Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 281

"The infinite intensity of God's goodness.": A CWR interview with Fr. Robert Barron

From the just-posted Catholic World Report interview with Fr. Robert Barron about the "Catholicism Project":

Father Robert Barron recently sat down in his Chicago-area offices with Father Matthew Gamber, SJ for a discussion about Barron's newly released 10-part DVD series, Catholicism.  Produced at a cost of three million dollars, all of which was raised through private donations, the series will be shown on nearly 90 public television stations around the US this fall. It will be broadcast on EWTN, as well.

The series covers the major themes of the Catholic faith—taking viewers on a world-wide tour of its doctrines, its past and present, its sights, sounds, and especially its people. Highly experienced professionals from the world of network television helped to produce the series, in which Father Barron serves as the narrator and master teacher.

Father Barron holds the Francis Cardinal George Chair of Faith and Culture at St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary near Chicago, and has been a guest professor at many of the pontifical universities in Rome. He heads the organization Word on Fire, which produced the series and which is dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel through the use of modern media.

CWR: In the midst of one of the episodes you pause to reflect, and seem to utter spontaneously the phrase, "The infinite intensity of God's goodness." This seems to be what the whole Catholicism series is meant to display—would you say that is a good summary statement, or perhaps your own motto for the project?

Father Barron: Yes, that would be a way to summarize it. It is because of this time we are going through. This time has been the worst crisis for the Catholic Church in American history due to the sex-abuse scandals. The Church has been on the defensive. I wanted to show the life-affirming message of the Gospel—that God became human that we might become like God. I want that to come through. I wanted that, because the Church has come through such a dark and negative period. The project was born of this dark period, I would say.

CWR: One priest, ordained about a decade ago, who recently viewed the program, said that he has never seen such a confident public presentation of the Catholic faith. Where did that of confidence come from in the midst of what you call a very dark period for the Church?

Father Barron: I came of age in what I have called and written about as "Beige Catholicism." Beige, literally, in the bland design of many of the churches that were built during that era, but also in its hand-wringing approach to apologetics. It seemed that, in the Church, we were willing—almost by instinct—to see the worst side of things. And this has not served us well. I wanted the program to be a bold and confident, but not cocky or off-putting, presentation. But bold and confident has been the way of the Church before me. There was St. Paul, who obviously represented a bold Catholicism. Think of G.K. Chesterton, think of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and their boldness in proclaiming the Gospel and the Church. We have this well-established instinct for self-critique nowadays, but I wanted to present the fuller and affirmative picture of the Church.

Read the entire interview on www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

New: "Saint Clothilde: The First Christian Queen Of France Tells Her Story"

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Saint Clothilde: The First Christian Queen Of France Tells Her Story

by Blandine Malé and Hélène Fabe-Henriet

Translated by Carlos Grider | Illustrated by Brunor

Thanks to the prayers and good example of his young wife, Clothilde, the fierce barbarian Clovis experienced a miraculous conversion on the field of battle and became a Christian in 496, forever changing the destiny of France.

In this book for young people, Queen Clothilde tells the exciting story of her life from her point of view. Though it reads like a diary, all of the historical facts have been thoroughly researched and verified by reliable sources.

Honored by the Catholic Church as a saint, Clothilde was the daughter of the King of Burgundy. Raised as a Christian by her mother, the princess was wed at the age of eighteen to Clovis, King of the Franks, who the legends say fell in love with her beauty.

King Clovis and Queen Clothilde unified the various peoples under Frankish rule by spreading the Catholic faith. The royal couple made Paris their capital, and from Belgium to the Mediterranean they founded churches and monasteries. For centuries to come, the people who would become the nation of France were the leaders of Christian civilization in Western Europe. Illustrated.

Blandine Malé and Hélène Fabe-Henriet have higher degrees in history, geography, classics and literature from French universities. Both women taught for many years in prestigious French secondary schools.

It's a problem, naturally, when a grand, comprehensive theory cannot account for itself

Timothy Williamson, the Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University, addresses the basic argument (put forth by Alex Rosenberg in a post, "Why I Am a Naturalist") that science is (as Rosenberg insists) "our most reliable source of knowledge and scientific method as the most effective route to knowledge", writing:

For Professor Rosenberg, it may turn out that "reality contains only the kinds of things that hard science recognizes." By "hard science" he seems to mean something like physics. He doesn't explain how that could turn out. How could physics show that reality contains only the kinds of things that physics recognizes? It sounds embarrassingly like physics acting as judge and jury in its own case. That physics does not show that there is such a thing as a debt crisis does not mean that physics shows that there is no such thing as a debt crisis: physics simply does not address the question. That is no criticism of physics; it has other work to do. For it to turn out that reality contains only the kinds of things that hard science recognizes, where they exclude things like debt crises, it would have to turn out that a radically reductionist metaphysical theory is true. That in turn would require industrial-scale argument at a characteristically philosophical level of reasoning. But I doubt that Professor Rosenberg counts philosophy as hard science.

We can formulate the underlying worry as a sharp argument against the extreme naturalist claim that all truths are discoverable by hard science. If it is true that all truths are discoverable by hard science, then it is discoverable by hard science that all truths are discoverable by hard science. But it is not discoverable by hard science that all truths are discoverable by hard science. "Are all truths discoverable by hard science?" is not a question of hard science. Therefore the extreme naturalist claim is not true.

Such problems pose far less threat to more moderate forms of naturalism, based on a broader conception of science that includes mathematics, history, much of philosophy, and the sensible parts of literary criticism, as well as the natural and social sciences. But we should not take for granted that reality contains only the kinds of things that science even in the broad sense recognizes. My caution comes not from any sympathy for mysterious kinds of cognition alien to science in the broad sense, but simply from the difficulty of establishing in any remotely scientific way that reality contains only the kinds of thing that we are capable of recognizing at all. In any case, Professor Rosenberg does not rest content with some moderate form of naturalism. He goes for something far more extreme, in the process lapsing into hard scientism.

See his entire post, "On Ducking Challenges to Naturalism", in the New York Times. Much could be said about different aspects of this debate, but in reading Williamson's post I was reminded of several different passages from the writings of Walker Percy (a former naturalist/positivist who became Catholic) and C. S. Lewis (a former atheist who became Anglo-Catholic). Here are a couple of sections from an essay about Percy that I wrote years ago that contain some of his thoughts on scientism:

"What did at last dawn on me as a medical student and intern, a practitioner, I thought, of the scientific method, was that there was a huge gap in the scientific view of the world. This sector of the world about which science could not utter a single word was nothing less than this: what it is like to be an individual living in the United States in the twentieth century." ("Diagnosing The Modern Malaise," p. 213) ...

Percy rightly dismissed the notion that people can live without an anthropological vision, that is, a specific understanding of who man is and what he meant for. "Everyone has an anthropology," he wrote in the essay, "Rediscovering A Canticle For Leibowitz." "There is no not having one. If a man says he does not, all he is saying is that his anthropology is implicit, a set of assumptions which he has not thought to call into question." His own conversion was due, in large part, to the realization that scientism –– the belief that the scientific method and the technology it produces can provide answers to man's deepest questions and longings –– was untenable and, in fact, was a lie. As a trained physician, Percy had respect for science when properly practiced and understood. But he saw many theories making claims to being "scientific," but in reality were ideological positions based on a subjective and self-serving view of reality. In the essay "Culture, The Church, And Evangelization," Percy wrote,

"The distinction which must be kept in mind is that between science and what can only be called 'scientism.' . . . [Scientism] can be considered only as an ideology, a kind of quasi-religion––not as a valid method of investigating and theorizing which comprises science proper––a cast of mind all the more pervasive for not being recognized as such and, accordingly, one of the most potent forces which inform, almost automatically and unconsciously, the minds of most denizens of modern industrial societies like the United States." ("Culture, The Church, And Evangelization," p. 297).

Percy traced scientism back to Continental philosopher René Descartes, believing the Cartesian distinction between the thinking mind and the rest of the physical world had finally produced its evil fruit in the twentieth century. This radical dualism shaped the ideologies of Communism and Naziism, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and secular humanism. Each of these belief systems, however well or poorly articulated, rejected God and set up man as the ultimate reference point for all of human activity, whether that activity was political, social, or sexual. Now freed from the confines of the supernatural order and objective truth, man could create and customize his own reality: totalitarian, egalitarian, hedonistic, or consumer-oriented.

Percy often noted the paradoxical fact that man can form a perfect scientific theory explaining the material world –- but cannot adequately account for himself in that theory. Man is the round peg never quite fitting into the square hole of scientism. "Our view of the world, which we get consciously or unconsciously from modern science, is radically incoherent," Percy wrote in his essay "The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind." Again, science must either recognize its own limits or create confusion: "A corollary of this proposition is that modern science is itself radically incoherent, not when it seeks to understand things and subhuman organisms and the cosmos itself, but when it seeks to understand man, not man's physiology or neurology or his bloodstream, but man qua man, man when he is peculiarly human. In short, the sciences of man are incoherent." ("The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault In The Modern Mind," p. 271). In a self-interview, "Questions They Never Asked Me," he put the matter more bluntly:

"This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, 'Scientific humanism.' That won't do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and infinite delight; i.e., God." ("Questions They Never Asked Me," p. 417)

Lewis, in the book, Miracles, made similar points:

All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning. If the feeling of certainty which we express by words like must be and therefore and since is a real perception of how things outside our own minds really 'must' be, well and good. But if this certainty is merely a feeling in our own minds and not a genuine insight into realities beyond them--if it merely represents the way our minds happen to work-then we can have no knowledge. Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.

It follows that no account of the universe can be true I unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, [22] and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an argument which proved that no argument was sound--a proof that there are no such things as proofs--which is nonsense.

Thus a strict materialism refutes itself for the reason given long ago by Professor Haldane: 'If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.' (Possible Worlds, p. 209)

But Naturalism, even if it is not purely materialistic, seems to me to involve the same difficulty, though in a somewhat less obvious form. It discredits our processes of reasoning or at least reduces their credit to such a humble level that it can no longer support Naturalism itself.

Percy put all of this rather succinctly in one of his early (and perhaps most famous) essays, "The Deltra Factor", writing: "The modern began to come to an end when men discovered that they could no longer understand themselves by the theory professed by the age." He wrote at length about the conflict of vision about the nature of truth and man between naturalists/adherents to scientism and artists/novelists, believing that it was the duty of the latter to plumb, describe, and present the mystery of man and existence. This is noteworthy because Rosenberg makes it clear that while literature and such is nice for some people, it can't be taken seriously as a means of real knowledge: "That doesn't mean anyone should stop doing literary criticism any more than forgoing fiction", he concludes. "Naturalism treats both as fun, but neither as knowledge."

A recent book that responds at length to that basic assertion is Western Culture at the American Crossroads: Conflicts Over the Nature of Science and Reason (ISI, 2011), by art historians Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller. In the opening chapter, they write:

Scientism takes for granted that knowledge is limited to empirical fact; modernists associate fact with an extrinsic rational clarity, while postmodernists associate fact with experiential power. In neither case is science associated with rational meaningful completion. The foundational premise of this pardigm of knowledge is positivism. But neither a factual and rational clarity, not power can remedy the Enlightenments' denial of wisdom—and therefore its denial of the unity of science and reason. As a consequence, it cannot defend culture as the arena of responsible freedom. At best it defends freedom as self-expession and self-realization in an ultimately purposeless world. As such, the modernist-postmodernist tradition is not only antagnostic to classical-Judeo-Christian culture; it is antagonistic to the very possibility of culture as the realm of responsible freedom. It denies the founational principle that as conscious beings all of humanity has the ability, responsibility, and intrinsic right to try and make good choices grounded to some degree on ontological reality. It denies that we have the right and responsibility to freely and conscientiously attempt to comprehend and pursue what is true, good, and beautiful. ...

If the conversation between culture, science, and reason cannot be resolved, then culture, science, and reason are trivialized and brutalized. As the Medievalists pointed out: ars sine scientia nihil est—art without science is nothing. Their point was that in daily life science (knowing), ethics (doing), and art (making) cannot be separated. But just as art without science is nothing, it was realized at the height of nineteenth-century positivist influence that science without lofty purpose is brutality. That brutality centers on the denial of reason and virtue as a means of living a cultured life.

If science is reduced to mere fact and meaning to mere feeling, then reason does not really matter.

More about the book on the ISI website.

Peter Kreeft: Twelve things to know about angels

As today is the Feast of of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels, here is a post from a couple of years ago that I'm re-posting for those who missed it the first time. It is an excerpt from Angels (and Demons): What Do We Really About Them? (Ignatius Press; 2004, sixth printing) by Peter Kreeft:

The Twelve Most Important Things to Know About Them

1. They really exist. Not just in our minds, or our myths, or our symbols, or our culture. They are as real as your dog, or your sister, or electricity.

2. They're present, right here, right now, right next to you, reading these words with you.

3. They're not cute, cuddly, comfortable, chummy, or "cool". They are fearsome and formidable. They are huge. They are warriors.

4. They are the real "extra-terrestrials", the real "Super-men", the ultimate aliens. Their powers are far beyond those of all fictional creatures.

5. They are more brilliant minds than Einstein.

6. They can literally move the heavens and the earth if God permits them.

7. There are also evil angels, fallen angels, demons, or devils. These too are not myths. Demon possessions, and exorcisms, are real.

8. Angels are aware of you, even though you can't usually see or hear them. But you can communicate with them. You can talk to them without even speaking.

9. You really do have your very own "guardian angel". Everybody does.

10. Angels often come disguised. "Do not neglect hospitality, for some have entertained angels unawares"—that's a warning from life's oldest and best instruction manual.

11. We are on a protected part of a great battlefield between angels and devils, extending to eternity.

12. Angels are sentinels standing at the crossroads where life meets death. They work especially at moments of crisis, at the brink of disaster—for bodies, for souls, and for nations.

Why do people think it's stupid to believe in angels?

One reason is a mistake about themselves: the failure to distinguish between (1) sense perception or imagination (which is a kind of inner sensing) and (2) reason, or intelligence, or understanding. We don't see pure spirits, and we can't imagine them. That doesn't mean we can't know or understand them. We can see and imagine the difference between a five-sided figure (a pentagon) and a six-sided figure (a hexagon), and we can also intellectually understand that difference. We cannot, however, sense or imagine the difference between a 105-sided figure and a 106-sided figure. Both look to us simply like circles. But we can understand the difference and even measure it exactly. So we can understand some things we can't see. We can't see qualities like good and evil either. What color or shape or size is evil? Yet we can understand them. We can imagine our brains, but not our minds, our personalities. But we can know them.

Many who deny angels deny or are uaware of the spiritual half of themselves. Angels are a touchstone of "know thyself". So are animals.

Aren't angels irrelevant today? This is the age of man, isn't it?

Yes, this is the age of man, of self-consciousness, of psychology. And therefore it is crucial to "know thyself" accurately today. The major heresies of our day are not about God but about man.

The two most destructive of these heresies—and the two most popular—are angelism, confusing man with an angel by denying his likeness to animals, and animalism, confusing man with an animal by denying his likeness to angels.

Man is the only being that is both angel and animal, both spirit and body. He is the lowest spirit and the highest body, the stupidest angel and the smartest animal, the low point of the hierarchy of minds and the high point of the hierarchy of bodies.

More accurately stated, man is not both angel and animal because he is neither angel nor animal; he is between angels and animals, a unique rung on the cosmic ladder.

But whichever way you say it, man must know angels to know himself, just as he must know animals to know himself, for he must know what he is, and he must know what he is not.

A free 80-minute lecture,"Aquinas and the Angels," by Peter Kreeft can be accessed here.

Peter Seewald describes Pope's visit to Germany as "a small miracle"

From Catholic News Agency:

In an interview with the Kath.net news agency sent to CNA for publication, German Catholic reporter Peter Seewald said the recent papal trip to Germany was a victory for the humility and message of the Pope.
 
In the interview, Seewald, author of "Light of the World," described the Pope's visit as "a small

miracle" because "shortly before there was a very aggressive, anti-clerical assault by the media." "All of this brings to mind George Orwell's '1984,' in which an imaginary enemy, a nightmare, is created in order to scare people."  "And yet," Seewald noted, "despite all of this incredible effort by the media, an innumerable amount of people stood up and refused to be deceived."
 
"They said the Germans would turn their backs on him and all kinds of other stupidities. There appears to be nothing more offensive in our times than being Catholic.  As the magazine 'Stern' said, 'The brief euphoria at the outset was followed by an irreparable distancing between the majority of Germans and their fellow countryman.'  It's as if they were saying that everything would be wonderful and orderly in the world if the Vatican just ceased to exist."
 
However, Seewald continued, "We were all witnesses to something much greater.  Where were all the masses of critics and protesters?  They never showed up.  And yet 350,000 people made great sacrifices in order to personally listen to the Pope and to attend Mass with him.  Millions watched on television.  The Pope's books are selling faster than ever … And undoubtedly never before has so much intelligence, wisdom and truth, so much of what is fundamental, been heard in Germany."
 
According to Seewald, whose own conversion to Catholicism came after meeting then-Cardinal Ratzinger, "(t)hese words can no longer be ignored. They are the measure and the touchstone for the subsequent debates and the renewal of the Catholic Church in Germany."  The only "shadows" of the Pope's trip to Germany were the massive attacks against him by the media, he said.

Read the entire article.

Books by Peter Seewald published by Ignatius Press:

• Light Of The World: The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times by Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, with Foreword by George Weigel
• Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait, by Peter Seewald
• God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Peter Seewald
• Salt of the Earth: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church at the End of the Millennium, by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Peter Seewald

Catholic Social Thought in Proper Context

Catholic Social Thought in Proper Context | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Ignatius Insight | September 29, 2011

Brian Benestad, Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011.
500 pp.
ISBN 978-0813-21801-4.
$34.95 paperback.

"The concept of justice as order in the soul of the individual needs to be rediscovered today." — Benestad, 144.

"Nowadays, service to others is often presented as the distinguishing characteristic of a Catholic university; but without linking that service to the prior task of seeking truth and achieving some order in one's soul through prayer, a sacramental life, acceptance of the Catholic creeds, and the practice of Christian morality. It seems naïve to me, and even Pelagian, to think that Christ-like service can be informed and embrace without a foundation in Christian doctrine and a basis in learning." — Benestad, 284.

I.

We have been waiting for this remarkable book for a long time, one that knows not just episcopal and papal thought but the whole history of theology, political philosophy, and philosophy at large. This book has roots not only in the Greeks and Romans, but also in Scripture and the great theologians of the Church. And it is aware of the pitfalls of language and ideas that often steer Christian thinkers into the heady, dangerous realms of ideology. Dr. Brian Benestad knows his Locke and Hobbes, his Marx, and the more modern liberal relativist theories associated with Rawls and other American writers.

Benestad, at the University of Scranton, is the best qualified and able of American scholars to write an overall understanding of Catholic Social Thought, which has tended to become a rather narrow and isolated body of knowledge. Benestad's mentor, whom he often cites and whose collected essays he edited, was the late Father Ernest Fortin, A.A. Fortin, along with Heinrich Rommen, Jacques Maritain, Yves Simon, John Courtney Murray, and Charles N. R. McCoy, was certainly the most critical and acute mind in the intellectual circles of his time. Fortin covered the whole gamut of thought from Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, to the Fathers of the Church, Aquinas, Aquinas, Dante, and into the modern world. Fortin was familiar with Strauss and Bloom and their critiques of modernity.

This book is more than the "introduction" of its sub-title. It is nothing less than a critical, philosophical reflection on the whole tradition of what is loosely called "social thought or doctrine." It knows its way through the relation of reason and revelation. Its range includes economics, environmentalism, universities, political institutions, war, life and family questions, subsidiarity, and culture. Metaphysics is always just below the surface.

Benestad, to be sure, unlike Plato, Aristotle, and the current pope, does not have much to say about music. But he makes remarkable use of classic literature and novels to illustrate virtues and vices. He is obviously a broadly learned man in the tradition of liberal education. This overlook of social thought is doubly necessary as many of the basic words and notions that are found in modern thought and in political usage are anything but neutral or friendly to what Catholicism is and what it holds.

Read the entire review on Ignatius Insight...

"The Church is like Noah's ark that was full of ..."

... both clean and unclean animals. It must have had an unholy smell, and yet it was carrying eight persons to salvation. The world today is tearing up the photographs of a good society, a good family, a happy, individual personal life. But the Church is keeping the negatives. And when the moment comes when the world wants a reprint, we will have them."

— Entry for September 28th, from Through the Year with Fulton Sheen: Inspirational Readings for Each Day of the Year (Ignatius Press, 2003), compiled and edited by Henry Dieterich.

Pope reflects on apostolic trip to Germany, "a great feast of the faith"

From VIS News:

VATICAN CITY, 28 SEP 2011 (VIS) - During today's general audience, celebrated this morning in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI reflected on his recent apostolic trip to Germany, defining it as "a great feast of the faith" during which he had seen "how it is God Who gives our lives their deepest meaning, their true fullness".

The Pope recalled the various stages of his journey, beginning with his visit to Berlin where, before the Federal Parliament, he had "expounded on the foundations of law and the rule of law; that is, the measure for all laws inscribed by the Creator into the very heart of His creation". After addressing the Bundestag, he had gone on to meet members of the German Jewish community with whom, "having recalled our shared roots of faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we highlighted the fruits that have thus far emerged from dialogue between the Catholic Church and Judaism in Germany". In his subsequent meeting with members of the Muslim community, the Pope had reflected on "the importance of religious freedom for the peaceful development of humankind".

Benedict XVI then went on to speak of his satisfaction at seeing such large numbers of people in attendance at the Mass he had celebrated at the Olympic stadium in Berlin. On that occasion he had dedicated his homily "to the importance union with Christ has for our personal lives as believers and for our being Church, His mystical body".

The Holy Father had then gone on to visit the region of Thuringia, cradle of the Protestant Reformation. Hence, said Pope Benedict, "the particular ecumenical emphasis of that second stage of my journey". In Thuringia he had met with members of the German Evangelical Church Council in the city of Erfurt, where Martin Luther had joined the Augustinian order and been ordained a priest. In the former Augustinian convent of Erfurt "we again saw how important our combined witness of faith in Jesus Christ is in today's world. ... We need to make joint efforts on the journey towards full unity", however "only Christ can give us that unity, and we will become increasingly united to Him in the extent to which we return to Him and allow ourselves to be transformed by Him".

The Pope also mentioned the Vespers he had celebrated at the Marian shrine of Etzelsbach, located on "a strip of land that has always remained Catholic through the vicissitudes of history, and the inhabitants of which courageously opposed the dictatorships of Nazism and Communism". During Mass the following day in the Cathedral Square of Erfurt, the Pope had spoken about the patron saints of Thuringia - Elizabeth, Boniface and Kilian - highlighting "the shining example of the faithful who bore witness to the Gospel under totalitarian regimes. I invited the faithful to be saints today, worthy witnesses of Christ, and to contribute to building our society", he said.

The Pope went on: "I had a moving encounter with Msgr. Hermann Scheipers, the last living priest to have survived to concentration camp of Dachau. At Erfurt I also had the opportunity to meet some victims of sexual abuse by clergy, to whom I spoke of my regret and my participation in their suffering".

The last stage of the Pope's apostolic trip took him to the archdiocese of Freiburg im Breisgau. There he had presided at a prayer vigil with young people, where "I was happy to see that the faith in my German homeland has a young face, that it is alive and has a future", he said. "I told them that the Pope trusts in the active collaboration of the young. With the grace of Christ they can bring the fire of God's love into the world".

Another outstanding moment of his visit was his meeting with seminarians. "I wanted to show those young men the beauty and greatness of their divine call, and to offer them some help to continue their journey joyfully and in profound communion with Christ", the Pope said. Referring then to his encounter with representatives from the Orthodox Churches, the Pope laid emphasis on "the shared duty to be a leavening for the renewal of our society".

Mass celebrated at the airport of Freiburg im Breisgau gave Benedict XVI "the opportunity to thank everyone involved in various areas of ecclesial life, especially the many volunteers who collaborate in charitable initiatives. It is thanks to them that the German Church is able to offer such great assistance to the universal Church, particularly in the mission lands. I reminded them that their precious service will be fruitful as long as it derives from an authentic and living faith, in union with the bishops and the Pope, in union with the Church. Finally, before my return, I addressed a thousand Catholics active in the Church and society, to whom I proposed certain points for reflection on Church activity in a secularised society, on the call to be free from material and political burdens in order to be more transparent to God".

"This apostolic trip to Germany", Pope Benedict concluded, "provided me with an opportunity to meet the faithful of my own homeland, to confirm them in faith, hope and love, to share with them the joy of being Catholic. But my message was also addressed to the German people as a whole, inviting them to look to the future with trust. It is certain that 'where God is, there is a future'".

The addresses and homilies given by Benedict XVI during his recent apostolic journey to Germany can be accessed on the Vatican website.

The Gospel and the Origin of Christian Monasticism

The Gospel and the Origin of Christian Monasticism | The Introduction to The Desert Fathers: Saint Anthony and the Beginnings of Monasticism | Peter H. Görg

"They build houses as though they were going to live forever, and they eat as though they were going to die tomorrow!" This description of his fellow citizens goes back to one of the Greek philosophers of antiquity, but it could just as well have originated in our day. At the same time it expresses something of the general human endeavor to settle down in this world and not to miss anything. What matters, supposedly, is not the number of years but rather the intensity of one's life, by which is generally meant in turn the greatest possible potential for experiencing pleasure. Since this attitude can be found in all ages and in all places, the very existence of the Christian monk represents a protest. This protest is directed against a hedonistic society that sees its sole purpose for existence in maximizing pleasure and in fun, and likewise against a form of narrow-minded bourgeois existence that is satisfied with managing a pleasant life in this world. From this perspective the monk is countercultural, someone who is striving precisely for another sort of life.

The very term "monk" can be interpreted in several ways, which at the same time reflect the living reality. Whereas the translation "alone" (in Greek mónos) reminds us more of the hermit, we can also speak—as John Cassian, for example, does—about someone who leads a "singular" or "uncommon life". The Christian monk knows only one goal: the absolute submission of his whole being to God by imitating Christ. This imitation assumes its concrete form chiefly in following the so-called evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty, and celibacy [Ehelosigkeit]. So as to be able to live out this imitation of Christ radically and totally, the monk leaves the "world". He renounces all natural ties and at the same time frees himself from those temptations that accompany material possession.

The origin of Christian monasticism can be seen in the Gospel itself, in Christ's invitations to leave everything for his name's sake (cf. Mt 19:29), and likewise in the example of the Redeemer, of the God-man who in his earthy life modeled the aforementioned counsels. And already in the Acts of the Apostles we encounter monastic elements, when it is reported about the early Christian community that they were united in personal poverty, in fellowship, and in the praise of God (cf. Acts 2:42-47; 4:32). Here we find also the beginnings of a special virginal state of life (Acts 21:9) and the first indications of asceticism. The ascetical way of life was realized in the first two Christian centuries chiefly in two forms. First there was itinerant asceticism, which was based primarily on the Scripture passages about the sending forth of the first disciples (see Lk 10:1-12) who roamed the world on missionary journeys. These ascetics are said to have been influential well into the early medieval period, although they were not always regarded favorably by the Church because of their sometimes disorderly way of life. The other and most common form was exemplified by those ascetics who lived in the family and the Christian community and formed, so to speak, their inner circle and spiritual center. They led an unmarried life, ready to give to the poor and to the community everything beyond what they needed to support themselves. Abstinence from wine and meat can be found in this early phase also, and among the ascetical women, who probably originated with the enrolled widows, one can discern a special vow of continence. As time went on, this asceticism, which consisted in renouncing food, sleep, and other amenities of life, naturally required reflection and correction again and again to keep it from falling short of its actual goal of perfection and becoming an exercise in hostility to the body.

It was not until the third century that a movement began in which the ascetics increasingly detached themselves from their social surroundings and separated themselves spatially from the world so as to lead the life of a hermit. This was the origin of eremitical monasticism, which was already accompanied by a certain monastic garb that was distinguished by its simplicity. The designation "hermit" comes from the Greek. Whereas the corresponding adjective eremos means "solitary" or "living in seclusion", the noun is used for both "solitude" and "desert", which brings us directly to our topic. In Latin the loan-word eremita acquired the meaning "recluse", which is familiar to us. Early on these hermits also recognized the need for a spiritual father so as not to go astray in their asceticism and spiritual life. He acquired the Greek title "Abbas", which in the time of Jesus was used to address the father of a family. Among the Desert Fathers one figure was especially preeminent: Abbas Anthony, who is also known as Anthony the Hermit [and Anthony the Abbot and Anthony the Great].

In the year 2006 the Church observed the 1650th anniversary of the death of the saintly hermit and abbot Anthony. Because of his greatness and importance he exemplifies the beginning of monastic life. This book is meant to contribute in some small way toward making Anthony the Great better known again to twenty-first-century Christians as well. Hence the focus of this presentation is the life and work of the saint. Incidentally from time to time there will be explanatory remarks to make it easier for the reader to understand the unfamiliar world of the ascetic. Moreover, in presenting the life of Anthony it will be necessary to call to mind again truths of the faith that have almost been buried in the sands of time, for instance, with regard to the possibility of miracles or the existence of purely spiritual beings. In order to corroborate the credibility of miraculous events we will refer in the appropriate places to similar incidents in the lives of modern saints. This presentation thereby clearly sets itself apart from many publications in recent decades that either completely deny the possibility and factuality of God's miraculous intervention in our world (in other words, the irruption of transcendence into immanence), or interpret it in purely symbolic terms, or else relegate it to the realm of psychology.

Scarcely any other saint has fascinated and inspired the artists of all ages as much as the Egyptian hermit. Painters such as Hieronymus Bosch, Matthias Griinewald, Pieter Brueghel, Lukas Cranach, or even Salvador Dali and Max Ernst repeatedly dealt with motifs from the life of the Abbot, and in literature there are numerous references and allusions to this great man, who was the bedrock of asceticism. Being an important saint of the Church he can help the faithfuldespite or precisely because of the strangeness of his foreign extraction, his way of life, and his thought-as a model along the path to sanctity. His experiences in the spiritual life and the ideas derived from it have a timeless beauty and validity.

For many centuries, furthermore, Christians in the East and the West have confidently turned to this saint and have experienced the help of his intercession. This book is meant to encourage all its readers to do so also, especially those, of course, who honor the hermit as their patron saint (Anthony, Antoinette, Anton, Toni, and so forth) or the patron of their parish.

The second part of this book presents other great figures who either were themselves among the Desert Fathers or were inspired by them. We will hear about the primordial hermit, Paul of Thebes, who is said to have sought seclusion in the desert many years even before Anthony. We will learn how real monasteries developed under the direction of Pachomius and how the monks discovered life in community as cenobites. The story of Syrian monasticism and of its particular exponents, like the pillar dweller Simeon, will be related, as well as the history of the monks in Asia Minor, headed by the great theologian and bishop Basil.

Although we then turn also to the further development of monasticism and thus leave the desert behind, it always remains in the background, because the entire monastic movement relied again and again on its sources in the desert. Indeed, the great promoters of monasticism and asceticism in the West often had one thing in common: in their early years they visited the monks in Egypt and Palestine. They set out on the arduous journey to visit the Desert Fathers and their disciples. And we too want to set out now on that journey.

More about the book:

The Desert Fathers: Saint Anthony and the Beginnings of Monasticism
by Peter H. Görg

• Also available in electronic book format

In the late third century, more and more people withdrew to the radical seclusion of the desert so as to live entirely for God under the direction of a spiritual father. Among these "Desert Fathers" one figure is especially preeminent: Saint Anthony the Hermit.

This book takes the reader back to the hour when monasticism was born and describes the life of those revolutionary Christians who sought God in the Egyptian desert. The focus of the book is the life and work of Saint Anthony, whose experiences of the spiritual life have a timeless beauty and validity, even for those not called to live as a monk.

The second half of the book presents other Desert Fathers, such as Paul of Thebes, Pachomius, and Simeon Stylites, as well as the great founders of the monastic communities in Western Europe who were inspired by them: John Cassian, Columban, and Benedict, for example.

"The monk's self-denial begins radically in precisely those departments of life which have perennially seemed to be the most important: ownership, self-determination and sexuality. At the same time those who admonish so uncomfortably become the salt that lends Christianity its original flavor. . . . Just as the saints are God's specific answer to the needs of a given time, so too are the religious orders that have been founded over the course of the centuries."
- Peter Görg

"These are the men who taught the world to pray - really pray. They fled to the desert to avoid the crowds, yet drew disciples from everywhere. They still do. They're drawing you and me, right now, to join them in the greatest adventure. Our desert begins in these beautiful pages by Peter Görg."
- Mike Aquilina, Author, The Fathers of the Church

Peter H. Görg studied philosophy and theology in the German universities of Vallendar, Fulda and Augsburg, where he received his doctorate in dogmatic theology in 2007. Dr. Görg is an assistant professor of systematic theology at the University of Koblenz. He has written numerous articles and reviews for theological journals.

There are only two things that really progress (and they aren't "progressives")

The always readable and ever thoughtful Anthony Esolen ponders:

But this brings me again to the term "progressive." What does it mean?

If I call myself a liberal, I claim to uphold the principle of individual liberty. It may well be that liberal policies actually destroy liberty, but that is a problem with the use of the term "liberal," and not with the nature of the term itself. If I call myself a conservative, I claim to uphold the principle that tradition is a source of wisdom from which we dare to swerve only with great reluctance. It may well be that policies called conservative actually destroy tradition, but again, the problem lies with usage, and not with the nature of the term. I am a localist, because I believe that local government and local groups should do most of the practical governing in our lives—the educating of children, for instance, keeping the peace, and celebrating feasts. I am a distributist, because I advocate a wide distribution of personal property. Some people are monarchists, some people are republicans, some people are even anarchists. But what is a progressive?

The term does not actually denominate anything. It is the obverse of reactionary, which is itself merely a term of abuse. That is, the reactionary reacts irrationally against something new and wonderful, and the progressive is the upholder of that novelty. About where we are going, nothing is said; the term is empty. Hitler thought he was progressive. Stalin thought he was progressive. And by their own lights, they were right about that; they were energetically progressing somewhere, "into the future," as another empty platitude has it. Now I do not mean to say that contemporary self-styled progressives are like Hitler (whom the erstwhile progressive Margaret Sanger admired) or Stalin (whom Western progressives lionized for twenty years). All I mean to say is that the term's purpose is self-approbation. Perhaps nowadays it is equivalent, practically, to "sexual libertarian with a statist vision of political life," but in itself, the term implies no such thing. It implies only that the user thinks well of himself and not so well of other people, particularly his own forebears, whom he by definition wishes to leave behind.

The progressive, as it seems to me, is therefore always in a position of impiety.

Read the entire post, "Progressive Impiety", on The Public Discourse. G. K. Chesterton, who grew up and lived in the so-called "Progressive Era" (c. 1890s-1920s), made a number of fine observations about the amorphous, vague, and malleable word, "progress". "If we are bound to improve," he slyly noted in Orthodoxy, "we need not trouble to improve. The pure doctrine of progress is the best of all reasons for not being progressive." And in his novel, The Ball and the Cross (1909), a character states:

No; there are only two things that really progress; and they both accept accumulations of authority. They may be progressing uphill and down; they may be growing steadily better or steadily worse; but they have steadily increased in certain definable matters; they have steadily advanced in a certain definable direction; they are the only two things, it seems, that ever can progress. The first is strictly physical science. The second is the Catholic Church."

On the more overtly negative side, Chesterton observed, progress quite often means oppression, especially of real humanity and the ordinary man. See if this passage from The Common Man (a collection first published in 1950) seems applicable today:

The enlightened and emancipated age especially encouraged those who chucked away other people's fortunes instead of their own. But anyhow, the comparison remains continuous and clear. Progress, in the sense of the progress that has progressed since the sixteenth century, has upon every matter persecuted the Common Man; punished the gambling he enjoys and permitted the gambling he cannot follow; restrained the obscenity that might amuse him and applauded the obscenity that would certainly bore him; silenced the political quarrels that can be conducted among men and applauded the political stunts and syndicates that can only be conducted by millionaires; encouraged anybody who had anything to say against God, if it was said with a priggish and supercilious accent; but discouraged anybody who had anything to say in favour of Man, in his common relations to manhood and motherhood and the normal appetites of nature.  Progress has been merely the persecution of the Common Man.

But on a more philosophical and positive note, true progress requires knowing what man is and Who he is meant for in The End:

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us. ... All this fallacy of false progress tends to obscure the old common sense of all mankind, which is still the common sense of every man in his own daily dealings: that everything has its place and proportion and proper use  and that it is rational to trust its use and distrust its abuse. Progress, in the good sense, does not consist in looking for a direction in which one can go on indefinitely.  For there is no such direction, unless it be in quite transcendental things, like the love of God. It would be far truer to say that true progress consists in looking for the place where we can stop. (Fancies Versus Fads, 1923).

One of the more maddening (but consistent) qualities of progressives is their blithe insistence that history is on their side, to the point that they will misread and/or misrepresent progressive errors of the past and use them as evidence for a pressing need for more progressive measures today. For example, a New York Times columnist recently took up the historical hammer of the Prohibition as a weapon against the (supposedly) puritanical, right-wing, tax-hating, government-destroying conversatives of 2011:

The battering ram of the prohibitionists was the Anti-Saloon League, which Okrent calls "the mightiest pressure group in the nation's history." (A public editor might note that Okrent overuses the word "mighty," a minor complaint.)

The coalition against drink was hardly a majority. The Anti-Saloon League played an outsized role at the margins, killing off moderates at the primary level, or in legislative deals, and forcing politicians to pledge to their cause.

Sound familiar? Today, virtually every Republican in national office, and a majority of those seeking the presidency, has taken a pledge to an unelected, single-issue advocate named Grover Norquist. His goal is to never allow a net tax increase — under any circumstances — and in the process reduce government to a size where he can "drown it in the bathtub," in his well-known statement of mortal intentions.

Oddly enough, the author had noted earlier that the Prohibition was driven by progressive groups and "progressive" thinking. But, miraculously, he turns the wine of the Prohibition into a water of government-shrinking zealots who are also narrow-minded moralists intent on demonizing homosexuality and abortion:

The other parallel from the dry years concerns personal liberties. With the 18th Amendment, the prohibitionists took away the right to make a basic choice. Gov. Rick Perry, now leading the Republican polls for president, has vowed to do the same, promising to amend the Constitution in several ways to take away freedoms. One would prevent gays from ever getting married. Another would outlaw a woman's right to decide when to end a pregnancy. A third would repeal the 17th Amendment, which gives citizens the right to directly elect their senators.

It would be as if, say, numerous historians stated repeatedly that the Crusades were driven by a Papal and Romanist lust for expansion and bloodshed against the peaceful, flower-carrying Muslims during the medieval era. (What? Some historians have done that? Wow, go figure.) The fact is, the Prohibition was primarily a left-wing, progressive movement that was as much of the Progressive Era mentality as was eugenics and other forms of state-controlled social engineering:

As so often happens in the United States, leaders of this social movement tried to justify their views with scientific evidence. Temperance advocates, for example, founded the Scientific Temperance Journal after the Civil War. Schoolchildren's textbooks depicted human organs degenerating from an overabundance of drink. In the 1870s, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) promoted the use of public education for the cause of temperance. They succeeded in getting their propaganda in textbooks and, by 1902, every state and territory except Arizona had a law requiring temperance instruction in the schools. The prohibitionists also used eugenics--the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding--to bolster their cause. They argued that immigrants were inferior due to the fact that their children had been drinking since a young age. ("The Politics of Prohibition: The 1920s")

Yes, many Christians were involved in the Prohibition movement—and they were mostly liberal, white Protestants who had drunk deeply from the waters of the "Social Gospel" movement (aided, it must be said, by more than a little racisim and dislike for Irish Catholic immigrants). And what power did the progressives lean on and use in order to bring about the Prohibition? That of the federal government, of course, which was itself increasingly enamored with the idea that a centralized state could efficiently and morally control and guide its citizens in matters big, small, and everything betwixt. All of which to say that the Prohibition was mostly the work of middle-class, white Protestants who subscribed to liberal theologies, believed that eugenics and social engineering were both necessary and good, and happily worked to have the federal government take over a significant part of the social, cultural, and economic life of the country.

And that is parallel to the current-day conservatives who wish to limit government growth, expand individual liberties, and lessen the grip of the welfare state—how? Right (I mean, "Left"). No need to ask; just accept that "progress" is good and that "progressives" can only do good, for when progressives do bad in the past, they only failed (in retrospect) because they were somehow or another acting like conservatives.