The Party Spirit

The "party spirit" has nothing to do with balloons or cake.

Few Catholics understand what the “party spirit” is and how it comes about. Factions have been within the Church since day one. St. Paul refers to such in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17,  in Roman 12: 9-21 and Romans 14: 1-12.

St. Paul tells us that the party spirit is a spirit, or demon, of division. Divisiveness is never from God within the Church. Divisiveness is not the same as criticism, which should include positive solutions to problems.

For example, one may criticize a catechetical program in a church, but not offer to find alternatives which may be better or teach. Those who judge and criticize merely to stir up trouble build the doorway for the party spirit.

Divisiveness usually means three things. Firstly, that a lack of charity and forbearance has crept into a parish or a group. This lack of charity comes from concentrating on people’s sins and failings, rather than encouraging their good points.

Secondly, egotism, which rears its hydra head, creates division. Egotism must be heard, seen and is in everybody’s face. Egotism is not humble ever and defends itself constantly.

Thirdly, the seeking for power creates a party spirit. To the extreme, this seeking of power creates entirely new churches, such as the four churches found in the 1960s on one corner in my home town, all split-offs from the other. Division caused confusion, anger, even hatred.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, St. Paul tells us where the party spirit comes from.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, love of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, loves of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.”

The last phrase must include the discernment to know when to avoid and when to correct.

Avoiding means not being friends with those who are untrustworthy of the Gospel of the Lord. Avoiding means that if one does not avoid slanderers or the abusive or the arrogant, on becomes like them and loses the gifts of discernment, temperance, and prudence.

We do not have to win every battle and even fight every battle in the Church. Some battles require great holiness and purity of heart. Some require patience and intense prayer and fasting.

How does one avoid strife in groups? St. Paul has the answer, “Put on then, God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience, forbearing one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all of these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”Colossians 3:12-15

One must find peace within one’s self in order to spread peace and only those who have found peace, through meekness to God can truly stay away from unnecessary conflicts.

Grieving the Holy Spirit, another one of Paul’s inspirations, comes about when people engage and encourage, wrath, anger, bitterness, clamor, and slander. See Ephesians 4: 25-32 on these points.

If one reads all the epistles, one finds the theme of communal harmony is almost in each one. If St. Paul had to address divisiveness over and over, one can see that it can be a persistent problem.

I cannot refer to all the passages on this theme, but list a few ways to avoid divisiveness in the Church, in our parishes, in our communities, in our families, and so on.

One, look to one’s own sins in humility and truth. If one sees the horribleness of one’s own weaknesses and failings, one cannot judge nor cause dissension by pointing to another’s faults.

Two, think on Christ and not on one’s self. If one is truly in love with Christ, the Bridegroom, one supernaturally wants to love His brothers and sisters and find creative ways to show this love.

Three, forgiveness covers a multitude of sins and failings. To forgive is to forget, which some priests do not teach. I would hope people in my life forgive and forget instead of constantly saying a litany of my faults to me. This concentration on negativity rises from unforgiveness and even hatred. The negative litany destroys community.

Four, egotism must go. The rule of the saints and the great teachers on purity of heart, mind and soul tell us that the ego stands between us and God, between us and His Perfect Will in our lives, between us and the community, between us and eternity. If the ego is not destroyed, we shall not see God after our particular judgment as we have chosen our self-will over Him.

Lastly, egotism and narcissism constantly fall back on talking about one’s self and one’s grievances. As we say here in Iowa, “Get over it, he (or she) is not that into you.” I have discovered that really most people are truly not interested in me, but only in themselves. This should be a freeing experience of grace, enabling one to concentrate on God and not one’s self.

St. Paul wraps up this discussion so poignantly: “I hear that there are divisions among you ; and I partly believe it, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.”

The genuine are not those who cause the factions, but the Truth of the Gospel itself causes factions-however, we can teach, preach, instruct, but never judge. “For if we judge ourselves truly, we should not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are chastened, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.”

The genuine are those who allow God to purify them and those who cling to the orthodoxy of the Church in all things.

Let us allow God to chasten us first before we have the audacity to chasten others.

Evangelium Conference 2014

Evangelium 2014 will again be taking place this year in Reading. It will be a wonderful occasion for those who seek to use the internet to evangelise to deepen their knowledge of the Catholic Faith and to meet with others who are committed to evangelisation.

Registration is open for the seventh Evangelium weekend residential conference on the theme of explaining the Catholic faith in the modern world, 1 – 3 August 2014.

Are you interested in the Catholic faith, but lack the time or opportunities to learn? Do you wonder why the faith exists or how to flourish as a Catholic? Do you face challenges in living, sharing or defending the faith in secular society? Do you lack friendly support? Are you uncertain what you should be seeking in life, or what God is asking of you for your life? The Evangelium conference provides an opportunity to meet these challenges and to help participants, especially young Catholics age 18 – 35, to live a more abundant Catholic life. Over a single afternoon and weekend, the conference provides:

• dynamic talks by excellent speakers
• mix with other young people who share your faith
• discuss and talk informally with our speakers
• daily Mass and eucharistic adoration
• opportunities for confession
• relax in the beautiful grounds
• opportunities for sport and evening entertainment

A new feature of the conference from summer 2014 will be the ability to build a personalised short course of four sessions, with a summaries and references provided for ongoing reading, selected from one of the fourfold areas of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: CREED, SACRAMENTS, MORALS, and PRAYER. Annual conferences that present a variety of talks within these themes will enable regular participants to build up a body of knowledge year by year.

Guest speakers for Evangelium 2014 will include:

• Rt. Rev Philip Egan, Bishop of Portsmouth
• Joanna Bogle – Broadcaster and Writer
• Lynette Burrows – Journalist, Social Commentator and Family Rights Activist
• Mary Killeen – Director of Marriage and Family studies at Maryvale Institute
• Fr Marcus Holden – Maryvale Tutor, Custodian of the National Shrine of St Augustine, Ramsgate
• Dr William Newton – International Theology Institute
• Fr Armand de Malleray – Chaplain of the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter
• Fr Andrew Pinsent – Theology Faculty of Oxford and former CERN physicist

Visit the website to book your place on the Conference.

From The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost

Cardinal Manning cuts to the quick concerning why so many people who are baptized and confirmed, have the gifts of wisdom and counsel, as well as discernment, and still go astray, into foolishness.

Here is his answer. I use his words which are found in the long perfection tradition in the Church, similar to those of other saints, reiterated by me, concerning the loss of discernment. Let the holy and expert Cardinal answer: “This gift of counsel lies dormant in them; it is oppressed, kept down by their own mental and moral faults. They have made their ear dull of hearing and their eye dark so that they cannot discern. The first great antagonist of this spirit of counsel is the wisdom of the world.  And the wisdom of the world is the fashion and opinion of men possessed with the spirit which is of the world and not of God. The maxims, the traditions, the habits of thought, and the habits of life which spring from flesh and blood…these things stifle the voice of counsel.”

Too many Catholics do not want to admit that the thinking of the world perverts their own minds and therefore, their consciences.

Manning states the problem better than I do. “The love of pre-eminence; the inordinate desire of their own proper excellence; a ser-conscious straining to be spiritual guides of other men, to correct their faults, to criticize their actions and their states before God, and to go about setting others right—these are some of the least perceived and subtilest workings of pride….The greatest intellects are sometimes found in the smallest moral characters. The want of counsel makes them to be strange mixtures of greatness and littleness.”

I have struggled on this blog and my own blog to know what and when to state some things critical of others or even of groups. One must look carefully at one’s self to look at motives and leanings, the lack of purity and the need for healing. I have chosen to back off from criticizing the clergy, for example, believing that I cannot judge publicly and that it is better if I pray for those I think have gone astray and are no longer good pastors.

The other great sin of those who have received baptismal and confirmed gifts is that of presumption. Manning notes this, “This presumption, the root of which is in all of us, will, if indulged, destroy and utterly extinguish the gift of counsel.”

I have seen this happen among good people who are working in the Church. I have seen this in fellow bloggers, as well as in myself. One must be willing to let God deal with us, take us through purgation.

Presumption can lead to becoming rash and not praying to God for guidance.

It can lead to impetuosity, which is of the flesh, not the Spirit, states Manning. “They invert the divine order; and having set out in the way of their own choosing, they come to crosses and sorrows.  Then, they begin to ask for counsel, and perhaps they ask it of God; but they ask it too late. They are already so committed that they cannot go back. At last they so persuade themselves, that they will not follow good advice even if it were given.”

This is why we need to find good spiritual directors, which is so hard at this time.  We cannot fall into a pattern of trying to force our will upon the Will of God. How silly it is to think that we can make God’s will give way.

Manning quotes the great St. Augustine: “Thou, O Lord, givest counsel to all that ask. If they ask of Thee divers things, Thou always answerest he same; Thou answerest clearly enough, but they will not hear Thee, for they ask the things they desire, and they wish to make Thy will bend to theirs. Thou answerest that which is Thy will, and they hear what they will not; and therefore they do it not. He is the best servant who does not desire that God should say the things that he wills, but who desires himself to will the things that God says.”

This is the reason for the Dark Night. The purgation of self-will and “self-counsel” that is the “pride of his own will, and the pride of his own judgment” must happen.

Submitting to the Will of God really means giving in. Manning states, “When you kneel at the holy Mass, put your heart upon the paten and let it be offered up. God will counsel you. If you do His will, even though it cross your own, then you have the surest sign that you are not following your own choice.”

This purgation of the will leads, finally, to purity of heart.  That is the reason for such purgation. One has to stop playing God and let God be God in one’s life. 

Manning advises us, “Desire, then, to please God above all things, and all things shall be added unto you. If you cannot do all you desire, at least desire great things for His sake.”

This is what it means to become like a little child. Children who have good parents implicitly trust those parents in love.“Freely choose His service; for it is your freedom, and its own exceeding great reward,” which are the Cardinal’s last words on this subject.

Report: 2014 Blue Mass

On the Sunday after Ascension, 1 June 2014, the Knights of Columbus Woodlawn Council 2161 Traditional Latin Mass Guild hosted a Blue Mass at St. Titus Church in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, to honor members of the Aliquippa Police and Fire Departments, and the Beaver County Sheriff's Office, and to invoke God's blessing and protection upon them.

Additional photos and a brief report can be found here.

Knights of Columbus Latin Mass.

Wise as Serpents; Guileless as Doves

We, as the blogging Catholic media, are entering into a new phase. I can see it and sense it. The main stream media has finally realized how powerful the blogosphere is and is beginning to highlight problems, from that point of view.

A note today in the news states that the msm is in decline because of the online media, including bloggers.

But, Catholic bloggers are now under the spotlight. We have to turn a corner. This is the "turning time."

From now on, the blogging community must be wise and prudent in the ways of the world. We not only must be professional, we must argue in rational discourse and not on the level of the personal.

I taught logic and argumentation for years and have written on this blog last year on the importance of rational discourse.

Two rules: stay with the objective facts and never use personal names or get involved in personal arguments.

Debate is absolutely necessary. Apologetics in the Catholic Church demands an objectivity and the virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, as well as courage.

If we are to be taken seriously, we must be serious in our approach.

Here is a review of rules for rational discourse in the form of questions:

1) Is the argument coherent, clear, based on facts?

2) Is the diction used objective?

3) Is there a clear common basis for discussion?

4) Are the arguments concise and open to modification if necessary for coherence? This does not mean changing the inherent truth of the argument, but modifying approaches.

5) Are all, and I repeat, all emotional arguments and feelings set aside?

6) Are subjective arguments rightly seen as irrelevant?

7) Are those involved courteous and patient?

8) Do the parties involve invoke fact and details supporting the objective argument?

9) Are inflammatory words, ad hominems and ad populums avoided?

10) Are both parties involved in the discussion or is the argument merely one-sided, and therefore, only a harangue or rant?

11) Are the bloggers aware of civil rights, legal actions, and the entire media world of libel cases to be avoided at all costs?

12) And most importantly, do Catholic bloggers understand that they do not merely represent themselves, but the entire Catholic Church? There is a cult of individuality which makes many people forget they are part of the Church and represent the Church when writing.

If we merely want to write personal views and opinions, unless our minds are like the mind of the Church, we should not call our blogs "Catholic".

Thinking like a Catholic is being in the long rational tradition of debate and manners.

Pray, reflect, think, then act. We do not have to give our opponents fire with which to burn us.

We do not have to ask for persecution, and in fact, we are to avoid it if at all possible.

To do otherwise is to both cause scandal to the Body of Christ, and to damage any chances of evangelization. Our first job is to save souls, not "be right".  Evangelization is not the same as church politics.

Matthew 10:16

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) ¹⁶ “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Abortion Act Guidance - but what about the criminals?

Guidance in Relation to Requirements of the Abortion Act 1967 from the Sexual Health Policy Team, Public Health Directorate at the UK Department for Health

Andrea Duncan - Programme
Manager, sexual health and HIV

This document was published by the DoH on 23 May 2014.  Who or what is the Sexual Health Policy Team?  It may be possible to find this out but it is not easy to do so.  One person who is deeply entrenched in the sexual health political scene and who is certainly one member of the Sexual Health Policy Team is Andrea Duncan.  

Happy 140th Birthday GK Chesterton

The Last Hero

by G.K.Chesterton

---

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,

There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,

And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,

Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.

The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,

With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,

Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,

The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.

Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,

You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.

The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;

I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.

I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,

More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.

She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;

The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.

Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?

Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.

O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,

You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.



The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,

They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,

I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,

As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.

How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing
knave,

Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.

Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,

When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.

The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, --

You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.



Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,

What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?

My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,

Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.

To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,

The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.

The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,

To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;

One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:

You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.

Musings on The National and The Universal

A highly intelligent person told me over a year ago how he was converted in the streets of Rome, coming out of  Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio one summer day and noticing the hundreds of people on the street from all over the world.

He was instantly struck with the difference between his "national" Anglican church and the universal Catholic Church. He not only had this epiphany, that the universal Church is the one, true Church, but he instantly converted.

Today, I was musing on the fact of the impending demise of power of the national church, and how the step-sister Catholic Church would respond to disestablishment.

Can the Catholic Church in England be honest and forthright enough not to mourn the ending of the national institution of Anglicanism? Some Catholics believe that the national church has maintained a Christian ethos in England by the fact of establishment.

I disagree and believe that the confusion caused by the shifting into relativism and moral subjectivity one sees clearly in the established church has done more harm than good in modern times.

So, if disestablishment occurs, what should be the response of the hitherto step-sister, the one, true, holy, and apostolic Church?

Massive evangelization...

We should be preparing both mentally and spiritually for disestablishment, which will happen. The fact that the state church has compromised itself in most areas of doctrine and morals means that there will be a huge vacuum when the last vote for the destruction of the Anglican church happens.

Are we ready? Is there a missionary plan?

Why should Catholics be caught unprepared for the inevitable?

Cinderella became the princess not merely by waiting, but by listening to her fairy godmother.

We have the Holy Spirit giving us our "temporal mission" in the Church. Should we not be listening and cooperating with grace to change from the step-sister in the small corner of the room to the real princess, the Bride of Christ?

Just thoughts on a warm evening in the country...more here...

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-last-post-for-now-on-temporal.html

Pope Clement XI: The Universal Prayer

Courtesy of Our Catholic Prayers

'This Universal Prayer has been attributed to Pope Clement XI from the 18th century. This prayer provides a good outline of what we need to do we strive for sanctity and Eternal Life, as “citizens-in-training” for Heaven.

Does all this seem to be too tall an order? You’ve heard that even the just man sins seven times a day? Don’t lose hope! As you can tell, Pope Clement is not shy in asking God for His assistance to “obtain heaven”. And there’s good news! Our Lord wants very much to help you in your journey (and at times your struggle) towards sanctity. (So does our Blessed Mother Mary, whom St. Alphonsus Liguori once called the “dispenser of all divine graces”!)

As Jesus Himself said most famously in the Gospels “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing” (emphasis added) (John 15:5). You weren’t meant to “go it alone”, to achieve your salvation without Divine assistance, in part through prayers like this one above.

In fact, our Church calls the idea that one can achieve salvation without God’s help Pelagianism, a heresy! Just remember Our Lord has given us His Church, prayer and the Sacraments to help us receive His graces. And we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy. Don’t be afraid to ask Him for it, especially in the sacrament of Penance!

Note also, in the reference to “the nothingness of this world”, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive to achieve success, hopefully using whatever talents God gave you, and to be able to raise a family and have friends and the like. Just don’t get too attached to anything created rather than to our Creator. It all comes and goes quicker than any of us realize! And, as St. James once wrote “What is your life? It is a mist that appears for a while, and then vanishes” (Jas 4:15). Or, as the Prophet Isaiah said “All flesh is grass” (Is 40:6).

But don’t despair about that, either! The important thing, in all your work, is to give glory to God in love and obedience. When things go well, thank God for His blessings. When things go badly, as they do for so many these days, ask God for His help in getting through the tough times.

And remember always that, however crooked or straight, bumpy or smooth, the path to Heaven is for each of us, the end of this road takes us to a whole new glorious place! An eternity free of sickness, sadness, hatred, and all that ails us here on earth, one overflowing with God’s peace and love, real love! As St. Paul wrote “Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).'

More on The Church Militant

Referring again to Karl Adam's book, one finds this lengthy but clear, further explanation of the Church Militant. I use this quotation to underline the necessity of gaining "merit". When the Church states that some are saved through the merits of the Catholic Church, we are reminded that we must gain merit in order for this to happen.

A strong Church Militant works on indulgences, reparative suffering, self-denial, and other means of building up the Kingdom of God on earth. Some go on pilgrimages, such as to Walsingham for indulgences. Many, if not most, of the serious members of the Church Militant say the daily rosary. Prayers for the sick or the dying provide indulgences. But, actions can also merit grace for those who seek the Truth.

One of the roles of the Church Militant is, simply, redemptive or reparative suffering. This type of suffering allows for the grace of God to flow into the lives of others. Novenas, as well as acts of penance, frequently are implemented by those in the Church Militant. Here is Adam again:

But the ministry of the saints to the faithful on earth is not limited to loving intercession. It is also a love of self-sacrifice and service, a love which is ready to share its own wealth with all the struggling members of the Body of Christ, to the widest extent that it can so share it. The saints during their mortal life amassed beyond the measure of their duty a store of wealth and of sacrificial values made precious by the Blood of Christ. The superabundance of their love and penance forms a rich deposit. United with the superabundance of the merits of Christ, and derived from those merits, this wealth of the saints is that "treasure of the Church" (thesaurus ecclesiae), that sacred family inheritance, which belongs to all the members of the Body of Christ, and which is at the service especially of its sick and feeble members. "If a member suffers, all the members suffer with it." 

When a member has not made sufficient reparation for his sins, when after the forgiveness of sin and the remission of its eternal punishment, there yet remains a debt of "temporal" punishment, which the just God in His wise ordinance attaches still to forgiven sin, then all the members of the Body help to bear this burden of punishment, and then the Church in virtue of her power of binding and loosing may supplement the poverty of one member out of the wealth of another.  

 And thus she grants "indulgences," that is to say, supplements the insufficient reparation of her weaker members by means of the vicarious superabundance of the merits of Christ and His saints. So that the indulgence not only attests the seriousness of sin and teaches that guilt must be expiated "to the last farthing," but is also an illustration of the blessed potency of the Communion of Saints and of the vicarious expiation which is interwoven with it. All the main ideas upon which the doctrine of indulgences is based—the necessity of expiation for sin, the co-operative expiation of the members of the Body of Christ, the Church's power so to bind and loose on earth that her action is valid in heaven—all these ideas are contained in holy Scripture.  

 So that although the historical form of the indulgence has undergone some change—from the vicarious expiatory suffering of the martyrs and confessors, and the penitential "redemptions" of the Middle Ages down to our modern indulgenced prayer—and may in the future undergo further change, and although the theology of indulgences has only been gradually elaborated, yet in its substance the doctrine is in line with the pure thought of the Scriptures. Here, as in no other practice of the Church, do the members of the Body of Christ co-operate in loving expiation. All the earnestness and joyfulness, humility and contrition, love and fidelity, which animate the Body are here especially combined and manifested. 

For that reason, as the Council of Trent says, "the use of indulgences is very salutary for the people of Christ" (Sess. 25 De indulg.), But, because indulgences are based upon truths which are not easy for the rude and uneducated, distortion and abuse are very possible, especially where the people are not well instructed in religion and where Church authority is not vigilant. There were many abuses during the period before the Council of Trent, and we are still suffering their evil consequences. But it is a proof of the permanent value of indulgences that abuses have not been able to kill them, but have only purged them with cleansing fire and aroused them to a new and deeper life. They have become in our day, more than ever, a valuable adjunct to pastoral work.  

Every instructed Catholic knows that an indulgence is not a remission of sin, but only of the temporal penalties attached to sin. He knows that it belongs therefore not to the center and core of the life of grace, but only to its outermost circumference. The granting of an indulgence is not a sacramental or priestly act, but an act of Church authority. Every indulgenced practice has meaning and value only in so far as it is at the same time a simple prayer in the Holy Ghost. A man who would want to use prayer, not for loving converse with God, but merely for the gaining of indulgences, would misuse it and would display a bad misunderstanding of its meaning and nature. 

 The supreme aim of all Christian piety, the one absolutely necessary thing, is to live a new life in God and to be delivered by the power of this life from the guilt of sin and from eternal punishment. No indulgence can exempt from this duty. Indeed the gaining of an indulgence presupposes this one necessary thing, for there can be no remission of temporal punishment where there is no remission of guilt and eternal punishment. So that indulgences may be said to operate at least indirectly towards this purification from sin and towards the establishment of the new life in God. The indulgence, therefore, of its nature is not instituted for the externalizing of the religious life, but for its deepening and enrichment. 

It is an emphatic summons to repentance, a strong impulse to vital incorporation in the Body of Christ, so as to obtain His blessing. And as an indulgence does not simply abolish the whole burden of temporal punishment, but remits it only so far as your works, exactly prescribed by the Church, unite with the merits of Christ and His saints, it may serve also to arouse the sluggish conscience and to make it sensitive, not only to the infinite seriousness of sin, but also to the unparalleled blessings contained in the fellowship of the members of Christ.

To be continued later...

Where Is The Church Militant?

Karl Adam

Besides the excellent bloggers on this blog, and a few writers in the marketplace, one has to ask where is the Church Militant in Great Britain? The idea of fighting the good fight in every aspect of moral and liturgical life, not to mention the political and work spheres, seems to be missing among the larger groupings of Catholics.

The old recusant mind-set may be vanishing. I sincerely hope not, but I have had a sinking feeling that, perhaps, the first country to truly persecute Catholics again in the not-so-distant future will be Auld Blighty.

The political parties as a whole seem not to be open to discussion with mainstream religions, bar one. And, the common person on the street, the true secularist, has marginalized religion to the point of making it irrelevant. So, the more the Catholic Church becomes marginalized, one of the stages of persecution, the more the Church will lose influence.

The Church Militant described by Karl Adam in The Spirit of Catholicism, (I have one of the original pink books of his in the old Catholic series), defines and describes the Communion of Saints. The Church Militant may be seen as this, part of the Communion of Saints:  

The relations between the Church of this world and the Church of the next are many and various; scarcely less rich and fruitful is the loving and vital fellowship that exists between the earthly members themselves of the Body of Christ. When the Fathers, beginning with Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana at the commencement of the fifth century, speak of the Communion of Saints, they are thinking especially of this earthly fellowship, and it was this that St. Paul also had specially in mind. It is the mysterious inner life of the Church, the mysterious exchange and commerce in functions and graces between its members, the mysterious process whereby the fellowship of Christ grows up organically into a "holy temple in the Lord," into the habitation of God in the Spirit (Eph. ii, 21-22)

Here is an excellent definition from Adam, which incorporates the words of the Beatitudes into the description of the Church Militant.

The Church Militant (ecclesia militans).—The "saints" of Christ, His "holy nation" (1 Peter ii, 9), fight here on earth, not with loud clamor or great display, but in quiet and stillness. Their wrestling is not against men, but against sin; they seek the pearl of great price and the hidden treasure. They are depicted in the Sermon on the Mount, in the concise and graphic phrases of our Lord. They are the "poor in spirit," the little ones of state and Church and society, the unappreciated and despised, who day by day go their inconspicuous way of duty, and cannot marvel enough that the great and holy God should wish to be with them also. They are the "meek" who never grumble at life and who ever accept with great content whatever God sends them. They are the "mourners" who in the lonely night cry plaintively to God: Lord, not my will, but Thine be done, and who at the last can thank their God with glad hearts that they are allowed to suffer with Jesus. 

They are those who "hunger and thirst after justice," those who reck nothing of comfortable piety and well-fed virtue, but on the contrary are pierced to the soul with the thought of their unworthiness, and put their whole trust constantly in the redeeming power of Jesus. They are the "merciful," for whom the need of others is their need, whom no obstacle, no sin or foulness can hinder from succoring their starving brother, and whose hands are closed by no ingratitude. They are the "pure of heart," men of a childlike simplicity and singleness of aim, kindhearted, guileless and always cheerful, for whom life is all sunshine, a constant loving cry of Abba, Father! 

They are the "peace-makers," men of the Holy Spirit, of inward maturity and serene equipoise of mind, from whom quiet and peace flow forth as from a sanctuary, before whom all discord is ashamed and dumb. And lastly they are those who are persecuted "for justice sake," "for His sake," those apostolic souls and tireless workers in the vineyard, who proclaim His truth by speech and writing, by teaching and example, "in season and out of season" (2 Tim. iv, 2). They seek not their own advantage, neither recognition from the world, nor honors from the Church; they seek only souls. And commonly their lot is abuse, persecution and hatred. For their life is a special challenge to the world, and draws down the scorn and laughter of its wise ones.

If the Church Militant in Britain completely loses her identity, the New Evangelization will be stymied. Only in the acceptance of this identity can those who are true soldiers of Christ move out into the public square with conviction. This media of blogging provides one such way of supporting ecclesia militans. This Guild provides a vanguard for ecclesia militans. I shall continue with this theme again soon.

Full Employment

In discussions with an atheist friend, the topic of Biblical approval of slavery came up. I must confess that I was quite unprepared for it. A barrage of Old Testament quotes from Almighty God that regulated slavery and upheld the concept were sent to me over Facebook. My first approach to this line of attack on the God of Revelation ('If God says this there is no God') was to place slavery in the historical context of the ancient world and to then go scrambling for apologetics on it. I don't think I convinced my theological adversary one bit. Personally, I need to understand it, otherwise it is not only God Himself Who is Mystery, but what He revealed in that time makes no sense. We cannot understand God but we can understand His laws - even those given at the time to the Jewish people.

Luck of the Irish: St Patrick fled from his slave owners and eventually 
became a Bishop. St Patrick, of course, wasn't Irish, but he was a Saint

The lesser evil

Wherever slavery has been in any time in history it would appear that it has been bound up with conquest and war, subjugation of inhabitants for the acquisition of territory and land.

There is little evidence from the Old Testament that slavery was invented by God, but rather tolerated and, at times, endorsed, especially at those times when God's people were under threat from foreign aggressors. In the Old Testament, God is the mighty Protector to His People and He has no other people but the Chosen People. It is with them that God makes a Covenant. Some Catholic apologists point to the biblical support for slavery as the permitting of a 'lesser evil' by God. We need to ask what the 'greater evil' or could have been.

Catholic apologetics would first point to the Fall and the entrance of Original Sin into the world as the loss of the Ideal for which human beings were originally created - namely, to enjoy Paradise. The whole concept of 'work' or 'toil' is something that enters human history in the immediate aftermath of the Fall and the first ever job was, we are informed, gardening. Not that money was around so early on. Human beings were not originally created for a life of toil and work or war, but for the enjoyment of God in Paradise. Adam is informed in the wake of the disobedience of himself and Eve...

And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.

Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou eat the herbs of the earth. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return.

We might readily ask ourselves, in our modern conception of freedom and liberty, what the 'greater evil' might have been that God, in not prohibiting but tolerating slavery, which becomes apparent in Deuteronomy, might have sought to avoid. The defence of the Jewish people above every other nation appears God's first motive. From what I can tell - and this will take a little re-adjustment of our modern thinking - biblical law on slavery from God's side seems to be more pro-slave than pro-master, even if it is more pro-Jew, than pro-Gentile. God is consistently, throughout Scripture, on the side of the poor, not the rich, favours the oppressed, the orphan, the widow and never does He contradict Himself on this. Not even in this matter.

Law and Love

 
Before we examine what the greater evil in the absence of slavery might have been, let us remember too that in the Old Testament God permits to the Jews usury (lending money at interest) as a lesser evil to something worse - starvation of a person and/or destitution. That does not mean God loves usury or blesses it. Lending at interest is not good, it is not generous, but if a person is able to repay he will be grateful that someone took pity a little and lent to him in his hour of need (hopefully not at Wonga rates of return). God never says that he likes usury. In fact, the financial enslavement of the poor and their exploitation is consistently something God makes it clear He detests. It is the oppression of the poor, just as slavery in many circumstances would have been the oppression of the poor. I see no reason to imagine that if a rich man 'invested' in a slave and simply exploited a human being to make himself richer and never considered freeing him that God would have detested that too because God detests avarice and the oppression of the poor that is often motivated by that sin.

Under Mosaic law, God even permits divorce in certain circumstances. In the New Testament, Our Lord Jesus Christ recounts that Moses gave permission but only due to the 'hardness of heart' of God's People. Jesus Christ then denounces divorce and remarriage and calls it adultery, which, we can be assured, made some listening to Him very angry indeed. God detests incest, but incest, in the wake of the Fall, is of a lesser and necessary evil and God permits it in order that the human race springs from two first parents.

Jesus Christ and the Pharisees: For some reason. they did not get along...

It is perhaps speculative, but Christ points to the Pharisees, with whom He is nearly continually at odds and says of them:

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not; for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens, and lay them on men's shoulders; but with a finger of their own they will not move them.

One could be forgiven for thinking Pharisees kept Israelite slaves. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't, but Jesus condemned them for their strict observance of the law but complete lack of love in 'weightier matters' of justice and mercy. God, therefore, permits human initiatives and structures - even economic systems of trade - which have the potential for outright abuse and outright injustice and evil. God gives free will to His people to obey Him and love Him and our neighbour or not. He lays down guidelines for conduct, even in this case, but still allows human beings to be just, or to be unjust and, from what I can see, whatever evils perpetuated against the poor and oppressed by slavery were not according to His will. St Paul would later speak on the matter and tell the Christians that those who had slaves should treat them as brothers and slaves should treat masters in a similar fashion of brotherly love.

In Jesus Christ, it is revealed that what really angers God is an understanding of God's Laws that are more about 'what we can get away with' and observing a book of laws, rather than the worship, love and adoration of God, with the justice and mercy towards our neighbour that He commands and loves. At the same time, for God to have entirely removed slavery at the time as an option for the poor and oppressed would be excessively cruel since it would mean potential starvation, destitution, penury, perpetual debt and being forced into a life of crime or even male prostitution and you can't say that never happened. Debt slaves existed. Thanks to banks, they still exist today. Whole countries! Under Old Testament law, you could pay back a debt through giving your self to work without pay. It was not intended to be perpetual servitude and it is likely that God did not desire that anyone be kept in perpetual servitude if it was possible that they could be free.

"Death or slavery, you say? Let's think, now...give me a moment..."

The entire concept of the slave-master relationship appears to be held in tension with an evident divine wish that the slave - or bondsman - is permitted a healthy measure of human dignity and his humanity is respected - even when taken in warfare and even if the slave was a Gentile for God has commanded his creatures to love. That's why laws on the conduct and treatment of slaves are proscribed.

To us moderns, that sounds like a complete contradiction in terms but let us place ourselves in that era in order that we may at least understand the time. You've been invaded as a country. It's either slavery or...? What exactly? A job working for McDonalds? No. One rather suspects that it was either captivity and slavery or death in time of war. Armies invaded and if you were not taken captive, presumably you were generally killed in the war. That's kind of how wars were won and lost. That is how you subjugated a nation, otherwise, presumably, you were not taken seriously.

Before readers think I'm in any way advocating neo-colonial slavery - or think slavery is good with the attending conquest of nations, it should be understood that the slavery referred to in the Bible is not racial in its essence and that the overtly racial slavery depicted in 12 Years a Slave would be alien to the People of the Book. There were two kinds of slave. Israelite slaves and foreign slaves taken in times of war. In that sense, there was no 'discrimination'.

"Destitution or slavery, you say? Let's think, now...give me a moment..."

My understanding of Old Testament slavery for Israelite slaves is one of a 'safety net'. That is the only manner by which I can begin to understand the God of Compassion. This may have been a situation abused by His people and others, but we might ponder what a bankrupted or indebted, or destitute Israelite's options would have been. If there is nothing and noone else, the answer would appear to be destitution, crime, debt or begging - with all the stigma that would have come with that, or slavery - with all the stigma that would come with that.

St Paul: Be kind to slaves. Slaves, be loyal to your masters

We should ask ourselves what might be in place in contemporary society without the 'welfare state' that receives so much praise and criticism in nearly equal measure and I will draw upon this modern behemoth in this post. If, as I suspect, when an Israelite hit 'rock bottom' there was no employment available and it was a choice of stealing, begging or 'something else', I can see a certain logic in the divine permission behind that 'something else' being slavery. Since what does a man have left to trade when he has nothing to trade but himself?

For God to prohibit slavery entirely would have been to remove the possibility of being a 'bondsman'  and would, in this situation, be cruel in the extreme. That person unable to provide for himself or his family would be denied work and being denied work would be to be denied bread and to either starve, beg or steal. Under divine law, God had made it clear that the man who does not work, does not eat. Working for your food and working to provide for family was written into not just the laws of God in the Old Testament but can arguable be found in the natural law as well. The main work of the times would have been rural and agricultural, growing crops, farming land and livestock. Slaves could marry and have family. They were, we can assume, given accommodation, food, drink etc. Again, this is not to say that slavery was good, nor that it was not bad, but that it may have been better than dying in the gutter, the lesser of all the social evils.

None of this means that God was the big slave owner in the sky who rejoiced at seeing poor people in a situation where they had to hand themselves over to a master who (hopefully) treated them in a virtuous and just manner (if they followed God's laws) in the event of destitution and poverty. All it means is that for the Israelite, at least, and even for the foreigner, God permitted something that would at least enable a person - and even that person's family - to survive. It does not mean God enjoyed or does enjoy slavery and servitude - unless of course, we are rendering such service to God or Our Lady.

Slavery: Not the only social evil

We see in today's society that the slavery permitted by God in the Old Testament, but never willed by Him for humanity, is a terrible blight on our history. However, even today, there are terrible social evils which are lamentable and which may, in antiquity, have even been reduced by such a social evil as slavery.

For instance, mass unemployment is a huge problem today. With mass unemployment comes great poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, suicides, loss of purpose, crime, prostitution and - and this is important - the near total loss of the dignity of work. The benefits system, too, has reduced human beings to being cogs in a machine that does not consider them as valuable or worthy. Every person is a statistic and each claimant is seen as a burden, especially in times of economic austerity.


Nobody - myself included (I am unemployed) - would advocate any form of slavery for the mass unemployed, but it could be argued from biblical tradition that to be a 'bondsman' would have been the only way out of all those of all the evils and that slavery would have been the lesser evil because under divine law you would have had accommodation, the right to a family, the right to marry, the right to food and shelter and it was not to be perpetual.

It's coming back...

Yet we are now in the 21st century and we can no longer rule out that it may yet happen when, if as likely, the welfare state collapses, since in the event, what would be the choice for those who face destitution? It's payback time and every proposal is on the table. We could even see, in the United Kingdom, a form of slavery introduced soon that will see the State dictate to families that more than two children will not be supported by the Government, which will manipulate families on benefits to consider abortion, sterilisation or artificial contraception.

Now that contemporary poverty has grown to such a large extent in the West, the poor are more 'in the palm' of Big Government and Big Business than they ever were before. The benefits system has reduced the poor to financial dependence on the State in a way which is truly frightening. Already, men and women out of work (yes, women have to work now, sorry ladies) are facing draconian sanctions if they are discovered to be 'fit for work'. Many are being forced to work for companies for their meagre benefits payments which by no means cover the cost of living in the slightest. It is a small step between paying people £1.70 an hour in benefits for working in return and paying people nothing in benefits for working in return.

Would Almighty God approve of that? No. He might permit it, but He does not bless it. He would detest that, but then, hey, when a country is in debt slavery to the tune of billions, if not trillions of pounds, one could see how any Government could eventually decide that some form of slavery for the unemployed was 'the lesser evil' rather than, say, being their 'brother's keeper'. Of course, no secularist Government will be drawing upon the Old Testament as justification for such a proposal. We've 'progressed' from all that, you know. I guess that the very powerful social darwinists running this country could get that Fabian concept of 'full employment' after all. They might not all get paid much - or even, one day - at all, but at least there will be 'full employment'. The poor will not be able to volunteer themselves to a farmer as a bondsman. Why? Because now all the slaves will belong to the State. You will either behave and do as you are told, or starve.

The atheists will still maintain, of course, that God's the bad guy!