Monday, September 10, 2007
LOST IN OUR IDENTITY CRISIS
As I read Catholic news in recent weeks, I often come to the conclusion that no one has a vision of a clear path out of our present difficulties. The Chapel of Opinion is where all of us presently worship, and Confusion has become our god. We are all sure we know what is best for the Church, and we all cite our reasons, even though no two of us can completely agree about that knowledge. I've made my own contributions to the mix.
Evidence of our confusion has been appearing in the pages of "New Oxford Review" as readers discuss Thaddeus J. Kozinski's article in the June issue titled "The Gnostic Traditionalist". Each letter writer makes convincing points until the next letter strikes out the last ones. None dominates the field.
When only one path is presented, our decisions have been made for us, but with diversity arrives the demands of choice, and with choice we each become a little potentate ruling over our individual kingdom. The history of the kingdoms of the world should give us pause to consider the consequences of diversity.
It seems that the Catholics are not alone. A reader sent in an article from the Telegraph titled "Israeli neo-Nazi gang filmed attacking Jews".
The article describes "eight young men in their late teens and early twenties" arrested a month ago in Petah Tikvah, Israel. They are Nazi sympathizers, "recently arrived Russian immigrants who are nominally Jewish through a grandparent" and who "were found to have filmed themselves giving Nazi salutes and carrying out mob attacks on homosexuals, non-whites and observant Jews."
During a police interview one of the eight "said they vowed to 'kill them all', referring to people outside the frame of white supremacism."
According to the story,
The ringleader, 19-year-old Eli Boynatov, who styled himself "Eli the Nazi", was taped denouncing his own grandfather as a "jewboy" and vowing not to have any children because it would continue the "jewboy bloodline".
They have been the cause of new legislation in Israel to allow for the "deportation of Nazi sympathisers".
They had their five minutes of fame when Israeli TV "showed grainy footage of people lying helpless on the floor while the gang kicked them, and of a man being hit on the head with an empty bottle" demonstrating that the god of confusion is capable of random acts of violence. This scene brought immediately to mind other scenes I've witnessed on DVDs--visions of members of Tony Sopranos' soldiers kicking people who were lying helpless on the floor.
How far down this road to chaos must the Church travel before some common sense dawns? How much of our faith in God must be destroyed in the Catholic pew wars? How many of us will simply witness this waging of pew war and decide to opt out? For myself, I move ever closer to opting out as I continue to search for a reverent Mass that will look like the Mass I attended the previous week.
If we can no longer identify who we are, everyone else becomes who we are not, and who we are not can quickly turn into the enemy we need to destroy. Attacking each other with words is a sacred rite we enshrine in the laws of our nation. Yet how quickly words turn to deeds on our television screen. If we are learning from what we are viewing, and if our religious confusion deepens, what will we leave to our grandchildren?
Each time we attend Mass we have before our eyes where pew wars can lead as we gaze upon the Jewish Man on the cross who got caught in the crossfire.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
