Monday, April 23, 2012

What's in a name?

On FB, a Sister of Charity who is also my cousin, and a wonderful person, has posted the equivalent of a bumper sticker, responding to the recent Vatican decision to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the umbrella org for most orders of greying US nuns. It reads: My conscience tells me to stand with the Catholic Sisters.

Well, that is really the question: are the Sisters still Catholic? At their 2007 meeting, even their keynote speaker admitted that some of their member congregations had quietly "moved beyond" Christianity while remaining Catholic on paper.

If you were a space alien and wanted to know about this big 1 billion member 2000 year old  religion and decided to check out the websites of the orders of Catholic sisters which belong to LCWR to find out, you'd get a seriously deranged picture. It's not only what they emphasize, but what they are resoundly silent about. An odd version of Wittgenstein's dictum: Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.

Although Ex Cathedra does not practice his ancestral faith, he knows what it is; it was partly out of respect for the reality of what Catholicism is rather than what I wanted it to be. Like his general reaction to the liberal Regime of Lies, it is not really about hypocrisy or heresy, but about being insulted: asked to buy what is patently a ten-minutes-old bill of goods as if it were the real thing. So when its representatives want to use the cover and prestige of their Church belonging to foster ecofeminism and lefty liberation-theology social justice statism, etc. he is not a fan.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

ReneG irard: Whereof one won't speak in logos, thereof one does mimetic signage. ... for instance, via critical theory.

Anonymous said...

I answer that, according to the LA Times, 21 April, »The male leaders live in a monarchy, while for decades, good sisters have lived in the real world, pursuing democratic principles in their service to the poor and their exploration of the new.«

Repl. Obj. 1. On the one hand, this pursuit and exploration seems to have struggled with the hierarchy and prevail'd. American Catholics aren't up in arms vs Benedict 16, but they render obedience unto Caesar and unto the hierarchy the shrugs that are das Man Selbst Gelassenheit. Rick Santorum's campaign had traction only with evangelical Christians.

American Catholics don't internalize the heavy ('insistent'? in Heidegger's terms) interpretation that gay-friendly Christian clerics and academics give, namely "God doesn't make mistakes" -- as recited by one of the nuns quoted in the LA Times. Sexuality too receives das Man Selbst Gelassenheit, up to and including 50 shades in Hades. As for sexuality's or generativeness's 'mistakes' (js4165) that are gollems, they aren't created officially by God but are reduced in some other wei or karma.

Catholics like other liberal Christians furthermore seem ready to accept that voting for social programmes satisfies one's obligations to love one's neighbour as oneself.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, the spirit of V2 seems to have struggled with the American culture and not prevail'd.

I don't say that the RC mass can't be interpreted in some plausible way to square with "social justice," but basically the RCness or Christianness of social justice turns out to be a not essential accident that didn't experientially connect with social justice substance. The important pragma is this-worldly social justice, and the totally dispensible, replaceable subaltern is the mass and the RC institution in general.

Sure, one can say that the authority of Jesus vis-a-vis Christian America means American Caesar ought to render free medical care to all documented and undocumented Americans. And His "resist not evil" means the second amendment should be replaced by a clause guaranteeing affordable renewability etc. If Buddhists, Muslims, and atheist agnostic Darwinian Americans don't like Jesus' authority dominating public policy this way, they should go back to where they came from. The separation of Church and State doesn't mean the Beatitudes don't Rule, man! Never has, never will.

The difficulty for social-justice Christianity, however, is that speaking truth to middle-class white Americans has guilt power with them only if they attend church, and in some measure believe in the Christian God. By continuing to privilege obligations to this-worldly pragmata such as the technologized corporate capitalist medical system, and its conquest of nature as in free contraception medicines for law students, social-justice Christians erorde the importance of believing in God and caring about the Christian clergy's valuations of stuff.

Because the important criterion is to oppose the gun culture, endorse this-worldly change, celebrate this-worldly hope, etc, not to attend mass, confess sins and receive absolution. A social-justice Darwinist, a social-justice Catholic and a social-justice Buddhist differ only in "inessentials" and are united on essentials, and promote the same "agape" in everything.

One may say the same about "conservative" Mormons, Christians and Jews: although distinctives remain more important as far as particular worship institutions are concern'd, basically theistic conservatives agree on the same agenda for this world. (Perhaps we should say that these Christians do Gelassenhate.)

Anonymous said...

Consider the mysterion of gay activism in Christian denominations: as soon as a denomination accepts gay ministers and officiates at gay marriages, there seems to be no meaning for gays in continuing to attend that church. I really don't perceive precisely why this is, but considering cultural generalities, evidently only 'compartmentalized' gays and lesbians find meaning in attending church, believing in the God of the Bible. As soon as a denomination or a particular congregation endorses their sexuality and relationships, such Christianity loses meaning for them and they feel that it is more worthwhile to sleep in on Sunday mornings. ... The result is that only a 'homophobic' meaning for real Christianity occurs in this world. Get rid of the homophobia and Christian charismata and doctrine cease.

In sum, while spirit of V2 authorities have outpaced the hierarchy in fostering Catholics who couldn't care less about the hierarchy's opinions on sexuality and who are moderate or liberal-moderate on social issues (government programmes approximate the Good Samaritan), V2 authorities somehow haven't arranged for a real meaning for being Catholic Christians.

V2 Catholicism like the mainline protestant denominations is an interpretational option for social-justice concern. If the example of Jesus and the more tolerant sort of saints and OT prophets motivate you to feel approval for OWS youngsters, then fine. That's what biblical religion is for! But so also it's fine if Darwinian insights into evolutionary cooperation inspire you to feel such approval. Or if you simply go directly to feeling approval for OWS youngsters.

... Anyone who feels different goes voluntarily to the conservative madhouse?

Anonymous said...

Jesus Marx: the dominion of the Torah and revealers over you occurs by bringing God into your promises and "the ensemble of social relations" in good-and-evil reliance on neighbour. (Matthew 22:40; 5 passim, esp v.33)

... I heard an owl call me a name.

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