It is Pentecost Sunday, and I went to Mass in my bathrobe.
I'm not proud of this. In fact, I stuck a mantilla in my head to make up for the bathrobe. But the bathrobe (a nice one by the way: silk, pretty pattern) was the outer manifestation of my inward thought which is that I'm sick of watching Mass on the computer instead of going to actual Mass.
The population of Scotland is roughly 5 million. The percentage of Scotland that is Catholic is 15%. The percentage of Catholics who ever go to Mass in Scotland on Sundays is roughly 19% of that. This means 142,500 people---and that's less than half the number of people who went to see Pope St. John Paul II in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow 38 years ago tomorrow.
Scotland was a very different place in 1982, that's for certain.
The percentage of Catholics who always go to Mass on Sunday is unknown, but I'd bet the Warrington Building Fund even they aren't all still watching Mass on computers.
When the Warrington FSSP began a lovely Marian procession, I rushed off to have a shower. When I returned to the sitting-room, B.A. was still kneeling before the screen. I sat by the window and read some Wendell Berry until I heard priests and altar servers singing the Chartres Pilgrimage's "Chartres T'appelle."
At that my attention wavered from book to screen to book, but then the organ introduction to "Chez nous, soyez Reine" began, and I was back in front of the computer. I can never hear "Chez nous" dry-eyed. I'm not French, I don't understand all the words, and I never heard it before I first went on the Pilgrimage of Christendom, but all the same it makes me cry.
Please, bishops, open the churches.
There is a lot of misunderstanding in the United Kingdom about Christianity, in part because the United Kingdom has forgotten much of what it used to know. A quick example is that in 1987, Harry Dodson of the "Victorian Kitchen Garden" could reminisce about a sharp-tongued cook remarking that "there is corn in Egypt" in the expectation that his viewers would know what he (and she) was talking about. (It's a reference to the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis.)
One misunderstanding is that all church activities are the same. For example, if COVID-19 is indeed spread by singing, then it is perfectly possible to have church services without singing. Some communities will feel this more keenly than others, but if the rule in Scotland changes from "Nobody is allowed in churches" to "Nobody is allowed to sing in churches yet because singing spreads COVID-19" then thousands of people--and the 142,500 Catholics I mentioned above are the bulk of church-attending people in Scotland--will be free at least to pray in a church.
Prayer without song may seem rather dry to Scotland's 19,000 Pentecostals, but the 142,500 Catholics who actually darken Scotland's church doors will cope. When I think of the Traditional Latin Mass I attended in person from late September 2008 to March 19, 2020, I cannot think of an ordinary activity, performed in public, LESS likely to get my chaplain sick.
When I think of the church I have attended for 11 years, I can see how easily our normal congregation of 70 - 80 could spread out safely, a metre between households. I know how happily we would consent to remain silent, for we are not strangers to the concept of the Low Mass. During the Low Mass, the server makes the responses on the congregation's behalf and there is no singing. Fine.
When there was no Communion of the Faithful, that last Sunday Mass in March, I heard not a single murmur of complaint. We knew that the Archbishop had said no communion on the tongue, and none of us were going to yell for communion on the hand.
I can't blame the various Anglicans, agnostics and opportunists in government for not understanding, on March 24, that religious services are not in themselves dangerous, and that every religious denomination goes about celebrating in different ways. However, I do blame them very much for not understand this now. It has been over two months since the churches were locked, and as shops and services open up in England and Scotland, it is now clearly a violation of Christians' religious freedom to forbid us to enter our churches to carry out safe activities there. These safe activities surely include private prayer and watching, in silence and 2m apart, Holy Mass conducted at the altar.
The prohibition of Catholic worship must be particularly painful to the faithful in Scotland, where Catholics were treated as second-class citizens until after 1989. (In 1989 Glasgow Rangers signed Catholic Mo Johnson, and a number of Rangers fans burned their scarves in protest.) That the sectarian violence here never reached Northern Irish proportions is a miracle--and a testimony to the long-suffering of Scottish Catholics. For me the worst of this current business is not that the government wanted to shut church doors--that's an old story--but that the bishops have been so slow to open them. I am willing to concede that they've been as terrified as the rest of us, but it's been two months now. Surely the curve has been flattened?
Here we are, 72 days without episcopal permission for priests to say a public Mass in Scotland--something unprecedented even when saying a public mass could get you hanged, drawn and quartered. ("No, John Ogilvie, you must NOT return to Scotland. You must NOT celebrate Mass.") It's a scandal and it's particularly damaging for people like me, who need Mass not because we're good but because we're bad. Mass is not a fun activity like spinning; it's a very real dose of spiritual Vitamin D. Keep your volatile correspondent away from Mass long enough, and she might start to think there's something to this revenge-of-Gaia stuff.
In household news, we went on a marvellous country walk yesterday that tired us out and made sleeping easy. We ate lunch in a tree, and when I fell out of it I landed on very soft grass and was not at all hurt. We bought local bread and free-range eggs from a shop allowed to re-open as part of "Phase 1" and B.A. enjoyed a "Phase 1" coffee and traybake in its walled garden. At suppertime I picked lettuce leaves and radishes for our salad and put radish greens in the risotto. I was horrified by Royal Horticultural Society advice for lawn-keeping, as it recommended poisoning the moss.
We watched in a spirit of skepticism a documentary decrying animal husbandry as the most damaging thing to the environment ever. I am still of the opinion that ethical carnivores are more helpful than vegans, for we make more sustainable farming methods attractive to farmers. Also, pigs, sheep and cows are a lot more native to Britain than avocados and coconut milk.
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Saturday, 30 May 2020
The Scottish Summer
Scottish summer often begins in May, goes somewhere else in June, and returns for a few days in July. English theatre critics come to the Edinburgh Festival in August, bringing miserable weather with them, which they then write about as if Edinburgh were always like that. It isn't.
For the past two days, we've enjoyed warm, sunny, almost cloudless weather. On Thursday, we clipped the beech hedges and the rose bushes. I sowed a new drill of lettuce. I spent the entire afternoon in the garden, and when the sun moved to the west, we put out our folding chairs on the two landings of our staircase. At 8 PM the neighbours began to applaud the NHS and from the street behind our gardens, a bagpipe began to play. Bagpipers are a national treasure as it is, and this one was very good. He (or she) played a medley of tunes, and when he (or she) finished the clapping echoed off the walls of the houses. The applause for the piper was even heartier than the applause for the NHS.
The gardens of the houses on our street are dotted with inflatable pools, trampolines, tents. In the evenings we smell barbecues and bonfires. On Thursday evening we had a little bonfire ourself, burning sticks of dead applewood in the outside grill. The barbecue came with the house, and we've never used it before. The neighbourhood has been transformed over the past two months into a peopled place. Before it seemed more of a down-at-heels bedroom community from which people escape to central Edinburgh for jobs or recreation. The local cathedral was the shopping mall.
But yesterday morning I felt very depressed by the lack of Catholic friends arounds. We haven't seen Catholic friends in weeks. Most of all, I would like to visit another Scottish-Canadian couple, located near Dundee, but we don't quite have the neck to travel 50 miles by train. We are now permitted by civil authority to visit friends outdoors in groups of numbering no more than six, but only within five miles of our homes.
The cure for depression was not merely to sow more radishes but to go for a long walk in the countryside, and so we did, taking a route I couldn't remember taking before. We followed our usual river path to a village, followed a country road, and found an old railway route which is now a bicycle path. I wore a hat, but Benedict Ambrose elected to get sunburnt.
The afternoon sun was fierce--as it often is here in late May--and I tired out much more quickly than usual. All the same, I enjoyed it all very much and made tentative suggestions for future, even longer ways. It would be interesting and satisfying to walk along the John Muir Way to Dunbar, for example, or to follow the entire John Muir Way across Scotland. B.A. is unsure he is strong enough yet to do that, but I am sure he could work his way up to that.
It occurred to me that our ancestors would find think walking across Scotland just for the sake of it, not to go to a market or emigrant ship, impractical and even sinful. However, modern British literature, not ending with Tolkien and Lewis, teems with celebrations of the British countryside and the joy of leaving the urban world and its discontents behind on foot.
Biologists make much of the fact that for most of our existence, the human race lived outdoors. On a cellular level, we are all supposed to be outdoors most of the time, and whoever B.A.'s and my earliest ancestors were, their descendants were shaped by northern coasts and countryside. Even my most eastern ancestors (that we know of) lived north of the 52rd parallel; I wonder if the Thirteen Colonies were a shock to the systems of my earliest American ancestors.
Shocker! Just found out from the internet that my Wisconsin-born great-grandfather worked for Allan Pinkerton, the detective. Goodness me. There's something for future biographical sketches.
Update: I meant to write about the most Sustainable BLT ever. This amazing sandwich was created on Thursday afternoon from Scottish organic bread, Scottish free-range bacon, English tomatoes (grown in Kent), and lettuce from our garden. Mine had a homemade aioli dressing made from locally grown garlic, a free range local egg, and olive oil from ---well--"European Union origin." I don't mean this to be virtue-signalling; this is localism-signalling. It was the most delicious BLT ever, too.
Gardening update: Picked the last of the first sowing of radishes and some lettuce. Sowed another row and a half of radishes. "Gin and tonic botanicals" pots not doing at all well in the windowsill. Watched an interesting "market gardening video" about growing micro greens in a backyard in Kelowna, BC.
For the past two days, we've enjoyed warm, sunny, almost cloudless weather. On Thursday, we clipped the beech hedges and the rose bushes. I sowed a new drill of lettuce. I spent the entire afternoon in the garden, and when the sun moved to the west, we put out our folding chairs on the two landings of our staircase. At 8 PM the neighbours began to applaud the NHS and from the street behind our gardens, a bagpipe began to play. Bagpipers are a national treasure as it is, and this one was very good. He (or she) played a medley of tunes, and when he (or she) finished the clapping echoed off the walls of the houses. The applause for the piper was even heartier than the applause for the NHS.
The gardens of the houses on our street are dotted with inflatable pools, trampolines, tents. In the evenings we smell barbecues and bonfires. On Thursday evening we had a little bonfire ourself, burning sticks of dead applewood in the outside grill. The barbecue came with the house, and we've never used it before. The neighbourhood has been transformed over the past two months into a peopled place. Before it seemed more of a down-at-heels bedroom community from which people escape to central Edinburgh for jobs or recreation. The local cathedral was the shopping mall.
But yesterday morning I felt very depressed by the lack of Catholic friends arounds. We haven't seen Catholic friends in weeks. Most of all, I would like to visit another Scottish-Canadian couple, located near Dundee, but we don't quite have the neck to travel 50 miles by train. We are now permitted by civil authority to visit friends outdoors in groups of numbering no more than six, but only within five miles of our homes.
The cure for depression was not merely to sow more radishes but to go for a long walk in the countryside, and so we did, taking a route I couldn't remember taking before. We followed our usual river path to a village, followed a country road, and found an old railway route which is now a bicycle path. I wore a hat, but Benedict Ambrose elected to get sunburnt.
The afternoon sun was fierce--as it often is here in late May--and I tired out much more quickly than usual. All the same, I enjoyed it all very much and made tentative suggestions for future, even longer ways. It would be interesting and satisfying to walk along the John Muir Way to Dunbar, for example, or to follow the entire John Muir Way across Scotland. B.A. is unsure he is strong enough yet to do that, but I am sure he could work his way up to that.
It occurred to me that our ancestors would find think walking across Scotland just for the sake of it, not to go to a market or emigrant ship, impractical and even sinful. However, modern British literature, not ending with Tolkien and Lewis, teems with celebrations of the British countryside and the joy of leaving the urban world and its discontents behind on foot.
 |
| American ancestress |
Shocker! Just found out from the internet that my Wisconsin-born great-grandfather worked for Allan Pinkerton, the detective. Goodness me. There's something for future biographical sketches.
Update: I meant to write about the most Sustainable BLT ever. This amazing sandwich was created on Thursday afternoon from Scottish organic bread, Scottish free-range bacon, English tomatoes (grown in Kent), and lettuce from our garden. Mine had a homemade aioli dressing made from locally grown garlic, a free range local egg, and olive oil from ---well--"European Union origin." I don't mean this to be virtue-signalling; this is localism-signalling. It was the most delicious BLT ever, too.
Gardening update: Picked the last of the first sowing of radishes and some lettuce. Sowed another row and a half of radishes. "Gin and tonic botanicals" pots not doing at all well in the windowsill. Watched an interesting "market gardening video" about growing micro greens in a backyard in Kelowna, BC.
Thursday, 28 May 2020
An Afternoon Outdoors
Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit an extensive walled garden very near our home. As we have passed it many times during the lockdown, I have often longed to go in. We first visited it together eleven years ago, so I feel very nostalgic about it. It's a good place to walk about and remember what I am doing in Scotland and why.
It is usually empty when we visit, and this time was no exception, except for the gardeners. One suggested I look for the kingfisher down by the pond. I didn't find a kingfisher, but a large white heron rose into the air at my approach and flew from tree to tree in the near distance, shouting "Grak! Grak!" A more tolerant jackdaw stood on the opposite side of the pond, eating tadpoles.
The greenhouses, full of impatiens, geraniums and pelargoniums, were positively toasty.
Afterwards we walked to the high street by way of a local park. I have never been in this park before, so I was amazed to see an aviary. I didn't think public collections of birds still existed, but there they were: finches, cockatoos, and other bright creatures. They clung to the wire netting or to perches in their giant boxes. They looked healthy; I don't know about birds to guess if they are happy or not. They are certainly in no danger of being eaten by birds of prey.
Our next port of call was our very nearest farm shop, and we had an adventure getting there, as we missed the appropriate now-only-one-an-hour bus. We took another bus and walked through country trails and roads to get to it before it closed. The sun poured down, and the green fields smiled, and we agreed that our county is beautiful, beautiful.
In the end I broke into a run to get to the farm shop before it closed, which probably would have looked funny had there been anyone but B.A. around to see it. We enriched the local business by £10, and then we sat on a wooden pallet to rest and eat organic chocolate. The farm--really a market garden with some sheep and chickens--was pleasant to look at, and I was delighted to see an "Eglu" in real life, not just online.
We walked to a stop pertaining to the now-once-an-hour-bus, meandering through the trails on an ancient estate, admiring all the woodland ferns and flowers, and the work horses, riding horses and shaggy ponies in adjoining paddocks. One of the clear advantages to life in east coast Scotland over life in Toronto is that the countryside is so near by the cities. The cities here don't just go on and on and on, covering farmland with concrete, box stores and ticky tacky houses.
That said, there are some horrid-looking new settlements crouched here and there among the grain and vegetable fields; we do our best to avoid looking at them on our walks.
It was my monthly professional development day, so I was meant to be thinking, praying or reading about work. Were it not for the lockdown, I would have gone to Mass and then confession and/or spiritual direction, perhaps written to nuns or children about my work, or read something philosophical about work.
My work has many challenges, which include trying to convince people who don't want their names associated with my organisation to trust me enough to give me statements. It also involves constantly bathing my brain in social, theological or philosophical horrors, presented by other news agencies in attention-gripping ways. It involves sorting out fact from opinion, real injustice from conspiracy theories, and striving to give the people I'm asked to write about a fair hearing. It also involves writing a story broken by another agency on Monday in a fresh, new way for Tuesday, without either committing plagiarism or writing "According to" seven times.
I was appalled when I discovered that one of my writing pupils thought that correct newspaper writing involved a flippant, slapdash tone, using short forms when ever possible, substituting "Bro" for "Brother," for example. However, newspapers are no longer a given in family homes, and it is possible he got this impression from novels. It might be a good idea to buy a number of newspapers and cut out their articles on a given topic, so my pupils can see how each newspaper approaches the story in their own way. This will take some thinking: obviously my students' young minds must not be poisoned by contemplating the irregular love lives of epidemiologists.
Another difficulty is spiritual. It is harrowing, as a Catholic, to second-guess bishops all the time. I sometimes doubt if certain bishops believe in Catholicism, but I do. One aspect of Catholicism is respect for the office of the bishop and, except in extreme circumstances, respect for the person of the bishop himself. Integralism points out that authority comes from above, and that St. Paul counselled Christians to be obedient to even their pagan masters. ("Obedience" and "pagans" should be in the Index, by the way.) How much harder, then, should we pray before reporting on bishops even as outrageous as the ones I am thinking of at this moment.
I once knew a very good, very loving priest who used to get a laugh from his adoring congregation by poking fun at his bishop. I knew instinctively he was wrong, but I wasn't sure why until I started taking theology classes. He was wrong because he was the extension of our bishop. The chair he sat in was not his but his bishop's chair.
Yes, we are in a terrible time, and yes, the mainstream media has woken us up from our long, complicit sleep. But when between them the heritage Catholic press and the alt Catholic press has destroyed Catholics' faith in every bishop, what then?
And these are the kind of thoughts I had on my professional development day.
Gardening update: I thinned out the radishes a little yesterday evening, and we ate the thinnings at dinner. They were delicious.
Gardening update: I thinned out the radishes a little yesterday evening, and we ate the thinnings at dinner. They were delicious.
Wednesday, 27 May 2020
The Two Cities
Good morning. The clouds have dispersed, and the sun is here. An insect has eaten a hole in the largest leaf of the elder of our two courgettes, however, and I am steeling myself to thin out the jolly profusion of radishes in the trug. We will eat radish greens at lunch.
City of God v. City of Man
This morning I made my coffee and sat down with the last chapter of Integralism, "The Two Cities." The Two Cities are, of course, the City of God and the City of Man, as described by St. Augustine. The Church, including Christendom, is the City of God, and the City of Man (or "Babylon") is everything outside it, led by Satan. Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister suggest that the City of Man resembles the City of God only as far as a corpse made to dance on strings by a puppeteer resembles a living person. It is an effectively gruesome image.
Because the City of Man and the City of God are at war with each other, it is necessary for the City of God to protect its citizens, Fimister and Crean argue. Because men are fallen, it is also necessary for the Church to have recourse to temporal means to keep them on the right path. Much of the chapter is devoted to arguing this point.
St. Augustine
The chief witness is St. Augustine. In a letter to a Donatist, St. A revealed that he used not to believe that temporal power should be used to punish heretics but, having seen how fines imposed by temporal authority on the Donatists had turned them into happy Catholics, he now applauded the concept. St. Augustine thinks it is better when men "are led to worship God by teaching" but also thinks it better to bring men to it by threat of punishment than to allow them to go to hell in their own way. "Let's face it," St. Augustine didn't quite say, "quite a lot of people are both stupid and wicked, and need to be saved from themselves, let alone the devil, and a whopping great fine is the only language they understand."
Children need threat of spanking to survive
I am reminded, by the way, of the capital crimes of my household when I was growing up, whose severity was underscored by the threat of corporal punishment. They almost invariably involved acute danger to life and limb. Playing in the front garden was absolutely forbidden under pain of spanking. This was to prevent us from absentmindedly dashing out in front of cars for balls, cats, etc. That many Scottish legislators hate the family and children can be shown from their support for a ban on spanking. (Actually beating children with a stick has long since been criminalised.)
Thus, Christendom was excellent for directing man and polities to their proper ends, for temporal authority served spiritual authority, and the Pope was well in his rights asking rulers to excuse men from military duties to become monks, etc.
Okay, (pre-)Boomer.
The leading opponent to St. Augustine on this matter is apparently Jacques Maritain. Surveying the wreckage of Christendom, Maritain apparently pronounced it all for the best. With Charles Journet, of whom I have never heard, he proposed a "secular" or "profane" Christendom.
"This they described as a society where the gospel, as taught by the Catholic Church, would in fact the principal source of inspiration for the citizens and the institutions of the society, without the Church herself enjoying by law any privileged place within it. Moreover, they held that such a 'secular Christendom' was not to be regretted as a second best, but would constitute a moral progress."
Crean and Fimister, however, suggest that this shows a lack of love of those who will be lost for all eternity.
"Since the Church is a Mother who wishes to save her children by all lawful means, it is more conformable to the nature of the Church as existing among fallen men, harried by "the rulers of the world of this darkness", to have temporal powers also at her disposal," they write.
Temporal power hopeless without spiritual aid
They also point out that the temporal power can't reach its own end without being united to the spiritual power. I find this convincing. I read an email today from Canada revealing that the elderly in long-term care facilities in both Ontario and Quebec have been living in utter squalor, abandoned by their paid carers. My first thought was that nuns would not behave like that. I do not doubt that there have been abusive nuns in care facilities, but they have always been, at very least, clean, and they have strong spiritual incentives not to run away from the people they serve.
Crean and Fimister then trot out examples of a good many popes writing polite letters to various Christian rulers to ask that certain spiritual matters be served and hint out the not even Paul VI, who had been very influenced by Maritain (and, I'll add by the way, Simone Weil, shudder, shudder), denied that "the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies towards the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ."
Pius XI said something very prophetic about it in 1925, too, amid the wreckage: "If the rulers of nations which to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ."
The list of "Theses" at the end of this chapter is short:
1. Two loves form two cities, which have unity from their head and which are necessarily in conflict.
2. Christendom is necessary to protect the Church against the city of the world.
Friendship and revelation
But that's not all, for Fimister and Crean include a four page postscript explaining how rationalism is irrational. It has something to do with friendship, and I found it confusing.
I think the authors are arguing that when we look to God for our transcendence, we don't have to seek transcendence through friendship. Seeking transcendence through friendship is the wrongful use of friendship, which should be sought for its own sake. A higher form of friendship (going beyond family and chums) is society... and at that point I'm a bit lost.
At any rate, we know from reason and Aristotle that we should love our neighbour as ourself BUT, Fimister and Crean point out, without divine revelation we don't know who our neighbour is. If not for Christ, we would love only spouse, family, pals, and fellow citizens. Because of Christ, we know we must love our enemies, be kind to those in servitude to us, and not be indifferent to foreigners.
A last question for F&C
Not to be a jerk, but I am a bit concerned about the modern tendency of loving foreigners more than our fellow citizens. This is a question that has concerned me since I was mocked in the playground for not belonging to a nation 7,000 kilometres away by children born no more than 20 km from me.
I agree that indifference to foreigners is not ideal. However, what would a proportionate love of foreigners look like?
Perhaps the indifference Crean and Fimister are decrying is indifference to their ultimate fate. Earlier in their book they mention a papal defence of the native peoples of the New World in which the good pope denies that they should be treated like beasts and affirms that they have souls (I can't find the page through the Index). Until recently Catholic missionaries have left those they loved to save the souls of foreigners. (Now it appears that they have other priorities, thus losing many souls to heretical American sects.)
But plastic
My last thought, though, is that another love of foreigners involves knowledge of how our activities affect them adversely. This is where Fr. Lonergan comes riding in on a horse called Cosmopolis. (And what an image that is!) Lonergan was very strict about people paying attention to realities, no matter how unpleasant they may be to the attention-payers. The reality that has long haunted me, and I really don't understand why we didn't think of this when Bakelite was invented in 1907, is that plastic outlives its use by at least 450 years. We throw away an awful lot of plastic. Where does it go?
On the one hand, we can say that our end is worship of God and there will be a new heaven and a new earth at the end of time anyway. But on the other, I cannot see how being knee-deep in plastic milk bottles will advance the worship of God among our descendants.
There is also the issue of the global supply chain. I also cannot see how keeping a number of peoples in miserable and disease-rife servitude as they grow our avocados, etc., advances the worship of God. I really love avocados, but as a Christian I understand that I should love the good of Chileans more than avocado toast. This is one more reason why we should go local farm shops and do our best to grow our own food.
And on that note, we say good-bye to Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister and look forward to reading another book by Wendell Berry.
City of God v. City of Man
This morning I made my coffee and sat down with the last chapter of Integralism, "The Two Cities." The Two Cities are, of course, the City of God and the City of Man, as described by St. Augustine. The Church, including Christendom, is the City of God, and the City of Man (or "Babylon") is everything outside it, led by Satan. Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister suggest that the City of Man resembles the City of God only as far as a corpse made to dance on strings by a puppeteer resembles a living person. It is an effectively gruesome image.
Because the City of Man and the City of God are at war with each other, it is necessary for the City of God to protect its citizens, Fimister and Crean argue. Because men are fallen, it is also necessary for the Church to have recourse to temporal means to keep them on the right path. Much of the chapter is devoted to arguing this point.
St. Augustine
The chief witness is St. Augustine. In a letter to a Donatist, St. A revealed that he used not to believe that temporal power should be used to punish heretics but, having seen how fines imposed by temporal authority on the Donatists had turned them into happy Catholics, he now applauded the concept. St. Augustine thinks it is better when men "are led to worship God by teaching" but also thinks it better to bring men to it by threat of punishment than to allow them to go to hell in their own way. "Let's face it," St. Augustine didn't quite say, "quite a lot of people are both stupid and wicked, and need to be saved from themselves, let alone the devil, and a whopping great fine is the only language they understand."
Children need threat of spanking to survive
I am reminded, by the way, of the capital crimes of my household when I was growing up, whose severity was underscored by the threat of corporal punishment. They almost invariably involved acute danger to life and limb. Playing in the front garden was absolutely forbidden under pain of spanking. This was to prevent us from absentmindedly dashing out in front of cars for balls, cats, etc. That many Scottish legislators hate the family and children can be shown from their support for a ban on spanking. (Actually beating children with a stick has long since been criminalised.)
Thus, Christendom was excellent for directing man and polities to their proper ends, for temporal authority served spiritual authority, and the Pope was well in his rights asking rulers to excuse men from military duties to become monks, etc.
Okay, (pre-)Boomer.
The leading opponent to St. Augustine on this matter is apparently Jacques Maritain. Surveying the wreckage of Christendom, Maritain apparently pronounced it all for the best. With Charles Journet, of whom I have never heard, he proposed a "secular" or "profane" Christendom.
"This they described as a society where the gospel, as taught by the Catholic Church, would in fact the principal source of inspiration for the citizens and the institutions of the society, without the Church herself enjoying by law any privileged place within it. Moreover, they held that such a 'secular Christendom' was not to be regretted as a second best, but would constitute a moral progress."
Crean and Fimister, however, suggest that this shows a lack of love of those who will be lost for all eternity.
"Since the Church is a Mother who wishes to save her children by all lawful means, it is more conformable to the nature of the Church as existing among fallen men, harried by "the rulers of the world of this darkness", to have temporal powers also at her disposal," they write.
Temporal power hopeless without spiritual aid
They also point out that the temporal power can't reach its own end without being united to the spiritual power. I find this convincing. I read an email today from Canada revealing that the elderly in long-term care facilities in both Ontario and Quebec have been living in utter squalor, abandoned by their paid carers. My first thought was that nuns would not behave like that. I do not doubt that there have been abusive nuns in care facilities, but they have always been, at very least, clean, and they have strong spiritual incentives not to run away from the people they serve.
Crean and Fimister then trot out examples of a good many popes writing polite letters to various Christian rulers to ask that certain spiritual matters be served and hint out the not even Paul VI, who had been very influenced by Maritain (and, I'll add by the way, Simone Weil, shudder, shudder), denied that "the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies towards the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ."
Pius XI said something very prophetic about it in 1925, too, amid the wreckage: "If the rulers of nations which to preserve their authority, to promote and increase the prosperity of their countries, they will not neglect the public duty of reverence and obedience to the rule of Christ."
The list of "Theses" at the end of this chapter is short:
1. Two loves form two cities, which have unity from their head and which are necessarily in conflict.
2. Christendom is necessary to protect the Church against the city of the world.
Friendship and revelation
But that's not all, for Fimister and Crean include a four page postscript explaining how rationalism is irrational. It has something to do with friendship, and I found it confusing.
I think the authors are arguing that when we look to God for our transcendence, we don't have to seek transcendence through friendship. Seeking transcendence through friendship is the wrongful use of friendship, which should be sought for its own sake. A higher form of friendship (going beyond family and chums) is society... and at that point I'm a bit lost.
At any rate, we know from reason and Aristotle that we should love our neighbour as ourself BUT, Fimister and Crean point out, without divine revelation we don't know who our neighbour is. If not for Christ, we would love only spouse, family, pals, and fellow citizens. Because of Christ, we know we must love our enemies, be kind to those in servitude to us, and not be indifferent to foreigners.
A last question for F&C
Not to be a jerk, but I am a bit concerned about the modern tendency of loving foreigners more than our fellow citizens. This is a question that has concerned me since I was mocked in the playground for not belonging to a nation 7,000 kilometres away by children born no more than 20 km from me.
I agree that indifference to foreigners is not ideal. However, what would a proportionate love of foreigners look like?
Perhaps the indifference Crean and Fimister are decrying is indifference to their ultimate fate. Earlier in their book they mention a papal defence of the native peoples of the New World in which the good pope denies that they should be treated like beasts and affirms that they have souls (I can't find the page through the Index). Until recently Catholic missionaries have left those they loved to save the souls of foreigners. (Now it appears that they have other priorities, thus losing many souls to heretical American sects.)
But plastic
My last thought, though, is that another love of foreigners involves knowledge of how our activities affect them adversely. This is where Fr. Lonergan comes riding in on a horse called Cosmopolis. (And what an image that is!) Lonergan was very strict about people paying attention to realities, no matter how unpleasant they may be to the attention-payers. The reality that has long haunted me, and I really don't understand why we didn't think of this when Bakelite was invented in 1907, is that plastic outlives its use by at least 450 years. We throw away an awful lot of plastic. Where does it go?
On the one hand, we can say that our end is worship of God and there will be a new heaven and a new earth at the end of time anyway. But on the other, I cannot see how being knee-deep in plastic milk bottles will advance the worship of God among our descendants.
There is also the issue of the global supply chain. I also cannot see how keeping a number of peoples in miserable and disease-rife servitude as they grow our avocados, etc., advances the worship of God. I really love avocados, but as a Christian I understand that I should love the good of Chileans more than avocado toast. This is one more reason why we should go local farm shops and do our best to grow our own food.
And on that note, we say good-bye to Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister and look forward to reading another book by Wendell Berry.
Tuesday, 26 May 2020
Mostly Unsurprising 1990s Soundtrack
Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
Wonderwall - Oasis
Back in my Life - Alice DJ
Like a Prayer - Bigod20
Du Hast - Rammstein
Kreuzberg - Bloc Party (2009, though)
Nautical Disaster - The Tragically Hip
Chłopcy - Myslovitz
The Two Swords
See Integralism Update below.
Good morning from our wee bithill and glen house and garden. Today is a day of note for this morning I will plant the second courgette in the herb barrel, endangering the good of the thyme for the flourishing of the fiori di zucca. Yesterday was also a day of note, for I ate the first radish. It was very small but also very tasty.
Both days I made coffee and read Chapter 11 of Integralism, "The Two Swords." This is probably the most controversial chapter, for it argues that the Church has temporal as well as spiritual authority--although it observes that this temporal is most effective within Christendom.
There are a lot of distinctions in this chapter, and given the resistance of even some Catholic authors to claims of the Church's temporal authority, I was edified to see that "Objections from Non-Catholics" (which means Hobbes, Locke, Benito Mussolini and, er, Henri de Lubac [?]) were followed by "Objections from Catholics."
Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister believe that Catholics object to the doctrine of "the power of the pope over temporal things" because either they fail "to realise that by the nature of things it exists only within Christendom" or they fail "to grasp the nature of Christendom, which is not simply a collection of states, each of which acknowledges the true faith, but a single commonwealth." Each Catholic ruler is "obliged to prefer the good of the Church to that of their own province" because "the part must prefer the good of the whole to its own good."
They did not address, however, the criticism of Catholics who say that Christendom effectively died in the slaughter of the First World War, that it would be impossible to reestablish without extraordinary and almost unprecedented divine aid, and thus Integralism is a fantasy of barking mad traditionalists who shout "Don John of Austria is going to the war" out their windows when drunk.
Crean and Fimister also did not address in this chapter the intolerable corruption of certain Catholic bishops and the acute sufferings of Catholics distraught and humiliated by their abuse of the spiritual power they already have. Given the abuse of good priests by bad bishops, we can certainly imagine a bad pope removing a good Catholic emperor on some pretext so as to enthrone some appalling flatterer who will keep him in ermine, or larks' tongues, or dancing boys.
While I'm on the subject, certain bishops have been incredibly remiss in using even their spiritual power over Catholic leaders post-Christendom.
"A bishop, for example, should remind a baptised legislator of his duty not to vote in favour of a right to kill unborn children, and to punish a judge or a legislator with a proportionate punishment, such as excommunication, if he disobeys the commandments of God which the Church declares," write Crean and Fimister.
In Canada, this almost never happens--at least not publicly. If Catholic politicians are warned privately, it doesn't do much good. In fact, speaking as a Canadian Catholic, I am strongly tempted ever to vote again for a Canadian Catholic as successful Canadian Catholic politicians, no matter how promising, eventually bring scandal. There are innumerable depressing examples, but the most obvious is the late Prime Minster Pierre Trudeau, who decriminalised two crimes that lead instantly to the death of the soul, and yet had a massive state funeral in Notre-Dame Basilica.
I am willing to bet next week's meat budget that the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster hasn't even as much as alluded to the fact that another Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was baptised in the Catholic Church to that Prime Minister, let alone called him back from his current state of schism.
The authors of Integralism could justly point out that none of this is their fault and that it in no way nullifies their arguments. I would agree but then ask why we should study Integralism at all. Is this merely an intellectual exercise or thought experiment? Is it a way to better understand history, or is this something we should be working towards?
Again, the idea of bad bishops having temporal power over Catholics sends shivers down my Catholic spine. "Coercion of the baptised" (pages 232-235) sounds very solemn and defensible when linked to the Council of Trent, but not so much when linked to Uncle Ted McCarrick.
The entertainments of the chapter include a reference to Elizabeth I of England as "Elizabeth Boleyn" (page 239) and her excommunication and deposition (i.e. removal of the right to rule) by Pius V. But this is also, I think, an example of why (even within Christendom) the temporal authority of the pope over rulers should be used but rarely. Instead of Elizabeth Boleyn being removed as monarch, dozens of Catholics died horrible deaths. Yes, we honour the English Martyrs, but let's not pretend that it was not objectively horrible for a pregnant mother of four to be crushed under a door covered in stones.
I hope Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister are not wounded by these thoughts. Considered apart from the times in which we live, their arguments for the temporal authority of the pope over the rulers of Christendom and of bishops over the subjects of Christendom (and even of temporal punishments for Catholics in general) sound very convincing. However, they are difficult to read given the abuse and neglect that can be laid at the door of many bishops of recent memory.
And now to plant my courgette.
Integralism Update: Oh, the excitement. Dr. Fimister has responded. He makes two points about the above.
1. "You miss the point on Chapter 11. It is because Catholics have despaired of Christendom that they think the clergy are the Church. The clergy are not less powerful in the Church since the fall of Christendom, they are unimaginably more powerful because they are no long scared of the laity. In the twentieth century the laity were afraid to expose the crimes of the clergy for fear of ruining the reputation of 'the Church'. Under Christendom ... bishops were elected by the people. Morally corrupt popes were forced to abdicate by the Emperor."
2. "We lost England not because Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I but because his predecessors didn't (for worldly reasons) and the English Catholics didn't know what to do and compromised their faith. Eleven years of hesitation and the English speaking world was lost."
Gardening Update: The newly planted courgette is looking cheerful in contrast to its older brother, who seems unhappy in his pot. After 7 PM I built a wigwam and planted four Scarlet Emperor runner beans right in the Veg Trug. I live in hope.
Good morning from our wee bit
Both days I made coffee and read Chapter 11 of Integralism, "The Two Swords." This is probably the most controversial chapter, for it argues that the Church has temporal as well as spiritual authority--although it observes that this temporal is most effective within Christendom.
There are a lot of distinctions in this chapter, and given the resistance of even some Catholic authors to claims of the Church's temporal authority, I was edified to see that "Objections from Non-Catholics" (which means Hobbes, Locke, Benito Mussolini and, er, Henri de Lubac [?]) were followed by "Objections from Catholics."
Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister believe that Catholics object to the doctrine of "the power of the pope over temporal things" because either they fail "to realise that by the nature of things it exists only within Christendom" or they fail "to grasp the nature of Christendom, which is not simply a collection of states, each of which acknowledges the true faith, but a single commonwealth." Each Catholic ruler is "obliged to prefer the good of the Church to that of their own province" because "the part must prefer the good of the whole to its own good."
They did not address, however, the criticism of Catholics who say that Christendom effectively died in the slaughter of the First World War, that it would be impossible to reestablish without extraordinary and almost unprecedented divine aid, and thus Integralism is a fantasy of barking mad traditionalists who shout "Don John of Austria is going to the war" out their windows when drunk.
Crean and Fimister also did not address in this chapter the intolerable corruption of certain Catholic bishops and the acute sufferings of Catholics distraught and humiliated by their abuse of the spiritual power they already have. Given the abuse of good priests by bad bishops, we can certainly imagine a bad pope removing a good Catholic emperor on some pretext so as to enthrone some appalling flatterer who will keep him in ermine, or larks' tongues, or dancing boys.
While I'm on the subject, certain bishops have been incredibly remiss in using even their spiritual power over Catholic leaders post-Christendom.
"A bishop, for example, should remind a baptised legislator of his duty not to vote in favour of a right to kill unborn children, and to punish a judge or a legislator with a proportionate punishment, such as excommunication, if he disobeys the commandments of God which the Church declares," write Crean and Fimister.
In Canada, this almost never happens--at least not publicly. If Catholic politicians are warned privately, it doesn't do much good. In fact, speaking as a Canadian Catholic, I am strongly tempted ever to vote again for a Canadian Catholic as successful Canadian Catholic politicians, no matter how promising, eventually bring scandal. There are innumerable depressing examples, but the most obvious is the late Prime Minster Pierre Trudeau, who decriminalised two crimes that lead instantly to the death of the soul, and yet had a massive state funeral in Notre-Dame Basilica.
I am willing to bet next week's meat budget that the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster hasn't even as much as alluded to the fact that another Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was baptised in the Catholic Church to that Prime Minister, let alone called him back from his current state of schism.
The authors of Integralism could justly point out that none of this is their fault and that it in no way nullifies their arguments. I would agree but then ask why we should study Integralism at all. Is this merely an intellectual exercise or thought experiment? Is it a way to better understand history, or is this something we should be working towards?
Again, the idea of bad bishops having temporal power over Catholics sends shivers down my Catholic spine. "Coercion of the baptised" (pages 232-235) sounds very solemn and defensible when linked to the Council of Trent, but not so much when linked to Uncle Ted McCarrick.
The entertainments of the chapter include a reference to Elizabeth I of England as "Elizabeth Boleyn" (page 239) and her excommunication and deposition (i.e. removal of the right to rule) by Pius V. But this is also, I think, an example of why (even within Christendom) the temporal authority of the pope over rulers should be used but rarely. Instead of Elizabeth Boleyn being removed as monarch, dozens of Catholics died horrible deaths. Yes, we honour the English Martyrs, but let's not pretend that it was not objectively horrible for a pregnant mother of four to be crushed under a door covered in stones.
I hope Fr. Crean and Dr. Fimister are not wounded by these thoughts. Considered apart from the times in which we live, their arguments for the temporal authority of the pope over the rulers of Christendom and of bishops over the subjects of Christendom (and even of temporal punishments for Catholics in general) sound very convincing. However, they are difficult to read given the abuse and neglect that can be laid at the door of many bishops of recent memory.
And now to plant my courgette.
Integralism Update: Oh, the excitement. Dr. Fimister has responded. He makes two points about the above.
1. "You miss the point on Chapter 11. It is because Catholics have despaired of Christendom that they think the clergy are the Church. The clergy are not less powerful in the Church since the fall of Christendom, they are unimaginably more powerful because they are no long scared of the laity. In the twentieth century the laity were afraid to expose the crimes of the clergy for fear of ruining the reputation of 'the Church'. Under Christendom ... bishops were elected by the people. Morally corrupt popes were forced to abdicate by the Emperor."
2. "We lost England not because Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth I but because his predecessors didn't (for worldly reasons) and the English Catholics didn't know what to do and compromised their faith. Eleven years of hesitation and the English speaking world was lost."
Gardening Update: The newly planted courgette is looking cheerful in contrast to its older brother, who seems unhappy in his pot. After 7 PM I built a wigwam and planted four Scarlet Emperor runner beans right in the Veg Trug. I live in hope.
Monday, 25 May 2020
Yellow Poppies
This morning I sat down with my coffee and began Chapter 11 of Integralism, "The Two Swords". It is a long chapter, however, so I will not finish until tomorrow. Free time is as sweet and precious as it is rare to those in servitude.
I am still trying to download photos to my disdainful computer. It will be a pity if you can never see them because yesterday we came across a hedge with wonderful topiary cut into it: piglets, an enormous teddy bear or cuddly monkey, a locomotive, an elephant. We also saw yellow poppies flourishing wild and in gardens. In one garden a raised bed is home only to runner beans, and the cane frame for them is so elegant, it looks like a nave.
This morning I came across a Toronto Sun column about an Italian baker in Toronto who died just recently. The article is a wonderful tribute to a good man, and also an advertisement for localism. Here we have a craftsman, a tradesman, who owned and governed his own shop, had three children and a loving wife, was loved by his employees and customers, was known and respected by his neighbours. He also made excellent zeppole, which I know is a pleasure and an honour in itself.
As a teenager, I would have felt it beneath me to marry a baker, let alone become one, which just showed how very little I understood about anything. It's a pity that, choosing instead to harp on the ethnic groups we belonged to, my teachers never encouraged us to talk about our parents' trades and professions and learn to respect them all. "Smart" kids were funnelled into universities as if merely going to one was our golden ticket to prosperity. However, there is no point crying over the past or being overly romantic about the baking trade.
That said, I think it should be well rubbed into children from a young age that there is nothing shameful or low-class about learning a classic trade and, one day, beginning one's own business. I realise now that many tradeswomen--beauticians and hairdressers--are in serious trouble, thanks to the Vile Germ. However, under ordinary circumstances (and despite these ones), many of the trades thrive and thrive.
I am still trying to download photos to my disdainful computer. It will be a pity if you can never see them because yesterday we came across a hedge with wonderful topiary cut into it: piglets, an enormous teddy bear or cuddly monkey, a locomotive, an elephant. We also saw yellow poppies flourishing wild and in gardens. In one garden a raised bed is home only to runner beans, and the cane frame for them is so elegant, it looks like a nave.
This morning I came across a Toronto Sun column about an Italian baker in Toronto who died just recently. The article is a wonderful tribute to a good man, and also an advertisement for localism. Here we have a craftsman, a tradesman, who owned and governed his own shop, had three children and a loving wife, was loved by his employees and customers, was known and respected by his neighbours. He also made excellent zeppole, which I know is a pleasure and an honour in itself.
As a teenager, I would have felt it beneath me to marry a baker, let alone become one, which just showed how very little I understood about anything. It's a pity that, choosing instead to harp on the ethnic groups we belonged to, my teachers never encouraged us to talk about our parents' trades and professions and learn to respect them all. "Smart" kids were funnelled into universities as if merely going to one was our golden ticket to prosperity. However, there is no point crying over the past or being overly romantic about the baking trade.
That said, I think it should be well rubbed into children from a young age that there is nothing shameful or low-class about learning a classic trade and, one day, beginning one's own business. I realise now that many tradeswomen--beauticians and hairdressers--are in serious trouble, thanks to the Vile Germ. However, under ordinary circumstances (and despite these ones), many of the trades thrive and thrive.
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