More symptoms of insanity on the American right

[fpb]

In yesterday's American Thinker, a man with the Italian name of Bonelli wrote the following, extremely offensive statement:

The United States is different from most other countries in many ways. One unique aspect of our country is that our elected officials, officers of the court, and the military, all pledge their allegiance to the Constitution and not to an office, individual or party. This assures continuity of the ideals set forth by the founders.

As an Italian citizen, I have personally sworn to defend the Constitution of my country when I served in the Italian army. The presumption involved in this ignorant display of insular arrogance is an insult to every constitutional government in the world.

Comments

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

We also had a story about a butterfly, going from caterpillar to butterfly. The allusion to Christ coming out from the tomb was clear to Menno and I, but what we heard instead from others, was that it was just a nice story about a butterfly. Again, they decided not to share the Gospel.

The children sang a prayer that consisted of "God listen to us and give us this and that..."

Good God, help me to stay a little butterfly, a child with a good attitude and joyful. Let us pray.

Good God, like a caterpillar bursts into a beautiful butterfly, we also want to burst for Jesus and others. Let us pray

Dear God, we are happy today. Hel p us as children to continue in goodness and tolerance

The Eucharist was thankfully a little less shallow. I also was surprised that my friend wouldn't take communion. Naturally Menno and I were not allowed, but she told us that she had been taught that confession was necessary before taking communion. Otherwise partaking of the Eucharist was inviting more sin. Now she felt it necessary to confess before a priest, but the similarity between what I had been taught and what she had been taught was striking and somewhat of a relief. Now I confess directly to God for the forgiveness of my sins, but I think it's good that she understandings that confession is a vital part of the Eucharist.

The final prayer was vapid and shallow.

Lord Jesus
When people are in love, we swy they "feel butterflies in their stomach"
We have a butterfly in our heart.
You planted it there.
We can forget the butterfly and try to smash it in other people.
We can also hide the butterfly like a costly treasure that we only want
for ourselves.
Or...We can share it with others.
Teach us to share, Lord,
to express our joy to others.
Give us wings, Lord

So exactly what is this butterfly? Give us wings? It all sounded like sentimental claptrap to me. I imagine the early church fathers are rolling over in their graves.

After the service we spent an agonizing five hours making small talk about nothing at my friend's house. The only time the service was referred to, was when they were talking about communion clothes over the years.

I know that this is not a good representation of the Catholic Church, but I have to say. It was a huge disappointment. I think even if my theology changed and I wanted to be Catholic, that I would still attend the Evangelical church here. At least I get fed there, which is more than I can say for the average Belgian Catholic Church."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In France, you got the wrong end of the stick. The Church is left-leaning and hates traditionalism in any form because the local traditionalists are identified - and with very good reason - with the treason of Vichy. Archbishop Lefebvre himself was a devoted Petainist (even though the Nazis murdered his father) and his whole movement arose from the ultra-nationalist shadow of Action Francaise. That has made the whole French episcopate and clergy ultra-sensitive to any suspicion of traditionalism.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

So you do not think anyone runs to the traditionalists to escape the disco-dancing of the French episcopate? I understand the roots of the movement and its founders but what about its growth? What of the young families in France and here in America as well fleeing to it because they see it as a bastion that preserves the teachings and the ceremony of the church, although wrongly.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I very much doubt that there are many young families in France who are unaware of the more than dubious roots of the Lefebvrian schism, any more than there are voters for the National Front who are unaware of its politics. And the NF often polls 13%.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Are there any schisms that do not have roots that are not dubious or somehow related to politics? That has not kept people from joining or remaining in these groups.

Families here are certainly unaware or uncaring of the roots and I would guess in other countries where they have a hold likewise.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Quite, but after the worldwide noise about Bishop Williamson's Holocaust denial (which, incidentally, is not even the worst of his intellectual sins), can it be said that they are unaware of the generally suspicious nature of the St.Pius X Society? Or is it rather that they side with it because it makes "the right people" angry?

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I say they are blinded by what they see as the good fruits coming from their supposed "traditionalism", rationalizing what they see as the "faults" of some of their founders. You can argue that in several different ways, starting with the faults of the first pope. Take for other examples the pitiful recent discoveries of the head of the Legion of Christ. Though they are not in schism, the Legionnaries do not see their movement as invalid even if its founder was.

My whole point being in this whole tangent, that the lack of catechesis of adults as well as the abuses of the liturgy have sent both the "faithful" running to find stability in the wrong places, and have sent the questioning farther away, as they see no tenable or rational reasoning for their faith. I consider this the loss of faith that the popes have been speaking of.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Belgium and the Netherlands suffer from various pathologies that originate in Calvinism, Jansenism and the mercantile spirit. They also number, counted together, less than half the inhabitants of Italy.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I will say that (with the obvious disclaimer that I am not Italian), from everything I've read, while the Church's political influence in Italy is considerable, the state of catechesis is rather poor.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Catechesis is never as good as it should be, but I must say that Italy has escaped the kind of thing that you and marielapin have so eloquently described. Priests may teach badly, but very few of them teach outright heresy or replace politics for religion.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

What sort of influence does the Church have then over the people if it is not that of adherence to doctrinal teaching?

Here in America roughly 25-30% (can't remember the exact number) of Americans self-identify as Catholics. Only 35% or so of them attend Mass weekly. 25% of total Catholics go to confession at least once a year. Of those 25% of self-identified Catholics you can have a good idea what their doctrinal beliefs are. They are the ones that are going to be more inclined to follow Church teaching and listen to the bishops. The rest could really care less. How is it there?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would say one third of the population is definitely and committedly Catholic - weekly Mass attendance, etc; one third is in various shades of compromise; and one third secularist. Which is a difficult position for them to be, because most of them are not in fact agnostic or atheist, and even the majority of secularists will want to be married and sent off by a priest and buried in consecrated ground.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

Do you not consider the loss of those 60% or so as a symptom of a loss of faith?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As compared to what? Let me tell you something for which, as a historian, I can vouch: there has never been a golden age of faith. There has never been a time in all Christian history in which the Church has not felt itself to be fighting with its back to the wall and against overwhelming enemies. There has never been a time when the majority of Christians in Christian countries were more or less nominal. Speaking as a historian, I see no great difference between now and the fifth, twelfth, or seventeenth century.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

My questions were asked to gauge if you agreed with the writings of the current and past Pope (especially the article I posted earlier). The only difference I see is in the nature of the heresy: one that is trying to completely dissolve religion altogether and the idea of God rather than alter it, as other heresies have attempted to do.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am not even speaking of heresy; I am speaking of simple brute ignorance, instinctive materialism, contempt for the spiritual, or base superstition. These things were just as widespread in the Middle Ages or in the baroque age as they are now. You should read the inquiries into popular religion carried out by certain governments, or the records of episcopal courts. Churches are empty now? They were empty, except for little old ladies, in the thirteenth century. Ignorant, heretical clerks, malpractice, worldliness? Why do you think that almost every century of church history has featured powerful reforming movements? Lay ignorance of religious doctrine? That was what St. Dominic and St. Francis founded their preaching orders to fight. The old Adam is always rising again, and always having to be fought on every front.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

How exactly could great cathedrals be built if only little old ladies attended them?

I always considered the adherence to the faith to be like a sine curve, with us currently starting to come out of a trench. St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine and St. Dominic arrived at other bottoms of trenches. The heresies only helped hasten the decline into them. If we just scraped ignorance, materialism, contempt and superstition off the top (since they are universal) what else are we left with to affect such change but some particular heresy or flavor mishmash of heresies?

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

I also wanted to add that my friend is married to a Dutch man, who was turned off from Catholicism when a nun flat told him that God did not exist. Maybe the Church is still alive and well in Italy but it seems to be having a lot of problems in Belgium and the Netherlands. And from what I have heard about such things in France also, it is of no surprize to me that the traditionalist schismatics are so populous there.

In my own family I can also say that the quality, lack of catechesis taught by the church and in the schools as well as the lack of theological orthodoxy has caused a good portion of my husband's family to also fall away into a different traditionalist schism and heresy. It is exceedingly painful and a daily reminder of how much the church needs to heal, teach and bring its clergy and its members back into orthodoxy.

[marielapin.livejournal.com]

A combination of liturgical abuses and the teaching of heresy is what has led my husband's family away. So now they have traded in liturgical abuse and heresy for liturgical beauty and heresy. Both their liturgies and their teachings are heretical, but it just has a "whitewash" of orthodoxy that they were not getting from their own churches.

Which is why I don't see much of a difference between the two.