Re: Sipe’s view was not theological, but sociological
Of course, The case is prudential not theological. Sexually active but formally celibate heterosexual clergy would be a huge problem too, as was seen in the Renaissance era.
Formally celibacy has never worked out well - save for maybe a couple of centuries in India where Buddhist monastics were true mendicants and physically removed from each other by both vow and distance. And even then there were shenanigans (there's passages in the vinaya about bestiality, necrophilia, etc. I don't what to know how/why they got in there!). I think the Orthodox Church has the best model - a celibate monastic community and a married priesthood. I can't imagine that it's perfect, but while many might be called to a religious life, only a minority are suited for the full discipline. Having that safety valve of a married clergy is really a mark of wisdom.
I understand they do have cats, to keep the rodents and snakes under control. I've seen videos... One such was of a monk feeding cats; the monk did not seem to be happy about associating with them, but he gave them their meal nonetheless :)
It also just makes sense from a pastoral standpoint: all else being equal, a married priest would probably be able to better understand and attend to the needs and concerns of the families in his flock.
I think that, like all things, there are advantages and disadvantages. Yes, I think that having married clergy tends to lead to a group of men who are more grounded and experienced in the things of daily life. Yes, it means that his attention is split to some degree. On the other hand, church and family aren't necessarily diametrically opposed.
I see your point, but I wonder what work-life balance means to a married priest? Isn't it a hallmark of well-balanced folks to place family higher than work in that hierarchy? What does that mean for a priest?
Does a married priest cancel Sunday services to ensure he can attend a soccer game?
Ask an Orthodox priest about this. I've never known one to miss a liturgy except as a result of serious illness or a death in the family. And a single priest would do the same. Also, I doubt a priest would let his kids play in a sports league that had Sunday games.
We expect physicians, generals and political leaders to attend to their duties while they have families. Is there a reason priests can't? Not that you'd know it from all the non-Christian religions and Christian churches with married clergy
"We expect physicians, generals and political leaders to attend to their duties" . . . Is a very good argument. It made me realize the married priest I envisioned was kind of a wimp--always whining about competing priorities. I'd feminized the priest in my head, oh my! A traditional man (like George Washington, for example) wouldn't be whining in this manner.
There was a rabbinical candidate in Israel who was basically told he could not be a rabbi of a congregation until he was married, because he would not be able to minister knowledgeably to married couples, or couples contemplating marriage.
"Having that safety valve of a married clergy is really a mark of wisdom". . .
As a Catholic I look at the Orthodox married priests and think "What's your real commitment to God? What have you given up to follow Christ? Obviously your sexual desires were too much to ask. I could have done that."
And what about nuns? Should they be allowed to marry as well? What about their vocation to be wedded to Christ?
I find the Orthodox (particularly the Greek Orthodox) to be singularly arrogant in their view of married priests. As if it were some "wise" decision by their sect. I've been to Cyprus, there's plenty of buggary going on in the land of married priests.
While marriage should cure perversion it is hardly a panacea.
I think the issue here is that you want priests to live up to the standard of monks, which strikes me as unrealistic and counterproductive. And again, several of the apostles were married, including Peter (1 Corinthians 9:5).
Maybe so. But for present purposes, the point is that St. Paul makes it clear that celibacy is a special vocation that he chose for himself, not a general requirement for the apostles: Jesus didn’t establish a celibate priesthood, and the first pope was a married man. To my mind, these historical facts carry significant weight.
Also, I’d imagine that the early Christians took care of each others’ families when martyrdom happened.
Thanks for disagreeing so amicably. I struggle with that, often :)
I guess in the end it's my rigidity that does not want to see any more change in the Catholic Church. I was upset for a month with some of the wording changes they've implemented of late.
Plus, I grew up in a Catholic family where there was a strong expectation of the male children to at least consider this vocation. The celibacy standard was always a huge part of the discussion.
It's obvious that St Paul expected that a pastor would have a wife. He didn't require it, and some of the greatest Christian pastors and missionaries have been bachelors, but the single and therefore celibate for life requirement is entirely man made.
Sola Scriptura.
I'm not hostile, Laura. My interactions with you have been unfailingly pleasant, and I hope you will not regard this as an exception, but the Christian life, hard though it is, is made only harder when people substitute someone's unscriptural idea about something for The Word of Truth.
From what I've read, the rule of celibacy was not originally a matter of devotion or discipline, but a response to the growing wealth of the church, as war leaders contemplating transition to the next life donating substantial lands and funds in hopes it would redeem their blooded souls. There had actually been dynasties in married priesthoods, among the Irish and Scots for instance, and there was a concern not to allow dynasties in the church concentrating wealth to worldly ends. There being no contraception, the only recourse was a celibate priesthood, which of course was impossible to enforce consistently. Thus, Alexander VI appointed his children by a mistress to high church office.
Is sex all marriage is about? Maybe he was committed to family, his wife, bringing more Christian children into the world, etc. The Orthodox priesthood is effectively a different office/vocation than that of a Catholic cleric The rule is likewise going to differ.
Sorry I was just reading Benedict XVI and he talked at length about marriage being a place where young folks can get their desire out in an ordered manner.
Maybe it was his own celibacy that made him place such prominence in ordered desires within marriage.
Monasticism is a different vocation entirely. The monk or nun devotes him/herself entirely to God, in theory., A priest has a congregation to serve which right there precludes 24/7 contemplation of God.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. The Anglican Communion has hit on that model as well as the Orthodox Church. I think there is a case for monasticism, but only as an extreme or eccentric position.
Another point is one of simple economics. The celibacy requirement drastically reduces the number of people wanting to be priests, which means that the standards are lowered. Leaving aside immoral or illegal sexual behaviour, this also means more drunks, more idiots, more financially dishonest people, more generally obnoxious people, etc., are going to be accepted as priests.
Absolutely. But monks are the backbone of any spiritual tradition. They are the epitome and ideal of what a religion seeks to express. Eccentric? Maybe. But definitely indispensable.
1 Timothy 3: 2 - 5 is impossible to understand apart from the Apostle Paul's expectation - not requirement, but expectation - that a pastor will have a wife.
The Christian life is so much easier both to understand and to live if one looks to The Word of God instead of to wrongheaded if well meaning human intention.
It's the way of Bergoglio. Out of one side of his mouth rail against "faggotry" in the seminaries, out of the other side flatter James Martin and all the nephews of Ted McCarrick that he has appointed to the College of Cardinals.
Out of one side of his mouth warn about Europe's failure to have children. Out of the other mock traditional Catholics for "breeding like rabbits" and demand that Europe get repopulated by African and Muslim migrants.
The lesson to take away here is that either side in our polarized times considers the other to be the barbarians and to be winning in a life-or-death struggle. Therefore, extreme measures are justified.
CNN is carrying water for Francis. There is no way he didn't know how vulgar the word is. When I worked in Rome I often put the paper together in the typeshop because I could communicate with the paste-up guys (the "tipografi") in their own language; they soon took me under their wing. There was one gay guy, Ughetto, whom everybody liked and teased mercilessly. One morning Diego, the class clown, came into work mincing and swanning about. "Oggi mi sento un po'... froscesco" ("Today I feel a little faggotty") and proceded to dry hump Ughetto over a drafting table. To say that Francis didn't understand its vulgarity is to say he didn't understand what it means.
The money quote in your piece is Rieff. Here is my take, for what it's worth. Francis thinks he's playing a sly game in preserving the Church as a global force (can you imagine him worried about dsaving souls? me neither). In reality he's morphing it into a global NGO, but that is irrelevant here. He is reputed to have said to Father Martin (one looks forward to the latter's Twixes today) that unless the Church becomes welcoming to gays it will be reduced to the status of a sect. The reversion to what Rieff nails, the antique notion of sex, "'the rejection of sexual individualism' in the Greco-Roman world was 'very near the center of the symbolic that has not held'" is, everybody knows by now, but few will say, a civilizational earthquake. Francis thinks the Church can survive by burning one grain of incense to sexual anarchy. He's wrong of course, but that's the explanation of his remarks. There's one more thing that's pure speculation. Francis is said to have a personal distaste for gays. I recently saw a video of an Italian bishop saying, "either the church is welcoming to gays or it isn't" and this prelate's affect was that of the late Paul Lynde. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe cats like this bishop began to strut about little too openly and Francis decided they needed a lesson. That would hardly be out of character. Googling the Italian bishop in hopes of being able to paste the video here, I found nothing but MSM horror that Francis had employed a slur. At least they're waking up to what a nasty little man he is.
There are some saints on our calendar who, way back when, disguised themselves as men (to avoid unwanted marriages usually) and entered male monasteries and were only discovered at death.
Entertaining as hell how this story about the Pope sent the Usual Suspect into a dither, and unsurprisingly a lot of them have settled on the denial defense: he didn't say it...or if he did, he didn't understand the word he was using.
To be clear, I think the word is unacceptable, but the status it's attained as a forbidden offense against the tin gods of Wokeism is ludicrous.
Anyway, Pope Francis has been an invaluable asset to the forces of the Regime, functioning as their Court Chaplain while neutralizing the single institution that poses a threat to the New Moral Order. That's why he's been given a pass on stuff that their media arm would have used to crucify guys like Benedict or JPII. They're not about to cut him loose over this violation of their sacred commandments.
Meanwhile, what's getting lost in the dust storm is the true and important thing he said about not giving entrance to gay seminarians, the substance of which is not even being disputed.
The man has done a lot of damage but he has not changed the doctrine or core teaching of the Church, and it now looks clear that he will not dare attempt to. The widespread revolt against Fiducia Supplicans was a warning signal that I think has been received and understood at the Vatican.
Everyone is now in waiting mode...waiting for this papacy to finally end. And not many want a repeat performance with the next guy...assuming there is a next guy. I'm still holding out hope for an African myself, but I've been hoping for that since JPII's death.
This is a great comment, but, the word is "unacceptable". Where? In the media? From the lips of the occupant of the see of Peter speaking to his brother bishops, the successors of the apostles, where he can be quoted and mocked? Absolutely. But the word "froscione", and its variants, is firmly rooted in the Italian language, and would need a thorough weeding job to remove.
There are words unacceptable in polite discourse, but there are times and places for their use. The bowdlerizing efforts of the Victorians vandalized our literary corpus.
I know a gay guy who was asked to leave a gay bar (where he's known) because he complained vocally about "too many dumb faggots in here tonight." Apparently even gays cannot use that "f" word in the manner that black people can use the "n" word without censure.
I'm not advocating the word's removal, but do think the English equivalent is a slur and a sin against charity. It can't be removed but shouldn't be used. That said, I also stand by my above observation about its ludicrous status...(that and the n-word)...as a blasphemous offense against our new Wokeist religion.
By the way, the Vatican has just released a statement that in effect all but admits the accuracy of the media reports and that, while stressing that "everyone is welcome" in the Church, conspicuously avoids extending such welcome to the Church's seminaries.
Who knows? Really! What does "acceptable" mean in such a context? Does it mean "a sin," or "a mistake?" His modus operandi relies on such vagueness and imprecision.
One might also ask "What is - if there is -'the Catholic doctrine' concerning the death penalty?," and once one has ascertained that, how has he changed it?" That work is never done. It is analogous to the question of whether he had "changed doctrine" about the "acceptability" of homosexual relations.
Sometimes I wonder whether he means something like "the moral acceptability" or "the social/moral acceptability." If so, he should have chosen the name of "Pope Canute" rather than "Pope Francis," for all the force or effect of such ultra vires statements and terms.
I think the idea there was that the death penalty was once necessary to keep innocent people safe from criminals, but with the modern capacity to reliably lock people away, that's no longer the case. I don't think it was ever considered acceptable to kill a person solely out of a desire for retribution (or at least, in my view it shouldn't have been: such a sentiment seems plainly un-Christian).
"Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live."- An Address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System (1952).
Ah well. Guess I'll have to put that in the box of things I disagree with the Church about, then. (Or do I disagree now, given that this guy might have "changed the doctrine"? It's confusing to keep track of this stuff.)
I'm open to the argument that some people must be put down in order to keep innocents safe, but not so much to the argument that the death penalty is good becuse justice demands retribution.
Also, with our system, we are statistically certain to sooner or later kill wrongly convicted persons, and we know that, so that bothers me as well. I think that amounts to accepting human sacrifices as the price to keep the system humming along.
We're statistically certain to jail the wrong people as well. It happens all the time. The alternative is what we have now. You likee?
I don't like retribution, either. I do like that it gives the culprit the opportunity to look inward. You know, Dr Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir: when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates the mind wonderfully."
Well, death is sort of irrevocable, so if we know we're fallible and prone to error, then it seems wise and appropriately humble to not inflict that as a punishment upon others. Locking people away is more provisional than that: we could, you know, change our minds if we realized we were wrong.
Also, I think that Camus (Albert, not the guy who's been coming up here) makes a good case for how the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual psychological torture, with the certainty of death at X time at the hands of the state being rather worse than any violence committed "in the wild", as it were.
I'm in total alignment with you on this, Sethu. And I'm glad Francis said the death penalty is "unacceptable." It is and should be. The State is too imperfect to allow it to carry out this type of irreversible punishment.
Fair question, and I think the answer is no...though I totally understand how others might reason to a different conclusion.
If the rationale for the change were that the death penalty was now determined to be "intrinsically immoral" in contradiction with past teaching, then that would constitute a change in doctrine. As it was, however, Cardinal Ladaria, the then head of what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, framed the use of the word "inadmissable" as the product of a change in historical circumstances rather than an overturning of doctrine.
There's also a school of thought that as a non-definitive act of the Ordinary Magisterium, the change can be argued to be an incorrect prudential application of the traditional teaching.
The problem is that if you strip away all the theological intricacies, which the average layperson cannot compute, you're left with what can appear to be...a change of doctrine. Slipperiness and confusion are, after all, this pontificate's stock in trade.
Anyway, theologian Edward Feser, of whom I am a big fan, lays all this out in exhaustive detail:
The Gaza Pier sinking is a great embarrassment for our incompetent military. How did the Corps of engineers build a pier that could collapse so quickly? I bet the Israeli military could have built a pier that wouldn't sink after a couple weeks. And now America realizes all the aid to stressed Arabs in Gaza was plundered by the Hamas terrorists. The modern American military appears to be led by a large collection of heavily-ribboned stuffed uniforms who are obtusely unaware of their revealed incompetence.
One would need to make a thorough study of the tides and currents and sometimes even that is not enough. In Delaware there were multiple successive bridges spanning the Indian River Inlet off the ocean and each was eventually undermined by currents until the current one was built anchored to dry land on either side. The problem at Gaza was haste.
If I recall correctly, after D-Day we built a giant floating pier somewhere in northern France or Belgium, which was subsequently destroyed during a violent storm. The ocean is powerful and should never be underestimated.
My guess is that the Gaza pier was just PR concocted by the amateurs at the White House or State Department, and sheepishly constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers even as they privately mused, "This ain't gonna work."
Edit -- I just saw Thomas's post below about the WW2 pier.
The two Mulberries. Churchill's idea. One Mulberry was destroyed when a bad storm hit the English Channel a couple weeks after June 6. The other served its purpose until Cherboug was taken from the Germans as a port.
Perhaps Hunter Biden got a fee organizing the pier.
I'm sure I'm giving the military planners much too much credit here (why look for Machiavellian's playing 5D chess when it is clear we are dealing with a counsel of clowns?) but I couldn't help thinking: what if they built the pier to fail and fall apart in a few weeks? It was always obvious the foodstuffs were going to be seized by Hamas, and the longer U.S. military personnel was stationed there, the more likely a major incident were to occur. This way, the U.S. could credibly claim to have "done something" without facing the long-term risks (and mounting costs) of what was always a very stupid plan. Again, sure I'm giving them too much credit, but that was a thought I had.
The problem with the pier is in its very nature: it is temporary. It is designed for a quick disembarkation of troops and materiel within a short timeframe. If you need a longer-term pier, best go seize a permanent structure.
On the Gaza pier I think Rod's BDS is getting the better of him. The defects are the fault of the engineers who built it, not of Biden himself, and yes I would say that if Trump were president.
And should we really denigrate the urge to provide basic assistance to people in need?
How about we tag it to our own fecklessness? Like bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, allowing our ambassadors to be raped to death, and cutting and running in Afghanistan (and Saigon)? I had to pull off the road back in 1980 when I heard on the radio about "Desert One". The U.S. used to be able to do things.
So you think we should have stayed in Afghanistan? Till when exactly? Come on, everyone not practicing the secret Neocon handshake wanted us out of there yesterday, and that was always going to be a godawful mess.
Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are musts for our quintessential Delaware quarterback, Joe Biden who could have been a pro but Roger Staubach stood in the way.
Providing assistance is fine, but it always seemed to me that the pier was a terrible idea because it was likely to be blown up, resulting in American casualties and potentially causing more US involvement. You'd think we'd learn something from Beirut and Somalia.
"BDS"? Boy, I hate this phrase, which seems to have emerged under Bush 43: that if you criticize the president, you are guilty of derangement. My guess is that Biden wanted that pier built right away, to placate the angry Arab voters and others in his progressive coalition. They didn't have time to do a proper engineering study, because the president wanted and needed it built at once. I could be wrong about this, but that makes the most sense to me.
It's a worthy thing to want to help people, but Biden doesn't get credit for good intentions, not when the cost of failure is $320 million, plus global reputation.
The pier didn't cost the U.S. taxpayers of 2024 $320 million. The components were already paid for and were sitting in a depot somewhere. The service people who assembled it would have been paid just the same had Biden not given the order. The $320 million number is the result of the meticulousness and honesty of our DoD accountants.
Anyone looking at how Hamas has used billions of $$ in aid (to build underground tunnels, weapons and enrich its leaders should not be surprised that aid delivered via the pier would be looted.
But Biden can spend our tax $$ on a performative gesture to appease critics and perhaps win votes (similar to students loan forgiveness, pursued despite being declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS).
Those are facts, not deranged ideas. Hence, not "BDS" Rod is totally justified on this point.
The whole story around that sinking artificial peer, from the idea of the operation and why (failed pandering to the Muslim vote that they so desperately want through their flopsweat), to the waylaying of what was delivered, to its final fate, if there is not a single illustration, living symbol of this sad administration, there it is.
Rod Dreher is right. Western Civilization will continue to decline unless there is a Christian revival. Yes, we live in a world of plenty, fancy cars, giant homes, $25 million a year shortstops who hit .200 and trillionaires like Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey. But our civilization is assuredly in decline.
"My view is that the West will not survive without a true revival of Christianity."
I don't disagree with this, but I think the perspective here is (perhaps) slightly askew. I am going to make a bold claim: the West (by which, at least in part, I take it we mean Christendom and the offshoots of the Enlightenment project) will not survive. It will perish as Rome and classical antiquity did before it. There is much to be mourned in its passing, as there was much to mourn in Rome's passing, but the process of the deracination of a civilization appears to be inevitable and follows set historical laws of dissolution. Where I think we must be careful is in associating too closely the West (or even Christendom) with the Church. While we often speak of the West as the direct inheritor of Rome and the classical world, I think a more nuanced view of the history of the last 2,000 years forces us to the conclusion that the Church has survived the dissolution of multiple civilizations that preceded this current historical moment. I'm thinking of the dissolution of the greater Alexandrian Greek Mediterranean empire (which was a part of Rome, but preceded it and in many ways was distinct) which was the original homeland of Christianity, the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, the fall of the Christian Rus, etc. In each of these cases, a world was lost, but this did not mean the end of the Church, or even of the best components of those various worlds which the Chruch cherished and maintained in her monasteries and centers of learning, but rather the morphing into something else. The Church revived, the culture didn't.
Now it is possible (given the breadth of the influence of the West) that the fall of this particular Western world presages the end of the world entire; that we are seeing the apotheosis of the world system. That is possible. But it might not be the case, and we would do well (as Rod points out in The Benedict Option) to till our soil, to plan for resiliency, and to save and cherish those elements of the dying West that we can.
I say all of this because, regardless of anything else, there will be a revival of Christianity. This is what the Church does (to obliquely paraphrase Chesterton), because it is what God does; it dies, and then it is resurrected. We should not only hope, but expect this. But I think we need to be careful about seeing this resurrection of the Church as necessitating (or even likely leading to) a resurrection of the West. The West has long been a shelter to and engaged in a useful partnership with the Church, but the West is not the Church, and we must be prepared to let the dead bury their dead and look ahead to what the Church in the new world is to be. I suspect (though I might be wrong) that, whatever else is likely to be true, the mantle of the center of the Church is likely to be passed from Europe and (to a lesser extent) the Anglosphere to some element of the East or of the Global South, in much the same way that the original natural homeland of the Church (the Levant) moved North and West as the classical world faded.
I can live with that, and I trust that whatever happens, what is truly good and noble of the West will not be lost, though undoubtedly much that is (or at least appeared) beautiful will be.
There's Ayaan Hirsi Ali's positioning of Christianity, as "defence of the West", which is accepted even by non-Christians such as Douglas Murray, and maybe now even Richard Dawkins (!!) I dislike this for these reasons:
1. As you say, future Christianity is likely to be a non-Western religion.
2. Ali includes Russia as part of the non-West against which defence is needed. However, Putin claims that Russia is Christianity's last defender. OK, I think Putin is being dishonest, but that's a different issue.
3. Murray includes Israel as part of the West that must be defended. However, Israel is explicitly and emphatically anti-Christian, and has done more to harm Christians over the last few decades than any other nation except perhaps Saudi Arabia.
"... as I see it, to accept Christianity without also accepting the way Christianity sees the body and sexuality — or to attempt to reform Christianity to make it affirm what it once denied … well, that cannot work. It’s like trying to radically rewrite the rules of football, and say that it’s still football."
And yet perverts, fools, and ambitious empty suits (or soutanes - even white ones) keep on trying to squeer that circle!
For those who are interested, I have just added further matter on these subjects - the white soutane's views, etc. - on the comment thread to the Nellie Bowles post.
Christianity never created a golden age of chastity. One need only read the history of royalty to see how often Christian morality was honored mainly in the breach, even by guys titled "El Rey Catolico" or "His Most Christian Majesty" or "Defender of the Faith" or "The God-guided Tsar".
I agree, although in the high days of the medieval papacy some popes tried to discipline sexually peccant rulers (Innocent III and Philip II "Augustus" of France, for example.)
You have encouraged me today that our homeschool’s heavy emphasis on history above all other subjects (in part because I love it) could be exactly what my kids need for the future.
Theoden’s paralysis under Grima Wormtongue’s spell: a good allegory for Yeats’s assessment of our plight: “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”!
Re: Sipe’s view was not theological, but sociological
Of course, The case is prudential not theological. Sexually active but formally celibate heterosexual clergy would be a huge problem too, as was seen in the Renaissance era.
Formally celibacy has never worked out well - save for maybe a couple of centuries in India where Buddhist monastics were true mendicants and physically removed from each other by both vow and distance. And even then there were shenanigans (there's passages in the vinaya about bestiality, necrophilia, etc. I don't what to know how/why they got in there!). I think the Orthodox Church has the best model - a celibate monastic community and a married priesthood. I can't imagine that it's perfect, but while many might be called to a religious life, only a minority are suited for the full discipline. Having that safety valve of a married clergy is really a mark of wisdom.
I agree with this.
Mt Athos, which even bans female domestic animals, has had its share of M4M scandal, shocking even Rasputin in his day.
I understand they do have cats, to keep the rodents and snakes under control. I've seen videos... One such was of a monk feeding cats; the monk did not seem to be happy about associating with them, but he gave them their meal nonetheless :)
Dana
Are the cats all male?
It also just makes sense from a pastoral standpoint: all else being equal, a married priest would probably be able to better understand and attend to the needs and concerns of the families in his flock.
While also having to split his attention between his nuclear family and the family of the church. That doesn't seem ideal.
From what I understand, the priest's wife typically helps a lot with the ministry.
Like a traditional Protestant pastor's wife.
I think that, like all things, there are advantages and disadvantages. Yes, I think that having married clergy tends to lead to a group of men who are more grounded and experienced in the things of daily life. Yes, it means that his attention is split to some degree. On the other hand, church and family aren't necessarily diametrically opposed.
I see your point, but I wonder what work-life balance means to a married priest? Isn't it a hallmark of well-balanced folks to place family higher than work in that hierarchy? What does that mean for a priest?
Does a married priest cancel Sunday services to ensure he can attend a soccer game?
Ask an Orthodox priest about this. I've never known one to miss a liturgy except as a result of serious illness or a death in the family. And a single priest would do the same. Also, I doubt a priest would let his kids play in a sports league that had Sunday games.
We expect physicians, generals and political leaders to attend to their duties while they have families. Is there a reason priests can't? Not that you'd know it from all the non-Christian religions and Christian churches with married clergy
"We expect physicians, generals and political leaders to attend to their duties" . . . Is a very good argument. It made me realize the married priest I envisioned was kind of a wimp--always whining about competing priorities. I'd feminized the priest in my head, oh my! A traditional man (like George Washington, for example) wouldn't be whining in this manner.
There was a rabbinical candidate in Israel who was basically told he could not be a rabbi of a congregation until he was married, because he would not be able to minister knowledgeably to married couples, or couples contemplating marriage.
"Having that safety valve of a married clergy is really a mark of wisdom". . .
As a Catholic I look at the Orthodox married priests and think "What's your real commitment to God? What have you given up to follow Christ? Obviously your sexual desires were too much to ask. I could have done that."
And what about nuns? Should they be allowed to marry as well? What about their vocation to be wedded to Christ?
I find the Orthodox (particularly the Greek Orthodox) to be singularly arrogant in their view of married priests. As if it were some "wise" decision by their sect. I've been to Cyprus, there's plenty of buggary going on in the land of married priests.
While marriage should cure perversion it is hardly a panacea.
I think the issue here is that you want priests to live up to the standard of monks, which strikes me as unrealistic and counterproductive. And again, several of the apostles were married, including Peter (1 Corinthians 9:5).
I remember learning that Peter was married from you here.
What happened to Peter's wife and kids (if he had them) when he was martyred?
It must have been a quandary for him. One he wouldn't have had to navigate if he'd been celibate.
Maybe so. But for present purposes, the point is that St. Paul makes it clear that celibacy is a special vocation that he chose for himself, not a general requirement for the apostles: Jesus didn’t establish a celibate priesthood, and the first pope was a married man. To my mind, these historical facts carry significant weight.
Also, I’d imagine that the early Christians took care of each others’ families when martyrdom happened.
Thanks for disagreeing so amicably. I struggle with that, often :)
I guess in the end it's my rigidity that does not want to see any more change in the Catholic Church. I was upset for a month with some of the wording changes they've implemented of late.
Plus, I grew up in a Catholic family where there was a strong expectation of the male children to at least consider this vocation. The celibacy standard was always a huge part of the discussion.
I was told by our priest that Peter was most likely a widower.
1 Corinthians 9:5, however, says that Peter went around with his wife in his work as an apostle.
1 Timothy 3: 2 - 5.
It's obvious that St Paul expected that a pastor would have a wife. He didn't require it, and some of the greatest Christian pastors and missionaries have been bachelors, but the single and therefore celibate for life requirement is entirely man made.
Sola Scriptura.
I'm not hostile, Laura. My interactions with you have been unfailingly pleasant, and I hope you will not regard this as an exception, but the Christian life, hard though it is, is made only harder when people substitute someone's unscriptural idea about something for The Word of Truth.
From what I've read, the rule of celibacy was not originally a matter of devotion or discipline, but a response to the growing wealth of the church, as war leaders contemplating transition to the next life donating substantial lands and funds in hopes it would redeem their blooded souls. There had actually been dynasties in married priesthoods, among the Irish and Scots for instance, and there was a concern not to allow dynasties in the church concentrating wealth to worldly ends. There being no contraception, the only recourse was a celibate priesthood, which of course was impossible to enforce consistently. Thus, Alexander VI appointed his children by a mistress to high church office.
Sounds about right.
Somehow the Eastern Church, where conditions were richer for many centuries, escaped those problems.
Is sex all marriage is about? Maybe he was committed to family, his wife, bringing more Christian children into the world, etc. The Orthodox priesthood is effectively a different office/vocation than that of a Catholic cleric The rule is likewise going to differ.
Sorry I was just reading Benedict XVI and he talked at length about marriage being a place where young folks can get their desire out in an ordered manner.
Maybe it was his own celibacy that made him place such prominence in ordered desires within marriage.
Sex is about one percent of a marriage.
2% if you're lucky :)
LMAO!!!!
I thought about it the other day. Marriage is between 25-33 % sleeping in the same bed. Not very romantic. Sleeping dwarfs sex.
Monasticism is a different vocation entirely. The monk or nun devotes him/herself entirely to God, in theory., A priest has a congregation to serve which right there precludes 24/7 contemplation of God.
Nuns are monastics. They don’t marry. I have heard that there are some Lesbians amongst the nuns.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. The Anglican Communion has hit on that model as well as the Orthodox Church. I think there is a case for monasticism, but only as an extreme or eccentric position.
Another point is one of simple economics. The celibacy requirement drastically reduces the number of people wanting to be priests, which means that the standards are lowered. Leaving aside immoral or illegal sexual behaviour, this also means more drunks, more idiots, more financially dishonest people, more generally obnoxious people, etc., are going to be accepted as priests.
Absolutely. But monks are the backbone of any spiritual tradition. They are the epitome and ideal of what a religion seeks to express. Eccentric? Maybe. But definitely indispensable.
1 Timothy 3: 2 - 5 is impossible to understand apart from the Apostle Paul's expectation - not requirement, but expectation - that a pastor will have a wife.
The Christian life is so much easier both to understand and to live if one looks to The Word of God instead of to wrongheaded if well meaning human intention.
Sola Scripture.
It's the way of Bergoglio. Out of one side of his mouth rail against "faggotry" in the seminaries, out of the other side flatter James Martin and all the nephews of Ted McCarrick that he has appointed to the College of Cardinals.
Out of one side of his mouth warn about Europe's failure to have children. Out of the other mock traditional Catholics for "breeding like rabbits" and demand that Europe get repopulated by African and Muslim migrants.
And so it goes...
Mr. Bergoglio has the soul of a used car dealer.
Actually, I'm not fair to used car dealers.
To me, he has the countenance of a man who is running a numbers racket in the Bronx.
The Guardian piece spot on. But the sentence, "Meanwhile, the conservatives are at the gates." Began my day with a smile.
"Began my day with a smile. "
Mine, too, and a big one.
I wish it was so. Conservatives are as relevant to the Catholic church as Hungary is to the European Union.
The lesson to take away here is that either side in our polarized times considers the other to be the barbarians and to be winning in a life-or-death struggle. Therefore, extreme measures are justified.
This is a lie.
CNN is carrying water for Francis. There is no way he didn't know how vulgar the word is. When I worked in Rome I often put the paper together in the typeshop because I could communicate with the paste-up guys (the "tipografi") in their own language; they soon took me under their wing. There was one gay guy, Ughetto, whom everybody liked and teased mercilessly. One morning Diego, the class clown, came into work mincing and swanning about. "Oggi mi sento un po'... froscesco" ("Today I feel a little faggotty") and proceded to dry hump Ughetto over a drafting table. To say that Francis didn't understand its vulgarity is to say he didn't understand what it means.
The money quote in your piece is Rieff. Here is my take, for what it's worth. Francis thinks he's playing a sly game in preserving the Church as a global force (can you imagine him worried about dsaving souls? me neither). In reality he's morphing it into a global NGO, but that is irrelevant here. He is reputed to have said to Father Martin (one looks forward to the latter's Twixes today) that unless the Church becomes welcoming to gays it will be reduced to the status of a sect. The reversion to what Rieff nails, the antique notion of sex, "'the rejection of sexual individualism' in the Greco-Roman world was 'very near the center of the symbolic that has not held'" is, everybody knows by now, but few will say, a civilizational earthquake. Francis thinks the Church can survive by burning one grain of incense to sexual anarchy. He's wrong of course, but that's the explanation of his remarks. There's one more thing that's pure speculation. Francis is said to have a personal distaste for gays. I recently saw a video of an Italian bishop saying, "either the church is welcoming to gays or it isn't" and this prelate's affect was that of the late Paul Lynde. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe cats like this bishop began to strut about little too openly and Francis decided they needed a lesson. That would hardly be out of character. Googling the Italian bishop in hopes of being able to paste the video here, I found nothing but MSM horror that Francis had employed a slur. At least they're waking up to what a nasty little man he is.
+1000
Francesco Savino? https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=61744
Direi di si.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/transgender-hermit-catholic-church-teaching
There are some saints on our calendar who, way back when, disguised themselves as men (to avoid unwanted marriages usually) and entered male monasteries and were only discovered at death.
Were any ordained?
Are hermits ordained? As opposed to tonsured to a monastic order?
https://www.marcotosatti.com/2024/05/28/il-papa-e-la-frociggine-viva-sempre-la-locura-di-francesco-mario-adinolfi/
Entertaining as hell how this story about the Pope sent the Usual Suspect into a dither, and unsurprisingly a lot of them have settled on the denial defense: he didn't say it...or if he did, he didn't understand the word he was using.
To be clear, I think the word is unacceptable, but the status it's attained as a forbidden offense against the tin gods of Wokeism is ludicrous.
Anyway, Pope Francis has been an invaluable asset to the forces of the Regime, functioning as their Court Chaplain while neutralizing the single institution that poses a threat to the New Moral Order. That's why he's been given a pass on stuff that their media arm would have used to crucify guys like Benedict or JPII. They're not about to cut him loose over this violation of their sacred commandments.
Meanwhile, what's getting lost in the dust storm is the true and important thing he said about not giving entrance to gay seminarians, the substance of which is not even being disputed.
The man has done a lot of damage but he has not changed the doctrine or core teaching of the Church, and it now looks clear that he will not dare attempt to. The widespread revolt against Fiducia Supplicans was a warning signal that I think has been received and understood at the Vatican.
Everyone is now in waiting mode...waiting for this papacy to finally end. And not many want a repeat performance with the next guy...assuming there is a next guy. I'm still holding out hope for an African myself, but I've been hoping for that since JPII's death.
This is a great comment, but, the word is "unacceptable". Where? In the media? From the lips of the occupant of the see of Peter speaking to his brother bishops, the successors of the apostles, where he can be quoted and mocked? Absolutely. But the word "froscione", and its variants, is firmly rooted in the Italian language, and would need a thorough weeding job to remove.
There are words unacceptable in polite discourse, but there are times and places for their use. The bowdlerizing efforts of the Victorians vandalized our literary corpus.
Archie Bunker once called England "a fag country." Bet he couldn't get away with that now.
I know a gay guy who was asked to leave a gay bar (where he's known) because he complained vocally about "too many dumb faggots in here tonight." Apparently even gays cannot use that "f" word in the manner that black people can use the "n" word without censure.
Methinks the bar owner was more concerned about the word "dumb."
I wasn't there, but as my friend tells it, the "f" word was the objectionable one.
And many people don't have a sense of humor. My wife used to call me Chef Redneck. I was amused rather than insulted.
The utter lack of a sense of humor is what makes so many leftwing zealots about as fun to be around as s swarm of mosquitoes.
I'm not advocating the word's removal, but do think the English equivalent is a slur and a sin against charity. It can't be removed but shouldn't be used. That said, I also stand by my above observation about its ludicrous status...(that and the n-word)...as a blasphemous offense against our new Wokeist religion.
By the way, the Vatican has just released a statement that in effect all but admits the accuracy of the media reports and that, while stressing that "everyone is welcome" in the Church, conspicuously avoids extending such welcome to the Church's seminaries.
I guess "finook" is more of a slang word.......it was a popular one with my Italian friends growing up.
Well, he did declare that the death penalty is now never acceptable. Is that not changing doctrine?
Who knows? Really! What does "acceptable" mean in such a context? Does it mean "a sin," or "a mistake?" His modus operandi relies on such vagueness and imprecision.
One might also ask "What is - if there is -'the Catholic doctrine' concerning the death penalty?," and once one has ascertained that, how has he changed it?" That work is never done. It is analogous to the question of whether he had "changed doctrine" about the "acceptability" of homosexual relations.
Sometimes I wonder whether he means something like "the moral acceptability" or "the social/moral acceptability." If so, he should have chosen the name of "Pope Canute" rather than "Pope Francis," for all the force or effect of such ultra vires statements and terms.
I think the idea there was that the death penalty was once necessary to keep innocent people safe from criminals, but with the modern capacity to reliably lock people away, that's no longer the case. I don't think it was ever considered acceptable to kill a person solely out of a desire for retribution (or at least, in my view it shouldn't have been: such a sentiment seems plainly un-Christian).
I don't know. Pius XII defended the death penalty in 1952, pretty much on the grounds of retribution; cf.:
https://tcreek.jimdofree.com/popes/
"Even when it is a question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to live."- An Address to the First International Congress on the Histopathology of the Nervous System (1952).
And see::
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/catholicism--capital-punishment-2637
Ah well. Guess I'll have to put that in the box of things I disagree with the Church about, then. (Or do I disagree now, given that this guy might have "changed the doctrine"? It's confusing to keep track of this stuff.)
Since popes are not infallible in every word they say we may allow that Pius XII was in the wrong without traducing the office of Pope.
"we may allow that Pius XII was in the wrong without traducing the office of Pope."
Substitute "Francis" for "Pius XII" and the same is the case.
Absolutely! Indeed Francis sometimes seems to refute himself.
Even Orwell knew there are some people it is not safe to keep alive.
I'm open to the argument that some people must be put down in order to keep innocents safe, but not so much to the argument that the death penalty is good becuse justice demands retribution.
Also, with our system, we are statistically certain to sooner or later kill wrongly convicted persons, and we know that, so that bothers me as well. I think that amounts to accepting human sacrifices as the price to keep the system humming along.
We're statistically certain to jail the wrong people as well. It happens all the time. The alternative is what we have now. You likee?
I don't like retribution, either. I do like that it gives the culprit the opportunity to look inward. You know, Dr Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir: when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates the mind wonderfully."
Well, death is sort of irrevocable, so if we know we're fallible and prone to error, then it seems wise and appropriately humble to not inflict that as a punishment upon others. Locking people away is more provisional than that: we could, you know, change our minds if we realized we were wrong.
Also, I think that Camus (Albert, not the guy who's been coming up here) makes a good case for how the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual psychological torture, with the certainty of death at X time at the hands of the state being rather worse than any violence committed "in the wild", as it were.
Jail and prison can be undone.
I'm in total alignment with you on this, Sethu. And I'm glad Francis said the death penalty is "unacceptable." It is and should be. The State is too imperfect to allow it to carry out this type of irreversible punishment.
Yes, it is, but, of course, only Dukeboy01 and I were upset.
Fair question, and I think the answer is no...though I totally understand how others might reason to a different conclusion.
If the rationale for the change were that the death penalty was now determined to be "intrinsically immoral" in contradiction with past teaching, then that would constitute a change in doctrine. As it was, however, Cardinal Ladaria, the then head of what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, framed the use of the word "inadmissable" as the product of a change in historical circumstances rather than an overturning of doctrine.
There's also a school of thought that as a non-definitive act of the Ordinary Magisterium, the change can be argued to be an incorrect prudential application of the traditional teaching.
The problem is that if you strip away all the theological intricacies, which the average layperson cannot compute, you're left with what can appear to be...a change of doctrine. Slipperiness and confusion are, after all, this pontificate's stock in trade.
Anyway, theologian Edward Feser, of whom I am a big fan, lays all this out in exhaustive detail:
https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/05/capital-punishment-and-law-of-nations.html
The Gaza Pier sinking is a great embarrassment for our incompetent military. How did the Corps of engineers build a pier that could collapse so quickly? I bet the Israeli military could have built a pier that wouldn't sink after a couple weeks. And now America realizes all the aid to stressed Arabs in Gaza was plundered by the Hamas terrorists. The modern American military appears to be led by a large collection of heavily-ribboned stuffed uniforms who are obtusely unaware of their revealed incompetence.
"How did the Corps of engineers build a pier that could collapse so quickly?"
They were too busy with their mascara.
I don't now about the IDF. The weekend horror was "a mistake". OK. Distinguish that from a success in this operation.
One would need to make a thorough study of the tides and currents and sometimes even that is not enough. In Delaware there were multiple successive bridges spanning the Indian River Inlet off the ocean and each was eventually undermined by currents until the current one was built anchored to dry land on either side. The problem at Gaza was haste.
Maybe the engineers were diversity hires.
Probably used anti-racist math.
Math itself is racist, Laura. 4X-7Y=9T. What is that all about?
Well, it's at least sexist. Everyone knows men are better at it than women :)
If I recall correctly, after D-Day we built a giant floating pier somewhere in northern France or Belgium, which was subsequently destroyed during a violent storm. The ocean is powerful and should never be underestimated.
My guess is that the Gaza pier was just PR concocted by the amateurs at the White House or State Department, and sheepishly constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers even as they privately mused, "This ain't gonna work."
Edit -- I just saw Thomas's post below about the WW2 pier.
The two Mulberries. Churchill's idea. One Mulberry was destroyed when a bad storm hit the English Channel a couple weeks after June 6. The other served its purpose until Cherboug was taken from the Germans as a port.
Perhaps Hunter Biden got a fee organizing the pier.
I'm sure I'm giving the military planners much too much credit here (why look for Machiavellian's playing 5D chess when it is clear we are dealing with a counsel of clowns?) but I couldn't help thinking: what if they built the pier to fail and fall apart in a few weeks? It was always obvious the foodstuffs were going to be seized by Hamas, and the longer U.S. military personnel was stationed there, the more likely a major incident were to occur. This way, the U.S. could credibly claim to have "done something" without facing the long-term risks (and mounting costs) of what was always a very stupid plan. Again, sure I'm giving them too much credit, but that was a thought I had.
Waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy too much credit.
The problem with the pier is in its very nature: it is temporary. It is designed for a quick disembarkation of troops and materiel within a short timeframe. If you need a longer-term pier, best go seize a permanent structure.
This is not new, it happened in WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour#/media/File:MulberryA_-_wrecked_pontoon_causeway_after_storm.jpg
On the Gaza pier I think Rod's BDS is getting the better of him. The defects are the fault of the engineers who built it, not of Biden himself, and yes I would say that if Trump were president.
And should we really denigrate the urge to provide basic assistance to people in need?
Er, a border wall that the wind blows over?
How about we tag it to our own fecklessness? Like bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, allowing our ambassadors to be raped to death, and cutting and running in Afghanistan (and Saigon)? I had to pull off the road back in 1980 when I heard on the radio about "Desert One". The U.S. used to be able to do things.
I don't see the attempt to provide food to the hungry in the same category as past wars of choice.
"Starve them all; God will know his own", the apparent policy of that great ass (polite word used) Natanyahu, is morally repugnant.
Huh?
So you think we should have stayed in Afghanistan? Till when exactly? Come on, everyone not practicing the secret Neocon handshake wanted us out of there yesterday, and that was always going to be a godawful mess.
Basic assistance and food would be commendable. But Hamas appears to have stolen it.
That's on Hamas.
Well, yeah, but if we had reason to believe that was likely to happen, does that mean we are off the hook?
Did it play well in Michigan? That is all that matters.
Biden needs 90% in Hammtranck.
Hammtramck is a small enclave. Dearborn is more significant.
I think that was the pier's sole intent. It was a virtue signal writ large.
Did we have reason to so believe? Is Paul Atreides now running the CIA?
the most important goal here is Biden's 2-state solution: winning Michigan and Nevada.
Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are musts for our quintessential Delaware quarterback, Joe Biden who could have been a pro but Roger Staubach stood in the way.
Seriously, we need a laugh emogi. “Likes” are not expressive enough!
In this particular case, were the efforts of the US a success or a failure?
Successful failure.
The important question is if the Gaza Pier helps Biden win Michigan in November. Nothing else matters.
Providing assistance is fine, but it always seemed to me that the pier was a terrible idea because it was likely to be blown up, resulting in American casualties and potentially causing more US involvement. You'd think we'd learn something from Beirut and Somalia.
"BDS"? Boy, I hate this phrase, which seems to have emerged under Bush 43: that if you criticize the president, you are guilty of derangement. My guess is that Biden wanted that pier built right away, to placate the angry Arab voters and others in his progressive coalition. They didn't have time to do a proper engineering study, because the president wanted and needed it built at once. I could be wrong about this, but that makes the most sense to me.
It's a worthy thing to want to help people, but Biden doesn't get credit for good intentions, not when the cost of failure is $320 million, plus global reputation.
The arrival of the pier was delayed from "expected arrival" due to transport issues. I suspect it was built in a wild rush to please "El Chefe".
Is the pier even sinking? I'm finding pushback elsewhere online on that claim.
Much of it just floated away.
And the ship dettached to rescue it got beached. D-Day it wasn't.
The pier incident is so ghetto/trailer park.
That's even more poignant, somehow, than having something more dramatic happen to it.
The pier didn't cost the U.S. taxpayers of 2024 $320 million. The components were already paid for and were sitting in a depot somewhere. The service people who assembled it would have been paid just the same had Biden not given the order. The $320 million number is the result of the meticulousness and honesty of our DoD accountants.
And as far as our global reputation is concerned, this happened in WW2 too, and our reputation survived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour#/media/File:MulberryA_-_wrecked_pontoon_causeway_after_storm.jpg
BTW, the replacement of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is expected to cost $350 million over several years.
I bet it will be $640 million to replace - all on borrowed "dollars" (sic).
Bet the bridge is re-named. Harriet Tubman. Parren Mitchell. Barack Obama.
Anyone looking at how Hamas has used billions of $$ in aid (to build underground tunnels, weapons and enrich its leaders should not be surprised that aid delivered via the pier would be looted.
But Biden can spend our tax $$ on a performative gesture to appease critics and perhaps win votes (similar to students loan forgiveness, pursued despite being declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS).
Those are facts, not deranged ideas. Hence, not "BDS" Rod is totally justified on this point.
The whole story around that sinking artificial peer, from the idea of the operation and why (failed pandering to the Muslim vote that they so desperately want through their flopsweat), to the waylaying of what was delivered, to its final fate, if there is not a single illustration, living symbol of this sad administration, there it is.
Rod Dreher is right. Western Civilization will continue to decline unless there is a Christian revival. Yes, we live in a world of plenty, fancy cars, giant homes, $25 million a year shortstops who hit .200 and trillionaires like Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey. But our civilization is assuredly in decline.
I should have said that Taylor Swift and Oprah Winfrey are billionaires not trillionaires.
"...billionaires, not yet trillionaires." There, fixed it for ya. ;)
We'll all be trillionaires soon - just like Zimbabwe! ;)
It's-a very simple -- Keepa da fairies out of da seminaries.
I'm imagining that in the voice of Jar Jar Binks.
I was thinking more Fr. Guido Sarducci or Chico Marx.
"My view is that the West will not survive without a true revival of Christianity."
I don't disagree with this, but I think the perspective here is (perhaps) slightly askew. I am going to make a bold claim: the West (by which, at least in part, I take it we mean Christendom and the offshoots of the Enlightenment project) will not survive. It will perish as Rome and classical antiquity did before it. There is much to be mourned in its passing, as there was much to mourn in Rome's passing, but the process of the deracination of a civilization appears to be inevitable and follows set historical laws of dissolution. Where I think we must be careful is in associating too closely the West (or even Christendom) with the Church. While we often speak of the West as the direct inheritor of Rome and the classical world, I think a more nuanced view of the history of the last 2,000 years forces us to the conclusion that the Church has survived the dissolution of multiple civilizations that preceded this current historical moment. I'm thinking of the dissolution of the greater Alexandrian Greek Mediterranean empire (which was a part of Rome, but preceded it and in many ways was distinct) which was the original homeland of Christianity, the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, the fall of the Christian Rus, etc. In each of these cases, a world was lost, but this did not mean the end of the Church, or even of the best components of those various worlds which the Chruch cherished and maintained in her monasteries and centers of learning, but rather the morphing into something else. The Church revived, the culture didn't.
Now it is possible (given the breadth of the influence of the West) that the fall of this particular Western world presages the end of the world entire; that we are seeing the apotheosis of the world system. That is possible. But it might not be the case, and we would do well (as Rod points out in The Benedict Option) to till our soil, to plan for resiliency, and to save and cherish those elements of the dying West that we can.
I say all of this because, regardless of anything else, there will be a revival of Christianity. This is what the Church does (to obliquely paraphrase Chesterton), because it is what God does; it dies, and then it is resurrected. We should not only hope, but expect this. But I think we need to be careful about seeing this resurrection of the Church as necessitating (or even likely leading to) a resurrection of the West. The West has long been a shelter to and engaged in a useful partnership with the Church, but the West is not the Church, and we must be prepared to let the dead bury their dead and look ahead to what the Church in the new world is to be. I suspect (though I might be wrong) that, whatever else is likely to be true, the mantle of the center of the Church is likely to be passed from Europe and (to a lesser extent) the Anglosphere to some element of the East or of the Global South, in much the same way that the original natural homeland of the Church (the Levant) moved North and West as the classical world faded.
I can live with that, and I trust that whatever happens, what is truly good and noble of the West will not be lost, though undoubtedly much that is (or at least appeared) beautiful will be.
Exactly.
There's Ayaan Hirsi Ali's positioning of Christianity, as "defence of the West", which is accepted even by non-Christians such as Douglas Murray, and maybe now even Richard Dawkins (!!) I dislike this for these reasons:
1. As you say, future Christianity is likely to be a non-Western religion.
2. Ali includes Russia as part of the non-West against which defence is needed. However, Putin claims that Russia is Christianity's last defender. OK, I think Putin is being dishonest, but that's a different issue.
3. Murray includes Israel as part of the West that must be defended. However, Israel is explicitly and emphatically anti-Christian, and has done more to harm Christians over the last few decades than any other nation except perhaps Saudi Arabia.
"... as I see it, to accept Christianity without also accepting the way Christianity sees the body and sexuality — or to attempt to reform Christianity to make it affirm what it once denied … well, that cannot work. It’s like trying to radically rewrite the rules of football, and say that it’s still football."
And yet perverts, fools, and ambitious empty suits (or soutanes - even white ones) keep on trying to squeer that circle!
For those who are interested, I have just added further matter on these subjects - the white soutane's views, etc. - on the comment thread to the Nellie Bowles post.
"squeer that circle" -- brilliant formulation!
Christianity never created a golden age of chastity. One need only read the history of royalty to see how often Christian morality was honored mainly in the breach, even by guys titled "El Rey Catolico" or "His Most Christian Majesty" or "Defender of the Faith" or "The God-guided Tsar".
I agree, although in the high days of the medieval papacy some popes tried to discipline sexually peccant rulers (Innocent III and Philip II "Augustus" of France, for example.)
This just in:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13467805/Pope-apologises-allegedly-using-homophobic-term-discussing-church-ban-gay-priests.html
You have encouraged me today that our homeschool’s heavy emphasis on history above all other subjects (in part because I love it) could be exactly what my kids need for the future.
Chernenko!
Da! Совершенный!
Theoden’s paralysis under Grima Wormtongue’s spell: a good allegory for Yeats’s assessment of our plight: “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”!