Carl's Cuts for August 27, 2013

Carl's Cuts for August 27, 2013 | Catholic World Report blog

• Having
recently
published Dale Ahlquist's review of Fr. Robert Wild's book, The
Tumbler of God: Chesterton as Mystic (Angelico Press, 2013), I
was reading a bit about Servant of God, Catherine de Hueck Doherty
(1886-1995), as Fr. Wild is the postulator for her cause. I confess
that I knew very little about her life and work until then. Here is a
good example of her writing:

One
of the things I noticed going on today is a constant discussion of
the fact that the Church is too structured, too this, too that, and
that we have to start a movement of liberation from the structures. I
prayed about this and it came to me that the simplest answer to
‘structure’ is holiness. People are over-structured when they are
not holy. Holiness is total security, because holiness is total
surrender. Holiness is a total commitment for others. Now when you
have that kind of attitude, there is no problem of structure.

Can
you imagine St. Francis worrying about structures? If they came his
way, he accepted them. If they did not come his way, he couldn’t
care less about them. They didn’t bother him very much. What he
cared about was our love for God and man.

If
we want to unstructure a structure that is no good, the simplest way
is to become holy. Those wonderful people called saints unstructured
things by their holiness.

Read
more on the www.catherinedoherty.org
site, including a recent essay by Fr. Wild titled, “Catherine:
Creator of Catholic Culture”.

• Joseph
Bottum recently wrote a piece for Commonweal (paid for by a
grant from the Henry Luce Foundation) outlining “A
Catholic's Case for Same-Sex Marriage”. Actually, “outlining”
is not the right word, as the 9,000-word-long essay is more like a
sprawling, unedited ramble delivered by one's quirky Uncle So-and-So,
who possesses a plentitude of ideas but doesn't seem quite sure of
his argument or stance—yet is going to keep at it as long as need
be. Here is just one quote, from the opening of the essay:

We
are now at the point where, I believe, American Catholics should
accept state recognition of same-sex marriage simply because they are
Americans.

For that matter, plenty of
practical concerns suggest that the bishops should cease to fight
the passage of such laws. Campaigns against same-sex marriage are
hurting the church, offering the opportunity to make Catholicism a
byword for repression in a generation that, even among young
Catholics, just doesn’t think that same-sex activity is worth
fighting about. There’s a reasonable case to be made that the
struggle against abortion is slowly winning, but the fight against
public acceptance of same-sex behavior has been utterly lost.

Of course, if Bottum had written a piece titled, “A Catholic's
Case for Abortion”, in 1975 or so, it would likely say, “We
are now at the point where, I believe, American Catholics should
accept state recognition of abortion simply because they are
Americans.” And so forth. Frankly, I'm quite grateful that
becoming Catholic has freed me to see the many errors of doing this
or that just because that is what Americans believe and do. In
addition, being Catholic has taught me that some fights aren't won
in this lifetime; in fact, the fight against sin—whatever it might
be—will continue until the eschaton. Bottum, it seems, is
suggesting a path shaped by prudential judgment, but capitulation to
falsehood and immorality is never prudent, and I don't see how his
approach can be described as anything other than capitulation. There
have already been many responses. Two that might be of interest are;
first, the
one given by Mattias A. Caro on the Ethika Politika site, which
is more positive than my own general assessment, and, secondly, this
one from the keyboard of Robert Royal, on The Catholic Thing
site, which I think hits the most important nails squarely on the
heads.

• Bottum
talks a great deal about “enchantment”, stating, for example,
“The goal of the church today must primarily
be the re-enchantment of reality.” It's an intriguing assertion,
and I certainly don't dismiss it out of hand. But it involves an
entire discussion of what said “enchantment” really is. I think
it must begin with the very first things, specifically the nature of
God, of creation, and of the creature called man.

Earlier this month, I taught a 15-hour
course in ecclesiology in the lay ministry program of the Archdiocese
of Portland. I think some of the students were surprised that I
didn't talk about hierarchy, laity, and the external structures of
the Church until Day 4—not because those aren't important subjects
(they certainly are), but because I'm convinced that ecclesiology
must begin with the questions, “Who is God? Why did he create? What
is man?” Ecclesiology, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church
certainly expresses, is based on a solid theo-logy and a sound
anthropology:

Continue reading on the CWR blog.