I can speak about it - I attended as an observer. On Andrassy, in front of the opera house Rod wrote us about in February. There was a pro-Tisza rally. People from all over Hungary, with signs. I stayed for an hour. maybe 300 people. maybe 100 more coming in from the North as I was going. Very nice people, even kept a pathway on the sidewalk (no tape barrier or anything) so people could get through. - By the way March 15 is one of the national holidays and every year there are speeches and rallies, Orban spoke at the National Museum, for instance (I walked down there around 2:30 pm but the party was over, speech had been in the morning.)
At the Tisza rally/protest people were busy listening to speeches, and many appeared not to know English. I held a conversation in German with a couple from Sopron near the Austrian border. What I caught: "The present government is corrupt. They should invest in us, but they put it in their pockets. People are terribly paid; teachers especially are struggling. Austria is much better. Young people here feel they have no future." - - I will balance this with what I have heard other places, that people do not know that they can trust Tisza (basically center right I think?) with its leader Peter Magyar, a departee from Fidesz, any more than the trust Fidesz to improve things and halt corruption. "
I think media might be exaggerating the protests. I do not understand the story I just looked up on Radio Free Europe's website, for instance, saying there were 50,000 protestors. I don't think there were multiple protest sites. The photo is of what I saw, I was right there. You can see there are 200 or so in the photo. With a broader view, I still saw no more than 500 including those still coming. I left around 2pm, and don't know that things grew a lot more. And "in cold weather"? It was a not a bad day - 50 Fahrenheit maybe, not raining but cloudy. I get the feeling this article was written from a press release about the hopes of the organizers to be honest.
From your description these are certainly not "left wing" protests. They are protests by former Fidesz supporters who are politically not too far apart, but have found Fidesz to be corrupt. I don't find a simple left-center-right spectrum terribly useful anyway. But every party that holds power for too long becomes ossified and corrupt to some extent. Lula da Silva's regime in Brazil did. People need some fluidity and competition between parties.
These are not left-wing protests at all. Most of the parties in Hungary would be classified as right wing. Yes, I agree that spectrum is clumsy. Parties classified as left-wing (left, center-left and far-left) hold 32 of 199 seats in Parliament. Additionally, Hungary's Green party, which holds 5 of 199 seats, is classed as center to center left. I believe youth in the former Soviet Republics may sometimes blush to speak against Communism, but they are often a-political, skeptical of all such, or gently "right wing".
Why not speak against communism? I don't know everything, but I will throw this out: People struggle here, it is known they are richer in the West, plus there is a lot of Soros owned media and that sort of thing. It does not succeed in creating too many leftists but, is one thing that covers-up the past compared to the present.
Let us hope Rod's documentary "Live Not by Lies" is viewed from Angel Studios and even picked up by Netflix and viewed all over, including former Soviet countries.
Just speculating here....Do you think there might be Western government involvement, promoting soft-right protests, as a 'gentle' way of bring Orban's government down?
I haven't seen evidence of that. There is an almost soap opera here. Peter Magyar and the female president (Orban in PM) divorced, she says he beat her, he says she was corrupt. She did sign off on the pardon of someone who assisted a pedophile, it was her job to know what she was doing, but I am not convinced she did. Magyar left Fidesz and started his own party, called Tisza. Many see him as an opportunist, but who knows.
Orban wins again and again - 68 percent last time. Budapest is against him but other parts heavily for him. I do not have any way of knowing the extent of corruption in Orban's government. Basically, I think it cannot be non-corrupt, and it also is not as bad as some stories make out (i.e., Rod can demonstrate that "they own all the media" is false). - - Tisza is more EU friendly but I think that is because he believes it would improve the economy. The country does pay huge fees every day because they will not take refugees (yes, there are some here, but not many). However, Tisza's 21 point party statement does not include allowing immigration.
Another interesting development - in yesterday's speech, Orban stated that the Budapest Pride parade will be banned this year.
PS: I cannot see that color revolution has had much success here. They may try to queer the Donbas, but queering the Hungarian Danube, meh.
People in Budapest mostly do not care what people do in their bedrooms, gay couples can freely walk hand in hand here but do not want their kids taught about homosexual activity. For all the Hungarian's political indifference and/or total skepticism due to corruption, and for all their anti-clericalism and hence non-attendance at church, they are a sensible people They aren't going along with the radical Western far-left nor even center-left. - - And note the war in Ukraine is heavily opposed here with belief the end must be negotiated. But of course, that is not because people are pro-Russia. They simply and wisely "don't poke the bear"
I have some skepticism about "Live Not By Lies," which is not news to Rod or anyone else here. I simply don't see the totalitarian impulses and methods of communist parties in power as unique to communism. They are a metric for why and how communism is a failure on its own terms -- it did not result in the liberation of the working class, or even come close. But these are methods employed by people of many stripes when they feel they can act with impunity, and/or when they feel pressed and threatened, often both. Military dictators used similar methods, and its no great surprise that liberals could sometimes do the same, if perhaps in a softer form. Communism, being a more collective philosophy, did it in a more collectivized way, on a larger scale.
I think people who lived in former Soviet or Warsaw Pact nations have a more nuanced view of what communism was and wasn't. One saying that caught my eye was "We knew they were lying to us about socialism, but unfortunately it turned out they were telling us the truth about capitalism." It goes along with the cartoon I saved of the Chinese stock market in free fall, all charts pointing sharply down, and one party functionary saying to the other, "Now I remember why we hate capitalism." Hungary isn't doing half bad. Orban is probably better than a liberal regime, he's certainly better than a fascist regime, and nobody is ready to try to new brand of socialism. But they have some residues of past socialist regimes -- there still is a strong social safety net, and its easier to be comfortably right-wing when you aren't deprived. Its like after the New Deal, a lot of people who were Depression era radicals were able to buy their own home and had a steady supply of electricity, and tended to vote Republican. Or the Wisconsin state employees who voted for Scott Walker because they liked the idea of their taxes being reduced, only to find he was going to reduce taxes by cutting their wages and collective bargaining agreements.
It sounds like you have not spent time in former Soviet republics. I've spent years. It also sounds like possibly some one-sided reading. Things are not perfect today, but you do not seem to have an understanding of how things were. "Liberation of the working class" indeed. Sorry - look, it's a fallen world, we are sadly, almost all of us, or all our families, wage slaves for a very long part of our lives. Average people here don't live in luxury here, but they have food, clothing and very adequate shelter, freedom of religion, assembly, and the press and the opportunity for an education no matter their politics or religion. Just wait for the LNBL documentary for filmed proof of what you apparently do not believe from the book. - - Or maybe get over here and talk to the people while those who remember how it was still live.
There is what people said in the 1990s. Then there is what people said in the 2000s. Then there is what people said in the ten years after that. And there is what people are saying in the 2020s. I've noticed serious gaps in what people born since 1990 understand of the 1960s, of the civil rights movement, of the Vietnam War, of the history of Taiwan, of what Jim Crow was and wasn't, of why Americans of African descent volunteered to serve in the military while experiencing rank discrimination and what their sense of patriotism was, and all kinds of other things. I have no doubt it is possible to garner a variety of perspectives on "how people remember communism." But there was, for a time, a t-shirt popular in the eastern area of Germany that said "I want my wall back." Not that they wanted the Communist Party back in power at all -- but they didn't like what they were getting to replace it either. When the Communist Party lost power in Poland, after the Peasants Party that was supposed to be a thoroughly Marxist component of a People's Republic shifted to vote with Solidarnosc, a lot of hot-shot western liberal economists came in to "help" the new government. And they were liberals. The first thing they said was, gee, these tiny little farms are so inefficient, they need to be consolidated into larger production units. I laughed. I said if the Polish communists had an ounce of imagination they would have organized the farmers to resist this western imperialist intrusion, and developed some cooperatives that would leave the farmers in control of their own farms while introducing economies of scale. But these economists were too young to remember (and had not done their homework to learn) how these same farmers had steadfastly refused collectivization of agriculture. It also provided some insights into the fact the the USSR and the USA had both collectivized agriculture in the 1930s. The USA version was described by John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath." Been tractored out by cats...
Any regime that stays in power too long becomes tired, sclerotic and prone to self-dealing. I've said frequently in this space that Orban needs to groom a successor and retire to write his reflections on politics and perhaps serve as elder statesman. If they're not careful some disaster will occur and Fidesz will be roundly rejected and some leftist party will take over.
More info: I've looked at other stores that say "tens of thousands" but that included thousands for Orban's morning speech at the museum, which I did not attend. - Look, things are closed, there is nothing to do but go to speeches. This is one of three national holidays (like three 4th of Julys) - the other two have evening fireworks. - Protestors were not yelling or rioting, they were hearing speeches. There was a picture with probably 500 at the Tisza rally parading, with the ending of the parade not visible When I was there, I could not tell who was speaking since it was all in Hungarian. I suppose it is possible Peter Magyar's speech was later, and I did say people were still arriving. But if "thousands" is accurate, I can't imagine more than two or three thousand. I did walk around, with a pause at the Tisza rally, from noon until 3:30pm. It was a normal day, no real protests, just speeches.
I decided to summarize: (1) On March 15, around noon to a little before 2pm, I went to the Tisza (Peter Magyar's party) protest. I saw about 300 people, plus about 100 coming from the north. Speeches had already started. I could see some were coming from the south and did allow maybe 500. Even if I'm off it was under 1000 people. I said it was very, very peaceful, people just listening to speeches with flags of Hungary and signs from their various towns. I talked with a woman about it in German (her thoughts above) but most were busy listening to speeches and Hungarian is not often learned by adults, nor have I learned it.
(2) Highly questionable media claims: Radio Free Europe claimed 50,000 people. They provided a crowd shot with maybe 200 in the shot. Nothing like the drone shots and shots from high building we get from Serbian and Georgian protests. Another shot, from other services, apparently taken after I'd left, also showed about 200 but it was plain the crowd stretched down the street and there were more- I'd still say under 500 in the visible shot, more potential, unseen. And again, no drone or overhead photos, I will add this was in one direction and presume turning around would show the crowd going down the street in the other direction. Still nothing like 50,000.
(3) I acknowledged that Pater Magyar would have been the main speaker and perhaps had not arrived by near 2pm, but I certainly could not imagine the crowd swelling to 50,000.
(4) I explained that March 15 is a National Day. Things are closed. I explained going to speeches in a normal activity on that day. Orban had a speech near the Museum that morning. For all I know the total at all various speeches and stage programs all over the large city (there were also activities up at the castle) was in the tens of thousands. However, I think it near-impossible that there was a "protest rally" of anything like 50,000 people in opposition to Orban in central Budapest- i.e. the Tisza rally, they are the opposition. There was a peaceful speech, the custom for the day,
(5) My guess: I suspect RFE had a press release stating from Tisza 50,000 were expected and simply reported this as fact. though the press release turned out to be quite exaggerated.
(6) Edit to add: Hungarian press said the following (translated_. Even if this is pro-Orban, the fact of holding the speech on an avenue instead of one of the large squares mentioned is tell. And yes Tisza is falling in the polls: "It is not surprising that only his most dedicated supporters showed up, which was to be expected after the polls showing his declining support. That is why, after the crowds on both Heroes' Square and Széna Square were very sparse, this time he chose the much narrower Andrássy Avenue, where even the fewer people look like a lot in the photos."
Scroll down for a photo gallery, 21 pictures, no comment on crowd size that I saw.
The official Tisza event started at 3pm, more festive than I knew (horses, etc.) All the speeches before that hour had me thinking it was underway when I left just before 2pm.
The event is on a broad avenue, there are no drone or overhead pictures. There is a large screen and a microphone, but even of 2,000 or 3,000 eventually arrived - and you can't see that in the pictures - that is about the max that could, from the avenue, have heard the speech/seen the screen. - - I emphasize, again, there are drones and high buildings but no photo except street level, then outlandish claims of crowd size, apparently first stated by RFE, but then repeated elsewhere. RFE is an organization that the Trump administration is closing up a few days from now. This because they are quite leftist, said by his administration to be unable to change due to their pervasively leftist personnel.
Here is the crowd for Orban's speech - not on an avenue, you can see the people:
Just this morning I heard of an Orthodox one in North Carolina but I don't know the details. Apparently the monastery is attached to a church (or perhaps it's vice versa) and families are moving nearby in order to foster an "old world" parish community.
This one is not far from where I live and I have visited many times. It was founded by Mother Alexandra, who was the former Princess Ileana of Romania.
Orthodox people are buying/building houses near St Paisius Monastery in Arizona in order to participate in the life of the monastery, I learned when I was there a couple of years ago. I would love to do that in partnership with others, so I could at least visit more often... https://stpaisiusmonastery.org/
It would be great to have a monastery at hand, the Orthodox witness is impaired by the lack of monasteries. But for the majority of us that would mean monasteries in urban and suburban areas , not in remote places. And yes, that's not contrary to any tradition-- there were plenty of monasteries in old Constantinople and in and outside Moscow and Kiev.
Well, the mother house Le Barroux has another daughter house: Clear Creek Monastery, in rural eastern Oklahoma. But I don't know much at all about either Catholic or Orthodox monasteries in the US.
So glad you had a refreshing time at the monastery. Did your hosts mention that Le Barroux has a thriving daughter house in Oklahoma, Our Lady of Clear Creek?< https://clearcreekmonks.org> Families are spontaneously settling in the area, too.
Its origin is a remarkable story in itself and is something I wish Rod would look into and write about. Several students of the amazing "Integrated Humanities Program" at the University of Kansas under the visionary John Senior visited Fontgombault under his guidance. They ended up staying and pursuing vocations as monks before eventually being sent back to the States to found Clear Creek.
Senior's "The Restoration of Christian Culture" is one of those books that will change the trajectory of your spiritual life. I'm so heartened to see Rod having warm things to say about TLM-loving Catholics. Senior certainly writes with much anger, writing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the disruptions and apparent madness that broke out in the liturgy thereafter, but there is also just so much wisdom, as you can see in the vocations carried out by many of his students. I think Senior is one of the sources of much that is good in American Catholic traditionalism, as epitomized at Clear Creek. Honestly all the TLMs I attend now strike me more like the way Rod writes about le Barroux than his previous experience of "mad trads."
“To be enchanted as a Christian, then, is to live in the awareness that all the world is, in some sense, a Tabor, if we were able to see it as it really is — and to act out of that awareness.”
Re: Talking with the abbot, I recalled a saying of Balzac’s, which goes something like, “Hope is memory plus desire.”
Not sure I agree. You can hope for things you've never had. E.g., a single, childless person can hope for a spouse and children.
Re: One man told me that it is more or less forbidden in France to make a link between crime rates and migration.
I'd like to see actual stats before accepting impressions uncritically. In the US the reverse is true: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here, though I don't know if that's always been true, as in the 19th century certain immigrant groups, e.g., the Irish, were infamous for criminality. And Europe may well suffer the same trouble the US had in the 19th century: too many immigrants are like the old Irish, desperately poor and dysfunctional people run out of their home countries by disaster or persecution.
(I had hoped you would post some photos of the monastery-- was photography not permitted?)
I didn't have time to take many. This has been an incredibly jammed-up trip. Migration is a very different phenomenon in Europe than in the US. There is much less selectivity in who comes into Europe. For example, a much higher proportion of Muslims who come to the US are educated; in Europe, it's everybody.
Hard stats are difficult to come by in France, but there's this:
General Crime in Paris: In 2022, the French Interior Ministry reported that foreign nationals accounted for 48% of arrests and police custodies in Paris for all offenses combined (misdemeanors and felonies). This figure includes both legal and illegal immigrants but does not specify the proportion of illegal immigrants alone. President Emmanuel Macron, in an October 2022 interview, suggested that "at least half" of crime in Paris comes from foreigners, either illegal immigrants or those awaiting residence permits, though this was an approximation based on arrests, not convictions.
Violent Crimes and Robberies in Île-de-France: According to the SSMSI (the statistics bureau of the French Ministry of the Interior), in 2023, foreign nationals were responsible for 69% of violent robberies, other violent crimes, and sexual assaults on public transport in the greater Paris region (Île-de-France). Within this, Africans were noted as responsible for 52% of such crimes, despite comprising only about 3.2% of France’s total population.
People of limited means can reach Europe overland, or with short boat hops. It takes trans-Atlantic air fare to reach America. People who are already prone to violence, and have little or nothing to lose, are going to bring violence no matter what their race, creed, color or national origin. London Cockneys were violent -- that's why the British army sought them for tough assignments during WW II. But, they had enough stake in things to keep a lid on it. Jobs, homes, etc. Send a lot of Cockneys as refugees to Austria and they'd be violent too.
A truth that obfuscates the point. People from Mexico and the Caribbean are not emigrating in large numbers to Europe, except for residents of former British colonies who have an in as citizens of Commonwealth nations. And, anyone from the middle east or North Africa who emigrate to the US via the Caribbean or Mexico have to cross the Atlantic first.
Balzac is correct. You cannot hope for something that you have no image of. And to have an image of something the only way to "access" it is by memory, even if it's something of which you've only seen a picture or heard a description.
I was thinking more about the metaphysical nature of what we call "the past," and whether the past is always a relationship with the present and the future, such that the future could be said to retroactively change the past.
Sethu, time is linear, until we reach the other side. But even God cannot change history. That's why Jesus emphasized forgiveness--He knew "no use crying over spilt milk." Others can't undo the wrong they've done us--and we don't get "do overs" for our own boo-boos. We have to try to forgive and move on. We have to forgive ourselves even. That doesn't mean just stand there and take ongoing abuse.
I try not to look back that much--just enough to remember what NOT to do. As St. Paul said "Don't make the same mistake twice."
On the other hand, I've sort of started living in the Past in the sense that I remember fondly (nostolgia) when things were more normal. I don't want to see today's movies with its proseletyzing in-your-face wokeness and sexual deviancy at every turn. Can't take TV.
Have you heard the song "Living in the Past" by Jethro Tull? Sort of captures the mood of "I'm checking out on this stuff (woke-itis), though it was written in the 70's I think. Jethro Tull at his best IMO.
I want you to provide unbiased sources, not the usual bilge in order to change my mind. Google is corrupt as hale surely everyone knows this by now; I already referenced NPR, and the Cato institute makes every excuse to import cheap labor.
You regard NPR as a credible source? That actually makes me question your good faith, which I usually don't do. Culpable ignorance—you're not even bothering to do due diligence. Your respect meter just dropped a little.
NPR, like any source, has to be evaluated based on how much detail the report gives on the writer's sources, how they know what they know, and, as Jon notes, agreement with other sources. Fox News, NPR, the New York Times... know their biases, evaluate the language of each article, and check on what the report draws on for facts.
Sometimes, once you've seen a source perform poorly enough over a long-enough period of time, you simply don't read it anymore—you don't evaluate articles one by one. That's a reasonable heuristic. And you certainly don't cite it first when a person asks for credible sources, which is what Jon did in response to Kat.
Also, that blonde chick in charge of the operation is almost certainly a CIA asset.
I don't listen to or seek out NPR. My brother in law used to listen to it every morning on the radio, and it was boring at best. But JonF isn't wrong merely because he sometimes listens to NPR. What did they say? How did they know? How does that compare to other available data?
"In the US the reverse is true: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here." The accuracy of that statement depends almost entirely on whether the immigrants came here legally or illegally, and when. If, for example, we look at immigration in the last 5 years, when illegal immigrants outnumbered legal immigrants by orders of magnitude, the claim is either unsupported or outright false, especially since many large "sanctuary" cities (such as NY, LA, and Chicago) have -- unsurprisingly -- refused to submit any crime data at all to the FBI. Even those cities that do report their crime stats do not always do so by demographic breakdown, as the FBI acknowledges. (The FBI relies on voluntary city/state participation in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program for its crime data.) In fact, crime reporting to the FBI has declined since 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd de-fund/de-criminalize frenzy. Couple that Swiss-cheese reporting structure with the overwhelming increase in admission of violent gangs/human traffickers/drug traffickers over our open borders during the last administration, and it's clear that mantras like "immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here" are pretty meaningless.
It's so much easier to blame the messenger than to confront the facts. Your problem is with inconvenient truths -- not with me (though you like making things personal).
Proportions for immigrant crime simply do not work when it is known that anyone who has immigrated illegally has already committed a crime. For example, US Statistics show 1.6 million legal immigrants in 2024. There were 3.3 million undocumented immigrants, the clear majority in violation of Federal law.
3.3/4.9 = 67% that have already committed a crime.
Further, of those that have arrived illegally, one has a strong incentive to not commit further crime and be found out by the authorities. One tends to keep their nose clean when the risk is jail and/or deportation.
Further, regarding the immigrant Irish and their crime rate versus today’s immigrants, one would need to consider the total lack of government welfare in the time of Irish immigration versus today. Further, the Irish faces terrible Catholic discrimination depriving them of food and jobs. One needs to remember they were not given taxpayer money for food and put up in the Roosevelt Hotel NYC like many immigrants today.
Re: Proportions for immigrant crime simply do not work when it is known that anyone who has immigrated illegally has already committed a crime
Yes, that;'s trivially true, and I thought to mention it myself. But when people talk about crime they usually mean crimes involving victims, especially violent crimes.
The major problem with illegal immigration is that these people by the presence in the workforce drive down wages and may deprive low income, lesser skilled Americans of jobs while also generally not paying sufficient taxes to cover the costs of social welfare (healthcare, education) they consume. The latter is of course true of low income Americans too.
As an aside my church now has seventeen katechumans-- one more just today-- and that's after we chrismated eleven at Christmas and seven last year at Easter. We've had two whole families come to us this winter: a young couple with a baby, and a family with two teenagers (the son came to us first and brought his parents and sister). When they are all in attendance and come forward for a blessing during the Litany Of The Katechumans there are almost too many of them to fit the space available.
We have a total of 31 catechumens presently -- I'm sure that is an all-time record. 21 are adults, one a teen, and nine children who will be baptized with their parents.
One of the cradle Orthodox at my parish said our 15 Christmas baptisms / chrismations were the most she had ever seen at any service in her entire life. And we're back up to a record number of catechumens again.
We had 15 baptisms and/or chrismations at Christmas. Holy Saturday is already so pre-booked that our priest has been telling people he's advising other catechumens to plan on Pentecost at this point.
Yesterday we counted as many in attendance as we would normally only see at the Paschal service, or Palm Sunday. We're trying to fundraise to build an entirely new church, since we've outgrown current quarters (an ex-Baptist cinderblock thingy). To save money on the construction we have been planning on building a temporary space first to accommodate 200-ish, then fundraise for a proper temple that can seat 300. At this rate, the Stage 1 space will be over capacity before we even break ground, which could be a few years yet as construction costs here are about 2x what they were in 2020.
But we also are about to send a young man and his family off to seminary.
At some point when a church gets too big (in numbers) it's advisable to found a new church, at mission status at least. We're not there yet at my church, though our priest is getting a bit stretched thin trying to keep up with everyone.
Indeed. We're not that big yet (150ish). At around 250-300 is when the Antiochians usually start looking to set up a mission, but there is talk anyway of staring up a mission about 45 min north of us anyway just to geography.
But we need more priests in the area to really make the missions going concerns too.
A small mission church was established from my current church a while back. It's about thirty miles to the north of Tampa (so about forty or so to our north). A majority of the parishioners are Arabic-speakers, as if the priest and the services are conducted in that language. The priest was formerly assistant priest at my church (before I moved back down here)
Quick thoughts after reading your joyful missive. Happy to see the pic with Père, Rod - your eyes look so full of light. Travels have been very tiring. This sounds like a brief physical, but deep spiritual rest. - - And, erm, who cut your hair at last? Heh.
A home in France. I took just a moment to check – just over an hour’s drive to north Toulouse where there are a few Orthodox Churches. Yes, I want Rod Dreher to have a home.
Full on Ash Wednesday. Yes. I’ve been going to Hungarian Mass at my nearest Catholic parish. There were four masses that day. I went to the last. Packed. People standing everywhere.
Can I have your travel agent demoted? Why not Paris to USA? Rod, you ask a lot of yourself, you are to take care, you hear!
So much enjoyed your writing about the country people, monks and countryside of France!
I did a retreat at the abbey some years ago.I flew into Toulouse, took the train to Agen, followed by a 15-min bus ride and a one-hour walk. It was great.
My daughter is working as an au pair in Nantes near the Vendee. She is looking for a catholic congregation in Nantes with young french people and hopefully a choir as she is a singer. I just read in your article that your publisher, Beatrice Doyer, lives in the Vendee which is near Nantes. Could you ask her if she could direct mail me with such a congregation? I´d me most grateful.
I completely get (and share) the perspective that there are better and worse versions of Christianity,. i.e. Eastern Orthodox, grade A,.vs. prosperity gospel, grade D-.
But I don't quite get how RCs can be so mad when someone moves to EO. Really? You don't think that someone can have a full Christian life in EO?
Again, I see this as different from merely arguing that "RC is better than EO for reasons X, Y, Z" which is perfectly understandable.
It's just that, to me, the huge distinction seems to be "Christian vs non-Christian" and I'll never quite get why some Christians are as upset about someone joining the "wrong church" or a "lesser church" (from their point of view) as they would be about someone apostatizing entirely.
Good points SlowlyReading. Something I would like to bring up with Rod. He is more Catholic than ever. Just not under the Papal jurisdiction and its practices, and not in the eyes of the narrow commitments and understanding of some Catholics, east and west. He proclaims the Nicene Creed that all Catholics East and West used before the Schism of 1054. Younger Roman priests in the U.S. say to my wife and I we are the eastern wing of the Church. We are being communed in a Roman parish. Though that would not be allowed by most Eastern bishops. Historically there has been both permiability on the East West borders as well as bitter conflict, depending on the local dispositions of the people. Let us recall on this matter the advice of Church Father Ambrose, considered a pillar in the West. "In Rome do as the Romans do." Because even in Italy of the 4th Century the liturgical practice was different in Rome than in Milan.
Also, the Catholic Church allows Orthodox believers to take Catholic communion, based on the understanding that the Orthodox sacraments are valid (although the Orthodox Church doesn't reciprocate the gesture and also discourages its own from taking Catholic communion). In my opinion, this amounts to a concession that from the Catholic point of view, the Orthodox aren't really in schism.
As for why people get upset: well, a lot depends precisely on what it means to be a Christian vs. a heathen. There isn't any universal agreement about where that line is drawn, because different believers have different standards about what is essential vs. peripheral to the faith. Many Protestants, for instance, want to unilaterally categorize some things as peripheral that Catholics and Orthodox would affirm are quite essential. The baseline itself is a shifting thing, dependent on where you're standing.
We may want to say that "Being a Christian just means" X or Y or Z, but the point is that any such statement reflects our own *opinion* (or the opinion of our own particular church), and that others do not necessarily agree even on things that we might consider basic. Bear in mind that there are wokists who regard themselves as Christian, which strikes me as an oxymoron. Those rainbows on the facades sure aren't a reference to Noah. . . .
It is the Roman Catholic Church that is in schism. That's just my opinion of course, and the opinions of a communicant Orthodox commenter at one of Rod's earlier venues. But there is much to recommend it.
You’ll note that I refrained from wading into that debate and merely described their respective points of view, only highlighting the absurdity (on its own terms) of Catholics getting upset about believers converting to Orthodoxy.
Thank you, makes sense. I just keep thinking, well, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved", and, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," right? Maybe that makes me a lib or, worse yet, an incorrigible Protestant. But I can't help reading those verses in plain terms -- i.e. even Arians, Nestorians, Miaphysites, Unitarians qualify as Christians. Even if their version of Christianity is very defective!
What about the wokists, though? Haha. There are people who call on His name in bad faith and bear false witness; even the Devil can say Jesus. So at some level we all know that there must be more to it than merely saying the name—it's not some cure-all magic spell. There's a condition of heart involved, and also at least to some extent a structure of thought.
Yup. The Lord clearly spells out his personhood and purpose. Merely calling his name is not enough, if you deny either of the above. He is not here to be a "feel good" panacea. He is here for very serious matters and the Christian life, though guaranteeing peace, makes it clear troubles will come. And the world will hate you. If you live for him, the world will despise you, as it despised him. Don't be afraid of causing offense. He did.
But it is not enough to meet "in his name," alone. As the verse that says, "there are those who say Lord, Lord, and I say, go away, I never knew ye." Christ identifies clearly who he is and what his purpose is. And if your group calls his name, but does not recognize his actual person or purpose, like the Unitarians, then you will fall among the latter.
There are verses, like these, that deal with Christ in plain terms. But one must deal with the others that do the same.
BTW, as an "incorrigible Protestant," I fully recognize the discipleship of my fellow Christians in Orthodox and Catholic gatherings.
"But I don't quite get how RCs can be so mad when someone moves to EO. Really? You don't think that someone can have a full Christian life in EO? "
"Mad" may or may not be the right description. "Disappointed" may be more accurate. Maybe not. But there are any number of reasons why Christians feel such emotions when people -- especially people whose opinions they depend upon for bolstering their own world view -- suddenly shift in their religious affiliation.
1. We congregate in VERY large part because consensus helps us believe in the invisible God we believe in. The more people who see the world the way we do, the greater comfort we can take against the uncertainties with which looking through a glass darkly necessarily leaves us. We can intellectualize that following the crowd isn't logical. We might even spiritualize that concept by quoting "...narrow is the gate" to bolster our certainty that Christianity will always (until the new world) be a minority opinion. But human nature is human nature. We take comfort in numbers. We take comfort when we aren't the only person who saw the UFO. Even misery loves company.
2. We feel betrayed. Christian celebrity amplifies the feelings described in point #1. The celebrity used to be our spokesman. Now he's telling the world that we're wrong. His celebrity will probably (we assume) take many of our number with him.
3. We fear for the person who exhibits the instability of denomination hopping -- especially one who does such hopping so visibly -- talking up each step as if in it he has found ultimate truth....right up until the time that the newest step disappoints him and he hops onward. He demonstrates the fickleness of an unsettled soul. And perhaps the direction moved demonstrates further that religion is taking the place of the dopamine high -- looking for ever more deep experiences, feelings, excitements, enchantments -- and dissatisfaction with the humble, mundane Christian life Paul described as "Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before." It's hard to "small up and simple down" when your life is constantly in the spotlight and your days are an adenaline-filled rocket to the moon.
I don't like formally congregating. I find the groupthink kinda distracting; if anything, It makes me feel *less* sure about the whole thing. But I go for the Eucharist, which I believe in.
1. We are commanded to gather, and the benefits are many, starting with submitting to His will.
2. We should never base our faith on a group gestalt, or on the status of a celebrity.
3. Faith in Christ is faith in Christ. I would not care at all if someone whose walk I admire went from Protestant to Catholic, say. That is still a body that worships Christ, and is a place where the Holy Spirit dwells.
I trust in God, His Word, and seeing Him active in my life. Whether I am "representative," since that does not involve the Christian faith at all, is irrelevant.
You said, "Faith in Christ is faith in Christ. I would not care at all if someone whose walk I admire went from Protestant to Catholic, say. That is still a body that worships Christ, and is a place where the Holy Spirit dwells."
I suggested that that may be so, but it's hardly representative (which should be somewhat obvious because many people do care when others jump from denomination to denomination.
I don't understand what you're suggesting "does not involve the Christian faith at all". Do you mean to be saying that those who question denomination hopping aren't Christian?
Perhaps "surrender" is the better word. Or, "repentance." CS Lewis, from "The Abolition of Man"
Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.
Such a wise comment! Especially this: "The more people who see the world the way we do, the greater comfort we can take against the uncertainties with which looking through a glass darkly necessarily leaves us."
Lots of other responses here, so I'm just chipping in my own 2 cents at this point. What I have observed is that *some* (by no means all - just a really vocal subset) RC's see moving away from Rome as essentially breaking an oath and committing a form of treason, and many of that set will go so far as to say that, by leaving the Sacraments, they have left the faith. That's bad enough, but to then talk publicly about that break is (again, to this subset) attempting to seduce still others away into heresy or apostasy, jeopardizing the souls of others. Hence the palpable anger.
You see very similar responses too among certain Protestants when others convert to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I know a pastor who leads a weekly prayer service, for instance, to pray that Catholics abandon their "apostasy" and return to "true faith" - he really means it, as he is certain that Catholics have somehow damned themselves, or been conned.
There's another factor driving the fear, and I have experienced this first hand from close family: that it's somehow your own fault if someone else doesn't come to the "truth" you preach - that somehow you personally bear the blame if others are damned when you might have "saved" them had you said or done the right thing.
This is really a common issue in a lot of Evangelical circles, where the thinking goes everyone is born automatically damned at birth, and has to choose to follow Christ. Ergo: if someone has not heard the Gospel (or not heard it correctly enough that they might be presented with a clear choice), they are by default damned. But if you give them that message correctly when you have the chance, then you're off the hook. And this often goes too for Christians who somehow have gone wrong (like Catholics and Orthodox) - they're (in these circles) idol worshippers who believe in salvation by works, and so also automatically damned.
When you're brought up in that mindset (and I know plenty who are this way), it's not paranoia or hate towards other Christians, it's a genuine belief that these others are damned.
It's a very brittle Christianity too, for those raised in it. Very very hard edged and absolutist. Quite a lot of the self-styled "ex-Vangelicals" who now utterly reject Christianity came out of that upbringing.
What's sad about it too is that even when they walk away from all that, they go out thinking that what they were raised in (and now reject) is the still the only "right" way to read the Bible, and so (rather weirdly) rail against all the others using the very paradigm they reject (I think Bart Ehrmann is in this category).
I have 3 friends who came out of this. 2 of them are hopefully on their way into the Orthodox Church very soon - one of them described his first Holy Week last year as everything he always wished Christianity had been. Neither of these two can easily talk about this with their parents who still hold to their narrow fundamentalisms.
One of them told me that their parents' church recently had a pastor who declared CS Lewis (!) as unsafe for Christians to read because Lewis was an idolator! (He made Jesus a lion after all).
Our experiences overlap. I've seen what you've seen as well. My inlaws were from the holiness tradition -- fundamentalist. I went to a Christian school from 4th grade on and, though it was 60s non-denominational, it nevertheless had a significant number of fundamentalists in its staff and students. Great people, but as you say, their gate was very narrow.
I will say, however, there are those whose heads are screwed on more securely, and cling to the same hope we all cling to....nevertheless worry at the prospect of Pelagian leanings.
The irony, I suppose, is that those with such leanings become equally pelagian in a set of standards of their own devising. I could make fun of it, or I could just realize we're all just finding our way. God could have made himself more obvious if such distinctions were important to him. They appear not to be. But because we just don't know, they become very important to us.
Most evangelicals I'm related to by friendship or blood, believe that the Church resides in all the denominations. Someday we'll know who was right. I mean, besides me. I, of course, know I'm right. Maybe. Sometimes.
...okay, I'm right when my wife lets me be. That's good enough.
There is another consideration too, and this is deeply bound up in WHY different Christians simply can NOT be in communion with each other.
The Eucharist is the center of Christian worship for Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestants (many others I would argue, have reduced its meaning significantly, which is a more serious matter). As such, until very very recently practically no churches practiced any form of open Communion, reserving it for those who were members, and denying it to outsiders, or to members who had put themselves apart in some obvious way (see First Corinthians, for instance).
The Eucharist is fundamentally a shared meal (we're parking of God together). In breaking bread with others - sharing a meal together - there has long been a traditional understanding that this is a bond, and a common experience together. A shared meal has a sacral quality, even apart from any religion - again, this has been understood since the earliest days of humanity.
Perhaps you have had an experience like this: when I was still very much online in a particular forum, I would sometimes get into rather protracted arguments with a particular person. We did not always butt heads, but when we did he displayed rather a short fuse and could devolve into insulting misreads of what I said.
Well, turns out he was coming through the US for the first time (he was European and had never travelled here), and I offered to let him stay with us for a few days on his travels. After that I thought he and I understood each other a lot better, and for a long time he avoided the temper outbursts even when we could not agree on things. Until he didn't any longer, and his tendency to insult (often in terms that displayed a nasty intellectual arrogance) got worse than it had previously been. I tried appealing to how he had enjoyed the hospitality of my home and table. Eventually I had to actually block him (something I rarely did before I withdrew entirely from most everything online). It was as though he never knew me.
One of the bright lines that keeps Christians apart from one another has always been "Who do you say I am?" I'm reminded of a bit in Acts when some people tried casting out demons "in the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches." The demons responded by saying "Jesus we know, and Paul we've heard of. Who are you?" These folks did not actually know Jesus, but thought His name something of talisman.
St. Ignatius (who was a student of St. John the Apostle) wrote in his letters of a sect who were preaching that Jesus was never actually corporeal, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection were therefore just for show. This sect did not actually know Jesus either.
It's one of the perennial challenges to more open communion - many disagree to one degree or another over who Christ is. Even if they agree on some surface level (say, that Jesus is the Son of God, and Savior), once one gets past that and gets into deeper things, the differences that appear minor on the surface can be quite wide, to the point where they really cannot share a common cup because they cannot actually agree on Who Jesus really is. And any attempt to force a shared cup inevitably waters it down to only those things each cannot object to in the other's cup.
And if you believe your branch is the most correct, and that the edges are hard and clear so straying in any way means danger and death, then the anger at a defection can be immense.
“Up for mass this morning, I found the chapel absolutely packed, and spilling out into the adjoining hall with worshipers. I didn’t want to be rude, but I could have stared for a long time at their faces. The gentleness of these country people, and the soft but intense piety.
The French people did not acquire the title, “la fille aînée de l’Église” and build Notre Dame de Chartres, the most sublime of all Christian churches, by accident.
After the Reformation, France needed massive re-evangelization both cities and the countryside and providentially, a constellation of saints provided it. Similarly after the Revolution, the country had to be taught the Faith all over again but even by the late 19th C, it was highly polarized between Red (socialist/secular) and White (traditional/Catholic). The Red side won and passed laws confiscating all Church property, mandating lacitie. (That's why the government, not the Church owns Chartres, etc.) Past revivals are a precedent for a future one.
Wonderful post. One gets the sense that things are converging, both good and bad.
Speaking of Balzac, this essay prompted me to order the Balzac novel in question, which I've received but not started yet. The Catholic community which features in the book sounds very BenOp-ish.
Wonderful, Rod, as usual. So inspiring. Pere Ambroise looks like a saint, his abbey like a little piece of Heaven on earth. Francois, a future priest,, has an aspect as pure and refreshing as driven snow. This gives me hope for France and all of Europe. "Against all odds, Europe will be saved." The English in particular must return to the faith en masse. One cannot resist a competing, flawed religion with no religion or "only cultural" religion--one must answer with zealously practiced religion, and grounded in the true faith (Christianity).
Let's all continue to pray from Trump, Vance and Musk and their "helpers". I like to think of them as "the Posse". The White Hats have arrived. Just in time. We all have a role to play.
I am attaching a "JC in AI website (string of AI visual images)" I find very inspiring. "Just like a Prayer." I find it interesting that when Christ is curing someone in the moving images, He touches their NECKS. Isn't it true that in the Middle Ages, Christians believed the soul was "located" in the neck? Make sense to me. Connects the "heart" to the "head".
Let me try to find it. Ah, found it instantly. Go to Edge and enter: " did medieval people the soul was located in the neck? ". Affirmative. It isn't strange to me.
Sorry - they did not think that. For the most part, like Aristotle and as we do today, they saw soul as permeating the body. When I went to Edge, the soul in the neck is not what came up. Your AI may be programmed to affirm what you ask in order to please you and keep you coming back. Otherwise, I do not know what happened. If you did get an actual article, rather than an AI answer on this, please give the link as I'd like to know. Thanks.
How happy this essay made me. So encouraging to know they are there, praying.
There's coverage in the US and UK of big anti-Fidesz demonstrations in Budapest. Any insight on them?
I can speak about it - I attended as an observer. On Andrassy, in front of the opera house Rod wrote us about in February. There was a pro-Tisza rally. People from all over Hungary, with signs. I stayed for an hour. maybe 300 people. maybe 100 more coming in from the North as I was going. Very nice people, even kept a pathway on the sidewalk (no tape barrier or anything) so people could get through. - By the way March 15 is one of the national holidays and every year there are speeches and rallies, Orban spoke at the National Museum, for instance (I walked down there around 2:30 pm but the party was over, speech had been in the morning.)
At the Tisza rally/protest people were busy listening to speeches, and many appeared not to know English. I held a conversation in German with a couple from Sopron near the Austrian border. What I caught: "The present government is corrupt. They should invest in us, but they put it in their pockets. People are terribly paid; teachers especially are struggling. Austria is much better. Young people here feel they have no future." - - I will balance this with what I have heard other places, that people do not know that they can trust Tisza (basically center right I think?) with its leader Peter Magyar, a departee from Fidesz, any more than the trust Fidesz to improve things and halt corruption. "
I think media might be exaggerating the protests. I do not understand the story I just looked up on Radio Free Europe's website, for instance, saying there were 50,000 protestors. I don't think there were multiple protest sites. The photo is of what I saw, I was right there. You can see there are 200 or so in the photo. With a broader view, I still saw no more than 500 including those still coming. I left around 2pm, and don't know that things grew a lot more. And "in cold weather"? It was a not a bad day - 50 Fahrenheit maybe, not raining but cloudy. I get the feeling this article was written from a press release about the hopes of the organizers to be honest.
(quick edit for typo)
From your description these are certainly not "left wing" protests. They are protests by former Fidesz supporters who are politically not too far apart, but have found Fidesz to be corrupt. I don't find a simple left-center-right spectrum terribly useful anyway. But every party that holds power for too long becomes ossified and corrupt to some extent. Lula da Silva's regime in Brazil did. People need some fluidity and competition between parties.
These are not left-wing protests at all. Most of the parties in Hungary would be classified as right wing. Yes, I agree that spectrum is clumsy. Parties classified as left-wing (left, center-left and far-left) hold 32 of 199 seats in Parliament. Additionally, Hungary's Green party, which holds 5 of 199 seats, is classed as center to center left. I believe youth in the former Soviet Republics may sometimes blush to speak against Communism, but they are often a-political, skeptical of all such, or gently "right wing".
Why not speak against communism? I don't know everything, but I will throw this out: People struggle here, it is known they are richer in the West, plus there is a lot of Soros owned media and that sort of thing. It does not succeed in creating too many leftists but, is one thing that covers-up the past compared to the present.
Let us hope Rod's documentary "Live Not by Lies" is viewed from Angel Studios and even picked up by Netflix and viewed all over, including former Soviet countries.
Just speculating here....Do you think there might be Western government involvement, promoting soft-right protests, as a 'gentle' way of bring Orban's government down?
I haven't seen evidence of that. There is an almost soap opera here. Peter Magyar and the female president (Orban in PM) divorced, she says he beat her, he says she was corrupt. She did sign off on the pardon of someone who assisted a pedophile, it was her job to know what she was doing, but I am not convinced she did. Magyar left Fidesz and started his own party, called Tisza. Many see him as an opportunist, but who knows.
Orban wins again and again - 68 percent last time. Budapest is against him but other parts heavily for him. I do not have any way of knowing the extent of corruption in Orban's government. Basically, I think it cannot be non-corrupt, and it also is not as bad as some stories make out (i.e., Rod can demonstrate that "they own all the media" is false). - - Tisza is more EU friendly but I think that is because he believes it would improve the economy. The country does pay huge fees every day because they will not take refugees (yes, there are some here, but not many). However, Tisza's 21 point party statement does not include allowing immigration.
Another interesting development - in yesterday's speech, Orban stated that the Budapest Pride parade will be banned this year.
PS: I cannot see that color revolution has had much success here. They may try to queer the Donbas, but queering the Hungarian Danube, meh.
People in Budapest mostly do not care what people do in their bedrooms, gay couples can freely walk hand in hand here but do not want their kids taught about homosexual activity. For all the Hungarian's political indifference and/or total skepticism due to corruption, and for all their anti-clericalism and hence non-attendance at church, they are a sensible people They aren't going along with the radical Western far-left nor even center-left. - - And note the war in Ukraine is heavily opposed here with belief the end must be negotiated. But of course, that is not because people are pro-Russia. They simply and wisely "don't poke the bear"
I have some skepticism about "Live Not By Lies," which is not news to Rod or anyone else here. I simply don't see the totalitarian impulses and methods of communist parties in power as unique to communism. They are a metric for why and how communism is a failure on its own terms -- it did not result in the liberation of the working class, or even come close. But these are methods employed by people of many stripes when they feel they can act with impunity, and/or when they feel pressed and threatened, often both. Military dictators used similar methods, and its no great surprise that liberals could sometimes do the same, if perhaps in a softer form. Communism, being a more collective philosophy, did it in a more collectivized way, on a larger scale.
I think people who lived in former Soviet or Warsaw Pact nations have a more nuanced view of what communism was and wasn't. One saying that caught my eye was "We knew they were lying to us about socialism, but unfortunately it turned out they were telling us the truth about capitalism." It goes along with the cartoon I saved of the Chinese stock market in free fall, all charts pointing sharply down, and one party functionary saying to the other, "Now I remember why we hate capitalism." Hungary isn't doing half bad. Orban is probably better than a liberal regime, he's certainly better than a fascist regime, and nobody is ready to try to new brand of socialism. But they have some residues of past socialist regimes -- there still is a strong social safety net, and its easier to be comfortably right-wing when you aren't deprived. Its like after the New Deal, a lot of people who were Depression era radicals were able to buy their own home and had a steady supply of electricity, and tended to vote Republican. Or the Wisconsin state employees who voted for Scott Walker because they liked the idea of their taxes being reduced, only to find he was going to reduce taxes by cutting their wages and collective bargaining agreements.
It sounds like you have not spent time in former Soviet republics. I've spent years. It also sounds like possibly some one-sided reading. Things are not perfect today, but you do not seem to have an understanding of how things were. "Liberation of the working class" indeed. Sorry - look, it's a fallen world, we are sadly, almost all of us, or all our families, wage slaves for a very long part of our lives. Average people here don't live in luxury here, but they have food, clothing and very adequate shelter, freedom of religion, assembly, and the press and the opportunity for an education no matter their politics or religion. Just wait for the LNBL documentary for filmed proof of what you apparently do not believe from the book. - - Or maybe get over here and talk to the people while those who remember how it was still live.
There is what people said in the 1990s. Then there is what people said in the 2000s. Then there is what people said in the ten years after that. And there is what people are saying in the 2020s. I've noticed serious gaps in what people born since 1990 understand of the 1960s, of the civil rights movement, of the Vietnam War, of the history of Taiwan, of what Jim Crow was and wasn't, of why Americans of African descent volunteered to serve in the military while experiencing rank discrimination and what their sense of patriotism was, and all kinds of other things. I have no doubt it is possible to garner a variety of perspectives on "how people remember communism." But there was, for a time, a t-shirt popular in the eastern area of Germany that said "I want my wall back." Not that they wanted the Communist Party back in power at all -- but they didn't like what they were getting to replace it either. When the Communist Party lost power in Poland, after the Peasants Party that was supposed to be a thoroughly Marxist component of a People's Republic shifted to vote with Solidarnosc, a lot of hot-shot western liberal economists came in to "help" the new government. And they were liberals. The first thing they said was, gee, these tiny little farms are so inefficient, they need to be consolidated into larger production units. I laughed. I said if the Polish communists had an ounce of imagination they would have organized the farmers to resist this western imperialist intrusion, and developed some cooperatives that would leave the farmers in control of their own farms while introducing economies of scale. But these economists were too young to remember (and had not done their homework to learn) how these same farmers had steadfastly refused collectivization of agriculture. It also provided some insights into the fact the the USSR and the USA had both collectivized agriculture in the 1930s. The USA version was described by John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath." Been tractored out by cats...
Any regime that stays in power too long becomes tired, sclerotic and prone to self-dealing. I've said frequently in this space that Orban needs to groom a successor and retire to write his reflections on politics and perhaps serve as elder statesman. If they're not careful some disaster will occur and Fidesz will be roundly rejected and some leftist party will take over.
More info: I've looked at other stores that say "tens of thousands" but that included thousands for Orban's morning speech at the museum, which I did not attend. - Look, things are closed, there is nothing to do but go to speeches. This is one of three national holidays (like three 4th of Julys) - the other two have evening fireworks. - Protestors were not yelling or rioting, they were hearing speeches. There was a picture with probably 500 at the Tisza rally parading, with the ending of the parade not visible When I was there, I could not tell who was speaking since it was all in Hungarian. I suppose it is possible Peter Magyar's speech was later, and I did say people were still arriving. But if "thousands" is accurate, I can't imagine more than two or three thousand. I did walk around, with a pause at the Tisza rally, from noon until 3:30pm. It was a normal day, no real protests, just speeches.
I decided to summarize: (1) On March 15, around noon to a little before 2pm, I went to the Tisza (Peter Magyar's party) protest. I saw about 300 people, plus about 100 coming from the north. Speeches had already started. I could see some were coming from the south and did allow maybe 500. Even if I'm off it was under 1000 people. I said it was very, very peaceful, people just listening to speeches with flags of Hungary and signs from their various towns. I talked with a woman about it in German (her thoughts above) but most were busy listening to speeches and Hungarian is not often learned by adults, nor have I learned it.
(2) Highly questionable media claims: Radio Free Europe claimed 50,000 people. They provided a crowd shot with maybe 200 in the shot. Nothing like the drone shots and shots from high building we get from Serbian and Georgian protests. Another shot, from other services, apparently taken after I'd left, also showed about 200 but it was plain the crowd stretched down the street and there were more- I'd still say under 500 in the visible shot, more potential, unseen. And again, no drone or overhead photos, I will add this was in one direction and presume turning around would show the crowd going down the street in the other direction. Still nothing like 50,000.
(3) I acknowledged that Pater Magyar would have been the main speaker and perhaps had not arrived by near 2pm, but I certainly could not imagine the crowd swelling to 50,000.
(4) I explained that March 15 is a National Day. Things are closed. I explained going to speeches in a normal activity on that day. Orban had a speech near the Museum that morning. For all I know the total at all various speeches and stage programs all over the large city (there were also activities up at the castle) was in the tens of thousands. However, I think it near-impossible that there was a "protest rally" of anything like 50,000 people in opposition to Orban in central Budapest- i.e. the Tisza rally, they are the opposition. There was a peaceful speech, the custom for the day,
(5) My guess: I suspect RFE had a press release stating from Tisza 50,000 were expected and simply reported this as fact. though the press release turned out to be quite exaggerated.
(6) Edit to add: Hungarian press said the following (translated_. Even if this is pro-Orban, the fact of holding the speech on an avenue instead of one of the large squares mentioned is tell. And yes Tisza is falling in the polls: "It is not surprising that only his most dedicated supporters showed up, which was to be expected after the polls showing his declining support. That is why, after the crowds on both Heroes' Square and Széna Square were very sparse, this time he chose the much narrower Andrássy Avenue, where even the fewer people look like a lot in the photos."
OK, last comment - see this https://www.blikk.hu/galeria/magyar-peter-tisza-part-marcius-15/lcftwxj?os_ps=8 (you can see photos, use google translate to read)
Scroll down for a photo gallery, 21 pictures, no comment on crowd size that I saw.
The official Tisza event started at 3pm, more festive than I knew (horses, etc.) All the speeches before that hour had me thinking it was underway when I left just before 2pm.
The event is on a broad avenue, there are no drone or overhead pictures. There is a large screen and a microphone, but even of 2,000 or 3,000 eventually arrived - and you can't see that in the pictures - that is about the max that could, from the avenue, have heard the speech/seen the screen. - - I emphasize, again, there are drones and high buildings but no photo except street level, then outlandish claims of crowd size, apparently first stated by RFE, but then repeated elsewhere. RFE is an organization that the Trump administration is closing up a few days from now. This because they are quite leftist, said by his administration to be unable to change due to their pervasively leftist personnel.
Here is the crowd for Orban's speech - not on an avenue, you can see the people:
https://www.blikk.hu/galeria/orban-viktor-marcius-15-beszede-fotok/qck0p5f?image=6
Rod, do you know of such monasteries in the USA. Sounds like a good way to anchor oneself, by establishing a relationship with a band of good monks.
Just this morning I heard of an Orthodox one in North Carolina but I don't know the details. Apparently the monastery is attached to a church (or perhaps it's vice versa) and families are moving nearby in order to foster an "old world" parish community.
Might it be this one? I'd love to find something like that on the East coast!
https://www.panagiaprousiotissa.org/
That might be it -- looks wonderful either way!
This one is not far from where I live and I have visited many times. It was founded by Mother Alexandra, who was the former Princess Ileana of Romania.
https://www.orthodoxmonasteryellwoodcity.org/home
Orthodox people are buying/building houses near St Paisius Monastery in Arizona in order to participate in the life of the monastery, I learned when I was there a couple of years ago. I would love to do that in partnership with others, so I could at least visit more often... https://stpaisiusmonastery.org/
It would be great to have a monastery at hand, the Orthodox witness is impaired by the lack of monasteries. But for the majority of us that would mean monasteries in urban and suburban areas , not in remote places. And yes, that's not contrary to any tradition-- there were plenty of monasteries in old Constantinople and in and outside Moscow and Kiev.
Well, the mother house Le Barroux has another daughter house: Clear Creek Monastery, in rural eastern Oklahoma. But I don't know much at all about either Catholic or Orthodox monasteries in the US.
Oops, sorry, Fontgombault is the mother house, per James C.'s direction below. Still, French traditionalists.
There’s one in West Virginia, Indiana and Texas. I don’t know how trad they are; I’ve not heard of any liberal monasteries, do those exist?
Harvard?
Rod noted a few years back of an Orthodox monastery outside Huntington, WV.
https://www.holycross.org/
Safe travels to the US. So good to hear of your joy of being in France again!
If Rod were to settle anywhere besides the US, I'd recommend Italy first-- but the south of France second.
So glad you had a refreshing time at the monastery. Did your hosts mention that Le Barroux has a thriving daughter house in Oklahoma, Our Lady of Clear Creek?< https://clearcreekmonks.org> Families are spontaneously settling in the area, too.
Clear Creek is wonderful! In fact it's a daughter house of the illustrious Fontgombault Abbey, part of the Solesmes Congregation.
Then I stand corrected on Clear Creek's origin. Sorry.
Its origin is a remarkable story in itself and is something I wish Rod would look into and write about. Several students of the amazing "Integrated Humanities Program" at the University of Kansas under the visionary John Senior visited Fontgombault under his guidance. They ended up staying and pursuing vocations as monks before eventually being sent back to the States to found Clear Creek.
Senior's "The Restoration of Christian Culture" is one of those books that will change the trajectory of your spiritual life. I'm so heartened to see Rod having warm things to say about TLM-loving Catholics. Senior certainly writes with much anger, writing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council and the disruptions and apparent madness that broke out in the liturgy thereafter, but there is also just so much wisdom, as you can see in the vocations carried out by many of his students. I think Senior is one of the sources of much that is good in American Catholic traditionalism, as epitomized at Clear Creek. Honestly all the TLMs I attend now strike me more like the way Rod writes about le Barroux than his previous experience of "mad trads."
Passé un bon voyage !
“To be enchanted as a Christian, then, is to live in the awareness that all the world is, in some sense, a Tabor, if we were able to see it as it really is — and to act out of that awareness.”
“Bright the vision that delighted
Once the sight of Judah's seer;
Sweet the countless tongues united
To entrance the prophet's ear.
Round the Lord in glory seated
Cherubim and seraphim
Filled his temple, and repeated
Each to each the alternate hymn:
“Lord, thy glory fills the heaven;
Earth is with its fullness stored;
Unto thee be glory given,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord.”
Bishop R. Mant, 1837
Re: Talking with the abbot, I recalled a saying of Balzac’s, which goes something like, “Hope is memory plus desire.”
Not sure I agree. You can hope for things you've never had. E.g., a single, childless person can hope for a spouse and children.
Re: One man told me that it is more or less forbidden in France to make a link between crime rates and migration.
I'd like to see actual stats before accepting impressions uncritically. In the US the reverse is true: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here, though I don't know if that's always been true, as in the 19th century certain immigrant groups, e.g., the Irish, were infamous for criminality. And Europe may well suffer the same trouble the US had in the 19th century: too many immigrants are like the old Irish, desperately poor and dysfunctional people run out of their home countries by disaster or persecution.
(I had hoped you would post some photos of the monastery-- was photography not permitted?)
I didn't have time to take many. This has been an incredibly jammed-up trip. Migration is a very different phenomenon in Europe than in the US. There is much less selectivity in who comes into Europe. For example, a much higher proportion of Muslims who come to the US are educated; in Europe, it's everybody.
Hard stats are difficult to come by in France, but there's this:
General Crime in Paris: In 2022, the French Interior Ministry reported that foreign nationals accounted for 48% of arrests and police custodies in Paris for all offenses combined (misdemeanors and felonies). This figure includes both legal and illegal immigrants but does not specify the proportion of illegal immigrants alone. President Emmanuel Macron, in an October 2022 interview, suggested that "at least half" of crime in Paris comes from foreigners, either illegal immigrants or those awaiting residence permits, though this was an approximation based on arrests, not convictions.
Violent Crimes and Robberies in Île-de-France: According to the SSMSI (the statistics bureau of the French Ministry of the Interior), in 2023, foreign nationals were responsible for 69% of violent robberies, other violent crimes, and sexual assaults on public transport in the greater Paris region (Île-de-France). Within this, Africans were noted as responsible for 52% of such crimes, despite comprising only about 3.2% of France’s total population.
People of limited means can reach Europe overland, or with short boat hops. It takes trans-Atlantic air fare to reach America. People who are already prone to violence, and have little or nothing to lose, are going to bring violence no matter what their race, creed, color or national origin. London Cockneys were violent -- that's why the British army sought them for tough assignments during WW II. But, they had enough stake in things to keep a lid on it. Jobs, homes, etc. Send a lot of Cockneys as refugees to Austria and they'd be violent too.
Re: It takes trans-Atlantic air fare to reach America
With the obvious exception of those who come via Mexico or the Caribbean.
A truth that obfuscates the point. People from Mexico and the Caribbean are not emigrating in large numbers to Europe, except for residents of former British colonies who have an in as citizens of Commonwealth nations. And, anyone from the middle east or North Africa who emigrate to the US via the Caribbean or Mexico have to cross the Atlantic first.
Balzac is correct. You cannot hope for something that you have no image of. And to have an image of something the only way to "access" it is by memory, even if it's something of which you've only seen a picture or heard a description.
Ok, but Hope is not a synonym for Nostalgia. It inherently future tense. The past is immutable.
Is it, though? Sometimes I wonder.
If it were possible to time travel and change the past one of two things would happen:
1. A new timeline would come into being leaving the original untouched.
OR:
2. The paradox would destroy everything.
I was thinking more about the metaphysical nature of what we call "the past," and whether the past is always a relationship with the present and the future, such that the future could be said to retroactively change the past.
Well the future may change the way we view the past, sure.
Sethu, time is linear, until we reach the other side. But even God cannot change history. That's why Jesus emphasized forgiveness--He knew "no use crying over spilt milk." Others can't undo the wrong they've done us--and we don't get "do overs" for our own boo-boos. We have to try to forgive and move on. We have to forgive ourselves even. That doesn't mean just stand there and take ongoing abuse.
I try not to look back that much--just enough to remember what NOT to do. As St. Paul said "Don't make the same mistake twice."
On the other hand, I've sort of started living in the Past in the sense that I remember fondly (nostolgia) when things were more normal. I don't want to see today's movies with its proseletyzing in-your-face wokeness and sexual deviancy at every turn. Can't take TV.
Have you heard the song "Living in the Past" by Jethro Tull? Sort of captures the mood of "I'm checking out on this stuff (woke-itis), though it was written in the 70's I think. Jethro Tull at his best IMO.
"If it helps, use it.":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9IyFLDtjk
I don't see how that pertains to Balzac's dictum.
Can you provide a link to those stats please?
Google "immigrants and crime". You should get a plethora of sources, ranging from NPR to Congress.gov to the Cato Institute.
None of those, or even the search engine, are uncompromised. Especially NPR, I’ve never heard them run a negative story on an immigrant...
If you're going to dismiss everything why ask? Your mind is already made up.
I want you to provide unbiased sources, not the usual bilge in order to change my mind. Google is corrupt as hale surely everyone knows this by now; I already referenced NPR, and the Cato institute makes every excuse to import cheap labor.
You regard NPR as a credible source? That actually makes me question your good faith, which I usually don't do. Culpable ignorance—you're not even bothering to do due diligence. Your respect meter just dropped a little.
When it agrees with a huge number of other (and diverse) sources-- sure.
NPR, like any source, has to be evaluated based on how much detail the report gives on the writer's sources, how they know what they know, and, as Jon notes, agreement with other sources. Fox News, NPR, the New York Times... know their biases, evaluate the language of each article, and check on what the report draws on for facts.
Sometimes, once you've seen a source perform poorly enough over a long-enough period of time, you simply don't read it anymore—you don't evaluate articles one by one. That's a reasonable heuristic. And you certainly don't cite it first when a person asks for credible sources, which is what Jon did in response to Kat.
Also, that blonde chick in charge of the operation is almost certainly a CIA asset.
I don't listen to or seek out NPR. My brother in law used to listen to it every morning on the radio, and it was boring at best. But JonF isn't wrong merely because he sometimes listens to NPR. What did they say? How did they know? How does that compare to other available data?
"In the US the reverse is true: Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here." The accuracy of that statement depends almost entirely on whether the immigrants came here legally or illegally, and when. If, for example, we look at immigration in the last 5 years, when illegal immigrants outnumbered legal immigrants by orders of magnitude, the claim is either unsupported or outright false, especially since many large "sanctuary" cities (such as NY, LA, and Chicago) have -- unsurprisingly -- refused to submit any crime data at all to the FBI. Even those cities that do report their crime stats do not always do so by demographic breakdown, as the FBI acknowledges. (The FBI relies on voluntary city/state participation in the Uniform Crime Reporting Program for its crime data.) In fact, crime reporting to the FBI has declined since 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd de-fund/de-criminalize frenzy. Couple that Swiss-cheese reporting structure with the overwhelming increase in admission of violent gangs/human traffickers/drug traffickers over our open borders during the last administration, and it's clear that mantras like "immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born and bred here" are pretty meaningless.
Your assertions are a farrago of half truths, propaganda, hyperbole and falsehood.
Live not by lies.
It's so much easier to blame the messenger than to confront the facts. Your problem is with inconvenient truths -- not with me (though you like making things personal).
I don't regard partisan propaganda that contradicts a huge mountain of facts from a large and diverse variety of sources as anything but lies.
Proportions for immigrant crime simply do not work when it is known that anyone who has immigrated illegally has already committed a crime. For example, US Statistics show 1.6 million legal immigrants in 2024. There were 3.3 million undocumented immigrants, the clear majority in violation of Federal law.
3.3/4.9 = 67% that have already committed a crime.
Further, of those that have arrived illegally, one has a strong incentive to not commit further crime and be found out by the authorities. One tends to keep their nose clean when the risk is jail and/or deportation.
Further, regarding the immigrant Irish and their crime rate versus today’s immigrants, one would need to consider the total lack of government welfare in the time of Irish immigration versus today. Further, the Irish faces terrible Catholic discrimination depriving them of food and jobs. One needs to remember they were not given taxpayer money for food and put up in the Roosevelt Hotel NYC like many immigrants today.
Re: Proportions for immigrant crime simply do not work when it is known that anyone who has immigrated illegally has already committed a crime
Yes, that;'s trivially true, and I thought to mention it myself. But when people talk about crime they usually mean crimes involving victims, especially violent crimes.
The major problem with illegal immigration is that these people by the presence in the workforce drive down wages and may deprive low income, lesser skilled Americans of jobs while also generally not paying sufficient taxes to cover the costs of social welfare (healthcare, education) they consume. The latter is of course true of low income Americans too.
As an aside my church now has seventeen katechumans-- one more just today-- and that's after we chrismated eleven at Christmas and seven last year at Easter. We've had two whole families come to us this winter: a young couple with a baby, and a family with two teenagers (the son came to us first and brought his parents and sister). When they are all in attendance and come forward for a blessing during the Litany Of The Katechumans there are almost too many of them to fit the space available.
Good news! Aslan is on the move.
We have a total of 31 catechumens presently -- I'm sure that is an all-time record. 21 are adults, one a teen, and nine children who will be baptized with their parents.
One of the cradle Orthodox at my parish said our 15 Christmas baptisms / chrismations were the most she had ever seen at any service in her entire life. And we're back up to a record number of catechumens again.
We had 15 baptisms and/or chrismations at Christmas. Holy Saturday is already so pre-booked that our priest has been telling people he's advising other catechumens to plan on Pentecost at this point.
Yesterday we counted as many in attendance as we would normally only see at the Paschal service, or Palm Sunday. We're trying to fundraise to build an entirely new church, since we've outgrown current quarters (an ex-Baptist cinderblock thingy). To save money on the construction we have been planning on building a temporary space first to accommodate 200-ish, then fundraise for a proper temple that can seat 300. At this rate, the Stage 1 space will be over capacity before we even break ground, which could be a few years yet as construction costs here are about 2x what they were in 2020.
But we also are about to send a young man and his family off to seminary.
At some point when a church gets too big (in numbers) it's advisable to found a new church, at mission status at least. We're not there yet at my church, though our priest is getting a bit stretched thin trying to keep up with everyone.
Indeed. We're not that big yet (150ish). At around 250-300 is when the Antiochians usually start looking to set up a mission, but there is talk anyway of staring up a mission about 45 min north of us anyway just to geography.
But we need more priests in the area to really make the missions going concerns too.
A small mission church was established from my current church a while back. It's about thirty miles to the north of Tampa (so about forty or so to our north). A majority of the parishioners are Arabic-speakers, as if the priest and the services are conducted in that language. The priest was formerly assistant priest at my church (before I moved back down here)
Quick thoughts after reading your joyful missive. Happy to see the pic with Père, Rod - your eyes look so full of light. Travels have been very tiring. This sounds like a brief physical, but deep spiritual rest. - - And, erm, who cut your hair at last? Heh.
A home in France. I took just a moment to check – just over an hour’s drive to north Toulouse where there are a few Orthodox Churches. Yes, I want Rod Dreher to have a home.
Full on Ash Wednesday. Yes. I’ve been going to Hungarian Mass at my nearest Catholic parish. There were four masses that day. I went to the last. Packed. People standing everywhere.
Can I have your travel agent demoted? Why not Paris to USA? Rod, you ask a lot of yourself, you are to take care, you hear!
So much enjoyed your writing about the country people, monks and countryside of France!
I did a retreat at the abbey some years ago.I flew into Toulouse, took the train to Agen, followed by a 15-min bus ride and a one-hour walk. It was great.
My daughter is working as an au pair in Nantes near the Vendee. She is looking for a catholic congregation in Nantes with young french people and hopefully a choir as she is a singer. I just read in your article that your publisher, Beatrice Doyer, lives in the Vendee which is near Nantes. Could you ask her if she could direct mail me with such a congregation? I´d me most grateful.
Email or message me with your contact info, and I'll pass it to Bea.
I completely get (and share) the perspective that there are better and worse versions of Christianity,. i.e. Eastern Orthodox, grade A,.vs. prosperity gospel, grade D-.
But I don't quite get how RCs can be so mad when someone moves to EO. Really? You don't think that someone can have a full Christian life in EO?
Again, I see this as different from merely arguing that "RC is better than EO for reasons X, Y, Z" which is perfectly understandable.
It's just that, to me, the huge distinction seems to be "Christian vs non-Christian" and I'll never quite get why some Christians are as upset about someone joining the "wrong church" or a "lesser church" (from their point of view) as they would be about someone apostatizing entirely.
Good points SlowlyReading. Something I would like to bring up with Rod. He is more Catholic than ever. Just not under the Papal jurisdiction and its practices, and not in the eyes of the narrow commitments and understanding of some Catholics, east and west. He proclaims the Nicene Creed that all Catholics East and West used before the Schism of 1054. Younger Roman priests in the U.S. say to my wife and I we are the eastern wing of the Church. We are being communed in a Roman parish. Though that would not be allowed by most Eastern bishops. Historically there has been both permiability on the East West borders as well as bitter conflict, depending on the local dispositions of the people. Let us recall on this matter the advice of Church Father Ambrose, considered a pillar in the West. "In Rome do as the Romans do." Because even in Italy of the 4th Century the liturgical practice was different in Rome than in Milan.
Also, the Catholic Church allows Orthodox believers to take Catholic communion, based on the understanding that the Orthodox sacraments are valid (although the Orthodox Church doesn't reciprocate the gesture and also discourages its own from taking Catholic communion). In my opinion, this amounts to a concession that from the Catholic point of view, the Orthodox aren't really in schism.
As for why people get upset: well, a lot depends precisely on what it means to be a Christian vs. a heathen. There isn't any universal agreement about where that line is drawn, because different believers have different standards about what is essential vs. peripheral to the faith. Many Protestants, for instance, want to unilaterally categorize some things as peripheral that Catholics and Orthodox would affirm are quite essential. The baseline itself is a shifting thing, dependent on where you're standing.
We may want to say that "Being a Christian just means" X or Y or Z, but the point is that any such statement reflects our own *opinion* (or the opinion of our own particular church), and that others do not necessarily agree even on things that we might consider basic. Bear in mind that there are wokists who regard themselves as Christian, which strikes me as an oxymoron. Those rainbows on the facades sure aren't a reference to Noah. . . .
It is the Roman Catholic Church that is in schism. That's just my opinion of course, and the opinions of a communicant Orthodox commenter at one of Rod's earlier venues. But there is much to recommend it.
You’ll note that I refrained from wading into that debate and merely described their respective points of view, only highlighting the absurdity (on its own terms) of Catholics getting upset about believers converting to Orthodoxy.
Thank you, makes sense. I just keep thinking, well, "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved", and, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," right? Maybe that makes me a lib or, worse yet, an incorrigible Protestant. But I can't help reading those verses in plain terms -- i.e. even Arians, Nestorians, Miaphysites, Unitarians qualify as Christians. Even if their version of Christianity is very defective!
What about the wokists, though? Haha. There are people who call on His name in bad faith and bear false witness; even the Devil can say Jesus. So at some level we all know that there must be more to it than merely saying the name—it's not some cure-all magic spell. There's a condition of heart involved, and also at least to some extent a structure of thought.
Yup. The Lord clearly spells out his personhood and purpose. Merely calling his name is not enough, if you deny either of the above. He is not here to be a "feel good" panacea. He is here for very serious matters and the Christian life, though guaranteeing peace, makes it clear troubles will come. And the world will hate you. If you live for him, the world will despise you, as it despised him. Don't be afraid of causing offense. He did.
But it is not enough to meet "in his name," alone. As the verse that says, "there are those who say Lord, Lord, and I say, go away, I never knew ye." Christ identifies clearly who he is and what his purpose is. And if your group calls his name, but does not recognize his actual person or purpose, like the Unitarians, then you will fall among the latter.
There are verses, like these, that deal with Christ in plain terms. But one must deal with the others that do the same.
BTW, as an "incorrigible Protestant," I fully recognize the discipleship of my fellow Christians in Orthodox and Catholic gatherings.
Thank you!
"But I don't quite get how RCs can be so mad when someone moves to EO. Really? You don't think that someone can have a full Christian life in EO? "
"Mad" may or may not be the right description. "Disappointed" may be more accurate. Maybe not. But there are any number of reasons why Christians feel such emotions when people -- especially people whose opinions they depend upon for bolstering their own world view -- suddenly shift in their religious affiliation.
1. We congregate in VERY large part because consensus helps us believe in the invisible God we believe in. The more people who see the world the way we do, the greater comfort we can take against the uncertainties with which looking through a glass darkly necessarily leaves us. We can intellectualize that following the crowd isn't logical. We might even spiritualize that concept by quoting "...narrow is the gate" to bolster our certainty that Christianity will always (until the new world) be a minority opinion. But human nature is human nature. We take comfort in numbers. We take comfort when we aren't the only person who saw the UFO. Even misery loves company.
2. We feel betrayed. Christian celebrity amplifies the feelings described in point #1. The celebrity used to be our spokesman. Now he's telling the world that we're wrong. His celebrity will probably (we assume) take many of our number with him.
3. We fear for the person who exhibits the instability of denomination hopping -- especially one who does such hopping so visibly -- talking up each step as if in it he has found ultimate truth....right up until the time that the newest step disappoints him and he hops onward. He demonstrates the fickleness of an unsettled soul. And perhaps the direction moved demonstrates further that religion is taking the place of the dopamine high -- looking for ever more deep experiences, feelings, excitements, enchantments -- and dissatisfaction with the humble, mundane Christian life Paul described as "Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before." It's hard to "small up and simple down" when your life is constantly in the spotlight and your days are an adenaline-filled rocket to the moon.
Thank you very much for the reply - appreciated.
I don't like formally congregating. I find the groupthink kinda distracting; if anything, It makes me feel *less* sure about the whole thing. But I go for the Eucharist, which I believe in.
1. We are commanded to gather, and the benefits are many, starting with submitting to His will.
2. We should never base our faith on a group gestalt, or on the status of a celebrity.
3. Faith in Christ is faith in Christ. I would not care at all if someone whose walk I admire went from Protestant to Catholic, say. That is still a body that worships Christ, and is a place where the Holy Spirit dwells.
That's all fine. Great, even. But it doesn't answer whether you are representative or not.
I trust in God, His Word, and seeing Him active in my life. Whether I am "representative," since that does not involve the Christian faith at all, is irrelevant.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this response.
You said, "Faith in Christ is faith in Christ. I would not care at all if someone whose walk I admire went from Protestant to Catholic, say. That is still a body that worships Christ, and is a place where the Holy Spirit dwells."
I suggested that that may be so, but it's hardly representative (which should be somewhat obvious because many people do care when others jump from denomination to denomination.
I don't understand what you're suggesting "does not involve the Christian faith at all". Do you mean to be saying that those who question denomination hopping aren't Christian?
I prefer to say harmonizing rather than “submitting”—sounds too Muslim. But hey, po-tae-to, po-tah-to.
Perhaps "surrender" is the better word. Or, "repentance." CS Lewis, from "The Abolition of Man"
Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.
I played the violin for eight years. And I long thought, “Without You, I just sound like some screeching dying cat.”
I can still play the guitar—a much more forgiving instrument.
It sounds like you are describing "utter depravity" in lieu of "total depravity"?
Such a wise comment! Especially this: "The more people who see the world the way we do, the greater comfort we can take against the uncertainties with which looking through a glass darkly necessarily leaves us."
Lots of other responses here, so I'm just chipping in my own 2 cents at this point. What I have observed is that *some* (by no means all - just a really vocal subset) RC's see moving away from Rome as essentially breaking an oath and committing a form of treason, and many of that set will go so far as to say that, by leaving the Sacraments, they have left the faith. That's bad enough, but to then talk publicly about that break is (again, to this subset) attempting to seduce still others away into heresy or apostasy, jeopardizing the souls of others. Hence the palpable anger.
You see very similar responses too among certain Protestants when others convert to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. I know a pastor who leads a weekly prayer service, for instance, to pray that Catholics abandon their "apostasy" and return to "true faith" - he really means it, as he is certain that Catholics have somehow damned themselves, or been conned.
I regard that paranoid mindset itself as the true apostasy, whatever the immediate object of hatred may happen to be.
There's another factor driving the fear, and I have experienced this first hand from close family: that it's somehow your own fault if someone else doesn't come to the "truth" you preach - that somehow you personally bear the blame if others are damned when you might have "saved" them had you said or done the right thing.
This is really a common issue in a lot of Evangelical circles, where the thinking goes everyone is born automatically damned at birth, and has to choose to follow Christ. Ergo: if someone has not heard the Gospel (or not heard it correctly enough that they might be presented with a clear choice), they are by default damned. But if you give them that message correctly when you have the chance, then you're off the hook. And this often goes too for Christians who somehow have gone wrong (like Catholics and Orthodox) - they're (in these circles) idol worshippers who believe in salvation by works, and so also automatically damned.
When you're brought up in that mindset (and I know plenty who are this way), it's not paranoia or hate towards other Christians, it's a genuine belief that these others are damned.
That is really disgusting and sick. I always sympathize with those who hate Christianity, if this quasi-Calvinist shit is what they think it is.
It's a very brittle Christianity too, for those raised in it. Very very hard edged and absolutist. Quite a lot of the self-styled "ex-Vangelicals" who now utterly reject Christianity came out of that upbringing.
What's sad about it too is that even when they walk away from all that, they go out thinking that what they were raised in (and now reject) is the still the only "right" way to read the Bible, and so (rather weirdly) rail against all the others using the very paradigm they reject (I think Bart Ehrmann is in this category).
I have 3 friends who came out of this. 2 of them are hopefully on their way into the Orthodox Church very soon - one of them described his first Holy Week last year as everything he always wished Christianity had been. Neither of these two can easily talk about this with their parents who still hold to their narrow fundamentalisms.
One of them told me that their parents' church recently had a pastor who declared CS Lewis (!) as unsafe for Christians to read because Lewis was an idolator! (He made Jesus a lion after all).
I always say that I’m very grateful to have not been brought up Christian. I found Him on my own, as a new thing, without all that baggage.
Our experiences overlap. I've seen what you've seen as well. My inlaws were from the holiness tradition -- fundamentalist. I went to a Christian school from 4th grade on and, though it was 60s non-denominational, it nevertheless had a significant number of fundamentalists in its staff and students. Great people, but as you say, their gate was very narrow.
I will say, however, there are those whose heads are screwed on more securely, and cling to the same hope we all cling to....nevertheless worry at the prospect of Pelagian leanings.
The irony, I suppose, is that those with such leanings become equally pelagian in a set of standards of their own devising. I could make fun of it, or I could just realize we're all just finding our way. God could have made himself more obvious if such distinctions were important to him. They appear not to be. But because we just don't know, they become very important to us.
Most evangelicals I'm related to by friendship or blood, believe that the Church resides in all the denominations. Someday we'll know who was right. I mean, besides me. I, of course, know I'm right. Maybe. Sometimes.
...okay, I'm right when my wife lets me be. That's good enough.
Usually.
There is another consideration too, and this is deeply bound up in WHY different Christians simply can NOT be in communion with each other.
The Eucharist is the center of Christian worship for Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestants (many others I would argue, have reduced its meaning significantly, which is a more serious matter). As such, until very very recently practically no churches practiced any form of open Communion, reserving it for those who were members, and denying it to outsiders, or to members who had put themselves apart in some obvious way (see First Corinthians, for instance).
The Eucharist is fundamentally a shared meal (we're parking of God together). In breaking bread with others - sharing a meal together - there has long been a traditional understanding that this is a bond, and a common experience together. A shared meal has a sacral quality, even apart from any religion - again, this has been understood since the earliest days of humanity.
Perhaps you have had an experience like this: when I was still very much online in a particular forum, I would sometimes get into rather protracted arguments with a particular person. We did not always butt heads, but when we did he displayed rather a short fuse and could devolve into insulting misreads of what I said.
Well, turns out he was coming through the US for the first time (he was European and had never travelled here), and I offered to let him stay with us for a few days on his travels. After that I thought he and I understood each other a lot better, and for a long time he avoided the temper outbursts even when we could not agree on things. Until he didn't any longer, and his tendency to insult (often in terms that displayed a nasty intellectual arrogance) got worse than it had previously been. I tried appealing to how he had enjoyed the hospitality of my home and table. Eventually I had to actually block him (something I rarely did before I withdrew entirely from most everything online). It was as though he never knew me.
One of the bright lines that keeps Christians apart from one another has always been "Who do you say I am?" I'm reminded of a bit in Acts when some people tried casting out demons "in the name of the Jesus that Paul preaches." The demons responded by saying "Jesus we know, and Paul we've heard of. Who are you?" These folks did not actually know Jesus, but thought His name something of talisman.
St. Ignatius (who was a student of St. John the Apostle) wrote in his letters of a sect who were preaching that Jesus was never actually corporeal, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection were therefore just for show. This sect did not actually know Jesus either.
It's one of the perennial challenges to more open communion - many disagree to one degree or another over who Christ is. Even if they agree on some surface level (say, that Jesus is the Son of God, and Savior), once one gets past that and gets into deeper things, the differences that appear minor on the surface can be quite wide, to the point where they really cannot share a common cup because they cannot actually agree on Who Jesus really is. And any attempt to force a shared cup inevitably waters it down to only those things each cannot object to in the other's cup.
And if you believe your branch is the most correct, and that the edges are hard and clear so straying in any way means danger and death, then the anger at a defection can be immense.
“Up for mass this morning, I found the chapel absolutely packed, and spilling out into the adjoining hall with worshipers. I didn’t want to be rude, but I could have stared for a long time at their faces. The gentleness of these country people, and the soft but intense piety.
The French people did not acquire the title, “la fille aînée de l’Église” and build Notre Dame de Chartres, the most sublime of all Christian churches, by accident.
Er, the thirteenth century was a long time ago.
After the Reformation, France needed massive re-evangelization both cities and the countryside and providentially, a constellation of saints provided it. Similarly after the Revolution, the country had to be taught the Faith all over again but even by the late 19th C, it was highly polarized between Red (socialist/secular) and White (traditional/Catholic). The Red side won and passed laws confiscating all Church property, mandating lacitie. (That's why the government, not the Church owns Chartres, etc.) Past revivals are a precedent for a future one.
Very sad development.
There's not much that I can add other than to say God Bless all.
Wonderful post. One gets the sense that things are converging, both good and bad.
Speaking of Balzac, this essay prompted me to order the Balzac novel in question, which I've received but not started yet. The Catholic community which features in the book sounds very BenOp-ish.
https://mereorthodoxy.com/balzac-wrong-side-paris
Wonderful, Rod, as usual. So inspiring. Pere Ambroise looks like a saint, his abbey like a little piece of Heaven on earth. Francois, a future priest,, has an aspect as pure and refreshing as driven snow. This gives me hope for France and all of Europe. "Against all odds, Europe will be saved." The English in particular must return to the faith en masse. One cannot resist a competing, flawed religion with no religion or "only cultural" religion--one must answer with zealously practiced religion, and grounded in the true faith (Christianity).
Let's all continue to pray from Trump, Vance and Musk and their "helpers". I like to think of them as "the Posse". The White Hats have arrived. Just in time. We all have a role to play.
I am attaching a "JC in AI website (string of AI visual images)" I find very inspiring. "Just like a Prayer." I find it interesting that when Christ is curing someone in the moving images, He touches their NECKS. Isn't it true that in the Middle Ages, Christians believed the soul was "located" in the neck? Make sense to me. Connects the "heart" to the "head".
"If it helps, use it":
https://www.youtube.com/live/cBRzXJqff1k
Speaking as a medievalist, i have never heard that the neck was supposed to be the locus of the soul. Never.
Let me try to find it. Ah, found it instantly. Go to Edge and enter: " did medieval people the soul was located in the neck? ". Affirmative. It isn't strange to me.
Sorry - they did not think that. For the most part, like Aristotle and as we do today, they saw soul as permeating the body. When I went to Edge, the soul in the neck is not what came up. Your AI may be programmed to affirm what you ask in order to please you and keep you coming back. Otherwise, I do not know what happened. If you did get an actual article, rather than an AI answer on this, please give the link as I'd like to know. Thanks.