Friday, October 20, 2006
CATHOLIC SLOGANEERING - "SEE, JUDGE, ACT"
In the early part of September I blogged about the Sillon, an extension of the Gallican Church associated with the Polish Catholic Communist organization PAX, a forerunner of Pax Christi. You an read that background at the following links:
9/8 From Gallicanism to Sillonism
9/11 Errors of the Sillon
9/12 From the Sillon to Pax Christi
In a webpage devoted to "Vatican II and the Lay Apostolate Movements" Sillon.net tells us that
The Specialised Catholic Action generation identified above all with Cardijn and the G8[lay apostolate] movements, whose common denominator can be found in the "see, judge, act" methodology and spirituality, and which drew to a close at around the time of Vatican 2 (Cardijn himself died in 1967).
The Sillon laments that "Vatican 2 marked the 'end of an era' rather than a new beginning." It did not mark the end of "see, judge, act" however.
The method itself was pioneered in France according to Sillon.net:
Fittingly, the year 2002 also marks the centenary of the First National Congress of Study Groups in France organised by the Sillon on 23 February 1902. These were the groups which pioneered the method of enquiry as a means of popular education, a method later perfected and popularised by Cardijn and the G8 movements under the name See-Judge-Act, Enquiry method, Review of Life, etc. as the basic methodology of lay apostolic formation.
The year 2002 is therefore a particularly timely moment to launch a broad, far reaching international study of the role the lay movements in the 21st century, a study which could perhaps provide the foundations for the emergence of a 4th generation of lay movements of the 1848-Sillon-Cardijn tradition.
The Cardijn Lay Community is alive today on the web and promoting the New Pentecost. In their April 13, 2006 Newsletter, the Cardijn Lay Community explains itself:
This year is the fifth year of CLC activities since our beginnings at a small conference entitled "Networking for Development" in Bangkok on 20-21 July 2001.
Our original name was Cardijn Liaison Committee. The name was chosen because most of us at the founding meeting had previously belonged to the YCW, YCS or IMCS so Cardijn and particularly the See Judge Act was our common point of reference. At that time, we saw our goal as "linking" people up - hence the word liaison. And we were also wary about creating a new "structure" so we called ourselves a "committee".
Our first major event was the Vatican II in the Age of Globalisation conference held in Bangkok from 8-11 October 2002 with 60 participants from around 13 countries.
The following year, CLC members played a key role in organising the first Young People for Development (YPD) exchange and training program for 60 young people mostly from South East and East Asia.
CLC changed its name to Cardijn Lay Community in 2004 in order to better reflect our desire to be a community rather than simply a committee as well as our commitment to the spirituality and vision of lay apostolate as understood by Cardijn.
With the aid of Chico Whitaker, the Cardijn Lay Community is promoting a New Pentecost in the Global South. The question that occurs is whether this is a Communist New Pentecost given the involvement of the Polish Catholic PAX organization with the Sillon? Or is it perhaps a Martinist New Pentecost given the prevelence of Martinism in Lyon, France where the Sillon was launched, and given that Martinist lodges also form study groups? Or to reach even further, are they all one and the same thing?
In any case, Call to Action has welcomed the methodology with its links to Small Faith Communities, two of which are noted for using the See, Judge, Act method. The Lay Movements are growing.
The Franciscans also have welcomed the See, Judge, Act method. It is the method of "The Course" linked on the left of their Rediscovering the Franciscan Spirituality" webpage. According to the explanation given the Franciscans:
...see our individual and communal responsibility, our possibilities and our limitations. ...We JUDGE the Reality from Faith's point of view. ...The goal of our action is the utopia, the ideal situation which we would like to achieve, and of which we know that we can never completely realize.
The utopianism of the Pentecostal Movement? The utopianism of the occultists? The utopianism of the Communists? Utopianism is not a part of Catholic spirituality.
CCC 675: Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
CCC 676: The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
Suddenly, it would appear, the non-judgmental left has rediscovered the advantages of judgment, but have they rediscovered the value of Jesus Christ?
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have also taken up see, judge, act methodology. In their "Living the Present with Enthusiasm" Pastoral Actions and Recommendations, which appear to be directed primarily at the Hispanic Ministry, "see-judge-act-celebrate-evaluate method" appears in section "IV Plan with the Community, not for the Community". Small parish-based communities and apostolic movements play a part in this Hispanic ministry, as can easily be seen in the Cluster Parish Holy Family Catholic Community in Fond du Lac. How far removed from the Communist base communities of Liberation Theology is this new American USCCB venture? How far removed from the Sillon condemned by Pope Leo XIII? In THE CHURCH OF THE WORD INCARNATE by Cardinal Charles Journet, available at the EWTN website"
Here we must quote a passage from Piux X's letter of 25th August 1910 on the Sillon: "The Sillon locates public authority primarily in the people, from which it derives to those who rule, but in such a fashion that it continues to reside in the people. This doctrine was formally condemned by Leo XIII. "There then follows the first text from Diuturnum Illud...Pius X goes on: "Doubtless, the Sillon holds that the authority which it locates primarily in the people descends from God--but in such a way [and here the Pope quotes Marc Sangnier] that it comes from below, while, in the organization of the Church, power comes from above.(Chapter VIII)
The expanded "see, judge, act, evaluate, celebrate" is being used at
The Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialogue on Developmentis (sic) an intercultural, ecumenical Christian retreat center rooted in an inclusive and liberating theology. CCIDD's mission is to provide opportunities for churches and other groups from the U.S. and Canada to encounter the presence of God in the struggle for justice in the Americas and to empower them to work for social transformation.
Talk about a collection of slogans!!
They also have gotten out the "preferential option for the poor" that every social action group within the Roman Catholic Church flaunts. It's the typical liberal BS.
A Catholic article on "Writing Ideas and Tips" recommends
For those who may have the opportunity of obtaining theological training, it is good to construct articles according to a particular theological method. The method this webauthor will use is the SEE-JUDGE-ACT method of doing theology. ...
If we write our Catholic articles according to this theological construct, then three paragraphs would be the core of our article. One each for SEE-JUDGE-ACT. We can add an introduction at the beginning and a summary at the end to cap it all.
The concept leaves out the Catholic essential..."Pray", but then God doesn't have much of a place in social justice Catholicism, which is about man fixing up his own messes.
Duquesne University uses "See, Judge, Act in its Spiritan Campus Ministry.
A post-denominational website, The Community of Affirmation, dedicated to Christian meditation, promotes "Lectio Divina", another trend in today's Catholic Church, and recommends the "See, Judge, Act" methodology. It's obviously not just for Catholics anymore.
At the Recovering from Christianity website we are told that
Preaching in this kind of community follows the "see, judge, act" "technique, originated before World War II in the Young Catholic Movement in Europe. Members of the community learn from the Gospels to look at the social, political, and economic situations around them, judge what they see in the light of Jesus' teaching, and then act to change things for the better through ministries such as involvement in racial and economic justice, commitment to peace, foster-parenting, prison ministry, refugee sponsorship, religious education, counseling, or the like.
Preaching in this kind of community becomes the voice of a resistance movement that critiques the dominant culture that is incompatible with the way of Jesus, and refuses to accept that the church..is "a mere adjunct to the market." This organization also works with study groups.
This ministry does not wish to recover a transcendent God, but rather seeks to move toward a secular faith.
For centuries since the middle Ages Christians in the Western Latin tradition ended their prayers, “in saecula saeculorum,” usually translated “for ever and ever.” But the words mean, literally, “into the secular of the secular,” or, “into the ages of the ages.” In the modern period, and in a curious topsy-turvy switch of meaning, that and only that is where we live: the secular. There’s nowhere else to go.
It’s time–now that we are well into the 21st century–to leave aside ideas of God as an unseen spiritual being that created the world, hopes of a supernatural heaven, and particularly notions of God that are illusory or infantile or just plain nuts. Hiding behind the smokescreen of what Lloyd Geering calls “the illusory security of yesterday’s beliefs” is an evasion that Christians can no longer retreat to. So whatever faith in the 21st century may mean, it has nothing to do with a supernatural world above the bright blue sky and nothing to do with believing that the world’s future is in the hands of a personal and benevolent God.
Using God to move away from God. Secular Christianity. What a concept. Is this where "See, Judge, Act" is ultimately destined to lead, to peace and justice without God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? If it has Communist roots, that is certainly a possibility. If it has Martinist roots, it still remains within the realm of possibility. If it is truly Catholic, there isn't a chance.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
