Tuesday, September 05, 2006
COMPROMISING THE END RUN
August was an interesting month. With less time spent reading Catholic news on the web, I had more free time to read other material. Now I'd like to report on some of that reading over the next several days.
One of the things I read was Randy Engel's new book THE RITE OF SODOMY: HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. It's a book I will come back to over and over because there is so much contained in it that can be applied to the contemporary Catholic scene. If I could have one wish, it would be that every adult Catholic in the pews would read this book. We would have a lot more hope for the future of Roman Catholicism in America if every Catholic actually understood what has happened.
While dioceses in America slowly implode--while Europe turns away from the faith, the one place that is held up to us as a locus of lively Catholicism is the New Ecclesial Community. That is far more true in Europe than it is here in the states, of course. Here we still look to the diocesan structure for Catholicism, but I doubt we will be doing that much longer. Our seminaries are empty. Will God leave the faithful bereft?
My knee-jerk reaction is "No." "Never." But upon further reflection, I must consider that in places like the USSR and England the faithful have been left bereft. The faith survives, and it always will, but the practice of the faith becomes impossible for a span of time. It goes underground.
Bro. Alexis Bugnolo sets out the medication a saint proposed to apply in organizations where sins against the 6th and the 9th commandments had taken hold. Randy Engel quotes this passage in THE RITE OF SODOMY:
I would like to make known the advice of St. Anthony Marie Claret in such cases as this academy: the only morally certain solution to cure such a problem is the disbanding of the faculty and student body, and the dismissal of the chaplains and confessors from their duties there; if the institute is to be reconstituted, this may only be done if there are entirely new faculty, students, and priestly support to do so; this is so because there are always relationships which will never be discovered, and if these are present in the new foundation, the conspiracy will be renewed. Problems like this can be avoided in good foundations only if confessors and spiritual directors take recidivism in matters of the 6th and 9th commandments seriously, and are given authority to expel candidates that do not have the grace of chastity and continence, without human respect.
Let's assume for a moment that the saint is correct. If the problem in the seminaries has moved out into the diocesan structure, and we know that it has, is there any reason to believe that the larger structure can recover from the same malady that requires the elimination of the smaller structure?
Engel calls what has happened to Roman Catholicism in America a "colonization." She spends 1200+ pages describing that colonization, with extensive footnotes and a bibliography of over 350 sources. The picture she paints is dismal. Sexual sin is entrenched.
What I'm beginning to suspect is that JPII knew this near the start of his papacy, and knew that it would be impossible to reform the structure, just as St. Claret explains. Perhaps he fostered the New Ecclesial Communities as an end run around the corruption, intending to let the diocesan structure destroy itself. That is at least one possible explanation of what we are seeing develop. Perhaps JPII allowed the corruption of doctrine and the abuse of children because he knew he could not stop it without destroying the practice of the faith, and so concentrated on putting something else in place. Perhaps if he had tried to stop what was happening in the NCCB and the chanceries, he would have compromised what he was building. Perhaps he believed that the survival of the faith took precedence over even the abuse of minors and children. Perhaps he simply put the faith first and foremost in his heart.
We may not like it, but I think it is possible to understand where he was coming from if this was his intent.
We should not sit back and rest, however, believing that we are on the road to recovery. Satan never sleeps. If he had the ability to compromise the Church to this extent, underestimating him would be foolish. He's still around.
With that thought in mind, I'd like to explore some material that has come to my attention during my August hiatus.
For now, take a moment to look through the website of Vintrasian Carmelite (Eglise Gnostique Apostolique). While you're there, look at the URL.
