How a Marian TOB Helps Us Understand the Assumption of Mary

When I was studying the Catholic Faith before my conversion, one of the biggest hangups I had was around the Assumption of Mary. While I always believed Mary was perpetually virgin, could accept the Immaculate Conception, and could even believe in Mary as Co-Redemptrix (!), I thought the Assumption was just proof that Catholics were engaging in Mary worship. It was something that you only believed was "Biblical" if you contorted apocalyptic imagery to see what you wanted to see. Since the Church was right on everything else, so I just decided to accept her wisdom and take the darn plunge of faith.

The Wisdom of St. Pius X

Yesterday in the Ordinary Form, Catholics celebrated the feast of St. Pius X. He is viewed as many things by many people. To some, he was the great Anti-Modernist pope of the legendary encyclical Pascendi. For others he was the liturgical reformer of things such as Gregorian Chant. When I look at St. Pius X, I see above all the insightful pastor who can teach us a lot of things today, if only we would listen. Since we recently had a nice debate about the use of inflammatory labels, I wish I would've found this quote sooner. In his first encyclical E Supremi, the Pope lays out a mission to "restore all things in Christ" and then gives some practical outlines on how to accomplish that. The paragraph that follows might be one of the greatest exhortations on evangelization printed by a Pope. It deserves to be quoted at length:

Pete Vere to Catholic Commentators: Stop using "Radical Traditionalist" and "RadTrad"

Most of you reading this won't know who Pete Vere is, unless you are a canon law wonk, or a veteran of the early days of Catholic Blogging. Mr. Vere was a well known canon lawyer who had done extensive work on the SSPX. What makes him interesting today is he was also one of the people who did the most to make "radical traditionalist" and "radtrad" a popular phrase. As someone who not only went to the Extraordinary Form but someone who helped guide a lot of Bishops into establishing indults (remember them days? If not, blessed are you!), when he used the phrase, it stuck. The big name apologists of the world got their info about "radical traditionalists" from Pete. I include all of this backstory for a reason: namely Pete's surprising reversal on using the terms in a post on his facebook page. Here are the money quotes:

But that does not mean Kevin is wrong. Rather, like Shawn, I suspect Kevin is right... And deep down inside I think that is what bothered me most about Kevin's response- the fact that him being right means I have to let go of old prejudices formed during yesteryear's battles. battles that today's generation of trad never faced...

In essence, the expression "radtrad" was coined to allow traditinoalists to escape the menu. It served its purpose. However, today's generation has been invited to eat at the table.

I'm not a fool. I realize a lot of people will keep using radtrad and other insulting terms. Yet I think they should really reflect on Pete's words. He is known as an old school scrapper when it came to debates. Yet he also realizes that such an approach actually harms everyone today: it harms the SSPX, it harms loyal traditionalists, and it harms every other Catholic as well. If you think there deserves to be a spot for traditionalists at the table (and at least in public these individuals profess for that to be the case), then it really is simple: drop the terms. The man who made the term mean what you think it means today is telling you to do so.

A Time to Listen

The theme of listening is the subject of my latest column at Catholic Lane.  There has been a lot of buzz about the whole "radtrad" debate that I seemed ot have kicked off.  What do trads do now?  I cover that, and give a few other ideas going forward.

Listening is one of the hardest things to do, especially in a tribalistic polarized landscape like we often find ourselves today.  We have an inclination to "refute" and "argue" under the guise of a dialogue, when in reality, we should just shut up, let the other speak, take to heart his words, and act on them later.

On Divisive Terms, Dialogue, and Reading "The Signs of the Times"... Guest Editorial by I. Shawn McElhinney

KMT note: Longtime readers of the Catholic blogosphere may remember Shawn McElhinney. If you remember him, your perception of him depended greatly on whether or not you attended the Extraordinary Form during the early days of Catholics blogging. He ran the "Lidless Eye Inquisition" with several others in attacking what they perceived to be "radical traditionalists" and "radtrads." Here Shawn explains why he no longer uses the terms.

 

It was brought to my attention recently that Catholic Answers had done a two hour program on traditionalism and terms such as "rad-trad" were utilized as well as a new term "mad-trad." As I helped popularize the terms "radical traditionalist" and "rad-trad" in weblog publications years ago, I was asked by my good friend Kevin Tierney for some thoughts on the use of the term in the modern ecclesial climate. A simple comment would not suffice and after some pondering of the matter, the result is what you have before you. Now I was admittedly privy to some apologists resurrecting the term earlier in the year and proceeding to use it in ways it was never intended to be used. However, that was small potatoes compared to when Catholic Answers (among the largest Catholic apologetics organizations in the world) decides on one of their shows to sanction the use of terms like rad-trad and "mad-trad." With that in mind, a bit of personal disclosure at the outset of this article is necessary.

Metting Halfway

Something happened during the debate surrounding "radtrad" and "radical traditionalist." No, everyone didn't suddenly convert to the position they disagreed with before.  Instead, I think everyone is regressing to the mean after some initial bumps in the road.

Giving the Status Quo a Push (More on the whole Radtrad Debate)

Nobody died and made me leader of a cause, but the way I see it, traditionalists should keep the following things in mind moving forward:

Letting Us Stand Together

The dicussion surrounding my editorial at Catholic Lane generated a lot more discussion than I ever would have hoped or wished for. There have been a lot of varied responses, some more valuable than others. I'd like to call the attention of my audience to one of these responses in particular, by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.

Latest Column at Catholic Lane

So I said before I have bad timing, and here is what I mean.

 

Over the past two weeks I've been working on an article which calls for the terms "radical traditionalist" and "radtrad" to be dropped from the popular lexicon. Part of this was even done in a dialogue with Dave Armstrong one can see in previous posts. I advocated dropping the term not to help out those classified as "radtrads", but as a way of cooling the temperature of the debate. "Radtrad", like "Neo-Catholic" is a way to demean and insult the dreaded other. That both have pretty precise definitions is utterly beside the point. It still comes across as hopelessely polarizing, and the last thing we need is more polarization.

 

Of course, this happens around the same time that a little tempest in a teapot begins brewing regarding the Latin Mass and a religious order. It is a bit tough to call for friendlier dialogue with greater charity when you see a lot of the reactions of some traditionalists, who used this more as a pretext for pope bashing than anything else. Let's be honest. Some people here doing this are people who are legitimately worried about the Latin Mass. They might be overreacting, but they mean well, and people should remember that. Yet there are others who simply use whatever they can as a pretext to air out their grievances about how they really don't like Pope Francis for whatever reason you want.

 

There are also traditionalists far better than yours truly using the moniker as a way of rebuking their actions. I sympathize with that stand. This behavior is wrong and intolerable. Yet now more than ever we need to be above reproach and charitable, even with those who deserve it least. It's a principled stand few will listen to, but few listen to me anyways, so I might as well plant the flag. Using these terms do nothing but add strife and vision, and it is possible to do this stuff without using such language. It isn't easy, and we fallen human beings take the easy way out far too often. I get that. Yet just this once, let's appeal to our higher nature okay?

The Triumph of Division

I certainly hope Catholic Answers is happy.  They wasted a lot of money on a pointless two hour radio program that didn't help their audience understand traditionalists, "radical" or otherwise.  What they did do was create an incredible amount of ill will from traditionalists, and even those who aren't.  When these kind of circumstances happen, certain traditionalists will go out of their way spoiling for a fight.

I'm not really one to comment too much on the article in The Remnant.  When one gets past Mr. Ferrara's verbal flourishes, one finds there actually aren't a lot of things to disagree about.  I think everyone would agree that nobody is obligated to attend Mass in the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form.  Everyone would also agree (or at least they should) that the Church has been under attack from both the world and from within, and that weapon has many names:  the dictatorship of relativism, modernism, secularism, etc.  I think it is also beyond dispute that everyone agrees the Second Vatican Council wasn't implemented pretty good, if at all.  Those who disagree are free to find beef with Pope Benedict (who spoke of a false council of the media that has mistaken for Vatican II) and Pope Francis.

These truths aren't denied by anyone, yet both sides have to act like they do.  Why?  To put it bluntly, people are pretty angry when they are treated as second class Catholics, and they are likely to fire back in kind.  When people aren't around screaming "rad-trad", you don't see too much talking about "Neo-Catholic."  Neither term is actually descriptive of anything.  It simply means "other people do crap I don't like, and I need to condemn it in the flashiest way possible."  They are polemical terms that belong to a previous age.  They are also words that are only meant for the choir.

So now we've got another pointless conflict that the good folks at Catholic Answers don't actually disagree with, or at least wouldn't dare to disagree with it in public, as they really are settled matters.  What's sad is that others are actually starting to become a bit more honest in their assessment of matters.  The only problem with this kind of approach is you aren't going to drive up ratings for your radio show or print magazine.  Instead you will do the far more mundane task of slowly but surely laying a proper foundation for true Catholic unity.  Perhaps Catholic Answers would be far better suited instructing its audience how to do that.

Why We Speak Past Each Other

As I've been mulling over a bigger work on so called "radical traditionalism" (more on this over the next week!), there have been a few other things that have happened which I want to talk about.  In trying to reach out to traditionalist audiences, two different voices gave two different critiques, but both seemed to fall pretty flat.  While some partisans will say this is just proof that trads are obstinate and impossible to have a discussion with, I think a more honest reading gives a far more simpler answer.

Michael Voris, Dave Armstrong, and Catholic Derp

Over at his blog and Facebook, Dave Armstrong is offering a critique of popular Catholic evangelist Michael Voris, and some of his more stinging criticisms of much of what passes for Catholicism today.  I find myself agreeing overall with what Dave is saying:  Voris is writing checks with his mouth that can't possibly be balanced.  Yet I find the answers he is offering unsatisfactory.  Just to make things clear, I don't think there's necessarily a disagreement, I just want to go off my own way on this, and hopefully provide a better diagnosis.

Charity Reigns Within the House of God

For all of the good that social media has given us, one cannot deny the negatives that have come with it.  One of the biggest negatives is the way we dehumanize those we disagree with on the blogosphere.  One would think that Catholics would be above this.  One thinking this would also be incredibly naive.  Sadly, some of the most well known Catholic bloggers are professionals at little else nowadays than dehumanizing those they disagree with.  When you rebuke them, others will rebuke you, reminding you that "they also do a lot of good which you don't see, so you should let it go."

While we should always make accommodation for fallen human nature, we shouldn't hesitate to realize what we are doing is making an accommodation.  These types of individuals do just as much damage to the gospel as the benefit they do from that positive work.  St. Cyprian elaborates on this issue in On the Unity of the Church:

Therefore also the Holy Spirit came as a dove, a simple and joyous creature, not bitter with gall, not cruel in its bite, not violent with the rending of its claws, loving human dwellings, knowing the association of one home; when they have young, bringing forth their young together; when they fly abroad, remaining in their flights by the side of one another, spending their life in mutual intercourse, acknowledging the concord of peace with the kiss of the beak, in all things fulfilling the law of unanimity. This is the simplicity that ought to be known in the Church, this is the charity that ought to be attained, that so the love of the brotherhood may imitate the cloves, that their gentleness and meekness may be like the lambs and sheep. What does the fierceness of wolves do in the Christian breast? What the savageness of dogs, and the deadly venom of serpents, and the sanguinary cruelty of wild beasts? We are to be congratulated when such as these are separated from the Church, lest they should lay waste the doves and sheep of Christ with their cruel and envenomed contagion.
 

The people that St. Cyprian has in mind are primarily heretics, but it is interesting that he first slams them for horrible morals in their lack of charity, not horrible doctrine.  (He touches upon the doctrine in the next segment.)  In the mind of this great saint, a lack of charity has no place within the Church.  By her very nature as an evangelical church, charity is part of the Catholic Churches nature. 

Some will counter "well sorry, I believe that error needs to be condemned as error, and we shouldn't be having a tea party with evil people."  Of course nobody is saying you cannot condemn error.  Indeed, St. Cyprian is very strong in condemning error in this and several other treatises.  The point is instead to stick to issues, not the person as much as possible.  Whenever you bring up the defects of another, ask yourself "is this relevant to the argument."  If it isn't, then don't bring it up.

Another point is to show charity to those within your own house.  You don't have to like them.  Yet to hold those as less than Catholic than you are (especially when the Church has not specifically said so) is a sin against charity, and this damages the effectiveness of your message.  To treat anyone as somehow less than human because of said disagreements is beyond shameful, and it doesn't matter how much good that individual has done over the years for the cause.

The Evangelical Purpose of the Church

Why are we Catholic?  What's the point?  I think this simple point is lost in a lot of the technical discussions Catholics (especially those in the blogosphere) engage in.  This point is lost to the detriment not just of our souls, but of Catholicism as a whole.  Indeed, one of the biggest problems we suffer in the Church today comes from getting the answer to these two questions wrong.  The comforting thought is that the problem we are experiencing today is something that Christians throughout history have confronted.  If we are to solve this problem, we should look to these sources.

Understanding Tradition

Since we have been on a bit of a back to basics trip lately, I think it's time to examine the proper way to look at tradition.

First, we need to understand the Biblical Concept of Tradition.  In the Bible, St. Paul commends the Thessalonians for adhering to the paradosis they have received, whether by word or letter.  (2 Thess 2:15)  In English, we know that as the word tradition.  Now in the Greek,  paradosis was simply that which was handed down.  So when we speak of tradition, we speak of that (in whatever venue) was handed down throughout the ages in the Church.

The confusion comes from the fact that, like the phrase salvation, tradition can have several different meanings, all compatible with each other.  First and foremost, there is that which is called Apostolic Tradition, which we normally know as Tradition with a capital T.  This comes from either the Bible or the Oral Teaching of Christ & The Apostles, handed down throughout the generations to the present, which is safeguarded by the Holy Ghost so that people can always learn God's truth.  Such a teaching based on Tradition would be that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice where the timeless Sacrifice of the Cross is made present in time to the Christian, or that there are Seven Sacraments.  These are directly matters of revelation, as well as of faith and morals which can be traced throughout history.  As such, they cannot under any circumstances be changed.  Baptism will never cease to be a Sacrament, and the Mass will never be just a communal praise & worship service, women will never be ordained priests, etc.

Another form of tradition is that which we ecclesiastical tradition.  This is tradition not neccessarily handed down from the Apostles, but which is meant to support the truths of the Christian faith.  Such examples would be the rites of the liturgy and the sacraments outside of the essentials.  These make Apostolic Tradition clearer and relevant to the Christian.  Since they are meant to communicate timeless truths to an audience in time, these can change.  Yet organized religion worshipping Yahweh is at least 5,000 years old, and these traditions have developed in just about every circumstance conceivable, and have developed organically over these millenia.  So while they can be changed, you really should have a good reason for doing them, and they should only be done through the highest of channels, lest disaster ensue.  (More on this later.)

There is finally a third instance in which tradition is used.  This refers mainly to local customs and practices which have developed over time.  These aren't universal, and more often than not they aren't even regional.  Some examples of this might be how fasting is applied in your area (which is a lot more diverse than you would think), certain devotional prayers after Mass communities have prayed, etc.  The same rules apply in ecclesiastical tradition, yet they are even more prone to change, and are frequently changed on the local level.

When properly understood, tradition is a lot less confusing than people make it out to be.  Yet based on these definitions, the perceptive reader can see ways in which today's modern audience (on all sides) really misunderstand what tradition is.  This is what we will be discussing in future posts, starting with a bit of in house cleaning:  how some traditionalists fail to properly understand tradition.

Bishop who Creates Ordination Crisis Removed

Over at Fr. Z's realm, he "rants" about the Vatican removing a Bishop from his diocese in Australia.  In short, Bishop Morris of the Diocese of Toowoomba (my new favorite name for a diocese!) published opinions to the faithful that called for the ordaining of women and for recogizing Protestant "orders."

To any faithful Catholic surfing the web, Fr. Z is required reading.  Me, I like to get my fix in doses of every few days, and just scroll through the page.  This rant of his is no exception.  He rightly points out that the Vatican took this action because there really was no other choice.  Elsewhere on his blog, he makes a point I'd like to expand on.

Many of the Bishops' defenders (in such "catholic" publications as Natholic Catholic Reporter and the like) bewail the fact that Rome is cracking down on innovative ways to solve the shortages in Catholic priests.  Like Fr. Z and others, I believe these people have lost any credibility on the issue.  It was their liberalism that caused the crisis. 

The Progressive "vision" of the Church has looked to "modernize" Christianity, making it not too different from the modern world.  They presented people with a choice:  the modern world, with all of its "fun", or Christianity, which believed as the modern world did, but every now and then had such things as obligations to go to "worship services", have a vague sense of guilt, and belong to an "institution."  If there's one thing the modern world hates, it is "institutions."

They present Jesus Christ as just an interesting historical figure, if he even exists!  In this sense there is nothing that special about Christianity.  Just like other religions, with a few changes.

Not surprisingly, people haven't responded too enthusiastically to such a Church.  The seminaries emptied, followed by the emptying of the individual churches once they received a liturgy that was bland.  A sunday ballgame was far more "entertaining" that people "got something" out of.  Faced with such a crisis, they conclude that the identity of Catholicism has not been watered down enough.

Those like Bishop Morris essentially want us to become Unitarians.  Who cares if the man is a Protestant who denies the Eucharist, papal infallability, or even the Trinity!  He has a "ministry" the Church should recognize, and invite him to excercise that "ministry" alongside them.  I will be willing to grant their "ministry" the moment they grant the fact that those like Bishop Morris have a direct line of succession to the Apostles themselves and during every Mass offer up the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to the Father as a true and propitiatory sacrifice for sin.

If this were the case, a natural question would have to be posed to the Protestant "minister."  Why aren't you doing this?  If this thing called the Mass is truly a propriation for our sins and we truly receive Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, why are you denying your flock something this vital?  Are your clever words or business models for evangelization really something better than the Body and Blood of Our Lord?

All throughout Christianity those who are looking to relativize are becoming irrelevant.  Even amongst our seperated brethren the Protestants, the mainstream denominations are a shell of their former selves.  Why?  Because there is no reason to even bother going to Church.  They try to make you feel good.  Football provides more entertainment than their worship services ever could.  Engaging in fornication or adultery makes you feel better in the short term than they ever could.  Even worse, for today's generation doing nothing beats all of the above.  Why even bother getting out of bed?  And we should emulate these men?

Only when being a Christian means something do people follow.  The Pentecostal movement might be a false version of Christianity in my eyes, but they offer something.  It isn't just about the rock concert atmosphere.  They offer the belief that the Holy Spirit is not only real, but actively involved in the lives of the faithful.  (What we disagree about is the way they claim the Spirit works, we agree on the active part.)  Other flourshing Evangelical Churches hold that the solas of the Reformation actually mean something, and change every aspect of their existence.  In Catholicism, traditionalist seminaries run out of room they get so many applicants.  Those dioceses that offer Catholicism as something substantially different and greater than the world have little trouble finding priests.

Yet ultimately this message requires the faithful, from Bishop to pew-sitter, do something of substance.  It requires them to amend their lives and live as new creations.  It requires them to tell the world that there is something we have which you could never in your greatest days hope to posesss.  In short, we need a Catholicism that is not arrogant but still has a bit of swagger.

The Meaning of Easter

To the secular world, our celebration of Easter Sunday is an odd event. In their eyes, we celebrate a corpse rising from the dead, and they really can’t figure out why.


St. Paul understood this well. He described the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as a “stumbling block” to the Jews, and “folly” to the Greeks. Yet he also understood that this was the most important moment in human history. Yet why is this so? Why was the Resurrection such a “game-changer?” It is one thing to say “Jesus has conquered sin and death.” Yet what does that really mean for our lives?

While Christ’s rising from the dead provides life, it also provides death to certain things. First amongst those is fear. Fear, combined with pride, is what led to our downfall in Eden. The eating of the Tree proved all too clearly we were not gods. Our death is an all too frequent reminder of that fact as well. If we are mere creatures of flesh and bone, there exists certain finality to it all.

The world operated according to a far different standard during this time. Rome was the pre-eminent power of the time of the Bible. Behind the propaganda of stability and “peace”, a far different reality existed. The conquered had the view of a British warlord:

To theft, slaughter, and rape they deceitfully name Empire; and even where they make a desert, they call it peace.

If nothing else, the Romans were brilliant at wanton slaughter of those who resisted them. For the pagan culture, there was a relative finality on this earth after death. Notions of an afterlife were relatively vague, and certainly not something that one strives for in preference for life. The Romans exploited this to the maximum. Faced with certain death or Roman service, many chose Roman service. Yet for all their success, there was a tiny sect with whom this arrangement had little to no success: an obscure loose collection of the mainly poor known as “Christians.”

To the Christians, it was not enough to say they were not afraid of death, as death was a fact for practitioners of an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. When Caesar threatened with death, the response of the Christian was the response of Tertullian (though perhaps without the bombastic nature):

But go zealously on, good presidents, you will stand higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish, kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent. Therefore God suffers that we thus suffer… Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The blood of Christians is seed...  We are mown down by you, the more in number we grow;

Ignatius of Antioch (late first early second century), after begging Roman Christians not to use their influence to save his life, described his martyrdom as follows:

Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to any one. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ…. But when I suffer, I shall be the freed-man of Jesus, and shall rise again emancipated in Him…

Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

The earliest Christians saw their deaths as a test of their ultimate fidelity. If they were faithful unto the end, death would not be the last word. It was not the last word for Christ, and He promised the same for us if we endured to the end. It is for this reason we speak of Rome as an era of the past, yet near two millennia later, we speak of Christianity as that which ultimately conquered Rome. Just as the people of the age cried “His blood be upon us and our children”, they did not realize what they were doing. The blood indeed was upon their descendants, bringing them to everlasting life.

While this changed the world as a whole, far more profound was the change upon the individual. If death truly held no power over Christ, death holds no true power over his disciples. If something as powerful as death was powerless against him, what are we to say of the smaller things? Have people not transformed every aspect of their lives over this fact? Temptations, addictions, none of these can hold sway over the individual if they remember Christ conquered these things. We need only follow the command He gave after rising to his friends: Follow me.

The Difficulties of "The Apologetic Mindset"

In the January issue of First Things, David Mills writes about the issue of apologetics. What he said has so far triggered quite a bit of discussion. He states the following:

I think Mark is right about this. Culture precedes apologetics—or maybe it would be more accurate to say apologetics only matters for the believer when it leads him to a greater comfort with or confidence in the culture that has formed and continues to form him, freeing him from doubts so that the culture can mold him more deeply. (Critical reflection on that culture and argument is the job of theology, and theology may, of course, suggest doubts. It’s complicated, as they say in movies.)

Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees might apply to many of us, cut rate Gnostics that we are, who assume—partly, perhaps, because we like to argue and think we’re good at it—that knowledge and particularly success in argument is the essence of the Faith. We could easily be found praying “Lord, I thank you that I am not like that poor guy over there with his holy cards, who wouldn’t know what to say to Richard Dawkins,” when he is having a lively and intimate conversation with Our Lord, His Mother, and several saints with whom we are not yet on speaking terms.

Pride goes before a fall, as Proverbs notes. Accepting an argument is not conviction, even when you think the argument final and conclusive. You may change your life or your life may be changed and suddenly the argument doesn’t seem so final and conclusive any more. We can all think of obvious cases when someone made a moral choice, usually sexual, that led him to reject beliefs he had believed with all his heart and mind, and should assume that we might be equally affected by choices more subtle and harder to see. That you can defend a doctrine now and win does not mean you will believe it tomorrow.

Anyone who has read my works over the years has known I have talked about a similar problem. I’m grateful to see this getting a far wider exposure. I’d like to return to this theme today.

I have never been an “anti-apologist.” I think the apologetics movement within Catholicism in the last 35 years is one of the most important trends in the Church in the 20th century. The apologetics movement has provided a valuable frontline defense against those who seek to attack the Church. St. Peter tells us that we must be able to give a reason for the hope within us (1 Peter 3:15), and the apologetics movement is just one way of doing this.

That being said, there are some difficulties. Many Catholic apologists in this age of social networking and the blogosphere have long ago stopped writing about actual apologetics. They feel their expertise in apologetics (an expertise earned) makes them relevant on various other matters as well, some of which aren’t even remotely religious. (One could read Mark Shea’s rants on foreign affairs and “torture” and one realizes there’s really nothing pro or anti-Catholic about them, they are simply an attempt to use alleged Church teachings to mask his political beliefs.

This trend has proven quite disastrous when many of the apologists started wading into matters where Catholics of good will could take varying prudential stances. With a few notable exceptions, the apologetics movement had some of the harshest critics of those who were attached to the Latin Mass and various approaches to handling the faith. It wasn’t enough to accept Vatican II as a valid ecumenical council whose decrees are binding upon the faithful. It had to be “the highest form of thought the Church has ever had.” (To paraphrase Dave Armstrong in a dispute I had with him in the past.) To say that John Paul II did some good and some not so good things is indeed beyond the pale. If you don’t refer to him as “John Paul the Great”, it is evidence you are resisting the Holy Ghost. These are prudential matters that cannot be solved by the intellectual formulations of apologetics. Catholics of goodwill are free to take a variety of positions on these and countless other issues.

I think it goes without saying that many in the apologetics movement have well overstepped this boundary. Part of the problem is what I call the curse of “Career Catholicism.” For many of them, defending the faith is not just their vocation, but their occupation. They need to put food on the table through it for their families. The only problem with this is unless you are really good at what you do; you can only beat a dead horse so many times. If you’ve been writing apologetics at least once a week for 3 years, you’ve basically demonstrated all that is wrong with Protestantism. Yet your children still need to eat. So people start going into other areas they really have no business being in, but attempt to speak with the same level of authority. In the secular world, this is known as the mentality of “publish or perish.”

These issues, while problematic, can be easily managed. It simply requires a greater humility (never a bad thing) and knowing your limits. The problem I wish to outline next does real damage, and ties back into the point Mr. Mills made.

The mindset prominent amongst many apologists today is that of what I have derisively called “sola intellectua.” In this mindset, the Catholic Church is simply a proposition of intellectual formations. Provided one demonstrates an intellectual belief in a given doctrine or principle, that is the height of catholicity. This is obviously wrong. As Fulton Sheen famously said, “Catholics do not submit a dogma. They submit to a person, Jesus Christ.” The intellectualism problem infects all circles of Catholicism. One can see it particularly on display in the debates surrounding Christopher West. It is practically a belief of “sola fide” in Theology of the Body, and one will be cured from all the ills of this vale of tears.

This approach is in error because Jesus Christ engages more than just our intellects. Our reason and intellect are of great importance, but we cannot stop there. Jesus Christ engages us in every aspect of our life. Understanding the pedagogical mission of the Church might be great for a lecture or a thesis paper, but what does it tell you about living the everyday aspects of your faith? Not much.

These sorts of things have dropped to the wayside. Rather than placing apologetics against culture, we need to make sure that instead, the work of apologetics flows from the greater Catholic culture.

On Merit and Mary

Thanks to some very pointed questions in the comments box, I have been given the opportunity to further develop my thought, and I hope give the outline for a further exploration of devotion to the Saints, and the Blessed Virgin Mary in particular.

In short, there are concerns that my statement:

"As a result, even the prayer of the most unknown of saints in heaven would have equal efficacy as the greatest saint".

There is a worry that this downplays and even confuses the notion of why Catholics pay such high devotion to Mary.  Why is anyone devoted to her in asking for her intercession, if her ability to intercede is not "greater" than everyone else?  Didn't Mary's life on Earth establish her with this power?

I think a few ground rules need to be established before going any further.  First and foremost, it is God, and God alone, who can answer prayer.  The saints can only intercede.  Their role in the answering of prayer is secondary in imploring their assistance, not primary.

It is for this reason that the Church has never taught that there are things that Mary can obtain that the other saints in heaven are incapable of doing on a strictly objective level.  To the degree that this is believed, one runs the risk of having an improper devotion.  Even our piety is imperfect, and it is something we all must deal with.

Finally, in heaven, there is no "better" or "worse" in heaven.  Even still, intercession of the saints in heaven is not based on what the saints did.  The ability to intercede is based upon what Christ did.  To the extent we share in Christ's priesthood, we can intercede, for we are a "kingdom of priests."  Those in heaven participate fully in Christ.  Sin limits our ability to share in that priesthood. (For whatever you ask in my name shall be granted Our Lord tells us.) Those in heaven have no sin, being "the spirits of just men made perfect."  We also know that since they are in heaven, Christ provides them with every need, so that they lack absolutely nothing, and can obtain whatever they ask in accordance with the Father's will.  Of course, the saints cannot not do the Fathers will.

So why do we venerate the Virgin Mary with such high honors?  In order to understand this, we must understand the first rule of what is called "Mariology", the theology behind devotion to Mary.  mary is never honored by the Church for her own sake.  She is always honored for the sake of Christ.  When the Church proclaimed her Theotokos (Mother of God), they did so primarily to protect the proper understanding of Christ.  Even with the Assumption of Mary, the Church holds that ultimately her being taken into heaven, while a singular grace, also foreshadows our eventual heavenly home by the power of Christ's Cross and Resurrection.

So we aren't devoted to Mary because of her powerful intercession.  We are devoted to Mary ultimately because of she was because of Christ's saving power.  Mary lived as we are called to live, freed from the dominion of sin.  She was free from such dominion because she lacked original sin.  Eventually, all of us will be like that in heaven.  We will be freed completely from sin.  In Mary, Christ gave a foreshadowing of that for us all.  (Some Protestants may dispute this, but my point is not to go into the doctrinal questions regarding Mariology, only to for the moment show its purpose.)

This is why we honor Mary.  In pondering her life (and in asking her intercession, we always are to ponder her), we learn how to live in full accordance with Christ. Pondering the lives of even the greatest of saints on this world, they still had sin, and hence there was some way they did not serve God perfectly.  When we ponder Mary, we ponder how she fulfilled the will of her Divine son perfectly, since there was no such separation on account of sin.  The saints in heaven are just as she is now.  The only difference is she was that from the moment of her conception, to prepare her for the role of being the mother of Our Lord and Redeemer.

On the Intercession of the Saints

Recently I had a friend ask me some very pointed questions regarding Catholicism, giving me ideas on what to write about when doing apologetics.  I really liked these questions, as they were rarely of the strict "boilerplate" mentality.  I liked them so much, I'm going to be devoting time to answering as many of the questions here as I can.  Today, I will deal with questions he posed regarding the intercession of the saints.  They are as follows:

• Aren't the canonized saints in Catholicism simply stand-ins for the western pagan pantheons, the same way they are in Voodoo?  Isn't "Patron Saint" just a syncretized way of saying "god of"?
• Is the popular depiction of Catholics praying to the saints accurate?  If so, why do you pray to dead people when you can be praying to God himself?

• Why does catholic tradition seem to so broadly ignore the idea that "God is no respecter of persons"?  (This ties back with the idea of praying to saints, in that you'd be asking a dead guy to intervene on your behalf with God.  If God is genuinely evenhanded with ALL humanity, this would be a waste of time, at best, and a violation of the first commandment, at worst). 

I would like to start out by outlining the basic concept of the Catholic teaching of the Intercession of the Saints, and then move onto the specific questions.

What is a Saint?

I believe there is a common misconception in Protestant circles by exactly what we mean when we say "Saint."  Whenever people think of saints, they think of typically those prominent Christians throughout the years whom we attach "Saint" at the beginning of their name.  This is certainly true, but does not tell the whole story.  

These individuals are those the Church decrees worthy of special recognition.  They are those heroes worthy of remembrance.  When we think back on great figures of history, we are often inspired by their great deeds.  This is no different for the canonized saints.  We remember their love of God, and we strive to do the same.  The entire 11th chapter of Hebrews is filled with such examples of those heroes.

Yet the meaning of saint is far more expansive than simply those few individuals throughout human history.  "Saints" refer to all Christians.  Paul frequently reminds us that we are the saints, those chosen by God.  We are called to be saints, each and every one of us.  Great holiness is not the privilege of some cloister or monastery. 

So when we ultimately speak of the intercession of the saints, we speak of the manner in which all Christians pray for each other.  We base this off the First Epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy:

I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men:  For kings and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God: and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus:  Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times...

 So far, Catholics and Protestants agree that we should pray for each other.  The Protestant objects that we err when we ask "dead people" to pray as well.

At this point, another misconception needs to be cleared up.  If one notices, I have not used the phrase "praying to the saints."  While from a certain standpoint true, it's incredibly misleading in modern language.  Prayer is equated with an act of worship of the One True God.  If that is the case, we most certainly do not pray to the saints.  To do so would be absolutely idolatry.  The saints in heaven cannot "grant" something if we ask for their prayers.  All they can do is the same thing the Christians on earth do, pray to the Father that God grants these things for us.

So the question is, as my friend put it "why ask a bunch of dead guys to pray for you?"  We must remember that:

And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you:  I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.  (Matthew 22:31-32)

 We have to let that sink in.  Nobody is truly "dead" when they are in Christ.  Those in heaven are supremely aware of the affairs of men on earth.  The Apocalypse of Saint John teaches that the martyrs in heaven cry out every second of the day for vengeance against the devil in slaying the saints on Earth.  The Transfiguration of Our Lord in John's Gospel shows Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah.  Elijah was taken to heaven centuries before Christ came to this earth in human flesh, and Moses was long dead even in Elijah's time.  What were they doing?  No doubt they were talking about our salvation and Christ's mission on Earth.  If there were any doubt about the "dead" in their understanding of our activities on Earth, there can be none now.

Yet do they intercede for us?  I guess we must pose a counter question:  Do Christians stop being Christians when they die?  If they are indeed still in Christ and perfected, would that not include the command to "pray for one another" being followed perfectly?  Yet I think there is further evidence from the Scriptures for this concept when we turn to the writings of the Prophet Jeremiah:

And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not towards this people: cast them out from my sight, and let them go forth.  (Jeremiah 15:1)

 When we read this verse, we need to think of the context.  Jeremiah was a prophet in Judah for the latter years of her Kingdom.  By the time this verse occurs, Judah has slid almost entirely back into apostasy.  They have forsaken the reforms of the righteous King Josiah (of whom Jeremiah was one of his greatest champions) and began worshiping false gods again.  In many ways, they were even worse than so many of the previous wicked Kings, because they knew the truth, and willingly rejected it.

The covenant God made with them at this point was broken.  Since the people did not follow the precepts of the covenant, rather than blessing, they would receive the curse, in the case, the destruction of their beloved Jerusalem and their enslavement by the Babylonians.  This is the context of this verse.  After establishing this grave wickedness, God proclaims that even if Moses and Samuel interceded for the people, God would not spare them their fate.  Note well that God does not say "If a Moses" or "a Samuel" would stand before Him.  He is referring to Moses and Samuel, the very same as the great heroes of the Old Covenant, and the famed intercessors of Israel before God.

Would this not imply that under different circumstances, God would hear their pleas?  What if the people were not idolaters, but righteous souls redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb?  We know from St. James "the prayer of the righteous man availeth much."  Are these not righteous souls?  We see that they are clearly aware of what is going on, and that the righteous are depicted as interceding before God.  Why not ask them?  We know from the Scriptures, for example, that St. Michael the Archangel is the defender of all God's elect.  St. Michael does battle with the devil as he attempts to destroy the souls of men on Earth.  Knowing that we have such a powerful champion, should we not ask his aid?  Should we not ask for him to plead with the Father for our sake?

The only thing we Catholics should worry about is that we not develop a sense of spiritual laziness in our prayer.   Just because we have a powerful saint interceding for us, this does not excuse us from praying to the Father as well.  Rather, we wish to unite our prayers to that particular saint.  The Protestant may counter "Why not just pray to Jesus yourself?"  At this point, we must ask, do we Christians really do anything alone in our spiritual lives?  Are they not part of Christ's body?  Can we say "I have no need of you" like a hand would say to the feet, as St. Paul mentions in Corinthians?  Of course not.  We go to God with our prayers, but we are never alone.  We know from the Apocalypse that the 24 elders carry the prayers of the saints to the Father.  (Consistent with this in the Catholic tradition is the Book of Tobit, when the Archangel Raphael states he carried Tobias and Sarah's prayers to God.)  The Gospel allows no such boasting of independence, as if we do not need the prayers of others.

Having established the basis of the intercession of those in Heaven, we come to the other questions asked.  Why do we have "patron saints?"  Do they really answer prayers more effectively than the other saints in heaven?  From a strict standpoint, the answer would have to be in the negative.  All the saints in Heaven are perfect, removed of any stain of sin.  As a result, even the prayer of the most unknown of saints in heaven would have equal efficacy as the greatest saint.  So why do we ask for particular saints to pray for us?

I submit that it is for our benefit we mention those names.  When we invoke those saints, we should ponder their lives, and the particular causes they have come to represent.  When Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed St. John-Marie Vianney as the patron of priests, he wanted the Church to reflect on the priestly service and mission of the great Cure d'Ars.  By placing them over this specific cause, we develop a devotion not only to the particular saint, but most importantly, the virtues he championed.  When we invoke the protection of St. Michael, we call to mind his eternal service in defense of God's people, and that we may join him in that battle.  We call to mind his famous statement:  May the LORD rebuke you!  We remember that like St. Michael, we do nothing on our own power, instead relying on the supreme power of the Father in Heaven to conquer and defeat the devil.

When we call this to mind, it is clear that these are not pagan iterations.  St. Vianney is not the "god" of priests.  He has no direct control over something, as a deity would, and as the pagans believed their deities did.  Rather, those patrons were champions of the causes they now represent.  Most importantly, they are champions of humility in recognizing God's supreme dominion over everything.  Far from taking the credit themselves, they point us to God.  Through their intercession and pondering their lives may we always remain close to the Father whom they championed.