculously too? I will add for consideration this interesting tidbit: I've heard that the Lateran at one point in history claimed to have the after-birth and umbilicus of Christ as a relic preserved as some sort of gelatinous mass in a vat of oil.

Furthermore, passing through "like light through glass" doesn't necessarily seem the only way to preserve the virginity in partu. For example, the hymen could have miraculously stretched (like bubble gum or something) only to "snap back into place" after the infant Jesus passed through; the hymen is already perforated (for menses to pass out) anyway, there's already an opening or openings. And so a "stretching" theory, for example, would not necessarily exclude pain. And yet would be another possible way to imagine virginity, even physiologically, being preserved in partu; the dogma requires us to believe it was preserved somehow, it does not require us to believe it was preserved by Christ passing out in the manner of a subtle body (ie, the "beaming down like Star Trek" theory).

Which does bring up Revelations. Yes, as one might point out, the Woman of Revelations crying out in labor pains is Ecclesia in the pains of persecution, of birthing Christ into the World. But the thing about our typological system is that it is wonderfully coherent. If we can say something of the Church, we can almost always say it of Mary. If the Church has "birthing pains" parallel to Her suffering at the foot of Her Bridegroom's Cross throughout history...there is something potentially fitting about the idea that the Virgin Mary (as Type of the Church) would have "played out" this same symbolism (even while remaining a virgin like the Church).

Furthermore, the No Birth Pains idea seems to involve a notion of the Immaculate Conception that is perhaps an over-extension. Mary was conceived already a state of sanctifying grace, in original justice...but that didn't mean she had the Preternatural Gifts restored. Arbitrarily granting her some but not all of them on account of her sinlessness strikes me as, well, arbitrary (I even have questions about just what her freedom from concupiscence would have meant; I'm not convinced it necessarily meant the Preternatural Gift of Integrity...)

Then again, maybe it was just because Christ did not want to hurt His Mother, or as merely a miraculous sign (though, for whom? Who would have possibly seen the state of Our Lady's cervix!?) along the lines that Aquinas, I believe, suggests that Christ took on each of the four features of a glorified body (impassibility, clarity, subtlety, and agility) during various miracles even before His Resurrection in glory.

So I'm not saying the traditional very extraordinary interpretation isn't possible or correct. I just don't know if the bare minimum of the dogma itself requires it. One would not seem to be a heretic (though, perhaps, guilty of something like "offense to pious ears") if one proposed any of the alternatives I mention above, as long as one held that the hymen itself remained unruptured somehow. I think there is at least room for discussion and debate when it comes to the "minimalist" vs "maximalist" interpretations of this dogma.

Our Lady remained even a physiological virgin in the miraculous birth of Christ, to be sure, but just how, by what method this was accomplished, or how much it implies for what specifically and concretely went on behind the "cloister wall" of the hymen (ie, in terms of the dilation of the cervix, or stretching of the birth canal, or bleeding and fluids, or the afterbirth)...I do not think are within the scope of the Revealed dogma itself. And so, I would also point out, that any teaching about lacking birthing pains would necessarily be a separate article of faith, as a lack of pain is not intrinsically required by either the idea of in partu virginity or the Immaculate Conception.

Old News Apparently, But So Funny

I'd never seen it, though many of you apparently already will have. From here: