The Benedict Option In Europe

In Rome recently, I did an interview with Solène Tadié of National Catholic Register. It has appeared on their website now. Excerpts:

Is there any specific European country or group that can be a leading force for the West?

As someone who grew up at the time of John Paul II, I always thought of Poland as a fortress of faith. When I went there last year for the first time, I was shocked to hear from young Catholics that still go to Mass. They feel that Poland is maybe 10 or 20 years away from becoming Ireland. They fear that Catholicism has become mostly cultural. I don’t know if it is true, but this concern is very real there.

I have not found in my travels a lot of reasons to hope very broadly for the Church because we are all in crisis. But when I meet these small communities of young Catholics who really see through the fog to the reality of our situation and want to find ways to live by the truths they were taught by the Church, their families and traditions, it is a beautiful thing.

I cannot say that one country has it better than the other, but I have seen in Eastern countries of Europe like Poland or Slovakia a very strong sense of what we are losing, especially because they do have a memory of what it was like under communism and what the communists tried to take from them.

One thing I find, too, is the sense that we have to form networks across national boundaries. It has been a great pleasure of mine since I’ve been starting the “Benedict Option” project to connect with Christians in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Eastern Europe so they can know each other. We need to know each other because we don’t know how important it will be in the future to know where your friends are. One thing I’ve learned from talking to the Christians who suffered from communism is how bad it can get very quickly. I keep talking about soft-totalitarianism, but the people I speak to, who grew up under communism, tell me, “Stop saying ‘soft’; what is happening is getting very hard.” So, maybe I am not alarmist enough, but we’ll see.

We must reject strongly the attacks that we are receiving, but one important thing is that we can’t say what we are against without saying what we are for. The first time I went to Subiaco, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of what the Lord did for St. Benedict; and one reason why I am a Christian today is because of what happened in that cave in the sixth century. It is part of the essence of Roman and European civilization. If we don’t love it and defend it, it is like betraying your own father.

You left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy years ago, and yet your highest model for rebuilding our civilization is St. Benedict of Norcia and his new Catholic disciples of today. How do you explain that?

I am an Orthodox Christian. And St. Benedict is an Orthodox saint, also. All these saints were part of the Church before the [Great] Schism. But even if I were a Protestant, I would look the same to Benedict, because he is a spiritual father of all of us who believe in Jesus Christ. Even Protestants could look to what he did and why he did it as a source of hope and inspiration. As someone who loves the Catholic Church, and I am grateful to what it gave to me, and who especially loves Joseph Ratzinger, I want to try to build bridges among the Churches. I believe that today we need to build solidarity in the face of the coming oppression. I don’t believe in false ecumenism: I want Catholics to be Catholics, Orthodox to be Orthodox; but I also realize that we have a common interest in the brotherhood that creates bonds between these — bonds of love, fidelity and duty. We have to speak up for each other. If persecutors come for the Catholics or the Protestants or the Orthodox, we must stand up for them, because, ultimately, these persecutors will come for us.

What prevents you from coming back to the Catholic Church?

I don’t believe anymore in the claims of Catholicism and its authority. But I have to say that to look at what happened in the Catholic Church under Pope Francis is very concerning for me: the Amazon synod, for example, and the presence of pachamama. I saw this and I thought it was a sign of such a profound spiritual disorder. I have a lot of very good Catholic friends, and I pray for them so that they can resist that sort of thing within the Church. When I became a Catholic in 1993, the Church looked very different. It was under Pope John Paul II; and when I left in 2006, Pope Benedict was in charge, and it still looked like a solid rock. It is not the case anymore.

I didn’t go the Orthodox Church because I thought it has no scandals. We have these problems in every church. But the mistake I made as a Catholic was to make an idol of the institutional Church itself. I was so intellectually arrogant; and that is not the Catholic Church’s fault — it is mine. That left myself quite vulnerable. I started reporting on the sexual scandals when I was a columnist at the New York Post in 2001. I thought I had prepared myself for this by having the right arguments in my head. However, this wasn’t about arguments, but about facing real evil. If I had prepared myself spiritually more, through prayer, more devotion, I might have had the strength to resist it. I tell every Christian that if they think that just because they have the arguments straight in their head, they’ll understand anything, they’re wrong. They need to pray more in their body.

Read the whole thing. I really enjoyed talking to Solène, who is a great interviewer.

I wish I had been more precise in my ecumenical remarks. In truth, I desire that all Christians would be united in the Orthodox Church. I don’t expect that to happen, though, and in any case don’t consider it my calling to make that happen. I wanted to express that I see my calling not as proselytizing for Orthodoxy, but rather to build bridges among all small-o orthodox Christians. Please don’t read my words as indifference to one’s Christian confession. That’s not what I mean.

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