I am perplexed. Some of my blogging confreres are a in such a tizzy over the latest missive from the baron of bombast, the kaiser of choleric, Michael Voris. (Apologies to Bill Donohue)
Voris, about whom I am conflicted, did his daily soliloquy on the topic of a letter by Global Warming Inc. requesting that pastors devote the Easter Sunday homily to the topic of Earth Day.
Voris pointed out that global warming is a scam (check) by the forces of population control (check) to encourage people to contracept and abort their way to a greener planet (check).
Voris noted that all of this is in direct contradiction to the teaching of the Church. Check again. He goes on to say that Catholics should abandon a Church that promotes such anti-Christian nonsense for the simple reason that this Church is not Catholic in any meaningful way.
He is, of course, right on all counts. But it is his suggested remedy that has unleashed the Catholic blogoshpere’s ever ready desire to scold.
Voris suggested that if one hears a homily about Earth Day on Easter, that you should forgo the collection plate and resign from the Parish on Monday.
Even the hyperbolic suggestion of such incivility has given some bloggers the vapors.
Voris makes the case that any local Church that embraces such anti-life and anti-Catholic tomfoolery, especially on Easter Sunday, has probably lost its Catholicity. His conclusion may be questionable, but I think he at least has a point.
I am particularly amused by bloggers who make frequent use of hyperbole as a rhetorical cattle-prod are now so overcome with the brazenness of it all. One even used the hyperbolic and very misleading title “Did Michael Voris Instruct Catholics to Leave the Church?” as a launching point to discuss Voris’ incivility. Apparently incivility is ok when deriding the uncivil. One day I will write the best-selling “Irony for Dummies”.
While I do not entirely embrace Mr. Voris’ remedy, I think he makes some really valid points. So what is all the hubbub about? Mark Shea accuses him of delusions that he is a Bishop. Mark makes a larger point about avoiding talking heads who think they are the arbiter of all things Catholic with which I generally agree, but I don’t really see how Voris is supposed to be delusionally usurping the role of Bishop. I don’t think he is.
Voris says that if your priest talks to you about global warming on the holiest day of the year instead of our resurrected Savior that your parish is likely so far gone that you should run, not walk, to an orthodox parish. What is so wrong about that?
When I ran into such craziness at my parish, the diocesan Director of Worship advised me to switch parishes, which I did. Was he playing bishop too?
Like I said, I am not sure that bypassing the collection plate and resigning from the parish is really the right remedy in this situation. I had tar and feathers in mind**.
**For those of you that have not yet read my soon to be published “Irony for Dummies”,please note that the “tar and feathers” comment is hyperbole which is usually defined as an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally used to make a point. Get over it.
April 15, 2011 at 4:49 pm
What is so wrong about it, Patrick, as I pointed out at the Anchoress' combox, is that when "conservatives" abandon "liberal" parishes (for want of better terms), they abandon those "conservatives" who are working to fix the parish, thus making the task far more difficult. Unless there are children involved, which I concede makes for a different situation, abandoning ship is a fundamentally egocentric thing to do: It assumes that the problem is that YOU will be exposed to well-meaning yet borderline heretical nonsense rather than that well-meaning yet borderline heretical nonsense is taking place. All that is accomplished by Voris' cry to abandon one's post is, in the short term, to make it harder for those who remain to resist daffy ideas (should we use chant or soporific hymnody? Guess how that vote at the liturgy committee will go if the conservatives flee), and thus, in the long run, to cede another parish to the "liberal" agenda. You want to know why so many parishes moved their tabernacle out of sight and out of mind? It's because the people who might have said "stop" followed Voris' advice and left. We end up with a few very conservative parishes awash in a sea of very liberal parishes. And on which shore (if that doesn't torturously mix the metaphor) do you suppose new converts will wash up?
That's what is so wrong about it. It's a self-involved move that makes things harder for everyone else, and which in the long term feeds the polarization of the Church.
Voris is right about a great many things, but fundamentally, he presents himself as an obnoxious, self-righteous prig. In some ways, he's the opposite of Fr. Corapi: Corapi's compelling presentation could convert Calvin. Voris, by contrast, acts like such an ass that even folks like me who agree with much of the substance of his remarks are repelled.
April 15, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Voris is right about a great many things, but fundamentally, he presents himself as an obnoxious, self-righteous prig.
Simon, repeat after me. Pot. Kettle. Pot. Kettle…
April 15, 2011 at 5:11 pm
1. No one shakes a fruitless tree.
2. A Church that puts the Salvific Work of the Incarnate Son of God in the back seat must be abandoned; at that point it has it's apostlic roots from Judas Iscariot.
3. Also, if one dances with wolves, one begins to howl. (so something like that) To stay with those people is tantamount to hanging out with bad companions – a sin that needs to be confessed. (But what if all the Churches in your diocese were like that? I guess one can there go for the Eucharist then read the Pope's homily from the web.)
3. The Pope did empower layfolks to evangelize. So, Voris is within his rights as a baptized and confirmed Christian. Has Voris' critics done anything to bring others to the truth besides type up some rash judgments?
4. Because of Voris, I am thinking of doing something like that too. I doubt if I will be a fraction as effective but if I can help one person know, love and serve God better, then it will be worth it. (But first, let me do my taxes and pay Obama's people for transforming God's country into a cesspool of immorality. I can't default and be dragged to jail with 5 little children depending on me.) I know the Archibolds do something on the radio already. They too are an inspiration to me.
April 15, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Mark Shea needs to apologize to this guy.
I swear, I never heard of Voris before this day, and just looking at it from the outside, Shea seems to have too much time on his hands. I don't read Shea regularly, but when I'm blogreading every once in awhile I get dumped onto his site. He has a tendency to nit-pick fellow Catholics who agree with him 98% of the time in a way that makes him seem cranky, bitter, resentful and… hmm… unhappy.
April 15, 2011 at 5:19 pm
@ Lisa who concludes, "But whatever."
Yes, indeed. "But whatever." The argumentative equivalent of "you're the one who's wrong, because I don't I agree with you." Voris is no saint, but he's not the enemy you make him to be. The argument still stands that some folks just think they are above the criticisms they use to attack others.
April 15, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I think I'm done with Mark Shea. Maybe Lisa didn't hear more than one of those talks and thinks he said to leave the Church rather than to leave A church and immediately find another Catholic Church that acts like one… maybe she is just uninformed. But Mark Shea's mindreading is inexcusable. Voris is 2011's John the Baptist, guys. If you can't handle John the Baptist, who ARE you in this story?
April 15, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Amen!
The idea that "good, conservative adult Catholics" are impervious to the harms of bad teaching from the pulpit is based on pride. Sometimes the bad stuff is obvious — e.g., giving Earth Day primacy of place in an Easter homily. But you can bet your buttons that if the pastor of a parish is spouting that kind of nonsense, he's also spouting more subtle error — perhaps too subtle for even a good, well intentioned Catholic to pick up on. So, he imbibes the error and it affects him/his life/his family without his even being aware.
Subtle error or simple omission of Catholic teaching infected the parish I grew up in, and by the time I was 18, I hardly knew what it meant to be Catholic or what Catholics believed. My father tried for two decades to be an amiable voice for truth in that parish — to absolutely no avail. Changing parishes wasn't really an option back in those days, as neighboring parishes were all as bad or worse than ours.
The notion that right-minded Catholics would be able to shape a parish for good when there is pastor who simply and obviously doesn't have the Faith is at best naive. It does not comport with the experience that many good Catholics with a whole lot more experience with such pastors and parishes have lived.
~Suzanne
April 15, 2011 at 5:32 pm
@ Simon:
I thought that was a very good comment, Simon.
April 15, 2011 at 5:32 pm
I have heard homilies about welcoming openly practicing homosexuals into a parish (a visiting parish in another state) and the high cost of dog insurance to people in the pews who have no insurance and how long the stayover was for the trip to Lake Tahao in another state. It was then that I decided to filled the collection basket only when the homilist told me something about God and His only Son, Jesus Christ.
April 15, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I wish that Catholic commentators would realize that they are spinning their wheels when they try to imitate political commentators. What works for Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly…etc. does not work in the Catholic realm. The entertaining sarcasm does not promote charity or invite people to reconsider errant positions.
People who disagree with him are enraged and dig in. People who agree with him are split into two categories: those who thrive on the satisfaction of hearing somebody say what the filter of civility prevents us from saying, and those who just wish he would stop embarrassing himself and the rest of us who hold similar positions but don't want to be lumped into a stereotype that he continue to perpetuate.
I hope and pray that Mr. Voris will one day take a good hard look at his delivery style and consider whether he is doing it for the promotion of himself or for the good of the Catholic Church.
April 15, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Suzanne, it's a lot more likely that one person will be a lonely voice for truth if everyone else who knows the truth bugs out and leaves him defending that hill alone, which is what Voris—oh, he isn't the only one, I see it all the time—is proposing. One may or many not be able to help by staying, but one certainly won't by leaving—and then what of those who are left behind? We are to be our brethren's keeper. We are to be concerned about what happens when an innocent would-be convert shows up on the door of a parish whose RCIA program borders on the heretical because all the orthodox catechists fled the parish rather than suffer through one more awful David Haas Mass. You suggest that my position is naive, and perhaps that is true (I prefer "optimistic"), but in a different way, I think the "abandon ship" approach is all the more so because it ignores the long term ramifications of the strategy. We should be working to make all parishes fully orthodox, and we can't do that by retreating to a few orthodox parishes and raising the drawbridge.
April 15, 2011 at 5:47 pm
@Simon: It is pointless to reform a "Liberal" pastor. It is like going against Obama when he is on a tirade against the GOP's budget plan. There is no honest debate, only ridicule and spins. And there is no "voting" on the parish council either. It's not like having 3 equal branches of government. So, if you have a pinko commie, Liberal for a pastor or an associate, then you're SOL or your options are few.
Walking out with your donations sends a strong message to the diocese and from the diocese to Rome. That is a proven way.
April 15, 2011 at 5:48 pm
"Guess how that vote at the liturgy committee will go if the conservatives flee"
LOL That is one reason I fled. "A Liturgy Committee" is the attempt by Catholics to democratise the Church as much as possible so it will resemble a veritable Catholic Congregationalism.
With a Mass that has so many options, one does not know what nightmare of a liturgy he will be forced to endure…"But, but, it is STILL the Mass, isn't it?"
Folks who tolerate such nonsense at The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass would never tolerate that in their own lives. Would they sit still while on their Birthdays their kids began singing, "Happy important day, you Parent, Happy important day to you.."' Do not answer 🙂
Those who object to Mr. Voris are forever setting-up men like him as an example of a far right extremist straw man and he is counterposed to the far left straw man du jour; today, Fr Pflegler. And then the "Pox on both their houses" pronouncements are made and we are left, I guess, to follow the golden mean behavior of the individual posting that shop-worn tactic.
Individuals who post such things are highly likely residing in Parishes with a very very low, um creative atmosphere, shall we say.
And to those who, like my own self, are STILL resentful of having my spiritual inheritance, The Immemorial Mass, stolen by modernist mountebanks are, routinely, told to shut-up and take it like a man.
"Look here, fella. Just because you desired to worship as did your Father did, and as his Father did, and as his Father did, and as his Father did, and as his Father did (repeat, at least, 380 more times) is no reason to object just because what was once said to be The Holiest Action on Earth is now forbidden to you. Stop being so selfish and suck-it-up. If God did not intend Mass to be your own personal Calvary He would not have forced Pope Paul VI to force it upon you in the name of something, or other; whatever.."
Well, those of us, like my own self, who maintained The Bonds of Unity in Worship, Doctrine, and Authority and who can NOT get our local very Ordinaries to comply with the crystal clear directives of Summorum Pontificum the BEST thing for us to do is to get the hell out of those nightmare Churches, which are headed for a collapse and join a Traditional Parish, one run by the likes of an FFSP, and build-up the Church because the modern Church has, by every single objective measurement, continued its downward trend since 1965. It is in a Free Fall and all the popular apologists can do is to scream, "Don't listen to that man giving you notice of impending disaster. He is a big blue meanie."
April 15, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Bloggers jealous?
April 15, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Ok this may be off the present topic but as for abandoning and leaving the Church and parish which sermonizes on global warming, hugging trees, and horrors, blasphemy! One sermon given by a deacon on Pentecost Sunday, went into a frenzied humorous talk on the Holy "Ghost," esssntially making fun of the Third Person of the Blessed Tinity in such a way that sent the priest and congregation rolicking in laughter. I flew from that church right then and there. This is what Voris is telling us. These churches are not Catholic, though as many clain, by doing so, we are abandoning the presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, something doubtful, when there probably was a defect in these confection of the Sacred Species that no transubstantion has taken place, and besides, only about 20 % of Catholics believe in the Real Presence. DO not support these churches.
April 15, 2011 at 6:01 pm
But Mark Shea's mindreading is inexcusable.
Yeah, that habit aimed at any who dare disagree with him is one of the many reasons I stopped reading him years ago. Worries me that the Anchoress is starting to refer to him so often.
Just love all the lectures about how we're supposed to stay in a parish where the priest is off his rocker so we can try to undermine him. (even if it's for a good cause, that's what it is)
How often have folks claimed that this or that orthodox thing should be dumped, because people aren't showing up for it? Pretty obvious that voting with your feet matters.
April 15, 2011 at 6:09 pm
not intended to be taken literally
And here I sit with 50 gallons of boiling tar and 265 naked chickens in the back yard.
Not to mention a couple thousand sharpened pitchforks, several hundred (tarred) torches, and the Iron Maiden all oiled up and ready to go.
April 15, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Go to the Tridentine Rite. You will never hear such downright and scandalous nonsense about Earth Day or any other politically correct thing! Voris is right on. I am glad I am not going to a vernacular Mass on Sunday. If I did and I heard such nonsense from the pulpit, I would be thrown out, because I would stand up and shout: Stop, you are promoting contraception, abortion, sterilization in the name of healing the planet. God called us to be good stewards of the earth and all it contains, not let it become the focus of our worship!!!
April 15, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Patrick, thanks.
I am not Spartacus, I tend to agree with most of what you said. But the remedy of leaving is not going to help that agenda and may hurt it. Here's one concrete example, since you brought up Summorum Pontificum: How can you expect many parishes in a given area to develop a stable group of the faithful wanting the EF Mass (as SP puts it) if all those folks in that area who want the EF voluntarily concentrate into a single parish? Doing so is, as I've said above, fundamentally egocentric: you prioritize YOUR desire to hear the EF over the larger goal of the EF being celebrated routinely and reverently in every parish.
Rick, I think you're off-base. First, you assume that if a parish is "liberal" it's because the pastor is a screaming liberal. Not so. Second, even if he is, while you may be correct that gentle and friendly persuasion probably won't fix him, a trip through diocesan wringer—or the Vatican's—may, and if those who recognize the problems leave, who do you suppose is going to initiate that process? (As a sidenote, I disagree that such people can't ever be fixed: It's far easier for someone to dismiss conservatives if that person has no relationship with such people, and it's far easier for a liberal priest to do what he likes if he knows that the parish is overwhelmingly liberal than it would be if he knows the parish is more mixed.) Third, I think you underrate the influence, even authority, of the parish council in many parishes. I agree that their role should be merely advisory, but this discussion has to meet the world as it is not as we'd prefer. And fourth, I find your claim that it is "proven" that "[w]alking out with your donations sends a strong message to the diocese and from the diocese to Rome" to be utterly fanciful. Proven? It makes no sense (how would the diocese, let alone Rome, know that you have left or why?), is contradicted by experience (when the protestants did so, did the strong message thus sent incline Rome to their cause?), and I'm unaware of any evidence for it.
April 15, 2011 at 6:33 pm
" I'm unaware of any evidence for it."
or against it. I spent half my life in Church service so I do know a little something about Ecclesiastical politics and economics. It is not a perfect institution but it's all we've got. Let's leave it at that and part as friends.