June 2010 Archives

An acquaintance has posted this link in a couple of places: a young monk in Wisconsin, a convert taking a somewhat deflated view of the proposed Anglican-use Ordinariate, puts out this little welcome sign for other prospective converts:

Do you agree with this statement:

I believe that to join an Ordinariate is to promise before God that, when I am traveling and not able to attend an Ordinariate parish, under pain of mortal sin I will assist at a folk Mass with streamers and liturgical dancers, if that is all there is to be found, in order to fulfill my Sunday obligation.

Now, I'm all for the Sunday obligation, and believe you me, I've endured some poor music and odd liturgical proceedings for its sake, but the 'profession' which Brother Stephen demands above is really not constructive.

I came into the Church in 1980 -- at perhaps the nadir of the liturgical barbarities -- so I have probably suffered more for the faith at the doings of bad liturgists than young Brother Stephen has, especially now that he resides in a lovely Cistercian monastery. Is he really in a position to strike an inquisitorial pose and demand that other people promise now to accept aesthetic sufferings?

I remember from experience that prospective converts simply do take some time to go through the intellectual and volitional steps implied by becoming a Catholic. They consider various aspects: to accept points of Catholic doctrine, and recognize the authority of the Church, and finally agree to be obedient to the Church.

It is not up to us, their friends, to decide which issues they absolutely must deal with first, even though, in the end, a convert must accept everything that the Church authoritatively teaches (and prescribes) in order to be a good Catholic. We can trust the pastors of the Church to ensure that any new Catholics of Anglican heritage will have proper instruction on the Sunday obligation, but if we stick a finger in their eye now, as if to assert our superiority, it is not exactly a heroic act of charity.

Kevin Symonds went to work today on one of the internet spin-meisters for Medjugorje. On his blog Desiderium, Kevin fisks a pretty typical piece written in defense of the dodgy apparition in Herzegovina.

I have to wonder if the supporters realize how weak their case is: they seem to have little defense to any critique about the visionaries and their messages.

When somebody points to problems at the core of the phenomenon, the defenders rush to distract attention by pointing to "fruits" on the periphery.

The people experiencing those "fruits" are outsiders: visitors with little involvement in the phenomenon. But when you look at the core of the phenomenon and stick to the core, you find a bunch of alleged seers, all of whom make a living off the alleged apparition. You find so-called messages that, due to their content, can never be plausibly be called celestial.

There are cases of so-called seers passing off their own thoughts and imaginings as messages and visions from Heaven: for example, in the cases where the visionaries at Medjugorje had "apparitions" of their associates who were away, such as Ivan at seminary or Fr. Zovko in jail. In both cases, the visions were accompanied by messages about the status of those persons, but facts later contradicted those claims.

When you look at the core group, you find manipulation, self-editing, refusal to cooperate in official theological investigations and unofficial medical tests, and even some clear cases of lying.

The hard-line supporters pretend not to see that -- but look at these nice seminarians over here! but look at these nice people going to confession! but look at the good deeds this person did in the US after he went to Medjugorje! but look at these foreign bishops who think it's real!

This is pretty dense, and disappointing when all this evasion comes from someone who's supposed to be a grad student studying religion.