God's or Man's Anger?

New blog on the kid: Sacré-Cœur Was Shining, When Paris Was Dark? · God's or Man's Anger? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Edward Pleń (Sharing a Story)

It is possible that the Sacré-Cœur was miraculously exempt from a power shortage, even if only ten minutes long, long enough to be recorded.

It is also possible that Sacré-Cœur wasn't miraculously spared even at the outer lighting.

But if it wasn't what does the fake news (as I have heard it called at Sacré-Cœur today) tell us of the mental climate?

People are upset and worried this will bring on God's wrath. Here are two videos with Novus Ordo Bishops denouncing this opening:

Nous n’acceptons pas l’injure. Mgr Dominique Rey
Decrevi Determined to be Catholic @thecatholicman | 27 July 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6NEMd7CTrs

Well done Bishop Barron.
Decrevi Determined to be Catholic @thecatholicman | 28 July 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp_0URkP52U

Meanwhile, were people in Paris behind the ceremony living so dull atheistic lives that they needed blasphemy to make it more exciting, or was it just an excuse to get people protected and more and more protected against "threats" due to this being blasphemy? Being a Catholic is actually a good way to avoid boredom, how about trying that instead?/HGL

On Apologetics

The following can be considered a trialogue. If you think "dialogue" means "duologue", which according to most it does not.

Otherwise, this is simply a dialogue. Which I imposed on a work where Mark P Shea first cites Rober Barron, and then adds his own comments.

I answered Robert Barron's cited comments in extenso, and also a few ones by Mark P Shea. Here is his blog post:

Bp. Robert Barron, as usual, makes a lot of sense to me
October 11, 2018 by Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2018/10/bp-robert-barron-as-usual-makes-a-lot-of-sense-to-me.html

Here are the three persons' comments, marked with each "speaker"/"writer" above his text:

Barron

What would a new apologetics look like? First, it would arise from the questions that young people spontaneously ask. It would not be imposed from above but would rather emerge organically from below, a response to the yearning of the mind and the heart. Here it would take a cue from the method of St. Thomas Aquinas. The austere texts of the great theological master in point of fact emerged from the lively give-and-take of the quaestiones disputatae that stood at the heart of the educational process in the medieval university. Thomas was deeply interested in what young people were really asking. So should we.

My comment

I agree. That's what I am doing. You have heard I was in a Goth forum, or actually two? I'm back on the latter (nearly), but its hardly active now. It was when I was thrown out for being too Christian.

Guess whose questions and objections I was meeting?

Barron

Secondly, a new apologetics should look deep and long into the question of the relationship between religion and science. For many people today, scientific and rational are simply equivalent or co-extensive terms. And therefore, since religion is obviously not science, it must be irrational. Without for a moment denigrating the sciences, we have to show that there are non-scientific and yet eminently rational paths that conduce toward knowledge of the real. Literature, drama, philosophy, the fine arts—all close cousins of religion—not only entertain and delight; they also bear truths that are unavailable in any other way. A renewed apologetics ought to cultivate these approaches.

My comment

I agree on the looking long and deep.

I most emphatically disagree on "without for a moment denigrating the sciences."

Some sciences are by now pseudo-sciences and this needs to be said.

That literature and fine arts can propose truth, I would say this is in a rhetoric way - rephrasing in more personal detail or whatever is that changes, what religion or philosophy can state in general terms.

Philosophy should not be separated from science, or from criticism of sciences.

To St Thomas Aquinas, metaphysics and physics were no more separate than say, physics of air currents and air pressure, aerodynamics, flight mechanics.

Barron

Thirdly, our apologetics and catechesis should walk the via pulchritudinis, as Pope Francis characterized it in Evangelii Gaudium. Especially in our postmodern cultural context, commencing with the true and the good—what to believe and how to behave—is often counter-indicated, since the ideology of self-invention is so firmly established. However, the third transcendental, the beautiful, often proves a more winsome, less threatening, path. And part of the genius of Catholicism is that we have so consistently embraced the beautiful—in song, poetry, architecture, painting, sculpture, and liturgy. All of this provides a powerful matrix for evangelization. And as Hans Urs von Balthasar argued, the most compelling beauty of all is that of the saints. I have found a good deal of evangelical traction in presenting the lives of these great friends of God, somewhat in the manner of a baseball coach who draws young adepts into the game by showing them the play of some of its greatest practitioners.

My comment

I have not read Evangelii Gaudium, and since I don't consider Bergoglio to be Pope, I don't know I would intend to.

Self invention does not block searching the true and the good, that much I know from my Goth forums fairly extended period. And when on a Goth forum, the good and the true will definitely be brought up by the enemies of faith, so, we just have to answer.

Those who have it, and also those who have bits and parts of it.

Barron

When Jesus explained himself to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, their hearts began to burn within them. The Church must walk with young people, listen to them with attention and love, and then be ready intelligently to give a reason for the hope that is within us. This, I trust, will set the hearts of the young on fire.

My comment

An Apologist is not Jesus.

A lay apologist is also not Jesus, and not even a consecrated icon of Him.

This puts some dampers on my or any other apologists' capacity to make hearts burn.

Nevertheless, Chesterton occasionally does so - simply when pleading we are all Roman relics. We are heirs of the Roman Empire discarding idols and discovering Christ.

And also when speaking of Jesus.

However, I guess, He was working through him, and that without him using too much technique on the question of making hearts burn.

In other words, we should not necessarily make this effect an ambition of ours, we should receive it as an occasional reward (and sometimes unknown to us).

Mark P. Shea

Most the apologetics community in the US is now consumed with the right wing culture war against Francis and with making excuses for supporting our grifting Sex Predator in Chief.

My comment

While I am against Bergoglio, I was not a quick hanger on to this culture war.

While I am less against Trump than against Obama, I am not over enthusiastic.

As to whether he is spreading a culture of sex predating, I leave that to you. Let's hope not, from across the Atlantic.

Mark P. Shea

Discussions of beauty mostly devolve into bitching about liturgy wars.

My comment

Where Novus Ordo is rejected as simply un-Catholic, there is no liturgy war about it.

Those who are attached for only personal or aesthetic reasons to Antiquior Usus as some would call it (I refuse to call it Extraordinary Form, which it is only among those accepting Novus Ordo as OF) are sometimes under attack and need a defense.

While aesthetics are not irrelevant, this line of defense can become petty, like in "oh, I think Kumbaya so cringeworthy".

I don't think Kum ba ya, which is Gullah pronunciation of Come by here, which is Gullah phraseology for Come, is something disrespectful to say to Christ. If Catholics hadn't already a liturgy, and I were given the task of making one, which is impensable, or no, not impensable, since i am "pensing" it, but impossible, I might include Kumbaya. But the Catholic Church has already a liturgy.

This is an argument against other things too, like the new offertory. And here I think it less disrespectful to personal preferences and more to the point to say, I have theological objections to it.

One can quibble about whether "work of human hands" is treated as a raw material beside the natural resource, rather than an actor under God's action, but more grating, "fruits of the earth" recall the sacrifice of Cain, right?

Problematic, because if he lived before Göbekli Tepe, he had no cultivated wheat, but some other plant. His material would not have been possible as a valid matter for the sacrament. Also, simply by association, since in fact his sacrifice was rejected. Also, very Anti-Apologetic, since Protestants (who are among the unbelievers or wrongbelievers we need to be Apologetic to) will represent Cain's rejected sacrifice as proto-type of Papist Holy Mass.

Mark P Shea

[citing fictitious or not so fictitious example of uncharitable:]

"... You’re post-abortive? You know, I think women who have abortions deserve the death penalty."

My comment

While a woman in her carreer who is married (validly or not) and has children and aborts while not wanting another one, arguably could deserve death penalty, I think some women who aborted (girls no more, since pregnancy naturally = no more maidenhood) if they are like 13 or 15 have extenuating circumstances, like pressure from parents (including in some cases from mothers who aborted).

That said, other sets of legal penalties are possible. And, sorry, if the post-abortive woman actually asks, I will of course say what she wants to know, but I would not be the one to bring it up to a depressed person.

Mark P. Shea

That is the ambient noise of the subculture that regards itself as the Defenders of the Faith.

My comment

I have been blocked from commenting under Shea's posts and from getting answers when mailing him as far back as in 2014.

In other words, while I have shared parts of my apologetics with him, I have not heard from him that he actually read it.

Update:



Yes, Mark Shea has banned me, like the Goth forums banned me.

Jordan Right 5/12

I think a comment on a bare summary of the 12 rules falls within fair use.

1)

Stand up straight with your shoulders back

Comment

Not 24/24, I hope?

2)

Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Comment

Hmm ... I think there is a bit of atheism involved ...

3)

Make friends with people who want the best for you

Comment

As they define my best or as I define it?

4)

Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

Comment

Sounds a bit as if he's against Syndicates preaching wage equality and "same wage for same work" ?

Putting the latter in citation marks, since I think a family wage can earn more for a family breadwinner than for a single man doing same job, but still.

5)

Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them

Comment

For how long? Till 18? Till they leave your house? Past both?

6)

Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world

Comment

Oh dear ... not too bright for those defending poor selves against rich, since poor selves have less capacity to set own house in perfect order

7)

Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)

Comment

Hmmm ... I like that one.

8)

Tell the truth—or at least don't lie

Comment

I especially relish the first half, the second sounds a bit like what is sometimes expedient

9)

Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't

Comment

There are clear exceptions to this one - when you have seen each item of the list in a previous comment on internet.

10)

Be precise in your speech

Comment

I think in writing it is even more important - but OK, in speech it is appreciated too.

11)

Do not bother children when they are skateboarding

Comment

In a sense of accidents, should one bother anyone when skateboarding?

I mean, certain activities take concentration and are dangerous when the concentration is interfered with.

12)

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

Comment

Well, I would actually wait till the cat comes to me ...

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Hardcover – 16 Jan 2018, by Jordan B. Peterson (Author)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos/dp/0241351634/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Actually, here is some more:

The great myths of the hero—from Gilgamesh to Luke Skywalker and Bilbo Baggins—typically recount the story of someone who leaves complacent domesticity behind in order to venture into the dangerous unknown, where he manages to find something of enormous value to his family or village or society. One key to psychological/spiritual fulfillment is to embody this archetype of the hero, to live one’s life as an adventurous exploration of the unknown. So Peterson tells his readers—especially young men, who have been cowed into complacency for various reasons—to throw back their shoulders, stand tall, and face the challenges of life head on. This archetype of the hero also allows us to read the story of Adam and Eve with fresh eyes. In Paradise (the word itself denotes “walled garden”), our first parents were secure and innocent, but in the manner of inexperienced children. Leaving Paradise was, in one sense, a positive move, for it permitted them to grow up, to engage the chaos of the unknown creatively and intelligently. This reading of Genesis, which has roots in Tillich, Hegel, and others, permits us to see that the goal of the spiritual life is not a simple return to the Garden of dreaming innocence, but rather an inhabiting of the Garden on the far side of the cross, that place where the tomb of Jesus was situated and in which the risen Christ appeared precisely as “gardener.”

This is from the résumé of the book by one Robber Baron of Theology, as I tend to call him.

He adds:

On balance, I like this book and warmly recommend it. I think it’s especially valuable for the beleaguered young men in our society, who need a mentor to tell them to stand up straight and act like heroes.

The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon
by Bishop Robert BarronFebruary 27, 2018
https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/the-jordan-peterson-phenomenon/5717/

If Robert Barron was anything like tongue in cheek about the fall, and Robert Peterson's Tillich's, Hegel's* and so on take on it, I missed that. The final quote from him seems to indicate, this was not the case, he agreed with it. Or at least found it an interesting and worthwhile take. I most totally disagree.

Leaving paradise was not a move, it was a punishment, it did not make Adam and Eve greater, but lesser, it did not make them more creative, but less so.

Some of the punishments would have been God's way of restoring perhaps half or a third or a quarter of the creativity or greatness they would have had, if they had remained without sin.

The innocence and security were coupled with** inexperience (indeed, Eve must have been inexperienced to talk to a talking snake, a housewife these days with even some basic catechism would probably have resorted to holy water and calling an exorcist as speedily as if pots and pans were flying around the kitchen outside her own tantrums or another family member's). We are savvy about poltergeists and would probably be so about talking snakes, she wasn't.

B u t, she was not just physically but also mentally equipped to her role as mother of all living. She did not need to fall and she certainly did not grow by the mere fact of falling. The innocence and security did not depend on her remaining inexperienced, except insofar as there are "experiences" we would all like to be spared ("ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo").

The reading given Genesis 3 is one I think I recall as reading of as a Masonic and a Mormon one, it is not that I know a Catholic one.

Yes, one experience really made Adam and Eve greater for eternity which they got through their fall : being redeemed by the Cross. O felix culpa, quae tantum nos meruit salvatorem.

But apart from that one, in the "humanist" sense he espouses, no. Over Solzhenitsyn I vastly prefer Tolkien. "To grow is not to lose innocence". And alas, it is Solzhenitsyn and not Tolkien who is — it would seem — Jordan Peterson's hero. Even if perhaps he takes one of his from Tolkien.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Longinus
15.III.2018

* One can note, as C. S. Lewis was an ex-Hegelian, he did not share this error of Hegel in his Christian writings. At all. ** They were coupled with inexperience, but not per se permanently. They were not inexperience.

Mark Shea* at Not Too Bad

I think it is very wise to be careful of lay Catholic apologists (pause for irony to sink in).

I somehow missed the irony.

Essentially, you are dealing with people who may or may not have a charism, may or may not know what they are talking about, and may or may not be stable, orthodox, bright, honest, etc.

That is the case with some clergy too. I recall one Robert Barron (if you know the name) balking at Young Earth Creationism, because such Creationism:

• A) is not binding dogma (take a look at a certain paragraph in Humani Generis and reflect on whether it considers one must bow down to a future decision of the Church or the decision could be a past one, like Trent on Patristic consensus being binding)
• B) makes the faith look ridiculous to Bill Maher ...

Come on! Caving in to Bill Maher is ridiculous! He bought that Zeitgeist stuff about December 25 being birth of a dying and resurrecting god for a millennium before Christ - when in fact outside Rome there was no such thing as "December" and Pagan Roman feasts prior to Aurelian (that is AD 200's or sth, I think after Decius) not falling on December 25th. And some other ridiculous stuff too.
Let's document the points on Bill Maher first, and starting that his film Religulous has got a clip release here:

The two best points made in Bill Maher's film "Religulous " (2008)
RRoocckkyy50 | 5.IV.2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHPZRChdvlQ

The two points were his scoffing at Creationism and ... his Zeutgeist stuff. Here I answer it, just in case my comments under the video are no longer on top when you look:

Bill Maher at His Most Religulous ....
on Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere | Friday, January 12, 2018
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2018/01/bill-maher-at-his-most-religulous.html

I made the claim there was no December 25 outside Rome for most of the time when Bill Maher and his Zeitgeist buddies thought there was, here I give details:

On BC Dates as per BC Dating (quora)
on Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere | Thursday, January 25, 2018, updated next day
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2018/01/on-bc-dates-as-per-bc-dating-quora.html

So, if sth makes for Bill Maher laughing, what does that even mean?

Some crook is said to have said, "oderint, dum metuant" or let them hate, as long as they fear. I think a Christian Apologist can afford to say the opposite "rideant, dum cogitent" - let them laugh, as long as they reflect. That doesn't mean one has to be extra meak when one meets real vitriol (as has happened to me once in a while, one can show that vitriol merits rebuke, even one which may be taken as vitriolic). But in confronting the normal kind of debater one can afford a "rideant, dum cogitent" attitude. I don't do that live, since too tired, but online, often a spelled out guffaw, like "lol" or "rotfl" can get on occasion, "enjoy, you might need it".

There is, as a priest friend used to point out, no office of apologist in the Church.

Excellent. This means, it is for volunteers, except of course such who become un-orthodox. And the volunteers may be laymen as often as priests. St Justin was the first Christian apologist well known as primarily such (I think he was before Tertullian and Origen?) and he was a layman.

You do not need ordination to do apologetics. You also do not need to be a prophet to do apologetics.

Apologetics is the handmaid of evangelism.

Fair enough.

Means among other things, as providing the handmaid service, I don't need to have the personal qualities of an evangelist. Bringing souls to Christ is "above my paygrade", usually. An Apologist may coincide with an Evangelist, for some particular soul, but an Apologist could do so very well without the usual qualities of an Evangelist as asked by the Church. Precisely because it is providential if this happens, not planned by the Church, except insofar as these days Evangelists may need some Apologetics skills, and are supposed to have them. The rest of the Apologists are their arsenal, not main actors.

Some Evangelists could set about with too little Apologetics skills. They could even get irritable about Apologetics.

"Well, if I bring up Hell threatening them and they don't convert, aren't they really asking for damnation?"

These days, no. These days, they usually also need to be able to show Hell is fair for mortal sinners and that it is not about venial sins and that unbelief can be a mortal sin and not just a disability - the latter being where they need to be Apologists.

Other Evangelist: "well, why do you spoil the souls I try to save by showing Catholicism isn't precluding you believe in Evolution?"

Well, for one thing, some I meet are very little inclined to take your option. They are Atheist and Evolution believing Apologists. They know how much the Bible conflicts with Evolution and usually know from history how recent and ad hoc your approach is.

For another, if you find a soul who is like that, go for it and don't bother about me or my stuff. And leave other souls to other Evangelists who do have use for my stuff. One trait of FSSPX which I find less attractive is, they are sure:

• Élites must convert before the rest will do so;
• this must usually mean the already existing élite or sometimes reactionary counter-élite;
• knowing these, evolution criticism won't work;
• Creationism might just be good enough as an outreach to Radical Protestants, and should then of course be starting point or common ground, arguing Creationism to those not believing it is counterproductive;
• because they are the élite, they know the élite, they know what there is to know according to the élite and the élite is right about it unless it is contrary to dogma (élite sometimes here standing for some counter-élite).

That the French system of education could have been wrong for decades before the Red domination, like in Pétain or Colonial times ... perish the thought.

I am sorry if I here am risking a bit of pseudo-empathy. I have not got this in so many words from one single FSSPX either faithful or clergy or religious. I have sent many mails to St. Nicolas du Chardonnet on which I have received no answers (a bit like certain mail to one Mark P. Shea, you might know), so, I am in part guessing. I am guessing by empathy and this means my empethetic guess might be wrong. This state of affairs is what I refer to as pseudo-empathy.

I just saw, I had forgotten to document Robert Barron, according to some then Father and now a Bishop, actually is caving in to Bill Maher on Creationism.

But, in fact, he is, and here is his video from than and here is my response under it:

Fr. Robert Barron on Bill Maher and Biblical Interpretation
Bishop Robert Barron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDDKlXl488

Sorry, seems he was already promoted to "his" see back then.

In fact, his stance against Young Earth Creationism could be useful in Macriana - if it is in Morocco, I couldn't find it even on Orbis Latinus - since King Mohammed VI is promoting Old Earth, the Coran having no beef with that. His scientists recently promoted oldest Homo Sapiens as 300,000 years old, good luck squaring that with Adam and Eve (as per Humani Generis) without becoming "racist" in extreme chronological snobbery (I have a horror for one of the solutions). However if Macriana is more like in Tunisia, not sure Barron will be as well served by Old Earth outreach.

Here is my response:

... against false sophistication of the Robber Baron of Theology
on Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere | Sunday, March 27, 2016
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2016/03/against-false-sophistication-of-robber.html

So, where were we ... Apologetics is the handmaid of Evangelism.

If you propose the gospel and somebody says, “Right! Makes sense!” you don’t need apologetics.

Wonderful, agreed.

Apologetics is just for clearing roadblocks. If you build your life around it, it can become an idol.

Or a pensum. Look at Gilbert Keith Chesterton and at Clive Staples Lewis.

And if you start thinking your mission is to correct the Magisterium, the milk has surely started to sour.

That is why I am leaving Magisterial decisions to Pope Michael (except where I cringe at what seems to be clumsy pastoral and being the kind of Evangelist who only evangelises those already Christian). (Obviously, I have a greater problem with those presuming everyone's culture, whether Christian or Pagan, has to be modern as Bill Maher). Wait ... were you referring to "Pope Francis" as the Magisterium?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. John Chrysostomus**
27.I.2018

* A short conversation about lay Catholic apologists
January 26, 2018 by Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2018/01/short-conversation-lay-catholic-apologists.html

** Sancti Joannis Chrysostomi, Episcopi Constantinopolitani, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, caelestis Oratorum sacrorum Patroni; qui decimo octavo Kalendas Octobris obdormivit in Domino. Ejus sacrum corpus, sub Theodosio juniore, hac die Constantinopolim, inde postea Romam translatum fuit, et in Basilica Principis Apostolorum conditum.