Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 351

Fr Corapi Crash

What a mess! John Corapi--the Black Sheepdog--turns out to be very black indeed. Go here to read the press release by the leader of his religious order. Turns out the guy has a million buck's worth of property in his name, has been living with a prostitute, has been doing drugs, has cars, motorboats, motorcycles etc. When ordered to give it all up and return to his order's mother house and be disciplined he resigned from the religious order.



I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I was prepared to do so for John Corapi as well. It now turns out that he has been obstructive, disobedient, immoral, corrupt and causing just about the biggest scandal to the church possible.



I've been a Christian my whole life and I've seen so many pastors and priests crash and burn, and so many of them are the ones who were the most charming, the most 'successful' the most charismatic and wonderful. The higher they fly the harder they fall, and the best advice I can give to anyone who thinks a particular priest is wonderful is, "If a priest is too good to be true, Guess what?... he's too good to be true."





I have some experience as a priest and I have a bit of experience on the 'celebrity circuit' if a few appearances on EWTN and speaking at conference qualifies me. I can tell you it feels real nice to be treated like a celebrity. They pay your air fare and take you to dinner and ask you to sign their books. They wait in line just for a few moments to talk with you. I'm happy to do it because, through these ministries people are helped.



However, I don't believe any of the hype. It's not real, and the crowds who want to idolize you are not real. They're taking a day trip from reality and prefer to indulge their idol making than to face the reality of God and themselves and their real needs. Instead they project all their hopes and ideals and faith and desire outward on this celebrity priest or speaker. OK, maybe he really did help them and really did say inspiring things. That's good and we don't dismiss the good God can accomplish through a broken vessel.



But to fall into the trap of either creating a celebrity priest or to fall into the trap of believing the hype is a huge mistake. A friend of mine smelled a rat about John Corapi when he said he "didn't celebrate the sacraments much." She wondered what on earth kind of priest he was if the sacraments mattered so little to him.



Well, now we know and may the good Lord deliver us.

Independence Day

In the past I have had occasion to list, in no particular order, what I loved about England. On this Fourth of July allow me a list of what I love about the USA. Here goes.



Hot Dogs and Sauerkraut, Elvis Presley, It's a Wonderful Life, Drive In Restaurants, The Blue Ridge Parkway, Columbo, Amish people, Manhattan, Hamburgers, Flannery O'Connor, T-Shirts, Clear Creek Monastery, equality, Cole Porter, the saxophone, Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream, Katherine Hepburn, Makers Mark, Honda 750 Shadow Spirit, football, Shawshank Redemption, cranberry juice, generosity, Johnny Depp, shoo fly pie, North Carolina mountains, milkshakes, marching bands, T.S.Eliot, religiosity, Amusement Parks, Fiddler on the Roof, Aaron Copeland, Optimism, Indiana Jones, beauty pageants, Washington DC, Orthodontics, Frank Sinatra, Thomas Merton, Rib Eye Steaks, Charleston, Bar BQ, Tina Turner, ceiling fans, Myrtle Beach, Thanksgiving, gospel quartets, the community pool, oreos, baseball, clean toilets, Disneyland, Ray Ban sunglasses, B. B. King, Ronald Reagan, turtle track ice cream, Tennessee Williams, Entrepreneurial Spirit, Casablanca, Minnesota, pickles, Andrew Wyeth, pretzels, the Blues Brothers, Dorothy Day, patriotism, air conditioning, summer camp, Patsy Cline, speed boats, pecan pie, naivety, James Taylor, Manhattans, peanut butter, Catcher in the Rye, pizza, root beer, the pro life movement, friendliness, Dr. Pepper, conspiracy theories, peaches, front porches, EWTN, the Grand Canyon, corn on the cob, Renee Zellwegger, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, hash browns, the open road, Empire State Building, enthusiasm, gangster movies, Buster Keaton, fresh shrimp, Knights of Columbus, Guys and Dolls, Gershwin, freedom, the Shenandoah Valley, taking risks, Ella Fitzgerald, fried chicken, Robert Frost, radio preachers, cheerfulness, interstate rest stops, Redwood forests, Robert Duvall, cook outs, Niagara Falls,

Kitsch and Catholicism

I met a friend of mine named Kevin on the train from London to Cambridge about a year after becoming a Catholic. He was an Anglo Catholic of the sort who likes to collect fine china and drink lapsang souchong tea and roll his eyes. He said, (as they all do) "Yes, how interesting that you became a Roman Catholic. I think one day I shall take the step too."



I leaned forward and said to Kevin in a conspiratorial way, "I should warn you that when I became a Catholic and had those hands laid on me a very strange and unexpected miracle took place!"



Kevin said, "Really! What happened?"



"At that moment all good taste I ever had disappeared instantly. So be warned. If you become a Catholic you will no longer care for your china collection or your pre-Raphaelite prints."



Kevin was not amused. Which brings me to the question of the relationship of taste and Catholic iconography.



Producing a decent Catholic devotional image is more complicated than you think. The image--whether it is a painting or statue--has to look like a real person because a saint is a real person. This rules out abstract art. However, the person also has to look like a saint--in other words--a person who was supernaturally heroically holy. So how do you make it look like an ordinary person and an extraordinary person at the same time?



If you go too far towards the ordinary the picture just becomes mundane and the portrayal of the saint does not prompt devotion or inspire imitation or look like a person transformed by God's grace. However, if you try to make the image 'holy' through some device--like making the image huge or overpowering the saint becomes too godlike and massive. If you try to give the saint a 'holy' expression you may well fail and end up making the saint look simpering or super pious or spooky.



When this becomes the criteria (and not just some Western European idea of 'good taste') then our judgment on religious iconography shifts. Now we are judging the work on whether it is approachable by the masses by being realistic and ordinary looking and whether, on the other hand, it inspires devotion and prayer. It is possible, for instance, to look at a religious painting or statue and admire it's craftsmanship and skill and with an educated sense of 'good taste' see how fine it is, and yet never once desire to light a candle before the image and kneel down to pray.



If the criteria for sacred art is that it is accessible and ordinary while still communicating the numinous and the sacred, then one of the problems is that so much of our sacred art is in museums and not churches. I remember visiting Venice and seeing Bellini paintings in an art gallery in Florence, and then when I went to Venice and saw a similar painting still in the church that it was created for my experience of the artwork was increased a million times. In the gallery it was a dull museum piece. In the church it became an icon of devotion and love.



The experience of the art gallery for sacred art gets worse. So, for example, one may look at a huge number of fine paintings in museums and look at them as an 'artistic tourist' and admire the artwork, but never penetrate to it's real purpose. Because there are so many exquisite works of art removed from their context and shoved into one big building we get art overload. We simply can't appreciate that much beauty and reverence and skill in one afternoon. So after a few galleries we yawn and look for the ice cream stand. Even worse, we may visit an art gallery as some sort of degraded celebrity-home tour. "Ooh look! there's a Rembrandt and there's a Raphael!" So one even misses the artistic appreciation, focussing more on the nameplate than the painting itself.



If the criteria for sacred art is that it is accessible and yet still imparts the numinous, then our standards of 'good taste' are shifted. To appreciate the full range of Catholic art we need a paradigm shift. What Catholic art most successfully accomplishes this purpose? I think Eastern Orthodox icons do, and furthermore, they are descended from the first Christian forms of iconography. They look like 'real' people, but their stylized interpretation give them an otherworldly capacity. Along these lines, the art of the Siennese school--just before Giotto began to go more 'realistic' keeps the balance between realism and a stylized reflection of the holy. The Romanesque carvings of Ghiselbertius and the master of Autun and the carvings at Chartres, with their elongated forms and flowing, stylized robes and poses, also capture the balance between the realistic and the 'holy'.



When this becomes the criteria, then there is also room for Catholic art that those with 'good taste' would sneer at. The simple hand carved folk art of Central America--where the artist captures the pain and passion of the Lord in what seems a crude form works. So does the vast majority of Catholic statuary bought out of a catalogue. Yes, it's plaster or plastic and mass produced, but if the criteria is that it is recognizable and real and yet 'holy' and it inspires love and devotion, then it works.



Finally, the worst thing for sacred art is for an artist to want to be 'original'. How boring is that?! When doing sacred art, as in doing liturgy, stay within the tradition. Continue and be faithful to the tradition and do your very best workmanship and guess what, you will be 'original.' I have a good example of this in my parish office. We had a plaster St Joseph. Mass produce and spray painted. He was bashed up with a hand missing and the head nearly fallen off. I sent it to Anja Zunkeler in California (who happens to be my sister in law). She repaired the statue and then hand painted it. She worked within the tradition and actually improved on the mass produced plaster statue and it looks better now than the day it came off the assembly line.



Of course, art and architecture which is well done and beautiful is to be preferred. Michaelangelo instead of Thomas Kincade, and there are real criteria for good art and architecture, but that is not today's topic. Instead I am defending Catholic kitsch.



Finally, what is the role of kitsch? It's pretty low down on the priorities, but there is also a role for the tacky, plastic devotional items one sees in souvenir stands. They are imitative. The plastic holy water bottle of the Virgin Mary reminds the viewer of more worthy images, and ultimately of the Blessed Virgin. The kitsch also has the advantage of being affordable for people who are often very poor, and if their devotion to God is improved and they love their plastic St Therese and pray more, isn't that better than snobbishly sniffing and sneering at their 'bad taste'? Furthermore, kitsch makes Catholicism a bit more fun. There's a child like fun in having a post card of Jesus which changes into Mary when you move it. There's a sense of not being quite so serious when you have a glow in the dark rosary and actually use it at night when you can't sleep.



Here is my recommendation to all converts to Catholicism. Get a statue that you think is 'absolutely awful' and live with it. It will help you get Catholicism into your bones a bit more.



When my brother converted I bought him a little plug in Virgin Mary night light and said, "Now you're really a Catholic."

Treasures of the Church

Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, Greenville, SC, invites you to

a presentation about the role of Sacred Relics in the Catholic Church. This

presentation, along with an Exposition of over 150 Sacred Relics of the Saints,

will take place on Wednesday, July 13, at 7:00 p.m., at the church located at

3710 Augusta Road. The presentation will be given by Fr. Carlos Martins, a

priest of the religious order Companions of the Cross.



Among the 150 treasures to be shown will be relics of St. Maria Goretti, St.

Therese of Lisieux, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Thomas

Aquinas, St. Faustina Kowalska and more.  In addition, there will also be

present a piece of a veil which is believed to have belonged to Our Lady and one



of the largest remaining pieces of the True Cross in the world.



There will be an opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation at 5:15

p.m., concurrent with a period of Eucharistic Adoration concluding with

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.  Holy Mass will be celebrated at 6:30

p.m.  Fr. Carlos will give his teaching presentation at 7:00 p.m., immediately

followed by an opportunity to venerate the Sacred Relics during a devotional

period called "Walk With the Saints."



There is no charge for this event, but a free-will basket will be available for

those who might wish to make a donation to help defray expenses.

For more information contact the church by telephone at: 864-422-1648

Sweet Story

Go here for a sweet story about and eighth grade retreat run by some nuns.

Peter and Paul

Pope Benedict teaches that we can only interpret the Scriptures in the lives of the saints. This observation has transformed my life. I was brought up within Biblical Evangelicalism in which we had long Bible sermons on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. We had home Bible studies, youth Bible studies, women's Bible studies and men's Bible studies. All of us busy interpreting the Bible, "and what does that verse mean to you Mildred?"



Now don't get me wrong. I'm not down on Bible studies and the Catholics could certainly use a few more. Goodness, most Catholics think the Epistle to the Philippians was written to people living in the Philippines, and wouldn't know their Hezekiah from their Zachariah. So I'm not down on Bible studies, but what shook me up about Pope Benedict's little saying undermines not only the well meaning, individualistic Bible studies of the Evangelical faithful, but it also undermines the well meaning, individualistic Bible studies of the Liberal elite. The academics with their form criticism, source criticism, historical criticism, linguistic criticism, feminist criticism, metaphorical phantasmagorical criticism etc etc.--all of this is undermined as well.



Again, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm in favor of good scholarship and the insights that intelligent and conscientious scholars give us on Sacred Scripture, but all of it takes second place to the interpretation of the Scriptures through the lives of the saints.



Take, for example, the two glorious saints Peter and Paul. How can we ever understand the New Testament unless we attempt to understand these two great saints? Only when we study them as people and understand their motivations, their desires, their energy, their faults, their passions and their love and their enormous gift of faith and their magnificent hearts can we begin to really understand the power and the glory of the New Testament in all its magnificent unity and diversity.



The same applies to the whole Scripture. How can we really understand, "Unless you become as a little child you cannot enter the kingdom" unless we stop and consider St Therese, St Gianna, St Agnes and all the other virgin martyrs? How can we really understand the guts and the glory and the beauty and the passion and the pathos of the New Testament unless we study the lives of the saints?



I tell my catechists that they need just three resource books: the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and a good dictionary of the saints. So go for it!

The Vicar Goes to Lourdes

Guest blogger, The Rev'd Humphrey Blytherington is Vicar of St Hilda's, Little Snoring with All Saints, Great Snoring. He is a graduate of Plymouth University. He completed his studies for the ministry at Latimer Hall, Durham. He is married to Daphne and enjoys home brewing, model railroading and is an avid member of the Great Snoring Morris Dancers.





I must say, lads, it's awfully good to be back home. My idea of a holiday is a week in Norfolk with the bell ringers, visiting towers and working up a thirst and p'raps tootling around on a boat for a few days on the Broads. Instead Daphne cooked up this hair brained idea of taking Mrs. Doyle on a jaunt to a place over in France called Lourdes. Not really my cup of tea, but she who must be obeyed said Mrs Doyle had wanted to visit Lourdes her whole life, and never could manage being only an Irish char and all that. Besides, it seems Mrs. Doyle's arthritis is worse than ever and she was praying to the Blessed Virgin for a cure. Yours truly was drafted in to carry the bags it seems.So, against my better judgement, Daphne signs me up for the Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. Good heavens no! Not our diocese! Bishop Bracket wouldn't encourage that sort of thing at all. Doesn't mind us joining in with the Romans if it pleases us, but he certainly doesn't go in for all that Roman Catholic visions of Mary sort of thing. Bishop Bracket's a good solid, establishment man. He's a solid Anglo Catholic himself, but he tries to avoid extremes of all sorts, and the good thing about him is that he's willing to adapt himself to the mind of the church. I knew Jim Bracket when he was in theological college at Broadbent Hall. He was opposed to women being ordained, and wouldn't have any truck with queer fellas marrying one another, but once he saw which way things were going he was humble enough to change his mind. That's what we need in a bishop: someone who knows how to be flexible.Anyway, I'm getting off track. Daphne and Mrs Doyle and I turned up at Gatwick for the flight to Lourdes and knock me down with a feather, but the whole pilgrimage group was made up of folks in wheelchairs, mentally disabled folk and various others on crutches and sickbeds! Turns out they go every year, and the helpers are all these young folk wearing matching T-shirts being ever so cheerful and kind to everyone. Rather touching, I have to admit, but not what I was expecting. I went on an pilgrimage once to Italy with Fr Giles and his group over at St Barnabas and it was very pleasant--a lot of snooping around old churches and dining at good restaurants. Let me tell you, this jaunt to Lourdes was beginning to look a bit like hard work.





Then there was all the palaver about St Bernadette seeing the Blessed Virgin and digging a hole in the ground and water springing up and everyone being healed and so forth. I mean to say, it's all rather primitive, superstitious peasant sort of stuff isn't it?All this about visions of Mary--what next? "Ooh look, there's a picture of the Pope in a cream bun!!" Har Har. Luckily we Anglicans got rid of all that sort of thing at the Reformation. We haven't got that sort of underclass in Britain now I'm happy to say. Education has cleared all that up. The typical Englishman thinks things through carefully and isn't one to be taken in by religious kooks and emotional schoolgirls.But you know me, I'm never one to throw cold water on a project. I got stuck in, rolled up my sleeves and took my turn with the wheelchair of an old fellow named Jan something or other from Poland. Nice enough chap. Not so good with the English, but he knew a little French and I can manage well enough in Franglais, so we got on.Once we got there, I have to admit, it was all rather disappointing. The place was chock a block with souvenir stands selling the most outrageous collection of clutter. Rosary beads of every sort imaginable mixed in with holy water bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary, postcards and holy cards, pictures of the Pope and all the saints, crucifixes and plastic statues and knick knacks and tacky religious junk. Lots of those snow storms in domes with miniature churches and so forth. All in very bad taste of course, and that's one of the things I can't bear about the Romans. All that commercialism--and then there were the hotels and bars and guest houses--all making a pretty penny on the poor sick people who are coming there to pray. After a few drinks with Jan and the others I happened to comment on this and Mrs Doyle said, "Y'know Vicar, people come here to pray and they have to stay somewhere and eat and drink, so maybe the good folk who run the hotels and restaurants are simply doing them a service and you don't expect them to do it for free now do you?" At which point Daphne pipes up and says, "Humphrey, don't be such an unbearable snob. If people want to buy a souvenir of their visit what on earth's wrong with that, and if they happen to have different taste than you do, so what?" When I remonstrated that I wasn't being a snob, but merely protesting at the profiteering of the unscrupulous people hawking the souvenirs she said, "Nonsense. You don't know if they are unscrupulous. They might simply be honest businessmen making a simple living like anyone else, and I expect the prices are very reasonable because there's so much competition." Then she called me a "little Englander" and stomped off with Mrs Doyle for some sort of candlelight vigil or something.Things didn't get any better I'm afraid. They all rather ganged up on me for the rest of the trip and Fr. Baldwin--one of the fellows who poped over women's ordination and then was ordained as a Roman even though he has a wife and five children--he kept turning the conversation to the problems in our church and how happy he was as a Catholic and so forth. Not a very pleasant trip at all. Then to top it all, that fellow Jan bought me a souvenir as a way of saying thank you for pushing his wheelchair. Just what I'm going to do with a plastic statue of St Bernadette praying to the Virgin of the grotto, I have no idea.  Mrs Doyle drank some of the holy water and claims that her arthritis is much better, so I tried to give it to her but she smiled and said, "No, Vicar, I think the Good Lord has other plans for you, and I want you to keep St Bernadette there in your study in the Vicarage. It'll do you good!" What's that Ian? Well I'm in rather a tight spot there aren't I? I've got to keep St Bernadette on the mantlepiece in my study or Mrs.Doyle, who cleans in there will see that it's gone and I'll have some serious questions to answer, so yes, there she is and there she stays I suppose. Now, it's my round. What do you say we have a quick night cap and then I must be tootling home to Mrs Vicar. One good thing has come of the whole adventure, and that is that Daphne has taken to praying the rosary at night rather than try to discuss the Catholic faith with me. Ah! there we are. A double whiskey. Just what the doctor ordered. Thank you very much. Bottoms up!

The Encounter with Christ

Anyone who cares about promoting the Christian faith will want to encourage individuals towards an authentic encounter with Christ. Time and again the present Holy Father has stressed the fact that Christianity is an encounter with a real person, and not simply intellectual assent to a list of doctrines or strict observance of a list of regulations. However, what does the 'encounter with Christ' consist of?Where I live in the Bible Belt of the American South the 'encounter with Christ' means 'getting saved' or 'accepting Jesus into your heart'. This religious experience most often follows a particular pattern: Evangelical preaching about sin or some human problem or the need to 'know that you're going to heaven when you die' brings about an examination of conscience. An invitation to say the sinner's prayer follows. This is basically a prayer of repentance and an acceptance of Christ's saving work for that individual. The person is then encouraged to acknowledge that they have 'been saved' by coming forward to pray with someone, or by sharing their decision with a fellow believer.This transaction can happen at an Evangelical church  service, but it might just as well take place individually and privately after a conversation between two people. Thus an ordinary Christian could 'lead someone to salvation' or 'save a soul'. Most often this activity is linked with the Calvinistic belief in 'eternal security' which means that the now saved person belongs to Jesus forever and he can be certain that he is going to heaven when he dies.Now this is all well and good, and I'm glad that so many people have entered into Christian belief in this simple way, but it has it's problems. What about the good Christian folk who have never had that particular formulaic experience? What about the ones who did, but then walked away from it and started to live like the devil? Do they need to 'get saved again'? Can they lose their salvation? There are more difficult questions: this form of religious experience is most often very highly manipulated emotionally. A long sermon focussing on sin or unhappiness builds up desire for a solution. Emotional music softens the heart and promotes feelings of guilt and longing for release. Peer pressure and emotional pressure brings the person to the point of 'getting saved'. Does the manipulation mean that it is all bogus? Not necessarily, but many people are impervious to the emotional manipulation and actually respond in an opposite manner. Consequently, the 'altar call' of Evangelicalism may actually deter as many people as it convinces.This is just one example of how the 'Christ encounter' has been equated with subjective emotionalism. There are others. I happen to be very moved by classical music, fine architecture, a beautiful liturgy and emotional restraint. I come out of a 'high church' liturgy with great feelings of religious emotion. Does that mean I have had an encounter with Christ? Maybe, but maybe I was simply moved by the beauty in a similar way that the Evangelical is moved by the preaching, the simple emotional music and the other factors in that service. Some are moved by stirring preaching. Others are inspired and moved by their intellectual studies of theology. Others get all worked up in a charismatic service with hands waving, bodies swaying and all sorts of hootin' and hollerin'. Others believe that you 'encounter Christ' through the pursuit of your heart's desire--that Christ is locked into the thing you love, and as you pursue that you will find him. Maybe. Maybe not.What concerns me about all these versions of the 'encounter with Christ' is not that they are worthless, but that, on their own, they can actually be barriers to a true encounter with Christ. Each one of them may be part of a valid encounter with Christ, or a first step to an encounter with Christ, but they are not, themselves the encounter with Christ. If a person believes that they are the encounter with Christ they may well be mistaken and be following a lie. The fact that we have these 'stepping stone encounters' in a way that suits our personality and approach to life is what is at once both reassuring and worrying.The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us where we encounter Christ objectively. This objectivity balances and completes the 'stepping stone encounters'. The CCC says we encounter Christ in 1. the Sacred Scriptures 2. the Eucharistic Assembly 3. the person of the priest 4. the consecrated elements 5. the person of the poor. These five places to encounter Christ seem pretty adequate to me, and all the others seem not only rather hard work, but also subjective, unreliable and well, rather phony.

Sentimentalism and Subjectivity

A commenter on my post on artificiality has observed that Catholicism has it's share of sentimentalism, and he is correct. For some reason he associates Catholic kitsch with sentimentalism. I'm not sure the connection is apt, or at least not big enough for we have far more sentimentalism in the Catholic Church than is represented by the souvenir stalls at Lourdes.



Baroque is sentimental. Flamboyant Gothic is sentimental. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Divine Mercy and the Little Flower and the Seven  Sorrows of Mary are sentimental. I could go on and on. Geesh, Catholicism is overflowing with sentimental.



I never said sentiment is bad or that kitsch is wrong. I can't bear aesthetes, and I have grown to love the devotional expressions of ordinary Catholics--even when they are in 'bad' taste. Good taste in religion is the preserve of Anglicans. I'm happy to belong to a religion with tacky souvenir shops selling plastic rosaries and holy water bottles shaped like the Blessed Virgin and her crown unscrews to splash the holy water about. I'm happy to belong to such a religion because it is the religion of the unwashed, the unschooled and the holy poor. I love the Kings College Choir, but if I have to choose give me a fat Italian woman muttering her plastic beads faithfully before an image of the Infant of Prague. There's real religion.  The other (in my experience) is all form and no content.



Sentiment in religion is only wrong when it becomes sentimentality. In other words, when all there is, is sentiment. When all there is, is subjective emotionalism. Yes, we have sentimentality and high emotion in Catholicism, but underneath it all is the solid dogma, discipline and devotion of 2000 year of the Catholic faith. Within Protestantism, however, all that remains is subjective sentimentalism.



Whether it is the Protestant charismatic with his oozing emotions or the Evangelical Anglican who wants you to have an emotional experience called 'getting saved' or the urbane Anglican academic the underlying quicksand is, "I feel this is true for me therefore I feel it is the right way to be..." The sentimentalism of the Catholic pilgrim buying a post card of Jesus with googly eyes from a souvenir stand in Lourdes is, on the other hand, built on the rock solid objectivity of the Catholic faith.



Do we have dissenters from this faith in the Catholic Church? Of course we do. Big deal. Even the fact that they are dissenting proves the objective claims of the Catholic faith--otherwise they would have nothing to dissent from. They might be kicking against a rock, but at least the rock is there, and the fact that they are kicking against it validates it.

Artificial or Authentic

A reader observes and agrees with my comments on the artificiality of America, but asks why I don't provide an antidote to the poison. It's a good question, and very difficult to answer. In the face of a massive culture of shallow entertainment and artificiality how do you live an authentic life?



I know a couple of good Catholics who want to construct 'core communities' of like minded folks who will buy a property in the country and live together in family groups and have chickens and pigs and ducks and cows and live together and pray together living the simple life. But in our day and age isn't that also (in its own way) contrived and artificial?



Some folks recommend that we go back to our roots. One of the contributing factors to the artificiality is that we are so mobile. We move and live all over the place. If I, for example, were to go back to my roots, however, it would mean going back to Pennsylvania and living a Mennonite kind of life. This would be fake as well because that is not where I am. Other choices were made for me and by me at different stages and so to 'go back to my roots' would be artificial, and furthermore, I could only do that if my whole extended family went with me. Ain't gonna happen.



Shall I live more simply and not go to movies and theme parks and get rid of my car and cell phone and avoid fake Italian restaurants? That too would be pretentious and contrived, self conscious and artificial.



It's a Catch-22.



I think, therefore, the answer lies within. Each person must strive for authenticity within himself. Chesterton says, "Every argument is a theological argument." I believe that real authenticity can only be built from the ground up. It begins in the heart. Each one must seek first the kingdom of God so that everything else will be added to him. True authenticity is linked with the true faith. Only as we seek God in the fullness of the Catholic faith can we find true authenticity as well.



I don't like to use this blog to bite at Protestants, but when we look at the problem theologically and historically I can't help but draw the conclusion that Protestantism, with it's basis in nominalism, its political utilitarianism, its individualism and sentimentalism is at the root of the rot. I also say this because, when I travel to Catholic countries the artificiality and entertainment culture is not as bad.



I know my opinion is predictable, and I'm happy to be shot down, but put simply, the answer is for more people to be good Catholics.