The great news is that the coming persecution of will drive the churches into the homes and we will again see worship in Spirit and Truth. I get your point about "hillsongification" but some of their songs done less showy bring a lot worship up from my soul. I think about 100 is the best church size in a lot of ways. Partly because I am retired Army and that is the size of a company level element and it seems to just work. Pastor / Commander can really know his entire flock / unit and get the most our of them.
A reason I began playing an instrument and singing at home is to hear the old hymns. There is not a church in my area to my knowledge that will allow these to be sung. Anything older than five years is never heard. All connection to tradition is ignored.
I love the fact that our Orthodox hymnody dates back centuries, often incorporating portions of the psalms. There's differences in musical styles, but even those have a long tradition.
Modern worship songs are written to be performed while older hymns invite everyone in the congregation to sing. They can be sung by guys like me who sing much lower than the modern breathy sing-songy Olivia Newton-John at worship style of singing.
And yes the congregation, at least last time a hymn was sung — How Great Thou Art— gets rather loud and enthusiastic to the point they drown out the stage performers.
Old hymns are always, always, set in an extremely high Maybe you are down the octave, thus 2 below the women? It is unusual for the keyboardist to transpose, and they hymn books are always written high, so that the sopranos and anyone who cannot cary a part hit E or at least D. People were smaller in days of old and apparently had slightly higher voices. Putting the songs just a couple of notes lower would help a lot but that has not happened over the years. (Likely because two notes lower would be a difficult key for the keyboardist.) My bachelor's is in Choral Music Education.
But...confession...Last fall I did recently attend an Evangelical service for the first time in many years because of some friends. I was surprised that the "worship" was just listening to a group perform. The words were put up on a screen, but the group was amplified so that if you did sing, it was not heard. And the people did not seem to know the songs - I think the songs varied a lot from week to week - anyway very few were singing.
It was indeed a performance. But I still like the music that came out of the Jesus Revolution (e.g. 70s, 80s). I find it is most often meditative, conducive to praise, worship and the Holy Sprit moving within.
Have you looked for a Presbyterian Church in America, Anglican Church in North America, or Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod church? I know that each of those denominations has some pathogenic doctrinal agitation, but as far as I know, the Traditionalists are keeping things from becoming infectious.
And if you can't find one of those, or one which is acceptable to you, you might find a conservative Episcopal church or a small Anglican one, another traditional Lutheran denomination, or some other sort of orthodox Reformed or Presbyterian denomination.
I'm in a PCA church, and thank God, our hymnody is traditional.
It's dismaying that we live in such infidel times.
I need to add that I was in an LCMS congregation twenty years ago, and am not really qualified to vouch for them now. I remember thinking then that if what I was seeing in that church, such as the introduction of "liturgical dance," and the most contemptibly gutless pastor you could imagine, was a trend, the LCMS would be rotten in twenty years. Thank God, indeed, that there are solid, orthodox LCMS churches still around.
I think a church of about 100 can be financially viable. If just 10 families are tithing (I am not legalistic on this and actually think a tithe is a start point) the pastor's salary is about covered. (I am not including minor children by the way). Also Paul modeled bi-vocation at some of his church plants.
If there is a persecution it will leave the megachurches quite alone, just as the black and Hispanic churches, and those on Indian reservations would not be touched. "Bread and circuses" are how Caesar pacifies the populi and the megachurches fit very well into the circus category.
I think the delineating factor will be whether the given church is perceived as a threat or roadblock to Progress or not. Some megachurches, black/Hispanic churches, etc., may very well be put in that category if they are conservative/traditional regarding sexual morality.
I’m a member at a liturgical, confessional LCMS church (unfortunately, some LCMS churches can’t and/or don’t use those adjectives). There are a large number of young families and children in our small congregation (about 150 people on average on Sunday) with more coming. I hope you and your wife would consider looking for a church like ours: doctrinally sound, teaching and ongoing instruction highly valued, service practice that clearly and reverently confesses doctrine. There are churches like this with young people!
For the uninitiated, ESO is referring to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The one I attended had a beautiful solemn liturgy with most awesome music. Protestant seekers, check it out.
But, not all LCMS congregations are created equal. Too many have ditched the traditional liturgy and hymns for a more "contemporary style". We need to borrow Eric Mader's comment above and shout it from the housetops: "There's a vicious cycle of flimsy doctrine and flimsy worship."
Quite so, I am sorry to say. The church I attended had a second service at 11:00 that was more informal and used pop music. Perfectly insipid. But it was preferred by the families with children, while the early, traditional service was attended by older people. We could certainly see the handwriting on the wall ...
Unfortunately, this is all too common. We have such a rich heritage of liturgical practice in the historic, confessional Lutheran church. And the music! It’s so fitting that Bach, among many other lesser known but wonderful composers, was a Lutheran. It makes me sad that so many Lutheran churches have jettisoned liturgy and beautiful music in favor of generic American pop-Christian pabulum.
I went back to my childhood parish because the Catholic Church I attended in Lutherville, Md. built a large addition where they would now have mass. Stadium seating, rock band type of Christian music right in front of the Alter, ushers with head pieces. It was just too much for me. It didn’t feel sacred at all and I felt I was losing my connection to Jesus at Mass. Plus they admitted they were adopting a lot of techniques from the mega churches they visited for ideas. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a thriving parish, but not for me and my relationship to Christ.
An anecdote - I remember being at my brother's first communion. The church was a bit noisy that morning as all of the attending family members for my brother's communion cohort were chatting excitedly. The organist got on the PA system and sternly said "this is the House of God! Please be silent and respectful." Dead silence followed.
Fast forward about 20 years. We were at a Catholic friend's wedding. Same chatting was going on in the pews. One of his family members got up and said basically the same thing - "please respect the sanctity of this place", etc. Laughter followed.
You really have to ask what the point of going to mass is if you're not going to pay it reverence. Go to the friggin' VFW hall if you're going to act that way. At least they serve beer.
Yep. When I go to my local Catholic church for Good Friday, beforehand I want to sit there in awful silence. But there are always some women laughing and yukking it up, as if there's no other time they can talk about Girl Scout cookies or how Mackenzie and Madysyn are doing in college. Why are these grown-ass adults even going if they don't understand why they're supposed to be there, on that day of all days?
At my Maronite church, it's definitely dead silent on that evening. The hymns in the service resemble Middle Eastern wailing, and overall, it feels very much like a funeral.
I've been to some Catholic churches that get it right on Good Friday, with solemnity that can (and should) bring you to mournful tears. Whether Good Friday is profound or routine tells me a lot about a pastor.
My pastor sometimes mentions this. "Please hold discussions for outside after Mass. Many are here for silent prayer."
The next weekor day, it's: "I'm sorry if you felt singled out by last weeks admonition. It was meant as a general rule and not to embarrass anyone". EVERY time Fr encourages proper behavior, some "Karen" complains to him that his or her feelings are hurt. These poor, good, priests put up with a lot of BS.
Oh yeah—another thing I don't like about the Romans. At my Maronite church, there's always wine. The priest dips the bread in the goblet before placing it on the tongue.
I didn’t know about it either until I found it. There are I think 23 small Eastern Catholic Churches, fully Catholic but not Roman. The Maronites are based in Lebanon and named after St. Maron.
I was actually here to comment on exactly the same paragraph. I am an employee at a Presbyterian Church which fits your “mini mega Church” model. When I first started attending it was traditional, but the pastor wanted to appeal to younger people, so traditional became blended, and with the current crop of leadership blended is becoming modern worship ala Hillsong. There is no sense of the sacred anymore. The kids use the sanctuary for laser tag during the week so they have no idea it being a special place. The music is incredibly loud, so loud you can’t hear yourself sing, let alone your neighbor. I really miss contemplative worship. But there is no talking to the leadership; they will not hear it. And the sad reality is, in my small town, there isn’t much alternative. All of the orthodox evangelical churches that care about serving and evangelizing people are doing this. The few congregations in town that have traditional worship are small and stunted, or they’re liberal and dying spiritually. I’d check out the Orthodox church if there was one, but they’re pretty few and far between in my area. So I limp along, and hope the work I do is actually helping someone else come to Christ.
Cathy, it would probably affect your employment, but if you could make overtures to those "small and stunted" churches, you might find that they'd be eager about joining forces. Nor would the pastors necessarily resent it. The opposite could be true, there being strength in numbers.
I do wonder about it. We've had some kids spectacularly flame out, going full-on woke, non-binary, etc. We also have several who are full-hearted believers and serving God full time...hard to know about the rest.
Your comment and other parallel ones have led to some conflicting thoughts for me.
First, I grew up LCMS Lutheran and have a high regard for the denomination. (As a sidebar, I agree with another comment that this might be an option for you between a megachurch and Catholic/Orthodox.) But I find myself now in the Assembly of God/Church of God denominations which would have greatly surprised me 10-20 years ago.
I roll my eyes as so many of the megachurch comments are so true. My wife's iPhone regularly gives her a noise warning (sigh). I have been to megechurches where it was overwhelmingly a "seeker sensitive" almost commercial environment that was a total turn off. You have to be discerning in this culture like any others - there are good and bad churches out there.
But as I got older I was less and less satisfied with what I can only say was the lack of passion especially in the preaching that I experienced with the traditional/liturgical services. Surely we all can agree that if there has to be more than just a pleasant worship experience. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit should move. Fortunately, I have never had a poor (much less a bad) pastor, but with one exception over decades of worship I can only say that one Lutheran pastor spoke with moving passion. My real impression is that almost all of the others were good "professionals" more suited to managing teams as versus being spiritually inspiring. So after some time, I felt that I had to look elsewhere.
Interestingly, Catholicism is appealing to me - on paper. I have never regretted reading Catholic literature and following Catholic thought. But, like others comment, every experience with real local churches was disappointing. My all time two worst pastoral "performances" for lack of a better term were priests at funerals - talk about dialing it in. And then came Francis. Full stop.
But I have often (not always, but often) found that pentacostal/charismatic pastors have the passion that I hope to find and that has been in the end the deciding factor for me, as comfortable as I was with meditative, liturgical services. For all the modern professional performances at such churches (I agree, that is exactly what they are) it's still Christian music some of which greatly moves me. Maybe loud demonstrative services turn some people off, but personally, I have seen more people come to Christ in the last few years in such churches as I ever saw in traditional and that has to be what it is all about.
I am absolutely certain that people come to faith in all kinds of environments where Jesus is professed as our Savior and Lord, but it is certainly clear that many find their breakthrough to Him in a modern contemporary service. It certainly seems like these are the churches that are growing. It is interesting to me to try to balance the many comments supporting traditional sacred spaces with this experience. I am following closely all of the recent writing about re-enchanting Christianity especially as presented in this Substack (locking forward to RD's new book) but can only suggest that maybe sacred spaces and enchantment are more prevalent and come in more ways than one might think. Maybe enchantment to those I see come forward in my church looks or feels like a far more emotional experience to them. I wonder if others' experience at all matches mine and how that fits into such thinking.
I have a mild aggravation of my PTSD when I recall my aunt's anecdote of the Christmas Eve service she and my uncle attended at their evangelical church ( not quite a megachurch, but close to it ).
A family which sat in front of them had brought their supper to go from McDonald's with them, and ate it during the service.
Now I don’t feel quite so bad for sneaking a couple of pieces of chocolate to give my cranky kiddo during his first Easter Vigil a couple years ago. He’s serving this year.
If you would be interested in a liturgical church, I would suggest the LCMS. We have been indescribably blessed there over the past 12 years. There is a great reverence in the service and we recognize the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. No strobe lights or smoke machines are to be found and our congregations are not all chopped up into identity groups as they were at the big non-denom church we last attended.
On the one hand, we can probably all agree that the law of worship both influences and reflects the faith of any church. Thus the focus on worship makes sense.
On the other, and at the same time, I'd say it's a false dichotomy to stress correct worship as opposed to correct doctrinal belief.
I'd put it this way: If worship in many of our churches has become narcissistic pabulum, that's in large part because the people attending those churches don't know what they believe. They don't know what they believe because for decades their bishops and priests haven't stressed the harder truths of the faith, and the faithful aren't catechized. Both the homily and the focus of worship thus very easily become the default American sacred, which is ... "I'm okay, you're okay."
So if there's a crisis in our worship, it's partly based on a crisis in doctrine. The faithful hardly know Christianity, and some of the clergy themselves don't actually believe. The important thing is to "reach out," be "a listening church," blah blah blah.
The physical structure of the church may still reflect the sacramental reality, but the gestures and words of the priest keep putting the focus not on Him, but on the community. They are all so precious and "welcome"--it's just so wonderful they could appear to revel in their wonderfulness.
This is the problem in my Catholic Church, but these comments surely apply to many Protestant churches too. There's a vicious cycle of flimsy doctrine and flimsy worship. Eventually one ends with a secularist, sometimes literally syncretic "We're all just here blah blahing, and aren't we all wonderful together, everyone different and special in their unique special ways, all showing our togetherness around Jesus, who was all about togetherness you know."
And that last sentence isn't just the homily (though I've heard plenty of homilies like that) but characterizes the comportment of the whole parish, both priest and faithful. It's of course especially telling if this self-congratulatory worship ends by characterizing Lent as well. Which will doubtless happen.
My argument is that this if this has become our worship, it's because this is what we believe *as doctrine*.
Yes that is a great line, and I also like this, which gets to the root of the problem;
<i>The physical structure of the church may still reflect the sacramental reality, but the gestures and words of the priest keep putting the focus not on Him, but on the community. </i>
"My argument is that this if this has become our worship, it's because this is what we believe *as doctrine*."
That may be true, but from the Orthodox perspective worship gives rise to doctrine, not the other way around. Water down the worship and the doctrine will change accordingly.
I’m arguing each gives rise to the other. I can see the Orthodox point and it’s practical power. “If you let worship fall off or be corrupted, belief will follow.” It’s obviously true. But so is the contrary.
Ultimately of course this is a chicken or the egg question. With maybe a tip in my direction. Did Our Lord’s followers first worship him, then realize he was Lord? If so, worship gave rise to belief. Or did they begin to worship *because* they realized he was Lord? If so, correct belief gave rise to worship.
I'd say they realized he was Lord first, then worshipped, but in terms of the life of the Church it was the worship that prompted the coalescence of doctrine in the Body. I do not think that the Church said in the beginning: "Here is what we believe; let us now frame our worship accordingly." The worship was already there, and the doctrine was "codified" in the worshipping body of the Church. In other words, there's a reason why "lex orandi, lex credendi" occurs in that order.
By the way, I think Catholics get this too, but the emphasis on the rationality of doctrine in the West clouds it somewhat.
Very well put. But there is some ambiguity in “the doctrine was codified in the worshipping body of the Church.” Was doctrine really codified during the liturgy? I suspect most of our doctrine was codified rather by individuals prayerfully wrestling with doctrinal questions. Individuals inspired by the Spirit but mostly not *while* attending worship.
Of course one could define our Church Fathers sitting in solitude thinking through and composing their arguments as “worship,” but is it?
I can be accused of quibbling. But in a way I’m not, as I hope you see.
Yes, not really a quibble. "Codified during the Liturgy" is too strong, I think. Probably better to say something like "Codified as a result of Liturgy," or "Codified upon reflection on the Liturgy." Point being that theological "speculation" was not done outside the context of the Church as a worshipping community.
I'm thinking we could say that experience comes before thought, and all meaningful thought is reflection upon and deepening of experience. So, people began to worship Jesus as the Lord because of the experience they had of Him, with thoughts about that experience coming later, and then said thoughts further shaping the experience.
In principle, I don't believe in anything that has absolutely no empirical point of contact with experience, because such a thing would be strictly unknowable. It would be logically impossible to find any foundation for believing in such a thing. (Jesus, via the Holy Ghost, most definitely has a very powerful point of contact with experience, and thus I believe in Him.)
Also, as a side note, I'm fond of the theory that the identity of "John" is probably Lazarus, brother of Magdalene. That sure would explain how he has the gift of spiritual sight.
I think of John as highly empathic; thus, he stood by Mary's side to the end at the Crucifixion. Some people just have a gift of great empathy and the ability to think of others first in all things. Jesus saw this in John and loved him for it.
I would also say that each gives rise to the other, but doctrine has to come first. One must first know something about the one he is worshipping. Our worship should help us grow in our doctrine, which it turn better informs our worship. So they do build on each other. But to worship at all, one must first believe there is a God to be worshipped. It starts with doctrine.
After reading some of the other comments, I think should add that doctrine may well come from experience rather than being something academic. People in the New Testament often believed Jesus was God because of their experience with him. They saw what Jesus did. believed he was God based on that experience, and then worshipped him. The doctrine came first, but it was learned by an experience with Jesus rather than from an academic exercise.
Yes, the abuse scandal , and at times, the way Catholicism is "practiced" can push a devotee, or a searching person away from it, and toward something else, like Eastern Orthodoxy, which I have always believed to be the sister Church to Catholicism.
Yet, Mr.Dreher, you mention the concept of plausibility, and not using reason and logical comparison to draw conclusions about the faith. I will come back to this. But continuing with this thinking, one could just as easily have been pushed away by observing Christ's first apostles, who were his closest friends for three years, yet one betrayed him, ten were in hiding while he was crucified, and only one, John, was by his Cross, and supporting his mother.
If one was truly honest, one could say the same of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if one solely noted the various conflicts between its Patriarchs, the blessings of weapons, including nuclear ones by its clergy, and notwithstanding the touted building of hundreds of churches in Russia, the continued high rates of alcoholism, suicide, divorce, abortion and general apathy considering the actual low numbers of church attendees, somewhat similar to the numbers in the West; to say nothing of its continued focus in numbers in Eastern Europe, with half in Russia.
Perhaps, the two Churches are not as different as many think. The details differ, the theme is the same, and maybe, the seeming disparity is solely separated by time, and space, for now.
I am not surprised then, at your finding Orthodox followers who remained faithful to their Church despite the actions of its hierarchy, and much of the clergy as you describe. But, this is no different than in our Catholic Church . . . there too , a Remnant remains.
Part of the issue in Catholicism, is the liberalism that followed Vatican II, in the early 1960's arising from sources who wanted to weaken or destroy the Church during the spread of atheistic communism, and that the proper instruction in the faith, i.e., Catechesis, has fallen dramatically during the same time. Even yesterday, as I was speaking to a fellow Catholic at a garage repair shop, she spoke of symbolism, and questioned the Real Presence in the Eucharist, as a good friend of mine did some twenty five years ago, who had been born Catholic, and converted to Evangelical Protestantism when we first met. After many debates, I referred him to the Early Church and theEarly Fathers' writings. Shortly after, he became a follower of the Russian Orthodox Church, claiming he already had been properly instructed in Catholicism. We remain close friends and share much. He in Russian Orthodoxy, me in the traditional Catholic faith, following the Traditional Latin Mass ( Latin being the least reason I'm there ), and hopefully part of what Pope Benedict foresaw, a smaller, but more faithful Church.
The good Lord gives the gift of faith to all, but we need to do our part with our free will decision. I guess at the end of the day, it's not about reason, but how open our hearts are.
A note about the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, and went to Catholic schools through high school. I imagine somewhere along the line I must have been taught about transubstantiation and what it really means for the Eucharist and mass. But I am now in my 50s and I feel like I am just now getting it. And all its repercussions. I guess this makes your point that "Catechesis, has fallen dramatically."
Anyway, thank you Father. I was once at a group talk given by Fr. Jenco. He listened to the group complain about the hypocrisy of the clergy and responded when he's at mass he finds himself praying for the priest because it is much harder being the exemplar of faith, and Catholic living, than being a lay person.
Yes, like you, an experience, I only began to reach some level of understanding of decades after leaving the many tempting other movements which I began exploring in my teens and twenties, including ufology, secular humanism, Buddhism, and others. By the way, I'm not a priest.☺️
Not to beat a dead horse, but when you say "the abuse scandal", there are two distinct things that are at play here, not just one. Certainly, to begin with, the abuse that happened was horrible. I'm not trying to downplay that at all. However, from an institutional perspective, the cover up - and continued cover up, if you ask me - is the more dangerous part to this (and the part that Rod is talking about when he's talking about falling away from the RCC, if I understand correctly).
As an Orthodox Christian, I get challenged by Catholics who will bring up instances of abuse within Orthodoxy. Somebody challenged me on this exact issue on this board a few weeks ago with one of the boiler-plate Catholic response articles on the issue. Now, first off, one of the most prominent cases in the article concerned an Orthodox priest who was convicted of abuse in the late 1960s, and who was defrocked in 1970. Yes, it's been scandalous that he's started his own "independent" Orthodox Church after he got out of jail, and apparently continued with his pattern of abuse, but he's not legitimately Orthodox anymore! How are we supposed to "take responsibility" for him, when the Orthodox Church did what they're supposed to do? The article mentioned a couple more cases in "independent Orthodox" groups, without mentioning that these groups are not Orthodox either and are far outside the mechanisms the Orthodox Church has in place in these sorts of instances! There was one more recent case that the article started with, and which I had particular interest in for personal reasons, but in this case, which had to do with a prominent Russian Orthodox priest in Russia, again, the priest was defrocked.
Nobody is saying that there are zero cases of abuse and misconduct in the Orthodox Church, but the point that this person unwittingly made by challenging me here is that it seems that the Orthodox Church is much more willing to deal with misbehaving priests properly. Again, I'm not saying that this is 100%, but in a case such as the Russian priest mentioned here, I couldn't see the RCC defrocking the man, simply because it would have been an embarrassment to the Church nationally.
I respect those who are Catholics a lot, and I have many good friends who are sticking with her, come what may. Mad respect for that. However, I feel like there is a willful blindness toward many who are devastated by the institutional rot - the fact that a lot of the RCC hierarchy doesn't act with sufficient respect toward the One whose Church they say they represent, and feel no compunction about that either. When people point that out - oftentimes to try to understand or to try to put things on the path that they can be corrected - the standard answer seems to be, "Well, the RCC is true, and we, as representatives, can't be questioned no matter what, and if you don't have enough faith to square that circle, it's your failing, not ours." As a result, I'd wager that a lot of the "doers" of the RCC have left, because they weren't the ones just showing up on Sunday out of habit; they were a lot of the lay leadership, official and unofficial.
I hear you. I note the length to which you went to explain the Orthodox incident.
We can do likewise with many such stories in the Catholic experience. I agree however, many stories cannot be "explained away" nor the cover ups of many of them.
Having said this however, what must also be acknowledged, but never is in the main sources of " information " most people access, i.e., mainstream media outlets ( tv, paper and web ), which so many then simply repeat. . . are the number of incidents which have no basis in truth at all. There are entire diocese which have become bankrupt., and the financial hemorrhaging continues.
One can argue about the Vatican's treasures and holdings. . but like much of the British royalty. . .it is not owned by anyone Pope or Cardinal. These constitute the heritage of Western civilization, and meant to be preserved for all, and for future generations.
Having come from a legal background stretching several decades, I also am saddened by how even our courts, let alone our political leaders are mostly or solely into an agenda, . . a narrative of the Zeitgeist, i.e., the mindset of the world, . . in pushing a certain narrative because of the objectives of their own mindset. I won't go into a number of these areas I'm basically referencing, but suffice to say, they've been prominent in the media, in the politics and in the culture, especially in the last couple of decades. Why? The institution, and I mean this in all its aspects, which was the greatest obstacle to this narrative and objectives it pushes has always been the Roman Catholic Church, because of its size, and global or universal outreach. Regardless of the human individuals who govern it. Accordingly, since the time of the Reformation, then gaining greater strength by the French Revolution, the civil wars in Mexico ( never discussed ) Spain, and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, . . the Church was targeted for weakening, if not total destruction. One need only read history, . . real history, and not the revisionism being repeated without challenge.
We better start finding ways of becoming one, as the Lord admonished us to do, otherwise, we only have ourselves to blame for the fall of our civilization.
i gave the "boiler plate" articles and you gave the boiler plate Orthodox response, ie, pure cope. Most Orthodox parishes are embedded in communities where a don't-tell mentality still reigns, so we actually have no idea how much abuse happens in Orthodoxy, especially in Russia, where it is effectively the State Church. You're basically asking the rest of us to believe, as Rod does, that the laws of human psychology which hold in the rest of the world are somehow all but eliminated in Orthodoxy because of...the liturgy. Sure.
Honestly, reading the Orthodox posters on here is like going back to Catholic Church of the 1950s. Pure hubris.
I researched 4 of the cases that were posted in that article, and answered you with specifics on each of those. At least two weren't even Orthodox. Did you expect me to go through every single one that was mentioned in the article? I'm not angry, but when you say "cope", I'd expect that you had something to back that up. Your argument now seems to be, "Well, since we don't see this problem at the same level in Orthodoxy as in the RCC, it must be because nobody's reporting it." I've never said that there aren't problems, and I've never said that I've never personally heard of problems... about 15 years ago, there was a seminarian who killed himself after making abuse allegations against people, and even as a "newbie" in the Orthodox Church, I heard about it. There's a bishop who got removed last year or so over a weird situation with a woman (not sure if any abuse was accused) and a bishop who got removed about a decade ago, from what I understand, for some far-too-casual texts with a woman who made them public. I don't know if that's the whole story, but it just seems like institutionally, an awful lot less is tolerated in the Orthodox Church, and that's the point that I was trying to make.
What makes you think that I believe Orthodoxy is innocent of clerical sex abuse? I have never claimed any such thing, and would not. The only reason I know about clerical sex crimes in any church is that the media report on them, based on court cases and suchlike. I have never seen such reporting from Russia, Greece, or any Orthodox country. As I say over and over, Orthodoxy in the US is *tiny*. I think there are more Jehovah's Witnesses in the US than Orthodox. If we have a significant sex abuse problem in US Orthodoxy, it will likely never make the papers because we are so small. If Russia has such a problem, it's probably far bigger, because Orthodoxy is the main religion there -- but how are we going to find out about it if Russian media don't report it, and if Western media don't relay those findings? I couldn't tell you anything about the Catholic abuse scandal as it plays out in continental European countries, because I can't read another language, and the US media don't really report these things. Similarly, if Catholic churches in Russia have an abuse problem, Russians will probably never hear about them, because Catholicism is minuscule in Russia.
If I found out that my Orthodox jurisdiction (keep in mind that there is no central church in Orthodoxy, as in Catholicism; there are just national churches) had a big sex abuse problem, I would be angered and grieved, but it wouldn't shake me like the Catholic one did. Why not? Because I came to Orthodoxy badly burned by the Catholic scandal, and have prevented myself from having the same kind of faith in the institution that I had as a Catholic. I was a true believer in all of it as a Catholic. This is why many of my Catholic friends who were just as angry as I was over the scandal managed not to lose their faith: they never idealized the institutional church in the first place. I did. I believed the story that the Catholic Church told about itself. I could not let that happen to me in Orthodoxy, which is why I have kept meaningful distance in my heart from the institution.
True. While I no longer believe the media/press, . . at least mainline. . is as free as it once was in the west, not necessarily due to government influence, but also due to self imposed, agenda ridden pressures and beliefs, . . ., it's still very free in attacking any challenger to its narrative & agenda. The Catholic Church, historically , has been among the most serious challengers of that agenda. Note even during the periods of extreme iconoclast persecution, centuries prior to the Great Schism, it even stood up to several Byzantium Emperors who were stringent iconoclasts, and later, against secularists in France, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and China, etc. Accordingly, any scandal, regardless of scale, must & will be fanned to the extreme by the "press", in service of the secularist agenda. Hence, perhaps, the reason for the Traditional Tridentine /Latin Mass movement , and remaining pillars of traditional dogma being targets. As a consequence, given people's comfort and attachment to their conventional news sources, and the media incessant fanning of scandals,... albeit often sadly true,. . . its members "jump ship" after what is considered by them to have been a sufficient deliberation to stay and fight, or go to other religious shores. It's sadly understandable. Respectfully however, I among many, choose to remain.
Those are great points. It's hard for non-cradle Catholics to understand the level of hostility toward the Church and its adherents in Anglo culture, especially here in North America. Anti-Catholicism is one of the binding threads of WASP culture, from the highest to the lowest classs. That hostility may not be instituitonalized as it was in my grandparents' and even parents' generation in Canada ("Catholics need not apply..."), but we know that the mainstream culture still holds our religion in contempt and will pounce on any perceived or real crime, historical or in the present, to vent their spleen (which is not in any way to defend the horrible sexual abuse scandals). It's true to say that anti-Catholicism is the only socially acceptable form of bigotry.
This was absolutely the case in my Episcopalian church where I spent the first 10 years of my life as a Christian. We were not catechized well. It was very welcoming, great social events, growing parish. It just never required me to actually change anything about myself, nor did we ever mention sin, repentance, or evil.
When Rod writes: "Sin, repentance, humility, good and evil — all abstract concepts for these comfortable middle-class clerics, and their comfortable, middle-class congregation."...well, that pretty much sums up where I was in 2020, when thankfully the nightmare of COVID and the summer of George Floyd allowed me to flee to Orthodoxy for good.
"For example, Islam might be true, but I have never sat down and examined the case for Islam carefully, weighing the arguments and so forth, because to do so would require an immense effort to overcome my own biases as someone raised in a Christian culture. Similarly, someone my age who was raised in Riyadh would have to make titanic efforts to consider fairly whether or not Christianity is true. Or Buddhism. Or … anything but Islam. You see what I’m getting at?
If I lived in Riyadh, chances are I would find myself delving into Islamic teaching at some point, simply because I wanted to better understand the culture in which I lived. I would not be surprised if Muslims living in the West had been moved at some point to take Christianity more seriously than they otherwise might have done, only because it was more normative in the society in which they live, and therefore more plausible."
Rod, you should get a copy of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. This book is a testimony to how real love can help someone far from truth find it. The author whose name my 5am brain cannot recall is with the Lord now but kind of makes your second point above but it is much more.
Secondly, your statement that Islam might be true but you never took time to take a hard look surprises me some. I was blessed to have been brought to TRUTH in my upbringing and by that every false truth claim (i.e. Islam, Hindu, you fill in the blank) rings as false with even a cursory look. I hope that does not sound prideful, but having the indwelling Holy Spirit (un-grieved, and un-quenched) helps us as Christ followers to be able to identify false truth claims. I understand you were setting up a point but if one does believe that Islam might be true, does it not behoove him or her to make every effort to find out given the eternal stakes?
The problem, Brian, is with your third item. Tragically, at least half of Christianity believes there are requirements for salvation beyond faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rod does not think Islam might be true. But I think actually, you know that? It can be read as a hypothetical.
I was interested in what Rod said after that.
<<".Similarly, someone my age who was raised in Riyadh would have to make titanic efforts to consider fairly whether or not Christianity is true. ">>
By strange coincidence, and GMTA, I said just that to a new friend last night. The context was a little different though. I was concerned because of suffering and a loving God - I do not believe God sends Muslims to hell. As stated here, fair consideration is normally impossible even if they do hear the message of Christianity. I did not think the Catholic church believed those who had never heard went to hell, but I worried that it - in contrast to what I think - thought any Muslim who had heard the message of Christianity and Salvation, and remained Muslim, was going to hell.
My new friend set me straight. The Catholic Church teaches about the "baptism of desire". What I did not know was that this extends not only to those who have never heard, but to those who have never heard fairly. So - Catholics do not believe that all Muslims go to hell.
Agreed. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
If a non-believer hears only a shoddy, truncated or otherwise erroneous version of the Gospel and rejects it, how is he responsible? Although it doesn't say it in the Bible, the idea that we will be judged by the light we have been given seems correct.
And, those of us who have heard and claim to know the Gospel should be trembling, because we will be held responsible for so much more. Rejection of the truth can come in many forms.
I think this is a doctrine developed by Aquinas who contemplated about the souls of humans born before Christ. Are they condemned to Hell simply by reason of when they were born? He didn't think so, and argued like the rest of us they would be judged by their actions.
Yes, and thank you! I always thought the Church was OK with those born before Christ came, those who never heard, young children, as was I, of course. I also thought a loving God would not condemn those who had "heard the message" but were not able to accept it because of their upbringing in another religion. But I had the misconception that the Church said those peopl were lost. Strict fundamentalists say they are, because they "rejected Christ" but the Catholic Church does not say they are.
I was lucky enough to learn this about the Catholic church in high school. I have often thought this view of a good person who doesn't believe can still make it to Heaven based on their actions distinguished the Catholic Church from other Christian sects.
I don't think you are wrong. At least, in my Baptist upbring, while God would do something - we did not know what but something - so that those who never hear or died very young could go to heaven, those how heard and did not accept Jesus were bound for hell. That included any Islamic person who heard "the messag of the gospel" but did not become a Christian. - - Truth is after I became a Catholic, I tried not to be a cafeteria Catholic, but I not believe Muslims had to go to hell, even though I was afraid (not sure really) the church did.
No, because as Rod says, no one has the time or ability to search out the truth claims of every religion. One works with what one has. By the way, this claim often comes up in discussions with the sillier sort of atheist, but they make the same mistake from the other side.
One partial answer to the Twitter guy asking "What does this have to do with whether Catholicism is true" is that it aggravates other doubts that people may have.
I'm an orthodox, conservative-leaning Catholic, but I'll acknowledge that there are some difficulties with the Church's claims. In a short time, the Church went from calling religious freedom "an insanity" to a universal right. For the past 60+ years, apologists have been attempting to explain how that doesn't screw up the Church's claim to indefectibility, or why it doesn't leave the door open for a "development" on contraception, gay marriage, etc. So far, no one has come up with a satisfactory answer. Similar things can be said for the Church's developments on the death penalty, the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, etc.
For people who struggle with these issues, or have other issues with Church teaching, I think it would be easier to hold onto the faith if you saw profundity and transcendence every Sunday. When I get really frustrated with the rational/intellectual side of Catholicism, I think of Fatima. Or Lourdes. Or the incorruptible bodies of saints. The miraculous and sacred ease my doubts. That's a choice I make, which not everyone is willing to do. If the sacred was put in their faces every Sunday, they wouldn't have to.
I have pretty much lost my faith and interest in the Catholic Church, largely thanks to the antics of Pope Francis the Silly. If sodomy has moved from one of the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance to “living the gift of love” I am left too confused to see where truth lies. My heart is in Orthodoxy, but my husband, who is similarly disgusted by the Vatican where the pope is running a halfway house for abusers, feels that we have a reverent Latin Mass to go to, where we have been parishioners for 23 years. It is a devout way to worship God and the sacraments are valid. I also fear for the future, both of this Mass and of the Church devastated by the frantic “updating” Francis is enforcing.
I also fear that the Orthodox may end up keeping their liturgy while accepting the perversion rainbow. The cultural pressure seems overwhelming. We are all sinners, but if some things are not objectively sinful why did Jesus so often say “go and sin no more”?
One thing that stops me from investigating other forms of Christianity is the possible repercussions of going to one church while my husband goes to another. A liberal apostate church would not care, but that's not the sort where I would ever darken the door.
I totally agree with you, I would never do that. The choice for now is an easy one, I am disabled and it would be an imposition to ask my husband to attend two liturgies each weekend, although he is willing. If we didn’t have a Mass to go to it would be different and we would both be motivated. Having six Catholic grandchildren is another issue, although my daughter would understand. So much rides on just who is your priest and your bishop, things that were never supposed to be as important as they have become in the Roman Catholic Church. Msgr. Hugh Benson’s Religion of the Plain Man relies heavily on the argument that the Catholic Church is the same everywhere and in every country, that the man is the pew is anonymous and participates just by being there, things that can hardly be taken for granted today as they could in the early 1900’s. Participation means having a prominent role in the dog and pony show that horrifies the rest of us.
Intellectually he is a lightweight compared to his predecessors, and his gleeful destruction of tradition and embrace of every sickening fad seems to merit the term silly. Much of what he has done is ridiculous. But the havoc and confusion he is causing and his utter disregard of Biblical morality is very sinister. I believe the complete destruction of the Catholic Church is his endgame as in his eyes its only purpose is to finance perverts in penthouses while pandering to everyone other than practicing Catholics.
One can be silly and sly and sinister. Drag queens wanting to read children’s stories in libraries come to mind. Wish he didn’t have quite so much in common with them.
I lean toward your husband's thinking. The true, real church, is not strictly defined by its earthly structures and individuals who are its representatives. Yes, Christ left a Church and Scripture, but a Church first.The Gospel was written and assembled subsequently in the centuries that followed, inspired by the Spirit, as the Spirit also inspired the development of the Liturgy, the concept of the one God in the mystery of the Trinity, the Real Presence etc., etc.
But there have been many obstacles, heresies, and conflicts along the way. They have simply been amplified in recent times.
But do we leave now ? I'm reminded of Christ asking the same question of His remaining apostles as actual followers left Him over His preaching of His flesh being the new Bread, and greater manna. As the saying goes, we were meant to born for times such as these.
“Jesus said to him (Thomas), ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) All truth begins with Jesus the Christ.
These are good thoughts, Rod. I’m Catholic but troubled about the faith in ways similar to what you went through.
The fullness and magnificence of the Catholic intellectual and artistic tradition, combined with my becoming a father, is what made a convert of me in the 2010s. But no sooner had I done that than the summer of 2018 rolled around. By then I was the father of two young boys. I have been something of a failed convert ever since then because I find that I simply cannot bring myself to trust the Church—including lay people—with my sons. Catholicism for me has become something which I can enjoy aesthetically and intellectually, something that is great for the thinkers and artists I admire to have in their lives (like the recent Nobel Laureate in literature), but to which I can’t conform my own and my family’s life for lack of trust. I know plenty of Catholics who seem good and seem like they take the faith seriously, but as we know traditionalism is no kind of assurance.
I’ve come to feel that there is something uniquely disturbing about the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It’s worse than complacent, comfortable mediocrity and unbelief, though as you point out it’s to a large extent enabled by that. Why is the abuse so revolting to me? I don’t have a full answer. It’s at least partly because it’s a particularly graphic betrayal of trust, involving as it almost always does children and adolescents. It is a kind of treason, and I suppose I think Dante was right to put the traitors at the bottom of Hell. But there is something more to this form of scandal. I think it has to do with hypocrisy. The abuse is overwhelmingly homosexual, and as such seems to contradict the fundamental understanding of human sex that, though not dogmatically formulated, is at the core of Christian (and Jewish) religion. You’ve written about this, of course. Christianity that forsakes the cosmic biblical understanding of sex saws the branch on which it rests. This is why the RCC’s recent drift toward explicit heresy on such matters seems of a piece with the long running abuse crisis.
This is all a way of agreeing with the assessment that the root problem is lack of belief especially in the institutional hierarchy. Of course not all clergy are rotten. The question is, what is the critical mass which renders the entire institution untrustworthy? Because in a world where there are other compelling options, I can’t justify voluntarily associating myself—and my sons—with an untrustworthy institution.
My worrying along these lines does not strike me as superfluous, though I wish more than anything I could get over it. But so many Catholics I know—serious, mostly traditional types like me, who also have young kids—don’t seem to ever have been troubled in a similar way or degree. Maybe it has something to do with being a cradle Catholic versus a convert who can more easily imagine being a different sort of Christian.
Sometimes people tell me or those like me to spend less time online following the scandals. Focus on the local. Find a good parish. This is sensible in one way, but it’s also negligent or naive. The whole issue is trust, which plays out first of all locally. It’s hard for me to see the antidote to this poison of suspicion that seems to have clouded my view of the Church. And I can’t escape the knowledge that I would feel differently if I were not a father (of boys, what’s more). I would be far less troubled in that case. And what does that say about my convictions? I don’t know, other than that you are right: personal circumstance matters. Religion is existential even more than doctrinal.
I also became Catholic around the time you did, and though I knew of the history of abuse and cover up, the revelations that the problem was ongoing, the evidence it was in fact endemic, troubled me deeply. As did signs I saw from our current pope, who'd just become pope around the time I joined the Church.
That you're a father of boys makes a real difference. I'm not. But I did spend serious time researching the crisis back around 2018. If you don't already know some of the following, my conclusions may help.
First, those who claim the abuse was not a matter of a largely homosexual cabal--i.e. of homosexual abuse of boys and a clerical mafia covering it up--are simply lying. The numbers tell the truth. The great majority of abuse cases were of boys, and the majority of those were not technically pedophilia as widely claimed (which is abuse of small children) but abuse of teen boys. In short, it was homosexual grooming and abuse of youth. Our media and apologists both inside and outside the Church do what they can to obscure this fact, but it's a fact.
But second--and I think this is necessary to keep in mind--the *rate* of sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church and Catholic institutions was not statistically worse than the rate, say, in public school systems. And the rate was not significantly different from that in Protestant churches either. In short, there is reason to worry about one's children regardless of what group of adults has access to them. Is it an after school coach? A math tutor? There's no good reason, statistically, that you shouldn't be vigilant in those cases too.
The assumption across the culture that our Church has a deep abuse problem is thus in a way true, in a way not true. Or rather: our abuse problem is not radically worse than one finds elsewhere in institutions where adults interact with kids.
So why does the culture at large now believe we are particularly corrupted? I put it down largely to media. A liberal press relishes the chance to tar the Church. But part of it is certainly the glaring hypocrisy you underline. "Look! The Catholic Church, putting itself forward as an arbiter of sexual morals, is full of bishops systemically covering up abuse!" Stories of hypocrisy in high places get traction, and this was one of the great such stories of the late 20th c.
Personal circumstances indeed matter. You'll have to weigh things. If I had boys, I myself wouldn't stop believing that the Church is the Bride of Christ, but I'd keep my boys well supervised. In my mind, the reason the Church has been the fount of such greatness in both intellect and artistic achievement is that she is what Our Lord said she was. But that this barque will reach where it's headed doesn't mean it isn't going to be infested with rats during the journey.
BTW, I was raised Lutheran, spent many years as a Christian in the margins, then became Catholic.
Eric, great comment. Have you read William Donohue's 2021 book The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes? It fleshes out the points you're making with copious footnotes, rendering the content objective perspective, not just one smart person's opinion. I'm often flummoxed by the framing of the Catholic clergy sex scandal as one of "child abuse" when it so obviously has much more to do with modern homosexual culture transforming the Church from within the clerical ranks. In our world, gay people are always and everywhere members of an "oppressed" class. Those of us who notice the predatory gay character of the scandals are, by extension, "oppressors." In this way the Catholic Church is a microcosm of Western civ circa 2020s.
Haven’t read Donohue’s book. I stopped spending much time on follow up research probably c. late 2019. I came to my conclusions about the problem, saw a similar odd symbiosis taking shape between liberal Catholics and our liberal media on the issue, and realized there was little I could do about it.
Rate of abuse being higher elsewhere, the knowledge that it's mostly teenage boys at risk, and the continued supervision of my kids as they grow are all part of how I stay as a convert from the same time as the posters above.
The volunteer training materials I last saw were also satisfactory, including background checks. Part of reform is having aware adults.
Alter boys is still a big question mark to me. I would need to know a lot more and I might still say no.
Replying to this post to also say that I'm buying that book. How can we expect our kids to take our word for it without any outside materials? Someday any of us parents are going to need backup and newspapers have their own bias of avoiding any criticism of anything homosexual.
You made good points to Jonathan's important post. Like you said, it's important to supervise our kids no matter the environment. The abuse of children is widespread and not just confined to where the media prefers to focus.
The media is fixated on Catholic sex abuse- it exists, clearly, is deplorable and should be exposed. The Church handled it poorly. Ok - but you have to realize this is a battering ram aimed at proving the Church is uniquely evil ( ironic when it comes from liberals who reach levels of quasi NAMBLA advocacy). From what I can figure out - men in power have always had a tendency to be sex abusers of children , women, you name it . Remember Actons absolute power corrupts absolutely (Acton was a Catholic layman who opposed what came out of Vatican 1 reforms).Confronting all this you can say we can progress into a magical sin free world of progress in which we can imagine there is no heaven or hell only sky above us. In other words a world of pure commerce where we sell and buy everything for momentary gratification.
About the hypocrisy, yeah: when you declare yourself to be holy, just being "not statistically worse than the others" isn't gonna cut it.
I should just pull the trigger and go Orthodox. I'm of the belief that the Schism never happened, and also my understanding of the Church is mystic, so I'm totally unperturbed by the ecclesiology of such a shift.
And of course, hypocrisy wouldn’t exist in Orthodoxy. Further, the earlier writer wasn’t justifying anything on the basis of - not statistically worse than others- what he was saying is - I think, the media and this page - have tried to paint the Catholic Church as uniquely evil. By the way if there was no schism- there is no need to change , it’s all the same—- show with different costumes in different languages.
It's not that there wouldn't be hypocrisy, of course, but more that it would matter less when there isn't such an extravagantly hierarchical structure to the whole thing.
Ah, I know Eric pretty well by now; I think he'll get the drift of my comment.
You make a good point about how it's all the same, though. I'm presently Eastern Catholic, so I would think of going Orthodox as just proceeding a few steps further east, away from Rome.
But what’s the point?As for hypocrisy- I will dish out the old La Rochefoucould maxim ( wish I could spell) - hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.At a certain point, if you don’t want hierarchy, you go Protestant.You can have a direct unmediated, non hierarchal relationship with God and as time and generations go by people will say , what was that all about?
I value the Tradition, and I believe in the real presence of the Eucharist. The point is simply to go where the Holy Ghost is more present, or where you're most able to sense His presence.
For the record, I don’t think Rod paints any church as uniquely evil. If he writes on disorders in the West, it’s more because, as a westerner, he sees them.
Exactly right. If there is a Russian version of me, he's writing mostly about the problems within Orthodoxy, because that's what he sees, and that's the majority religious tradition where he lives, and furthermore, that's the religious tradition that for better or for worse will shape the direction of his civilization.
There was a wave of evil inside the Church too terrible to think about. The people who did that were wolves in sheep's clothing. God doesn't want us to do that, he wants us to worship him. There's still evil in the Church but we have to avoid it and fight for holiness ourselves.
That's what I've got. I also believe the Catholic Church is the place to be. I'll ask my (grumpy?) Orthodoxy question elsewhere and perhaps you can look for it.
Like I suggested, I'm not a partisan about the thing, since I don't believe the Schism is metaphysically valid. I'm in favor of Christians going to or staying at where they feel called.
You could also just remain and live your more mystical faith within the rite you are in. Both East and West will have each their particular ecclesiastical disorders. But in Rome disorder is now raging, indeed.
Yeah, but I'm just feeling a little pulled. Dostoevsky was pretty much half of what made me a Christian, and he was Orthodox; I love the theologians of Sophia, most of whom are Orthodox; a lot of my favorite people here on this blog are Orthodox. And if I leave Austin, then that would be the real push, because Eastern Catholic churches aren't easy to find, and I do not intend to go to a Roman church. In a way, that says it all.
I didn't realize you were in Austin. When I was Catholic, I visited Austin once from New York, and went to the Maronite parish in Austin (we were worshiping as Maronites in NYC).
Yeah—unless he was out of town, the priest must have been Fr. Don Sawyer, who founded the parish. His nephew opened a bar down the street from me right when I was thinking about joining the Church, and we got to talking, so that's how I found out about it. And he (the nephew) stood as my godfather when I got baptized on Easter 2021. Synchronicities, right?
Also, please don't feel too embarrassed, but I would like to say that your witness to the Orthodox faith is exemplary. Spiritually speaking, where you're at sounds like a wonderful place to be. And I cannot help but believe that there is something very right about the traditions and spiritual practices that form a person in this way.
Dostoevsky- brilliant novelist. Bad role model. Rabidly anti- Semitic and representative of the anti - Catholic, anti Western, Slavophile tendency in Russian Orthodoxy.
I think it depends on your diocese. The two I participate in are very much into advertising and telling people to report bad behavior.
‘See something, say something’. ‘Here’s the phone number, website for doing that’. Staffs are very fearful about anyone making allegations and are very proactive about teaching people about what to look for with groomers. A friend of mine was involved with getting our parish’s background checks and training session attendance updated and current.
She ran into the problem where some people were all ‘I’ve been working w/kids or in these programs for years - why do I need a background check now’. It doesn’t occur to many older members who have adult children that parents these days are looking for the procedures to be in place to prevent abuse. A few people stopped volunteering with the under 18’s because they didn’t want to do a background check or take the ‘how to spot a groomer’ class.
I have no problems sending my son to church functions or retreats. I volunteered a lot when he was younger too. My parish has the problem where they tend to live in a church/homeschool bubble, so they might miss problems more secular people would see.
Also, something to keep in mind is that a lot of the boys who were abused were also kids who didn’t have father in the home, so they were susceptible to the idea of having someone fill that father role in their life. That’s something that often gets missed in the discussions of this topic.
I converted back in 1981 and have never seriously considered leaving the Church or ceasing to practice the faith in my not-very-edifying way. For me it was and is the question "Lord, to whom else should we go?" Christ or nihilism. I've written at some length about that in a book that so far no publisher wants. For various reasons Protestantism (in which I was raised) didn't seem viable to me. Orthodoxy probably would have worked but it was not really present to me, physically, intellectually, or culturally.
A degree of congenital cynicism and pessimism have been of assistance in my remaining. I never had many illusions about the clergy at any level, though JPII and BXVI certainly were a help and an inspiration. Francis is a disaster but unlike many orthodox Catholics I don't think his papacy means that the foundation has collapsed. Cracked, but holding. More than fear of collapse I feel a deep sadness that the internal struggle between orthodoxy and surrender to the age, which I had thought was slowly fading, has been renewed by Francis and will go on far past the end of my life.
Maclin, similar decisioning here. I reverted in the early '90s and have never seriously considered re-leaving even during the muddlement of these Pope Francis years. "Lord, to whom else would we go?" nails it. On top of that I've had a small still voice in my head. It's a paraphrase of Pres. John F. Kennedy, of all Catholics: "Ask not what a church can do for you. Ask what you can do for Christ's church." Even when there's not much more I can do than not leave.
I'm a lifelong Catholic. A terrible one, but I'm still in.
In 2019, I was at the Christmas Vigil mass in the cathedral in a mid-sized Southern city. The place was packed. The bishop himself gave the homily...which he devoted to an exegesis—if it even deserves the term—of "From a Distance" by Bette Midler.
I remember thinking: Is this guy going to come out to all of us from the pulpit on Christmas Eve? Amid all the concerns about gay and pedophile priests, he was making Christmas Eve about a song by a gay icon? (A song that isn't even theologically sound: God isn't watching us "from a distance." He's here, right here with us.) Was he going to lead us in singing "In the Navy" as the recessional? I was flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness.
I attend church when I can, which isn't often enough. Isn't often at all. When I go, I'm suspicious of the clergy, but I remember that I'm not there for them. I'm there for Christ, and for all the souls who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again. I try to see the broken and pathetic nature of the priests as a reminder of just how badly we need what we're really there for—but I totally understand your pain. I don't have kids, but I'm not significantly less troubled.
Sure, but for gay men of a certain age—the bishop's age, he's in his 70s—Bette Midler is a gay icon. She performed at gay bathhouses in New York with Barry Manilow in the 1970s.
I just looked him up. In 2020 he was moved on from his mid-sized city and promoted to archbishop of the nearest huge, important city, no doubt taking his formidable knowledge of show tunes with him.
My parish pastor is an excellent Polish priest who is a great preacher. His assistant is not usually a good preacher, but very down to earth.....the priest you want to confess to. A few weeks back Father, in his hesitant, grasping, way, gave the best sermon I've heard in a long time. He became a priest in his early 60's, and is a widower. Early in his marriage he had decided to leave his wife. He was an agnostic, but his wife brought him to a Catholic priest as a final act of desperation.
He didn't go into detail but he said that he was converted on the spot, that it saved his marriage and his soul, and that he was the worst sinner in this church! He went on to talk about mercy and urged everyone to go to confession. Father is a bit sickly, old, shaky, and REAL......usually it's not very inspiring. But this was pure fire. You could hear a pin drop.
The Bette Midler moments have been non existent in my experience. (I have been a member of 4 parishes in NY and NJ.) I guess that I have been very lucky too.
I didn't even know Bette Midler sang it. I know it in Nanci Griffith's version, which I think was the first. In any case, never mind gay icons, no Catholic priest should be pushing its theology. "God is watching us--from a distance."
I'm saying a quick prayer that I will never hear Bette Midler sing it.
Thanks for sharing your journey openly and in detail. I understand the feelings. I have come through the same process with a deeper faith in the Divine. The RCC has always struggled with its tendency to corruption. That doesn’t excuse the corruption, but neither are we defined by it. Our Lord has to put up with it and He is still there for us - it must be more painful for Him. All you need is one good priest and a handful of fellow believers who take the faith seriously and you have what you need.
I agree with most of the replies here to your comment and dilemma, regarding the issue.
Yes, even if half the numbers are true. . ., look at the nature of the abuse in cases which it clearly occurred, and not simply cases of simply having to believe one person over the other.
Look further as to how the abuse cases where conviction occurred, whether true or not, were subsequently used. Ultimately, even if, the numbers indicate that perhaps approximately 5 % of the clergy have been guilty of it, the numbers mirror closely or, are under the rates for other positions in the secular world, and even clergy of other traditions.
But the important consequence of all this has been a Church, which aside from those outside of it, . .has rocked its own followers, has greatly, and for the foreseeable future seriously damaged its reputation, influence, and its voice on so many moral issues. In so doing, those who have a hunger to gain power, or retain it, elected. . ., or, otherwise,. . ., and wish to push their agenda have significantly impaired those who have traditionally opposed them.
Johnathan, . . you are needed by the Church. You were born for times such as this, for a reason.
No, what our host presents at the beginning of his post is not Catholic but pagan. So many Catholic archbishops, bishops and priests have lost their faith. They no longer truly believe. Father Malachi Martin explained this in taped interviews over three decades ago. The Catholic truth is in the Latin Mass.
I began attending a Novus Ordo Catholic Mass in 1994. It took me a few years to understand how the Catholic Church was being destroyed from within. Homosexuality is the lynchpin of why the Catholic Church is in rapid decline. Homosexuality corrodes everything it touches. Homosexuality is immoral and anti-Catholic. Yet I feel sure that about half the bishops of Europe, Canada and America are homosexual and there is a huge lavender lobby inside the Catholic Church that controls every lever of power. About half of the older priests are homosexual. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI knew this but felt constrained from sorting out the sewage within the Church.
So why did I stay in the Roman Catholic Church? Because it links me to Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It links me historically to the beginnings of Christianity. It helped me that my wife converted in 2000 and we learned our faith together. And in 2002 we moved over to the Latin Mass and haven't looked back since.
Benedict is a tragic figure (and we don't know what really happened in 2013). But the further we get from John Paul II the less I like him. The only thing that "constrained" Woytila from addressing this issue was that it would have cut into his time in front of the mirror. I think it bears repeating that JPII was the Vatican II Pope par excellence. What he was too preoccupied to realize is that Francis (and Artie Roche, and Besame Tucho, and Cupich, and McElroy) is what Vatican II was FOR.
I very much agree with you pretty much on Pope John Paul II. He was an egoist in love with himself. He was a horrific administrator. But he was not actually Satanic like Mr. Bergoglio.
The major point is that JPII and the rest of them didn't realize that when--as on X--characters like Ivereigh and this Raho guy lay down the law for the church there's really nothing Woytila-ites can say to them.
One thing about the Substack is not having a day or so to think through a response. I always post my first thoughts about things. This one seems complex, but I will still post. Two issues: Faith and "sacredness"
First issue, help me out here - I am not positive that this shows disbelief in Catholic teaching. It was before the ceremony. Is there a special connection of this community with Native Americans? Are they near where many live, are many Native American youth being confirmed that day?
I like Fr. Calvin Robinson, who posted this, from what I've seen of him on TV.
Second issue, about the altar - yes that is sacred. In the video I am seeing just the table itself, not the reserved Host, thanks to God. But it brings up the question - what can and cannot be appropriate around the altar when a service is not in progress. Great respect is called for, obviously. But I just don't know. Are not various things done near the altar? For instance, - and this is not an exact parallel - travelled with a Protestant group to actual native people (in a jungle) and they did a traditional dance, though it was in the church hall, not in church. So yes, setting matters and I respect the sacred. I question whether it is automatically not sacred to sing and dance from a Native American culture, providing nothing is said or done contradiction Catholic teaching? And the dance/song not "non-sacred" (e.g. heretical, etc.) is it too secular to have around the altar,
As for the main points here - that the church hurts people greatly when it does not live the faith and show forth the faith - totally agree.
Some things are OK in the church hall but have no place inside the actual church. I've mentioned the American flag as one of those things, but broadly applies to all expressions of secular culture.
What about from a research perspective? I was a history major in college. Maybe I was working on a paper regarding Islam. I think it has a legitimate purpose in a library.
I do not doubt the entire building deserves respect. But is every part of the entire building so sacred that nothing but a religious service can take place there? Maybe so, and if so, then this prelude was not a religious service and so was not appropriate. I just don't know but what God did not mind a happy dance and song near the altar even if it was from a folk tradition. So I remain unsure about this one while deeply respecting the sacred nature of a church and an altar.
The entire building can't be so sacred that nothing but a religious service can take place there. For one thing, there's generally a fellowship hall, often in the basement, where the funeral and wedding lunches / dinners are held. These are not religious services, as such.
And we all should probably remember David dancing before the Lord...
As a balance to what I just said. Some years back I was a Catholic musician (Yes, one of those groups with guitars most of y'all hate). We were preparing and rehearsing in the sanctuary before mass. A priest happened to be there momentarily. I started to walk behind the alter, close to it for some reason, but then drew back, maybe said "oops" or something. The priest said "What's wrong, you think you can't go there because you don't have a penis?"
I was horrified! So yes, I do sense the sacred. I still just wonder...we sang kinda close to the altar , but yes, not right at it.
I've mentioned this before. Originally the sanctuary was for ordained clergy, vowed monastics or those tonsured to minor orders. It was not intended as a "men only" space. Alas, the decline of minor orders and monasticism has necessitated lay people assisting there, and in Orthodoxy too.
OK, what I meant was that I as a lay person did not feel right standing just behind the altar. So, I do have an internal sense of the sacred there. And also, I thought the priest was crude. Not that I don't like sexual humor and frank references, I do - but I thought it just was not the time or place nor was it funny.
As I've mentioned a few times, I am a newcomer to the Catholic faith. I joined our local parish six years ago. The music is mediocre at best (piano, bassoon, electric violin and four voices) and the church itself was built in 1971 and has the feel of a gymnasium. The parishioners drag themselves into the church in their Crocs and sweats and Eagles jerseys (as my friend, John Lukacs, wrote; he too criticized some of the parishioners in his church to which his wife responded, "At least they are there"). Being a newcomer, I'm not sure how to categorize the church, but I have a feeling that it's mainstream Catholic. Upon the suggestion of an acquaintance, I was referred to a FSSP church that performs the Latin Mass. The music is heavenly with about a dozen men and a dozen women singing hymns in Latin accompanied by an organ. The altar is beautiful and the building itself is late nineteenth century Romanesque. The parishioners dress up and there is a dress code printed in the church flier. The service makes for a transcendent experience that for me, brings me closer to Jesus Christ. Those four women holding feathers and dressed in Indian garb is a joke compared to the complexities of the music of Bach and the symbolism and symmetry in the altar and the architecture and design of the church structure itself harmonious-- all composed, designed and built to praise God. These things that humans have created are God's gifts to us that have been passed down for centuries, and we should be humbled and grateful for them. I have thought of this example: Professional sports draw such viewership because people are attracted to watching the best of the best in terms of human performance. For me, the same holds true for the mass. If rules are loosely enforced or watered down and expectations are low, then slovenliness is what you get. Keep expectations high and a more meaningful experience is what you get.
For me the Parable of the Good Samaritan tells the core of Christian faith as completely as any other scripture, perhaps the most. That one who tried to justify himself before God Among Us by quizzing Him (admittedly one of my go-to tricks during prayer), ended up answering Jesus correctly and receiving a personal command from Him, inspires me. And though I'm no Bible scholar I've felt that Christ was both the victim and the Samaritan in this parable. We are called to love Him who suffered for us, and to suffer for Him who loves us. Any sacred space which tries to direct the focus of worship away from this centrality needs revising.
I will say for now that I really liked this piece, and it makes a good lenten meditation (as opposed to the travails of Donald Trump). This is the "old Rod" writing.
I think there is a time and place for a church to celebrate certain ethnic aspects of their congregation, but the liturgical service is absolutely not that time. My former Orthodox parish in Wisconsin had a Russian dance troupe that performed at various community events and church festivities, but certainly not in the church itself and not part of the divine service. When I was a Lutheran growing up we had a brass band at the church. It would perform classical-style hymns on major Sundays but would play German polkas at the town’s annual Oktoberfest. There is time these cultural accoutrements, but I’m shocked/not shocked a priest or bishop would allow this in the church.
Any time a conversation about Catholicism comes up, I refer to myself -- only half tongue in cheek -- as a "recovering Catholic." As someone who is old enough to remember the esthetic glory of the Latin mass, I find the service you describe appalling. Makes me wonder if such syncretism is a common symptom of every culture in terminal decline. Except that in our current wave of syncretism, there's the added factor of virtue-signaling. Or as I might call in if I were in one of my more crotchety moods, pandering. They must honestly believe that things like this makes them more "relevant," and thus somehow more appealing.
I just listened to it, and yes—true story.
The great news is that the coming persecution of will drive the churches into the homes and we will again see worship in Spirit and Truth. I get your point about "hillsongification" but some of their songs done less showy bring a lot worship up from my soul. I think about 100 is the best church size in a lot of ways. Partly because I am retired Army and that is the size of a company level element and it seems to just work. Pastor / Commander can really know his entire flock / unit and get the most our of them.
A reason I began playing an instrument and singing at home is to hear the old hymns. There is not a church in my area to my knowledge that will allow these to be sung. Anything older than five years is never heard. All connection to tradition is ignored.
I love the fact that our Orthodox hymnody dates back centuries, often incorporating portions of the psalms. There's differences in musical styles, but even those have a long tradition.
Modern worship songs are written to be performed while older hymns invite everyone in the congregation to sing. They can be sung by guys like me who sing much lower than the modern breathy sing-songy Olivia Newton-John at worship style of singing.
And yes the congregation, at least last time a hymn was sung — How Great Thou Art— gets rather loud and enthusiastic to the point they drown out the stage performers.
Normie- it amazes me that the worship leader/cantor seems not to notice this.
Old hymns are always, always, set in an extremely high Maybe you are down the octave, thus 2 below the women? It is unusual for the keyboardist to transpose, and they hymn books are always written high, so that the sopranos and anyone who cannot cary a part hit E or at least D. People were smaller in days of old and apparently had slightly higher voices. Putting the songs just a couple of notes lower would help a lot but that has not happened over the years. (Likely because two notes lower would be a difficult key for the keyboardist.) My bachelor's is in Choral Music Education.
But...confession...Last fall I did recently attend an Evangelical service for the first time in many years because of some friends. I was surprised that the "worship" was just listening to a group perform. The words were put up on a screen, but the group was amplified so that if you did sing, it was not heard. And the people did not seem to know the songs - I think the songs varied a lot from week to week - anyway very few were singing.
It was indeed a performance. But I still like the music that came out of the Jesus Revolution (e.g. 70s, 80s). I find it is most often meditative, conducive to praise, worship and the Holy Sprit moving within.
Have you looked for a Presbyterian Church in America, Anglican Church in North America, or Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod church? I know that each of those denominations has some pathogenic doctrinal agitation, but as far as I know, the Traditionalists are keeping things from becoming infectious.
And if you can't find one of those, or one which is acceptable to you, you might find a conservative Episcopal church or a small Anglican one, another traditional Lutheran denomination, or some other sort of orthodox Reformed or Presbyterian denomination.
I'm in a PCA church, and thank God, our hymnody is traditional.
It's dismaying that we live in such infidel times.
I need to add that I was in an LCMS congregation twenty years ago, and am not really qualified to vouch for them now. I remember thinking then that if what I was seeing in that church, such as the introduction of "liturgical dance," and the most contemptibly gutless pastor you could imagine, was a trend, the LCMS would be rotten in twenty years. Thank God, indeed, that there are solid, orthodox LCMS churches still around.
I think a church of about 100 can be financially viable. If just 10 families are tithing (I am not legalistic on this and actually think a tithe is a start point) the pastor's salary is about covered. (I am not including minor children by the way). Also Paul modeled bi-vocation at some of his church plants.
If there is a persecution it will leave the megachurches quite alone, just as the black and Hispanic churches, and those on Indian reservations would not be touched. "Bread and circuses" are how Caesar pacifies the populi and the megachurches fit very well into the circus category.
This is very sharp.
I think the delineating factor will be whether the given church is perceived as a threat or roadblock to Progress or not. Some megachurches, black/Hispanic churches, etc., may very well be put in that category if they are conservative/traditional regarding sexual morality.
I’m a member at a liturgical, confessional LCMS church (unfortunately, some LCMS churches can’t and/or don’t use those adjectives). There are a large number of young families and children in our small congregation (about 150 people on average on Sunday) with more coming. I hope you and your wife would consider looking for a church like ours: doctrinally sound, teaching and ongoing instruction highly valued, service practice that clearly and reverently confesses doctrine. There are churches like this with young people!
For the uninitiated, ESO is referring to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The one I attended had a beautiful solemn liturgy with most awesome music. Protestant seekers, check it out.
But, not all LCMS congregations are created equal. Too many have ditched the traditional liturgy and hymns for a more "contemporary style". We need to borrow Eric Mader's comment above and shout it from the housetops: "There's a vicious cycle of flimsy doctrine and flimsy worship."
Quite so, I am sorry to say. The church I attended had a second service at 11:00 that was more informal and used pop music. Perfectly insipid. But it was preferred by the families with children, while the early, traditional service was attended by older people. We could certainly see the handwriting on the wall ...
Unfortunately, this is all too common. We have such a rich heritage of liturgical practice in the historic, confessional Lutheran church. And the music! It’s so fitting that Bach, among many other lesser known but wonderful composers, was a Lutheran. It makes me sad that so many Lutheran churches have jettisoned liturgy and beautiful music in favor of generic American pop-Christian pabulum.
I went back to my childhood parish because the Catholic Church I attended in Lutherville, Md. built a large addition where they would now have mass. Stadium seating, rock band type of Christian music right in front of the Alter, ushers with head pieces. It was just too much for me. It didn’t feel sacred at all and I felt I was losing my connection to Jesus at Mass. Plus they admitted they were adopting a lot of techniques from the mega churches they visited for ideas. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a thriving parish, but not for me and my relationship to Christ.
An anecdote - I remember being at my brother's first communion. The church was a bit noisy that morning as all of the attending family members for my brother's communion cohort were chatting excitedly. The organist got on the PA system and sternly said "this is the House of God! Please be silent and respectful." Dead silence followed.
Fast forward about 20 years. We were at a Catholic friend's wedding. Same chatting was going on in the pews. One of his family members got up and said basically the same thing - "please respect the sanctity of this place", etc. Laughter followed.
You really have to ask what the point of going to mass is if you're not going to pay it reverence. Go to the friggin' VFW hall if you're going to act that way. At least they serve beer.
Yep. When I go to my local Catholic church for Good Friday, beforehand I want to sit there in awful silence. But there are always some women laughing and yukking it up, as if there's no other time they can talk about Girl Scout cookies or how Mackenzie and Madysyn are doing in college. Why are these grown-ass adults even going if they don't understand why they're supposed to be there, on that day of all days?
At my Maronite church, it's definitely dead silent on that evening. The hymns in the service resemble Middle Eastern wailing, and overall, it feels very much like a funeral.
I've been to some Catholic churches that get it right on Good Friday, with solemnity that can (and should) bring you to mournful tears. Whether Good Friday is profound or routine tells me a lot about a pastor.
Oh, I *love* Maronite worship! I still sing the Qadeeshat!
Itraham alain.
My pastor sometimes mentions this. "Please hold discussions for outside after Mass. Many are here for silent prayer."
The next weekor day, it's: "I'm sorry if you felt singled out by last weeks admonition. It was meant as a general rule and not to embarrass anyone". EVERY time Fr encourages proper behavior, some "Karen" complains to him that his or her feelings are hurt. These poor, good, priests put up with a lot of BS.
I agree with your comment, but would have given you a bright red heart if only for "Mackenzie and ( especially ) Madysyn."
Outstanding.
Yes. "Madysyn" made me laugh out loud.
It's a privilege to have witnessed the fruit of genius.
And by the way, aren't Catholic children supposed to be named after either saints or Old Testament figures?
Well, there's wine near the end. . . .
If you’re lucky!
Oh yeah—another thing I don't like about the Romans. At my Maronite church, there's always wine. The priest dips the bread in the goblet before placing it on the tongue.
I am pleading complete ignorance…what is Maronite?
I didn’t know about it either until I found it. There are I think 23 small Eastern Catholic Churches, fully Catholic but not Roman. The Maronites are based in Lebanon and named after St. Maron.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maronite_Church
I was actually here to comment on exactly the same paragraph. I am an employee at a Presbyterian Church which fits your “mini mega Church” model. When I first started attending it was traditional, but the pastor wanted to appeal to younger people, so traditional became blended, and with the current crop of leadership blended is becoming modern worship ala Hillsong. There is no sense of the sacred anymore. The kids use the sanctuary for laser tag during the week so they have no idea it being a special place. The music is incredibly loud, so loud you can’t hear yourself sing, let alone your neighbor. I really miss contemplative worship. But there is no talking to the leadership; they will not hear it. And the sad reality is, in my small town, there isn’t much alternative. All of the orthodox evangelical churches that care about serving and evangelizing people are doing this. The few congregations in town that have traditional worship are small and stunted, or they’re liberal and dying spiritually. I’d check out the Orthodox church if there was one, but they’re pretty few and far between in my area. So I limp along, and hope the work I do is actually helping someone else come to Christ.
"The kids use the sanctuary for laser tag during the week so they have no idea it being a special place."
Jesus wept.
Maybe He'd go full Matthew 21:12 on them.
Cathy, it would probably affect your employment, but if you could make overtures to those "small and stunted" churches, you might find that they'd be eager about joining forces. Nor would the pastors necessarily resent it. The opposite could be true, there being strength in numbers.
I like that idea...something to look into!
I pray something will come of it. Christians - Protestants, anyway - have far less that seperates us than we have things in common.
<<The kids use the sanctuary for laser tag during the week so they have no idea it being a special place.>>
My jaw dropped. Will those kids even be Christian when they turn 18?
I do wonder about it. We've had some kids spectacularly flame out, going full-on woke, non-binary, etc. We also have several who are full-hearted believers and serving God full time...hard to know about the rest.
Your comment and other parallel ones have led to some conflicting thoughts for me.
First, I grew up LCMS Lutheran and have a high regard for the denomination. (As a sidebar, I agree with another comment that this might be an option for you between a megachurch and Catholic/Orthodox.) But I find myself now in the Assembly of God/Church of God denominations which would have greatly surprised me 10-20 years ago.
I roll my eyes as so many of the megachurch comments are so true. My wife's iPhone regularly gives her a noise warning (sigh). I have been to megechurches where it was overwhelmingly a "seeker sensitive" almost commercial environment that was a total turn off. You have to be discerning in this culture like any others - there are good and bad churches out there.
But as I got older I was less and less satisfied with what I can only say was the lack of passion especially in the preaching that I experienced with the traditional/liturgical services. Surely we all can agree that if there has to be more than just a pleasant worship experience. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit should move. Fortunately, I have never had a poor (much less a bad) pastor, but with one exception over decades of worship I can only say that one Lutheran pastor spoke with moving passion. My real impression is that almost all of the others were good "professionals" more suited to managing teams as versus being spiritually inspiring. So after some time, I felt that I had to look elsewhere.
Interestingly, Catholicism is appealing to me - on paper. I have never regretted reading Catholic literature and following Catholic thought. But, like others comment, every experience with real local churches was disappointing. My all time two worst pastoral "performances" for lack of a better term were priests at funerals - talk about dialing it in. And then came Francis. Full stop.
But I have often (not always, but often) found that pentacostal/charismatic pastors have the passion that I hope to find and that has been in the end the deciding factor for me, as comfortable as I was with meditative, liturgical services. For all the modern professional performances at such churches (I agree, that is exactly what they are) it's still Christian music some of which greatly moves me. Maybe loud demonstrative services turn some people off, but personally, I have seen more people come to Christ in the last few years in such churches as I ever saw in traditional and that has to be what it is all about.
I am absolutely certain that people come to faith in all kinds of environments where Jesus is professed as our Savior and Lord, but it is certainly clear that many find their breakthrough to Him in a modern contemporary service. It certainly seems like these are the churches that are growing. It is interesting to me to try to balance the many comments supporting traditional sacred spaces with this experience. I am following closely all of the recent writing about re-enchanting Christianity especially as presented in this Substack (locking forward to RD's new book) but can only suggest that maybe sacred spaces and enchantment are more prevalent and come in more ways than one might think. Maybe enchantment to those I see come forward in my church looks or feels like a far more emotional experience to them. I wonder if others' experience at all matches mine and how that fits into such thinking.
I have a mild aggravation of my PTSD when I recall my aunt's anecdote of the Christmas Eve service she and my uncle attended at their evangelical church ( not quite a megachurch, but close to it ).
A family which sat in front of them had brought their supper to go from McDonald's with them, and ate it during the service.
Now I don’t feel quite so bad for sneaking a couple of pieces of chocolate to give my cranky kiddo during his first Easter Vigil a couple years ago. He’s serving this year.
If you would be interested in a liturgical church, I would suggest the LCMS. We have been indescribably blessed there over the past 12 years. There is a great reverence in the service and we recognize the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. No strobe lights or smoke machines are to be found and our congregations are not all chopped up into identity groups as they were at the big non-denom church we last attended.
On the one hand, we can probably all agree that the law of worship both influences and reflects the faith of any church. Thus the focus on worship makes sense.
On the other, and at the same time, I'd say it's a false dichotomy to stress correct worship as opposed to correct doctrinal belief.
I'd put it this way: If worship in many of our churches has become narcissistic pabulum, that's in large part because the people attending those churches don't know what they believe. They don't know what they believe because for decades their bishops and priests haven't stressed the harder truths of the faith, and the faithful aren't catechized. Both the homily and the focus of worship thus very easily become the default American sacred, which is ... "I'm okay, you're okay."
So if there's a crisis in our worship, it's partly based on a crisis in doctrine. The faithful hardly know Christianity, and some of the clergy themselves don't actually believe. The important thing is to "reach out," be "a listening church," blah blah blah.
The physical structure of the church may still reflect the sacramental reality, but the gestures and words of the priest keep putting the focus not on Him, but on the community. They are all so precious and "welcome"--it's just so wonderful they could appear to revel in their wonderfulness.
This is the problem in my Catholic Church, but these comments surely apply to many Protestant churches too. There's a vicious cycle of flimsy doctrine and flimsy worship. Eventually one ends with a secularist, sometimes literally syncretic "We're all just here blah blahing, and aren't we all wonderful together, everyone different and special in their unique special ways, all showing our togetherness around Jesus, who was all about togetherness you know."
And that last sentence isn't just the homily (though I've heard plenty of homilies like that) but characterizes the comportment of the whole parish, both priest and faithful. It's of course especially telling if this self-congratulatory worship ends by characterizing Lent as well. Which will doubtless happen.
My argument is that this if this has become our worship, it's because this is what we believe *as doctrine*.
"There's a vicious cycle of flimsy doctrine and flimsy worship."
Can I steal this? Absolute gold...and me a Baptist!
Of course. We have much gold to share.
Yes that is a great line, and I also like this, which gets to the root of the problem;
<i>The physical structure of the church may still reflect the sacramental reality, but the gestures and words of the priest keep putting the focus not on Him, but on the community. </i>
"My argument is that this if this has become our worship, it's because this is what we believe *as doctrine*."
That may be true, but from the Orthodox perspective worship gives rise to doctrine, not the other way around. Water down the worship and the doctrine will change accordingly.
I’m arguing each gives rise to the other. I can see the Orthodox point and it’s practical power. “If you let worship fall off or be corrupted, belief will follow.” It’s obviously true. But so is the contrary.
Ultimately of course this is a chicken or the egg question. With maybe a tip in my direction. Did Our Lord’s followers first worship him, then realize he was Lord? If so, worship gave rise to belief. Or did they begin to worship *because* they realized he was Lord? If so, correct belief gave rise to worship.
How do the Orthodox answer that?
I'd say they realized he was Lord first, then worshipped, but in terms of the life of the Church it was the worship that prompted the coalescence of doctrine in the Body. I do not think that the Church said in the beginning: "Here is what we believe; let us now frame our worship accordingly." The worship was already there, and the doctrine was "codified" in the worshipping body of the Church. In other words, there's a reason why "lex orandi, lex credendi" occurs in that order.
By the way, I think Catholics get this too, but the emphasis on the rationality of doctrine in the West clouds it somewhat.
Very well put. But there is some ambiguity in “the doctrine was codified in the worshipping body of the Church.” Was doctrine really codified during the liturgy? I suspect most of our doctrine was codified rather by individuals prayerfully wrestling with doctrinal questions. Individuals inspired by the Spirit but mostly not *while* attending worship.
Of course one could define our Church Fathers sitting in solitude thinking through and composing their arguments as “worship,” but is it?
I can be accused of quibbling. But in a way I’m not, as I hope you see.
Yes, not really a quibble. "Codified during the Liturgy" is too strong, I think. Probably better to say something like "Codified as a result of Liturgy," or "Codified upon reflection on the Liturgy." Point being that theological "speculation" was not done outside the context of the Church as a worshipping community.
I'm thinking we could say that experience comes before thought, and all meaningful thought is reflection upon and deepening of experience. So, people began to worship Jesus as the Lord because of the experience they had of Him, with thoughts about that experience coming later, and then said thoughts further shaping the experience.
In principle, I don't believe in anything that has absolutely no empirical point of contact with experience, because such a thing would be strictly unknowable. It would be logically impossible to find any foundation for believing in such a thing. (Jesus, via the Holy Ghost, most definitely has a very powerful point of contact with experience, and thus I believe in Him.)
After the Resurrection, the disciples did not recognize Christ until after He broke bread with them.
In Luke only. But that’s a very good point.
Not all the disciples. John believed without seeing.
John was capable of "seeing" in the other way.
Also, as a side note, I'm fond of the theory that the identity of "John" is probably Lazarus, brother of Magdalene. That sure would explain how he has the gift of spiritual sight.
I'd never heard that theory before.
I think of John as highly empathic; thus, he stood by Mary's side to the end at the Crucifixion. Some people just have a gift of great empathy and the ability to think of others first in all things. Jesus saw this in John and loved him for it.
Just my 2 cents, of course.
I would also say that each gives rise to the other, but doctrine has to come first. One must first know something about the one he is worshipping. Our worship should help us grow in our doctrine, which it turn better informs our worship. So they do build on each other. But to worship at all, one must first believe there is a God to be worshipped. It starts with doctrine.
After reading some of the other comments, I think should add that doctrine may well come from experience rather than being something academic. People in the New Testament often believed Jesus was God because of their experience with him. They saw what Jesus did. believed he was God based on that experience, and then worshipped him. The doctrine came first, but it was learned by an experience with Jesus rather than from an academic exercise.
Yes, the abuse scandal , and at times, the way Catholicism is "practiced" can push a devotee, or a searching person away from it, and toward something else, like Eastern Orthodoxy, which I have always believed to be the sister Church to Catholicism.
Yet, Mr.Dreher, you mention the concept of plausibility, and not using reason and logical comparison to draw conclusions about the faith. I will come back to this. But continuing with this thinking, one could just as easily have been pushed away by observing Christ's first apostles, who were his closest friends for three years, yet one betrayed him, ten were in hiding while he was crucified, and only one, John, was by his Cross, and supporting his mother.
If one was truly honest, one could say the same of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if one solely noted the various conflicts between its Patriarchs, the blessings of weapons, including nuclear ones by its clergy, and notwithstanding the touted building of hundreds of churches in Russia, the continued high rates of alcoholism, suicide, divorce, abortion and general apathy considering the actual low numbers of church attendees, somewhat similar to the numbers in the West; to say nothing of its continued focus in numbers in Eastern Europe, with half in Russia.
Perhaps, the two Churches are not as different as many think. The details differ, the theme is the same, and maybe, the seeming disparity is solely separated by time, and space, for now.
I am not surprised then, at your finding Orthodox followers who remained faithful to their Church despite the actions of its hierarchy, and much of the clergy as you describe. But, this is no different than in our Catholic Church . . . there too , a Remnant remains.
Part of the issue in Catholicism, is the liberalism that followed Vatican II, in the early 1960's arising from sources who wanted to weaken or destroy the Church during the spread of atheistic communism, and that the proper instruction in the faith, i.e., Catechesis, has fallen dramatically during the same time. Even yesterday, as I was speaking to a fellow Catholic at a garage repair shop, she spoke of symbolism, and questioned the Real Presence in the Eucharist, as a good friend of mine did some twenty five years ago, who had been born Catholic, and converted to Evangelical Protestantism when we first met. After many debates, I referred him to the Early Church and theEarly Fathers' writings. Shortly after, he became a follower of the Russian Orthodox Church, claiming he already had been properly instructed in Catholicism. We remain close friends and share much. He in Russian Orthodoxy, me in the traditional Catholic faith, following the Traditional Latin Mass ( Latin being the least reason I'm there ), and hopefully part of what Pope Benedict foresaw, a smaller, but more faithful Church.
The good Lord gives the gift of faith to all, but we need to do our part with our free will decision. I guess at the end of the day, it's not about reason, but how open our hearts are.
A note about the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, and went to Catholic schools through high school. I imagine somewhere along the line I must have been taught about transubstantiation and what it really means for the Eucharist and mass. But I am now in my 50s and I feel like I am just now getting it. And all its repercussions. I guess this makes your point that "Catechesis, has fallen dramatically."
Anyway, thank you Father. I was once at a group talk given by Fr. Jenco. He listened to the group complain about the hypocrisy of the clergy and responded when he's at mass he finds himself praying for the priest because it is much harder being the exemplar of faith, and Catholic living, than being a lay person.
Yes, like you, an experience, I only began to reach some level of understanding of decades after leaving the many tempting other movements which I began exploring in my teens and twenties, including ufology, secular humanism, Buddhism, and others. By the way, I'm not a priest.☺️
Oh. Sorry about that. I guess there’s worse things to be mistaken for :)
😊
Not to beat a dead horse, but when you say "the abuse scandal", there are two distinct things that are at play here, not just one. Certainly, to begin with, the abuse that happened was horrible. I'm not trying to downplay that at all. However, from an institutional perspective, the cover up - and continued cover up, if you ask me - is the more dangerous part to this (and the part that Rod is talking about when he's talking about falling away from the RCC, if I understand correctly).
As an Orthodox Christian, I get challenged by Catholics who will bring up instances of abuse within Orthodoxy. Somebody challenged me on this exact issue on this board a few weeks ago with one of the boiler-plate Catholic response articles on the issue. Now, first off, one of the most prominent cases in the article concerned an Orthodox priest who was convicted of abuse in the late 1960s, and who was defrocked in 1970. Yes, it's been scandalous that he's started his own "independent" Orthodox Church after he got out of jail, and apparently continued with his pattern of abuse, but he's not legitimately Orthodox anymore! How are we supposed to "take responsibility" for him, when the Orthodox Church did what they're supposed to do? The article mentioned a couple more cases in "independent Orthodox" groups, without mentioning that these groups are not Orthodox either and are far outside the mechanisms the Orthodox Church has in place in these sorts of instances! There was one more recent case that the article started with, and which I had particular interest in for personal reasons, but in this case, which had to do with a prominent Russian Orthodox priest in Russia, again, the priest was defrocked.
Nobody is saying that there are zero cases of abuse and misconduct in the Orthodox Church, but the point that this person unwittingly made by challenging me here is that it seems that the Orthodox Church is much more willing to deal with misbehaving priests properly. Again, I'm not saying that this is 100%, but in a case such as the Russian priest mentioned here, I couldn't see the RCC defrocking the man, simply because it would have been an embarrassment to the Church nationally.
I respect those who are Catholics a lot, and I have many good friends who are sticking with her, come what may. Mad respect for that. However, I feel like there is a willful blindness toward many who are devastated by the institutional rot - the fact that a lot of the RCC hierarchy doesn't act with sufficient respect toward the One whose Church they say they represent, and feel no compunction about that either. When people point that out - oftentimes to try to understand or to try to put things on the path that they can be corrected - the standard answer seems to be, "Well, the RCC is true, and we, as representatives, can't be questioned no matter what, and if you don't have enough faith to square that circle, it's your failing, not ours." As a result, I'd wager that a lot of the "doers" of the RCC have left, because they weren't the ones just showing up on Sunday out of habit; they were a lot of the lay leadership, official and unofficial.
I hear you. I note the length to which you went to explain the Orthodox incident.
We can do likewise with many such stories in the Catholic experience. I agree however, many stories cannot be "explained away" nor the cover ups of many of them.
Having said this however, what must also be acknowledged, but never is in the main sources of " information " most people access, i.e., mainstream media outlets ( tv, paper and web ), which so many then simply repeat. . . are the number of incidents which have no basis in truth at all. There are entire diocese which have become bankrupt., and the financial hemorrhaging continues.
One can argue about the Vatican's treasures and holdings. . but like much of the British royalty. . .it is not owned by anyone Pope or Cardinal. These constitute the heritage of Western civilization, and meant to be preserved for all, and for future generations.
Having come from a legal background stretching several decades, I also am saddened by how even our courts, let alone our political leaders are mostly or solely into an agenda, . . a narrative of the Zeitgeist, i.e., the mindset of the world, . . in pushing a certain narrative because of the objectives of their own mindset. I won't go into a number of these areas I'm basically referencing, but suffice to say, they've been prominent in the media, in the politics and in the culture, especially in the last couple of decades. Why? The institution, and I mean this in all its aspects, which was the greatest obstacle to this narrative and objectives it pushes has always been the Roman Catholic Church, because of its size, and global or universal outreach. Regardless of the human individuals who govern it. Accordingly, since the time of the Reformation, then gaining greater strength by the French Revolution, the civil wars in Mexico ( never discussed ) Spain, and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, . . the Church was targeted for weakening, if not total destruction. One need only read history, . . real history, and not the revisionism being repeated without challenge.
We better start finding ways of becoming one, as the Lord admonished us to do, otherwise, we only have ourselves to blame for the fall of our civilization.
God have mercy on us all.
i gave the "boiler plate" articles and you gave the boiler plate Orthodox response, ie, pure cope. Most Orthodox parishes are embedded in communities where a don't-tell mentality still reigns, so we actually have no idea how much abuse happens in Orthodoxy, especially in Russia, where it is effectively the State Church. You're basically asking the rest of us to believe, as Rod does, that the laws of human psychology which hold in the rest of the world are somehow all but eliminated in Orthodoxy because of...the liturgy. Sure.
Honestly, reading the Orthodox posters on here is like going back to Catholic Church of the 1950s. Pure hubris.
I researched 4 of the cases that were posted in that article, and answered you with specifics on each of those. At least two weren't even Orthodox. Did you expect me to go through every single one that was mentioned in the article? I'm not angry, but when you say "cope", I'd expect that you had something to back that up. Your argument now seems to be, "Well, since we don't see this problem at the same level in Orthodoxy as in the RCC, it must be because nobody's reporting it." I've never said that there aren't problems, and I've never said that I've never personally heard of problems... about 15 years ago, there was a seminarian who killed himself after making abuse allegations against people, and even as a "newbie" in the Orthodox Church, I heard about it. There's a bishop who got removed last year or so over a weird situation with a woman (not sure if any abuse was accused) and a bishop who got removed about a decade ago, from what I understand, for some far-too-casual texts with a woman who made them public. I don't know if that's the whole story, but it just seems like institutionally, an awful lot less is tolerated in the Orthodox Church, and that's the point that I was trying to make.
What makes you think that I believe Orthodoxy is innocent of clerical sex abuse? I have never claimed any such thing, and would not. The only reason I know about clerical sex crimes in any church is that the media report on them, based on court cases and suchlike. I have never seen such reporting from Russia, Greece, or any Orthodox country. As I say over and over, Orthodoxy in the US is *tiny*. I think there are more Jehovah's Witnesses in the US than Orthodox. If we have a significant sex abuse problem in US Orthodoxy, it will likely never make the papers because we are so small. If Russia has such a problem, it's probably far bigger, because Orthodoxy is the main religion there -- but how are we going to find out about it if Russian media don't report it, and if Western media don't relay those findings? I couldn't tell you anything about the Catholic abuse scandal as it plays out in continental European countries, because I can't read another language, and the US media don't really report these things. Similarly, if Catholic churches in Russia have an abuse problem, Russians will probably never hear about them, because Catholicism is minuscule in Russia.
If I found out that my Orthodox jurisdiction (keep in mind that there is no central church in Orthodoxy, as in Catholicism; there are just national churches) had a big sex abuse problem, I would be angered and grieved, but it wouldn't shake me like the Catholic one did. Why not? Because I came to Orthodoxy badly burned by the Catholic scandal, and have prevented myself from having the same kind of faith in the institution that I had as a Catholic. I was a true believer in all of it as a Catholic. This is why many of my Catholic friends who were just as angry as I was over the scandal managed not to lose their faith: they never idealized the institutional church in the first place. I did. I believed the story that the Catholic Church told about itself. I could not let that happen to me in Orthodoxy, which is why I have kept meaningful distance in my heart from the institution.
True. While I no longer believe the media/press, . . at least mainline. . is as free as it once was in the west, not necessarily due to government influence, but also due to self imposed, agenda ridden pressures and beliefs, . . ., it's still very free in attacking any challenger to its narrative & agenda. The Catholic Church, historically , has been among the most serious challengers of that agenda. Note even during the periods of extreme iconoclast persecution, centuries prior to the Great Schism, it even stood up to several Byzantium Emperors who were stringent iconoclasts, and later, against secularists in France, Spain, Mexico, Brazil and China, etc. Accordingly, any scandal, regardless of scale, must & will be fanned to the extreme by the "press", in service of the secularist agenda. Hence, perhaps, the reason for the Traditional Tridentine /Latin Mass movement , and remaining pillars of traditional dogma being targets. As a consequence, given people's comfort and attachment to their conventional news sources, and the media incessant fanning of scandals,... albeit often sadly true,. . . its members "jump ship" after what is considered by them to have been a sufficient deliberation to stay and fight, or go to other religious shores. It's sadly understandable. Respectfully however, I among many, choose to remain.
Those are great points. It's hard for non-cradle Catholics to understand the level of hostility toward the Church and its adherents in Anglo culture, especially here in North America. Anti-Catholicism is one of the binding threads of WASP culture, from the highest to the lowest classs. That hostility may not be instituitonalized as it was in my grandparents' and even parents' generation in Canada ("Catholics need not apply..."), but we know that the mainstream culture still holds our religion in contempt and will pounce on any perceived or real crime, historical or in the present, to vent their spleen (which is not in any way to defend the horrible sexual abuse scandals). It's true to say that anti-Catholicism is the only socially acceptable form of bigotry.
This was absolutely the case in my Episcopalian church where I spent the first 10 years of my life as a Christian. We were not catechized well. It was very welcoming, great social events, growing parish. It just never required me to actually change anything about myself, nor did we ever mention sin, repentance, or evil.
When Rod writes: "Sin, repentance, humility, good and evil — all abstract concepts for these comfortable middle-class clerics, and their comfortable, middle-class congregation."...well, that pretty much sums up where I was in 2020, when thankfully the nightmare of COVID and the summer of George Floyd allowed me to flee to Orthodoxy for good.
These are really tough questions. How do you handle sacrilege and evil inside your own church? No one size fits all answer here.
True.
"For example, Islam might be true, but I have never sat down and examined the case for Islam carefully, weighing the arguments and so forth, because to do so would require an immense effort to overcome my own biases as someone raised in a Christian culture. Similarly, someone my age who was raised in Riyadh would have to make titanic efforts to consider fairly whether or not Christianity is true. Or Buddhism. Or … anything but Islam. You see what I’m getting at?
If I lived in Riyadh, chances are I would find myself delving into Islamic teaching at some point, simply because I wanted to better understand the culture in which I lived. I would not be surprised if Muslims living in the West had been moved at some point to take Christianity more seriously than they otherwise might have done, only because it was more normative in the society in which they live, and therefore more plausible."
Rod, you should get a copy of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. This book is a testimony to how real love can help someone far from truth find it. The author whose name my 5am brain cannot recall is with the Lord now but kind of makes your second point above but it is much more.
Secondly, your statement that Islam might be true but you never took time to take a hard look surprises me some. I was blessed to have been brought to TRUTH in my upbringing and by that every false truth claim (i.e. Islam, Hindu, you fill in the blank) rings as false with even a cursory look. I hope that does not sound prideful, but having the indwelling Holy Spirit (un-grieved, and un-quenched) helps us as Christ followers to be able to identify false truth claims. I understand you were setting up a point but if one does believe that Islam might be true, does it not behoove him or her to make every effort to find out given the eternal stakes?
The math of cults:
Subtract from Jesus
Add to the Cannon of holy and inspired scripture
Multiply the requirements of salvation
Divide the faithful
The problem, Brian, is with your third item. Tragically, at least half of Christianity believes there are requirements for salvation beyond faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rod does not think Islam might be true. But I think actually, you know that? It can be read as a hypothetical.
I was interested in what Rod said after that.
<<".Similarly, someone my age who was raised in Riyadh would have to make titanic efforts to consider fairly whether or not Christianity is true. ">>
By strange coincidence, and GMTA, I said just that to a new friend last night. The context was a little different though. I was concerned because of suffering and a loving God - I do not believe God sends Muslims to hell. As stated here, fair consideration is normally impossible even if they do hear the message of Christianity. I did not think the Catholic church believed those who had never heard went to hell, but I worried that it - in contrast to what I think - thought any Muslim who had heard the message of Christianity and Salvation, and remained Muslim, was going to hell.
My new friend set me straight. The Catholic Church teaches about the "baptism of desire". What I did not know was that this extends not only to those who have never heard, but to those who have never heard fairly. So - Catholics do not believe that all Muslims go to hell.
Agreed. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
If a non-believer hears only a shoddy, truncated or otherwise erroneous version of the Gospel and rejects it, how is he responsible? Although it doesn't say it in the Bible, the idea that we will be judged by the light we have been given seems correct.
And, those of us who have heard and claim to know the Gospel should be trembling, because we will be held responsible for so much more. Rejection of the truth can come in many forms.
I think this is a doctrine developed by Aquinas who contemplated about the souls of humans born before Christ. Are they condemned to Hell simply by reason of when they were born? He didn't think so, and argued like the rest of us they would be judged by their actions.
Yes, and thank you! I always thought the Church was OK with those born before Christ came, those who never heard, young children, as was I, of course. I also thought a loving God would not condemn those who had "heard the message" but were not able to accept it because of their upbringing in another religion. But I had the misconception that the Church said those peopl were lost. Strict fundamentalists say they are, because they "rejected Christ" but the Catholic Church does not say they are.
I was lucky enough to learn this about the Catholic church in high school. I have often thought this view of a good person who doesn't believe can still make it to Heaven based on their actions distinguished the Catholic Church from other Christian sects.
But I could be wrong about that latter part.
I don't think you are wrong. At least, in my Baptist upbring, while God would do something - we did not know what but something - so that those who never hear or died very young could go to heaven, those how heard and did not accept Jesus were bound for hell. That included any Islamic person who heard "the messag of the gospel" but did not become a Christian. - - Truth is after I became a Catholic, I tried not to be a cafeteria Catholic, but I not believe Muslims had to go to hell, even though I was afraid (not sure really) the church did.
No, because as Rod says, no one has the time or ability to search out the truth claims of every religion. One works with what one has. By the way, this claim often comes up in discussions with the sillier sort of atheist, but they make the same mistake from the other side.
Nabeel Qareshi? Something like that?:)
One partial answer to the Twitter guy asking "What does this have to do with whether Catholicism is true" is that it aggravates other doubts that people may have.
I'm an orthodox, conservative-leaning Catholic, but I'll acknowledge that there are some difficulties with the Church's claims. In a short time, the Church went from calling religious freedom "an insanity" to a universal right. For the past 60+ years, apologists have been attempting to explain how that doesn't screw up the Church's claim to indefectibility, or why it doesn't leave the door open for a "development" on contraception, gay marriage, etc. So far, no one has come up with a satisfactory answer. Similar things can be said for the Church's developments on the death penalty, the ecclesiology of Lumen Gentium, etc.
For people who struggle with these issues, or have other issues with Church teaching, I think it would be easier to hold onto the faith if you saw profundity and transcendence every Sunday. When I get really frustrated with the rational/intellectual side of Catholicism, I think of Fatima. Or Lourdes. Or the incorruptible bodies of saints. The miraculous and sacred ease my doubts. That's a choice I make, which not everyone is willing to do. If the sacred was put in their faces every Sunday, they wouldn't have to.
Yes, I get this. And also, the dark side of the same phenomenon: the fact that the demons rage and retreat in the face of an exorcist.
Yes, and they seem to recognize the reality of the Presence in the Eucharistic host, better than most Christians, but tremble before it!
I have pretty much lost my faith and interest in the Catholic Church, largely thanks to the antics of Pope Francis the Silly. If sodomy has moved from one of the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance to “living the gift of love” I am left too confused to see where truth lies. My heart is in Orthodoxy, but my husband, who is similarly disgusted by the Vatican where the pope is running a halfway house for abusers, feels that we have a reverent Latin Mass to go to, where we have been parishioners for 23 years. It is a devout way to worship God and the sacraments are valid. I also fear for the future, both of this Mass and of the Church devastated by the frantic “updating” Francis is enforcing.
I also fear that the Orthodox may end up keeping their liturgy while accepting the perversion rainbow. The cultural pressure seems overwhelming. We are all sinners, but if some things are not objectively sinful why did Jesus so often say “go and sin no more”?
One thing that stops me from investigating other forms of Christianity is the possible repercussions of going to one church while my husband goes to another. A liberal apostate church would not care, but that's not the sort where I would ever darken the door.
I totally agree with you, I would never do that. The choice for now is an easy one, I am disabled and it would be an imposition to ask my husband to attend two liturgies each weekend, although he is willing. If we didn’t have a Mass to go to it would be different and we would both be motivated. Having six Catholic grandchildren is another issue, although my daughter would understand. So much rides on just who is your priest and your bishop, things that were never supposed to be as important as they have become in the Roman Catholic Church. Msgr. Hugh Benson’s Religion of the Plain Man relies heavily on the argument that the Catholic Church is the same everywhere and in every country, that the man is the pew is anonymous and participates just by being there, things that can hardly be taken for granted today as they could in the early 1900’s. Participation means having a prominent role in the dog and pony show that horrifies the rest of us.
"Pope Francis the Silly"
I love this. Rod and others see him as dangerous and perhaps he is but I have always considered him silly and I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
Susanne, I hope you stick with us Catholics. We need you.
I'm a Protestant who venerates Benedict XVI., Ronald Knox, and Chesterton, so I hope you won't be offended by my term, "Pope Francis, the Sinister."
The man's countenance always calls to my mind a guy who is running a numbers racket in Spanish Harlem.
Intellectually he is a lightweight compared to his predecessors, and his gleeful destruction of tradition and embrace of every sickening fad seems to merit the term silly. Much of what he has done is ridiculous. But the havoc and confusion he is causing and his utter disregard of Biblical morality is very sinister. I believe the complete destruction of the Catholic Church is his endgame as in his eyes its only purpose is to finance perverts in penthouses while pandering to everyone other than practicing Catholics.
One can be silly and sly and sinister. Drag queens wanting to read children’s stories in libraries come to mind. Wish he didn’t have quite so much in common with them.
"Intellectually he is a lightweight ..."
But a clever manipulator, and adept at gathering collaborators - some dupes, others enthusiasts - in his work of destruction.
I lean toward your husband's thinking. The true, real church, is not strictly defined by its earthly structures and individuals who are its representatives. Yes, Christ left a Church and Scripture, but a Church first.The Gospel was written and assembled subsequently in the centuries that followed, inspired by the Spirit, as the Spirit also inspired the development of the Liturgy, the concept of the one God in the mystery of the Trinity, the Real Presence etc., etc.
But there have been many obstacles, heresies, and conflicts along the way. They have simply been amplified in recent times.
But do we leave now ? I'm reminded of Christ asking the same question of His remaining apostles as actual followers left Him over His preaching of His flesh being the new Bread, and greater manna. As the saying goes, we were meant to born for times such as these.
“Jesus said to him (Thomas), ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) All truth begins with Jesus the Christ.
Word.
These are good thoughts, Rod. I’m Catholic but troubled about the faith in ways similar to what you went through.
The fullness and magnificence of the Catholic intellectual and artistic tradition, combined with my becoming a father, is what made a convert of me in the 2010s. But no sooner had I done that than the summer of 2018 rolled around. By then I was the father of two young boys. I have been something of a failed convert ever since then because I find that I simply cannot bring myself to trust the Church—including lay people—with my sons. Catholicism for me has become something which I can enjoy aesthetically and intellectually, something that is great for the thinkers and artists I admire to have in their lives (like the recent Nobel Laureate in literature), but to which I can’t conform my own and my family’s life for lack of trust. I know plenty of Catholics who seem good and seem like they take the faith seriously, but as we know traditionalism is no kind of assurance.
I’ve come to feel that there is something uniquely disturbing about the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It’s worse than complacent, comfortable mediocrity and unbelief, though as you point out it’s to a large extent enabled by that. Why is the abuse so revolting to me? I don’t have a full answer. It’s at least partly because it’s a particularly graphic betrayal of trust, involving as it almost always does children and adolescents. It is a kind of treason, and I suppose I think Dante was right to put the traitors at the bottom of Hell. But there is something more to this form of scandal. I think it has to do with hypocrisy. The abuse is overwhelmingly homosexual, and as such seems to contradict the fundamental understanding of human sex that, though not dogmatically formulated, is at the core of Christian (and Jewish) religion. You’ve written about this, of course. Christianity that forsakes the cosmic biblical understanding of sex saws the branch on which it rests. This is why the RCC’s recent drift toward explicit heresy on such matters seems of a piece with the long running abuse crisis.
This is all a way of agreeing with the assessment that the root problem is lack of belief especially in the institutional hierarchy. Of course not all clergy are rotten. The question is, what is the critical mass which renders the entire institution untrustworthy? Because in a world where there are other compelling options, I can’t justify voluntarily associating myself—and my sons—with an untrustworthy institution.
My worrying along these lines does not strike me as superfluous, though I wish more than anything I could get over it. But so many Catholics I know—serious, mostly traditional types like me, who also have young kids—don’t seem to ever have been troubled in a similar way or degree. Maybe it has something to do with being a cradle Catholic versus a convert who can more easily imagine being a different sort of Christian.
Sometimes people tell me or those like me to spend less time online following the scandals. Focus on the local. Find a good parish. This is sensible in one way, but it’s also negligent or naive. The whole issue is trust, which plays out first of all locally. It’s hard for me to see the antidote to this poison of suspicion that seems to have clouded my view of the Church. And I can’t escape the knowledge that I would feel differently if I were not a father (of boys, what’s more). I would be far less troubled in that case. And what does that say about my convictions? I don’t know, other than that you are right: personal circumstance matters. Religion is existential even more than doctrinal.
Man, this is a great comment. You sound a lot like me circa 2003-06.
I also became Catholic around the time you did, and though I knew of the history of abuse and cover up, the revelations that the problem was ongoing, the evidence it was in fact endemic, troubled me deeply. As did signs I saw from our current pope, who'd just become pope around the time I joined the Church.
That you're a father of boys makes a real difference. I'm not. But I did spend serious time researching the crisis back around 2018. If you don't already know some of the following, my conclusions may help.
First, those who claim the abuse was not a matter of a largely homosexual cabal--i.e. of homosexual abuse of boys and a clerical mafia covering it up--are simply lying. The numbers tell the truth. The great majority of abuse cases were of boys, and the majority of those were not technically pedophilia as widely claimed (which is abuse of small children) but abuse of teen boys. In short, it was homosexual grooming and abuse of youth. Our media and apologists both inside and outside the Church do what they can to obscure this fact, but it's a fact.
But second--and I think this is necessary to keep in mind--the *rate* of sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church and Catholic institutions was not statistically worse than the rate, say, in public school systems. And the rate was not significantly different from that in Protestant churches either. In short, there is reason to worry about one's children regardless of what group of adults has access to them. Is it an after school coach? A math tutor? There's no good reason, statistically, that you shouldn't be vigilant in those cases too.
The assumption across the culture that our Church has a deep abuse problem is thus in a way true, in a way not true. Or rather: our abuse problem is not radically worse than one finds elsewhere in institutions where adults interact with kids.
So why does the culture at large now believe we are particularly corrupted? I put it down largely to media. A liberal press relishes the chance to tar the Church. But part of it is certainly the glaring hypocrisy you underline. "Look! The Catholic Church, putting itself forward as an arbiter of sexual morals, is full of bishops systemically covering up abuse!" Stories of hypocrisy in high places get traction, and this was one of the great such stories of the late 20th c.
Personal circumstances indeed matter. You'll have to weigh things. If I had boys, I myself wouldn't stop believing that the Church is the Bride of Christ, but I'd keep my boys well supervised. In my mind, the reason the Church has been the fount of such greatness in both intellect and artistic achievement is that she is what Our Lord said she was. But that this barque will reach where it's headed doesn't mean it isn't going to be infested with rats during the journey.
BTW, I was raised Lutheran, spent many years as a Christian in the margins, then became Catholic.
Eric, great comment. Have you read William Donohue's 2021 book The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes? It fleshes out the points you're making with copious footnotes, rendering the content objective perspective, not just one smart person's opinion. I'm often flummoxed by the framing of the Catholic clergy sex scandal as one of "child abuse" when it so obviously has much more to do with modern homosexual culture transforming the Church from within the clerical ranks. In our world, gay people are always and everywhere members of an "oppressed" class. Those of us who notice the predatory gay character of the scandals are, by extension, "oppressors." In this way the Catholic Church is a microcosm of Western civ circa 2020s.
Haven’t read Donohue’s book. I stopped spending much time on follow up research probably c. late 2019. I came to my conclusions about the problem, saw a similar odd symbiosis taking shape between liberal Catholics and our liberal media on the issue, and realized there was little I could do about it.
Rate of abuse being higher elsewhere, the knowledge that it's mostly teenage boys at risk, and the continued supervision of my kids as they grow are all part of how I stay as a convert from the same time as the posters above.
The volunteer training materials I last saw were also satisfactory, including background checks. Part of reform is having aware adults.
Alter boys is still a big question mark to me. I would need to know a lot more and I might still say no.
Replying to this post to also say that I'm buying that book. How can we expect our kids to take our word for it without any outside materials? Someday any of us parents are going to need backup and newspapers have their own bias of avoiding any criticism of anything homosexual.
Or this (especially):
https://podles.org/sacrilege.htm
You made good points to Jonathan's important post. Like you said, it's important to supervise our kids no matter the environment. The abuse of children is widespread and not just confined to where the media prefers to focus.
The media is fixated on Catholic sex abuse- it exists, clearly, is deplorable and should be exposed. The Church handled it poorly. Ok - but you have to realize this is a battering ram aimed at proving the Church is uniquely evil ( ironic when it comes from liberals who reach levels of quasi NAMBLA advocacy). From what I can figure out - men in power have always had a tendency to be sex abusers of children , women, you name it . Remember Actons absolute power corrupts absolutely (Acton was a Catholic layman who opposed what came out of Vatican 1 reforms).Confronting all this you can say we can progress into a magical sin free world of progress in which we can imagine there is no heaven or hell only sky above us. In other words a world of pure commerce where we sell and buy everything for momentary gratification.
About the hypocrisy, yeah: when you declare yourself to be holy, just being "not statistically worse than the others" isn't gonna cut it.
I should just pull the trigger and go Orthodox. I'm of the belief that the Schism never happened, and also my understanding of the Church is mystic, so I'm totally unperturbed by the ecclesiology of such a shift.
And of course, hypocrisy wouldn’t exist in Orthodoxy. Further, the earlier writer wasn’t justifying anything on the basis of - not statistically worse than others- what he was saying is - I think, the media and this page - have tried to paint the Catholic Church as uniquely evil. By the way if there was no schism- there is no need to change , it’s all the same—- show with different costumes in different languages.
It's not that there wouldn't be hypocrisy, of course, but more that it would matter less when there isn't such an extravagantly hierarchical structure to the whole thing.
Ah, I know Eric pretty well by now; I think he'll get the drift of my comment.
You make a good point about how it's all the same, though. I'm presently Eastern Catholic, so I would think of going Orthodox as just proceeding a few steps further east, away from Rome.
But what’s the point?As for hypocrisy- I will dish out the old La Rochefoucould maxim ( wish I could spell) - hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.At a certain point, if you don’t want hierarchy, you go Protestant.You can have a direct unmediated, non hierarchal relationship with God and as time and generations go by people will say , what was that all about?
I value the Tradition, and I believe in the real presence of the Eucharist. The point is simply to go where the Holy Ghost is more present, or where you're most able to sense His presence.
For the record, I don’t think Rod paints any church as uniquely evil. If he writes on disorders in the West, it’s more because, as a westerner, he sees them.
Exactly right. If there is a Russian version of me, he's writing mostly about the problems within Orthodoxy, because that's what he sees, and that's the majority religious tradition where he lives, and furthermore, that's the religious tradition that for better or for worse will shape the direction of his civilization.
There was a wave of evil inside the Church too terrible to think about. The people who did that were wolves in sheep's clothing. God doesn't want us to do that, he wants us to worship him. There's still evil in the Church but we have to avoid it and fight for holiness ourselves.
That's what I've got. I also believe the Catholic Church is the place to be. I'll ask my (grumpy?) Orthodoxy question elsewhere and perhaps you can look for it.
Like I suggested, I'm not a partisan about the thing, since I don't believe the Schism is metaphysically valid. I'm in favor of Christians going to or staying at where they feel called.
You could also just remain and live your more mystical faith within the rite you are in. Both East and West will have each their particular ecclesiastical disorders. But in Rome disorder is now raging, indeed.
Yeah, but I'm just feeling a little pulled. Dostoevsky was pretty much half of what made me a Christian, and he was Orthodox; I love the theologians of Sophia, most of whom are Orthodox; a lot of my favorite people here on this blog are Orthodox. And if I leave Austin, then that would be the real push, because Eastern Catholic churches aren't easy to find, and I do not intend to go to a Roman church. In a way, that says it all.
I didn't realize you were in Austin. When I was Catholic, I visited Austin once from New York, and went to the Maronite parish in Austin (we were worshiping as Maronites in NYC).
Yeah—unless he was out of town, the priest must have been Fr. Don Sawyer, who founded the parish. His nephew opened a bar down the street from me right when I was thinking about joining the Church, and we got to talking, so that's how I found out about it. And he (the nephew) stood as my godfather when I got baptized on Easter 2021. Synchronicities, right?
Also, please don't feel too embarrassed, but I would like to say that your witness to the Orthodox faith is exemplary. Spiritually speaking, where you're at sounds like a wonderful place to be. And I cannot help but believe that there is something very right about the traditions and spiritual practices that form a person in this way.
Dostoevsky- brilliant novelist. Bad role model. Rabidly anti- Semitic and representative of the anti - Catholic, anti Western, Slavophile tendency in Russian Orthodoxy.
Art vs. artist.
Accidentally sent . Didn’t finish
Of a society becoming totally unmored but overall I’d be very of Dostoevsky.
I think it depends on your diocese. The two I participate in are very much into advertising and telling people to report bad behavior.
‘See something, say something’. ‘Here’s the phone number, website for doing that’. Staffs are very fearful about anyone making allegations and are very proactive about teaching people about what to look for with groomers. A friend of mine was involved with getting our parish’s background checks and training session attendance updated and current.
She ran into the problem where some people were all ‘I’ve been working w/kids or in these programs for years - why do I need a background check now’. It doesn’t occur to many older members who have adult children that parents these days are looking for the procedures to be in place to prevent abuse. A few people stopped volunteering with the under 18’s because they didn’t want to do a background check or take the ‘how to spot a groomer’ class.
I have no problems sending my son to church functions or retreats. I volunteered a lot when he was younger too. My parish has the problem where they tend to live in a church/homeschool bubble, so they might miss problems more secular people would see.
Also, something to keep in mind is that a lot of the boys who were abused were also kids who didn’t have father in the home, so they were susceptible to the idea of having someone fill that father role in their life. That’s something that often gets missed in the discussions of this topic.
I converted back in 1981 and have never seriously considered leaving the Church or ceasing to practice the faith in my not-very-edifying way. For me it was and is the question "Lord, to whom else should we go?" Christ or nihilism. I've written at some length about that in a book that so far no publisher wants. For various reasons Protestantism (in which I was raised) didn't seem viable to me. Orthodoxy probably would have worked but it was not really present to me, physically, intellectually, or culturally.
A degree of congenital cynicism and pessimism have been of assistance in my remaining. I never had many illusions about the clergy at any level, though JPII and BXVI certainly were a help and an inspiration. Francis is a disaster but unlike many orthodox Catholics I don't think his papacy means that the foundation has collapsed. Cracked, but holding. More than fear of collapse I feel a deep sadness that the internal struggle between orthodoxy and surrender to the age, which I had thought was slowly fading, has been renewed by Francis and will go on far past the end of my life.
Maclin, similar decisioning here. I reverted in the early '90s and have never seriously considered re-leaving even during the muddlement of these Pope Francis years. "Lord, to whom else would we go?" nails it. On top of that I've had a small still voice in my head. It's a paraphrase of Pres. John F. Kennedy, of all Catholics: "Ask not what a church can do for you. Ask what you can do for Christ's church." Even when there's not much more I can do than not leave.
Your last line--yeah
I'm a lifelong Catholic. A terrible one, but I'm still in.
In 2019, I was at the Christmas Vigil mass in the cathedral in a mid-sized Southern city. The place was packed. The bishop himself gave the homily...which he devoted to an exegesis—if it even deserves the term—of "From a Distance" by Bette Midler.
I remember thinking: Is this guy going to come out to all of us from the pulpit on Christmas Eve? Amid all the concerns about gay and pedophile priests, he was making Christmas Eve about a song by a gay icon? (A song that isn't even theologically sound: God isn't watching us "from a distance." He's here, right here with us.) Was he going to lead us in singing "In the Navy" as the recessional? I was flabbergasted by the lack of self-awareness.
I attend church when I can, which isn't often enough. Isn't often at all. When I go, I'm suspicious of the clergy, but I remember that I'm not there for them. I'm there for Christ, and for all the souls who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again. I try to see the broken and pathetic nature of the priests as a reminder of just how badly we need what we're really there for—but I totally understand your pain. I don't have kids, but I'm not significantly less troubled.
Bette Midler, Lord have mercy.
To be fair, Midler only sang the song. She didn't write it. I don't think the "gay" element is inherent.
Sure, but for gay men of a certain age—the bishop's age, he's in his 70s—Bette Midler is a gay icon. She performed at gay bathhouses in New York with Barry Manilow in the 1970s.
I just looked him up. In 2020 he was moved on from his mid-sized city and promoted to archbishop of the nearest huge, important city, no doubt taking his formidable knowledge of show tunes with him.
It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.
"The bishop himself gave the homily...which he devoted to an exegesis—if it even deserves the term—of "From a Distance" by Bette Midler."
I swear, where do all these goofy ass Priests come from? Not just this one but all the many that others here have testified to.
I must be the luckiest Catholic in the world.
My parish pastor is an excellent Polish priest who is a great preacher. His assistant is not usually a good preacher, but very down to earth.....the priest you want to confess to. A few weeks back Father, in his hesitant, grasping, way, gave the best sermon I've heard in a long time. He became a priest in his early 60's, and is a widower. Early in his marriage he had decided to leave his wife. He was an agnostic, but his wife brought him to a Catholic priest as a final act of desperation.
He didn't go into detail but he said that he was converted on the spot, that it saved his marriage and his soul, and that he was the worst sinner in this church! He went on to talk about mercy and urged everyone to go to confession. Father is a bit sickly, old, shaky, and REAL......usually it's not very inspiring. But this was pure fire. You could hear a pin drop.
The Bette Midler moments have been non existent in my experience. (I have been a member of 4 parishes in NY and NJ.) I guess that I have been very lucky too.
I didn't even know Bette Midler sang it. I know it in Nanci Griffith's version, which I think was the first. In any case, never mind gay icons, no Catholic priest should be pushing its theology. "God is watching us--from a distance."
I'm saying a quick prayer that I will never hear Bette Midler sing it.
Thanks for sharing your journey openly and in detail. I understand the feelings. I have come through the same process with a deeper faith in the Divine. The RCC has always struggled with its tendency to corruption. That doesn’t excuse the corruption, but neither are we defined by it. Our Lord has to put up with it and He is still there for us - it must be more painful for Him. All you need is one good priest and a handful of fellow believers who take the faith seriously and you have what you need.
I agree with most of the replies here to your comment and dilemma, regarding the issue.
Yes, even if half the numbers are true. . ., look at the nature of the abuse in cases which it clearly occurred, and not simply cases of simply having to believe one person over the other.
Look further as to how the abuse cases where conviction occurred, whether true or not, were subsequently used. Ultimately, even if, the numbers indicate that perhaps approximately 5 % of the clergy have been guilty of it, the numbers mirror closely or, are under the rates for other positions in the secular world, and even clergy of other traditions.
But the important consequence of all this has been a Church, which aside from those outside of it, . .has rocked its own followers, has greatly, and for the foreseeable future seriously damaged its reputation, influence, and its voice on so many moral issues. In so doing, those who have a hunger to gain power, or retain it, elected. . ., or, otherwise,. . ., and wish to push their agenda have significantly impaired those who have traditionally opposed them.
Johnathan, . . you are needed by the Church. You were born for times such as this, for a reason.
No, what our host presents at the beginning of his post is not Catholic but pagan. So many Catholic archbishops, bishops and priests have lost their faith. They no longer truly believe. Father Malachi Martin explained this in taped interviews over three decades ago. The Catholic truth is in the Latin Mass.
I began attending a Novus Ordo Catholic Mass in 1994. It took me a few years to understand how the Catholic Church was being destroyed from within. Homosexuality is the lynchpin of why the Catholic Church is in rapid decline. Homosexuality corrodes everything it touches. Homosexuality is immoral and anti-Catholic. Yet I feel sure that about half the bishops of Europe, Canada and America are homosexual and there is a huge lavender lobby inside the Catholic Church that controls every lever of power. About half of the older priests are homosexual. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI knew this but felt constrained from sorting out the sewage within the Church.
So why did I stay in the Roman Catholic Church? Because it links me to Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It links me historically to the beginnings of Christianity. It helped me that my wife converted in 2000 and we learned our faith together. And in 2002 we moved over to the Latin Mass and haven't looked back since.
Benedict is a tragic figure (and we don't know what really happened in 2013). But the further we get from John Paul II the less I like him. The only thing that "constrained" Woytila from addressing this issue was that it would have cut into his time in front of the mirror. I think it bears repeating that JPII was the Vatican II Pope par excellence. What he was too preoccupied to realize is that Francis (and Artie Roche, and Besame Tucho, and Cupich, and McElroy) is what Vatican II was FOR.
I very much agree with you pretty much on Pope John Paul II. He was an egoist in love with himself. He was a horrific administrator. But he was not actually Satanic like Mr. Bergoglio.
The major point is that JPII and the rest of them didn't realize that when--as on X--characters like Ivereigh and this Raho guy lay down the law for the church there's really nothing Woytila-ites can say to them.
I never put JPII on a pedestal so I can avoid all the exertion necessary to remove him.
I do wish you wouldn't mention Cupich so much. He's my bishop and I'd prefer not to be reminded.
One thing about the Substack is not having a day or so to think through a response. I always post my first thoughts about things. This one seems complex, but I will still post. Two issues: Faith and "sacredness"
First issue, help me out here - I am not positive that this shows disbelief in Catholic teaching. It was before the ceremony. Is there a special connection of this community with Native Americans? Are they near where many live, are many Native American youth being confirmed that day?
I like Fr. Calvin Robinson, who posted this, from what I've seen of him on TV.
Second issue, about the altar - yes that is sacred. In the video I am seeing just the table itself, not the reserved Host, thanks to God. But it brings up the question - what can and cannot be appropriate around the altar when a service is not in progress. Great respect is called for, obviously. But I just don't know. Are not various things done near the altar? For instance, - and this is not an exact parallel - travelled with a Protestant group to actual native people (in a jungle) and they did a traditional dance, though it was in the church hall, not in church. So yes, setting matters and I respect the sacred. I question whether it is automatically not sacred to sing and dance from a Native American culture, providing nothing is said or done contradiction Catholic teaching? And the dance/song not "non-sacred" (e.g. heretical, etc.) is it too secular to have around the altar,
As for the main points here - that the church hurts people greatly when it does not live the faith and show forth the faith - totally agree.
Some things are OK in the church hall but have no place inside the actual church. I've mentioned the American flag as one of those things, but broadly applies to all expressions of secular culture.
I agree. Just like no junior high school library should have a copy of the Bible, or the Koran, for circulation.
What about from a research perspective? I was a history major in college. Maybe I was working on a paper regarding Islam. I think it has a legitimate purpose in a library.
Granted you said Junior High, but I think it still applies
In a college library, yes. I could go either way with high school. But the notion that the Bible is unobtainable any other way is laughable.
I do not doubt the entire building deserves respect. But is every part of the entire building so sacred that nothing but a religious service can take place there? Maybe so, and if so, then this prelude was not a religious service and so was not appropriate. I just don't know but what God did not mind a happy dance and song near the altar even if it was from a folk tradition. So I remain unsure about this one while deeply respecting the sacred nature of a church and an altar.
The entire building can't be so sacred that nothing but a religious service can take place there. For one thing, there's generally a fellowship hall, often in the basement, where the funeral and wedding lunches / dinners are held. These are not religious services, as such.
And we all should probably remember David dancing before the Lord...
Believe it or not, I agree. The American flag does not belong in a church. Christ is for everyone. Earthly nations do not matter.
As a balance to what I just said. Some years back I was a Catholic musician (Yes, one of those groups with guitars most of y'all hate). We were preparing and rehearsing in the sanctuary before mass. A priest happened to be there momentarily. I started to walk behind the alter, close to it for some reason, but then drew back, maybe said "oops" or something. The priest said "What's wrong, you think you can't go there because you don't have a penis?"
I was horrified! So yes, I do sense the sacred. I still just wonder...we sang kinda close to the altar , but yes, not right at it.
I've mentioned this before. Originally the sanctuary was for ordained clergy, vowed monastics or those tonsured to minor orders. It was not intended as a "men only" space. Alas, the decline of minor orders and monasticism has necessitated lay people assisting there, and in Orthodoxy too.
OK, what I meant was that I as a lay person did not feel right standing just behind the altar. So, I do have an internal sense of the sacred there. And also, I thought the priest was crude. Not that I don't like sexual humor and frank references, I do - but I thought it just was not the time or place nor was it funny.
I was once asked by the priest to bring something into the altar after the Liturgy. I found myself reluctant to enter.
I do agree that priest was very inappropriate
There is no justification for a priest to have spoken like that! Awful.
As I've mentioned a few times, I am a newcomer to the Catholic faith. I joined our local parish six years ago. The music is mediocre at best (piano, bassoon, electric violin and four voices) and the church itself was built in 1971 and has the feel of a gymnasium. The parishioners drag themselves into the church in their Crocs and sweats and Eagles jerseys (as my friend, John Lukacs, wrote; he too criticized some of the parishioners in his church to which his wife responded, "At least they are there"). Being a newcomer, I'm not sure how to categorize the church, but I have a feeling that it's mainstream Catholic. Upon the suggestion of an acquaintance, I was referred to a FSSP church that performs the Latin Mass. The music is heavenly with about a dozen men and a dozen women singing hymns in Latin accompanied by an organ. The altar is beautiful and the building itself is late nineteenth century Romanesque. The parishioners dress up and there is a dress code printed in the church flier. The service makes for a transcendent experience that for me, brings me closer to Jesus Christ. Those four women holding feathers and dressed in Indian garb is a joke compared to the complexities of the music of Bach and the symbolism and symmetry in the altar and the architecture and design of the church structure itself harmonious-- all composed, designed and built to praise God. These things that humans have created are God's gifts to us that have been passed down for centuries, and we should be humbled and grateful for them. I have thought of this example: Professional sports draw such viewership because people are attracted to watching the best of the best in terms of human performance. For me, the same holds true for the mass. If rules are loosely enforced or watered down and expectations are low, then slovenliness is what you get. Keep expectations high and a more meaningful experience is what you get.
For me the Parable of the Good Samaritan tells the core of Christian faith as completely as any other scripture, perhaps the most. That one who tried to justify himself before God Among Us by quizzing Him (admittedly one of my go-to tricks during prayer), ended up answering Jesus correctly and receiving a personal command from Him, inspires me. And though I'm no Bible scholar I've felt that Christ was both the victim and the Samaritan in this parable. We are called to love Him who suffered for us, and to suffer for Him who loves us. Any sacred space which tries to direct the focus of worship away from this centrality needs revising.
I will say for now that I really liked this piece, and it makes a good lenten meditation (as opposed to the travails of Donald Trump). This is the "old Rod" writing.
I think there is a time and place for a church to celebrate certain ethnic aspects of their congregation, but the liturgical service is absolutely not that time. My former Orthodox parish in Wisconsin had a Russian dance troupe that performed at various community events and church festivities, but certainly not in the church itself and not part of the divine service. When I was a Lutheran growing up we had a brass band at the church. It would perform classical-style hymns on major Sundays but would play German polkas at the town’s annual Oktoberfest. There is time these cultural accoutrements, but I’m shocked/not shocked a priest or bishop would allow this in the church.
Any time a conversation about Catholicism comes up, I refer to myself -- only half tongue in cheek -- as a "recovering Catholic." As someone who is old enough to remember the esthetic glory of the Latin mass, I find the service you describe appalling. Makes me wonder if such syncretism is a common symptom of every culture in terminal decline. Except that in our current wave of syncretism, there's the added factor of virtue-signaling. Or as I might call in if I were in one of my more crotchety moods, pandering. They must honestly believe that things like this makes them more "relevant," and thus somehow more appealing.
The video link brings one back to this article rather than the video
You mean the Calvin Robinson one? https://twitter.com/calvinrobinson/status/1771310526271733876