Phew! Christmas is over. Now it is back to business at the National Catholic Reporter. Done with all that cute cuddly baby Jesus stuff, they are back to the real business of bashing the Catholic Church,
These are the introductory paragraphs to their December 26th article by Rose Murphy at NCR. Emphases mine.
My current, critical reading about religion and my growing disenchantment with the Catholic Church do not proceed without some pronounced unease. I feel driven to question beliefs I once held with assured confidence. But am I needlessly cutting off a strong spiritual lifeline by going so rarely to my local church? Am I wallowing in intellectual smugness and neglecting an insistent Catholic tie that goes beyond logic?
It is difficult to stay loyal to a church whose members once unleashed cruel forms of the Inquisition on presumably evil non-believers and whose clergy so recently and secretly protected pedophilic priests. But I am more disillusioned by dogmatic bans on birth control that afflict poor women in developing countries and that too often obscure the core message of Christ’s call for compassion.
Impossible now to recapture that ardent, unquestioning faith I had as a child, and into adulthood: that Christ was physically present in communion, that I had a special guardian angel, that certain prayers chipped away at Purgatory time. Even after outgrowing those fantasies, I continued to keep a core faith in the larger Church tenets: that Jesus was the Son of God, that he died for my sins, that I was preparing for an afterlife where I would see God and presumably my parents and all those who had gone before me. Today all of that doctrine is hazy to me, not so much rejected as irrelevant. I know now that humans can never penetrate the idea of God; certainty is – and has always been — an illusion.
Intellectually, I can reject much of the Catholic Church, but emotionally it reels me in whenever I wander from it. I am still nourished by certain Mass rituals: the Prayers of the Faithful (with touching reminders of so much pain among my neighbors), the Sign of Peace and the communal grasp of another hand, the preparations for Eucharist, and the walk up the aisle to receive communion. Just what am I receiving? I know the act of communion matters to me, feeling the host on my tongue is significant, but I don’t know why.
The author goes on to say she doesn’t believe in many Catholic doctrines, but still considers herself a Catholic and receives communion.
But rather than reject a lifetime spiritual path, perhaps I need to get more comfortable with the idea of metaphor in Catholic doctrine and look beyond the literal pronouncements; then it becomes easier to see Christ as a symbolic son of God, as a presence that helps me find the divine spark (God) within myself, and more importantly serves as a model for truly compassionate living.
Receiving the spiritual nourishment of communion then becomes a reminder of so many people who lack food or the means to acquire it.
So can I continue to call myself a Catholic? A friend once framed the dilemma in whimsical language: “I can no more stop being a Catholic than a Navajo could stop being a Navajo.” Ultimately, I think this struggle will always be with me, and that I will come to accept, and perhaps even embrace, a natural state of discomfort. Despite all the ambiguity, I would like to think I am still welcome at the communion table.
This is obviously a woman in need of prayers. She is receiving communion while not recognizing the body of Christ. Perhaps Rose Murphy wrote this as part of her spiritual search. She is obviously wrong on many fronts. She misunderstands history, ecclesiology, and much more but one seems to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in that she cannot seem let go of her childhood faith. That is hope. We should pray for Rose.
We should also pray for the editors of the National Catholic Reporter. What kind of Catholic magazine would publish an article by someone who openly repudiates core Catholic beliefs such as Jesus being the Son of God and transubstantiation who then refers to spiritual nourishment when she really is eating and drinking something else.
St. Paul says “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning(AD) the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. “
I wonder what happens to people who encourage others to drink judgment? Will their fate be any different?
December 26, 2008 at 3:53 pm
To her, I say: THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH WELCOMES YOU.
It always boils down to birth control and sex. Always. Never mind that the rise of contraception has – just as Pope Paul VI predicted – has led to all sorts of abuses against women and the family.
December 26, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I am really getting tired of Catholics who remain members of the Church because they like the candles and think the stained glass windows are neat. I appreciate the fact that the aesthetics of the church itself (in conjunction with the holy spirit) may draw people to mass–which is a good thing. However, why on earth would would someone identify themselves as a member of an organization when they fundamentally disagree with the core tenants of that organization? It seems to me that this is a type of delusion particularly reserved to segments of the Catholic Church. Placed in any other context, the absurdity becomes evident…”Yes, I eat meat at every meal, but I remain a committed member of PETA.”
December 26, 2008 at 4:28 pm
In my experience, I find that those in this author’s position share a common starting point: they presume (uncritically) that the Church is wrong on issue X (usually abortion, contraception, or homosexuality). They presume such because (usually) they FEEL that they are correct, and so they live out sin x as if it were virtue.
From there ideology goes on to trump doctrine, and we discover that an error in the beginning is an error indeed.
If contraception is acceptable then Jesus IS just a symbol.
December 26, 2008 at 6:02 pm
“If contraception is acceptable then Jesus IS just a symbol.”
Yes. That’s exactly what so many don’t understand. The Church’s doctrines rise and fall together. You can’t remove a single stone without causing the structure itself to collapse.
December 26, 2008 at 7:01 pm
NCR should get with the times and rename their rag, the Neo-Catholic Reporter. Then people wouldn’t be confused about where they stand.
December 26, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Over thirty-five ago our little Catholic Charismatic community opened up a small bookstore and I was the book buyer. Using the Decree on Ecumenism as my charter, I endeavored to find- in addition to good Catholic books- books from pentecostal and evangelical sources that did not contradict the truths of the faith. We called our store The Holy Family Bookstore.
As I recall, we notified the bishop and he wrote back to the effect that from the name of our shop people would get the idea it was a Catholic book store, and he wanted us to clearly indicate that it was in fact an interfaith book shop. This was irksome, but on reflection fair enough, and we complied.
Bishops are ordinarily very concerned about the use of the word Catholic, and from our experience, even entities that give the impression of being Catholic, lest the faithful be led astray.
Why, then, in the name of all that is holy, has not the Bishop of Kansas City warned the faithful of this nation against this newspaper? Or has he?
It is in fact anti-Catholic, but a good bit of its advertising revenue comes from Catholic entities- dioceses, universities, parishes.
The thing is a menance. The deacon in our former parish subscribes and puts his old copies in the magazine rack outside the Eucharistic chapel, from which they used to mysteriously disappear after my hour of adoration and be filed in a distant wastebasket…
December 26, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Why are Episcopalians writing for Catholic periodicals?
December 26, 2008 at 7:10 pm
By the way, Jesse, I think it would be more accurate to say that tinkering causes one’s faith to collapse, not the deposit of faith, itself.
When I was 18, I stopped believing in free will. This caused my faith to collapse. I soon stopped going to church, entirely. I continued as an agnostic for 20 years, at the end of which I had a conversion experience. I endured existential emptiness for all that time (and then some), and I consider it to be the only honest alternative available to someone who cannot justify their faith.
To people like Rose Murphy I say, “Where is your intellectual courage?”
December 26, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Catholic Universities and Dioceses advertise in the NCR because they agree with the dissent.
December 26, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I would like to note on a superficial level here that all the parts of Mass she likes (aside from that impalpable feeling that Communion is somehow important) are the Vatican II innovations that are often and much abused. She highlights the “Prayers of the Faithful” and the “Sign of Peace” because to her, religion is all about other people – which ultimately leads one to consider religion as being solely about oneself.
Here is what happens when all your love is for the “Church of the last 40 years” instead of the Church of All Time.
December 26, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Fr. Larry Gearhart,
Shouldn’t the National Catholic Report be more honest and just call themselves the PCR, or “pseudo-Catholic Reporter.”
Or maybe just the “Post-Christian Reporter” and be honest about their radical secularism.
December 26, 2008 at 8:20 pm
“Christ’s call for compassion…”
CMR folk, could you track down and do a post on the idea that compassion in modernity leads to the gas chambers? I’ve seen the idea here and there, but the details escape me. Her words linking compassion to birth control made me think of it.
December 26, 2008 at 8:23 pm
For the past 30+ years, Catholics have been suffering from a confusion of identity due in large part to a misappropriation of and attempted revision of the language of the Faith by the agents of relativism. The greatest threat to relativists is our certainty that Catholicism is objectively true. As one wise monsignor once counseled me, a faithful Catholic is necessarily a sign of contradiction just by being faithful. In other words, the world cannot handle us when we’re certain, convinced, faithful. People without reason and faith usually resort to the lowest forms of behavior in order to elevate themselves above others with whom they disagree. When confronted by their immorality and irrationality, rather than admit to their wrongheadedness, too often dissenters project their hatred on to believers.
We must insist that the term ‘Catholic’ does not refer to people who, for all intents and purposes, deny the doctrines of the Faith. To rob charlatans of their stage, we must redefine the debate. We must not only own the debate using reason and fact, we must own the meaning of the language employed to represent who and what the Church is. It is one thing to have doubts and honest questions, but it is quite another to promote a conclusion that is worked out so as to obscure the truth and demean faithful Catholics.
The most serious threat to the Faithful comes from wolves within the Church. It is reassuring that excommunications have begun to acknowledge that those Catholics-in-name-only who promote heresy are no longer permitted the opportunity to spread their cock-eyed teachings in opposition to the legitimate authority of the Church. And, let’s be clear, this is all about authority. If the Church does not firmly correct these erring brethren, a bigger mess will ensue. Dissent is often closely followed by schism. Witness history repeating itself – just ask the Anglicans what is going on in their community. Granted, Catholics have the protection of the Holy Spirit, but if we do not act to counter the agenda of dissent, many additional souls will be lost.
December 26, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Irenaeus;
“When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness [Christ], its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber.”
–Flannery O’Connor, Introduction to A Memoir of Mary Ann, 1961
“My brothers, let me tell you where tenderness leads…[t]o the gas chambers!”
–Walker Percy, The Thanatos Syndrome, 1987
December 26, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Anonymous (above) beat me to it with the quotation from Flannery O’Connor. The Introduction to a Memoir of Mary Ann is included in _Mystery and Manners_; it’s the last essay in the book. The five sentences which precede the brief quote above make it even more telling.
Jacqueline Y.
December 26, 2008 at 11:46 pm
The recent CMR post “A Good ol’ conversion story” had a link that lead me to this book, and a quote that indicates the direction in which this woman is heading:
From Salve Mater By Frederick Joseph Kinsman, p. 78:
“The basis of Protestantism was, even in the beginning, a protest not only against ecclesiastical abuses but also a protest against authority as such and a protest against the supernatural. The gradual developments of Protestant history made this increasingly evident. God is a supernatural authority and in the end God has to go. Hence it is that one of the {Episcopal} bishops could say recently, “The goal of Protestantism is atheism.” Not that Protestants set out for this goal or many have reached it, but that being rooted and centred in self Protestantism inaugurates a tendency which excludes God.”
December 27, 2008 at 7:46 am
Thank you!
December 27, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Really, Well I’ve got the wood, anyone got matches, this has gone on for far too long,
December 29, 2008 at 5:00 am
Sadly, only 30% of Catholics believe what the Church teaches and believes about the Holy Eucharist. The scandal isn’t that NCR publishes writers who conform to the 70%; the scandal is that years after its own study revealed this fact the NCCB has done so little to promote belief in the Holy Eucharist: the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present for us to eat and drink in our daily journey with the Living Lord of Life.
December 29, 2008 at 6:23 am
LivingSimplySFO,
The USCCB hasn’t ignored the problem of catechizing on the Eucharist entirely. Check out “The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.”