The Surreal World of Radical Traditionalism

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Seeing Clearly: Church Teaching and Politics

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TFTD: The Silly Season

I had an article passed on to me: "Catholic university launches pagan student club.” It’s got some Catholics upset—or more precisely, some Catholics who have stumbled across this obscure article. Basically, some students applied to have a recognized student club for paganism at a Catholic college. Called the Indigenous Faith Religions Alliance (it was called the Loyola Pagan Student Alliance until the college objected), it describes itself as seeking:

to unify Pagan, the spiritual but not religious, those seeking faith or religion, minority faith students (including but not limited to: Buddhists, Taoists, Shinto practitioners, Santeras, etc…) pluralists and those students interested in New Age religions on Loyola’s campus. If you don’t have a faith group on campus, we’re here to fill that gap!

. . . and Wiccans, apparently . . .

Now I don’t feel so much offended by the fact that non-Christian religions can get a support group on campus—Catholics in non-Catholic universities have the Newman Center for example. What strikes me as annoying about it is this isn’t so much a club where members of a non-Christian religion can find like minded people to hang out with. It’s the fact that these people don’t seem to have anything in common except being dabblers in esoteric groups. It sounds more like your typical middle class kids wanting to be different and dabbling in what they think sounds exotic.

Personally, I wonder what actual practitioners of Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, etc. actually think about people who want to play at being mystics without actually embracing the whole of the belief. Are serious members of these religions willing to embrace the idea of ABC (Anything But Christianity)? The article doesn’t go into details as to what sort of people join this kind of group, and aside from the one article, there’s not a whole lot to go by.

Of course Loyola doesn’t help matters by how they respond. Yes, dialogue with non-Christian religions is better than inter religious strife. But when a college representative says things like:

“At Loyola we welcome and foster an open exchange of ideas and encourage debate and sharing differing views and opinions to advance education,” he told The College Fix. “We believe that discussion around complex topics results in deeper critical thinking skills and well-rounded citizens.”

Student organizations are not required to identify with the religious views of the university, he added.

It’s going to cause confusion. I suspect it isn’t intended this way, but the statement comes across like “one religion is as good as another.” I mean, in a Catholic university, we recognize that education is a means to a goal—finding and living according to the truth. If Catholicism is true, those things which contradict it are logically false. Failing to recognize this is to miss the point.

It’s not a scandal that non-Christians want a club that recognizes their own beliefs. But the college shouldn’t pat itself on the back and present it as if it were a great thing in itself. As the old saying goes, “don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” Just present it as an element of the Church teaching on tolerating non-Christian religions and be done with it. 

Personally, I tend to agree with one of the comments on the article which speculated that it was disgruntled 20-somethings disgruntled by their parents’ practice of Christianity and using the time in college to rebel.

I figure it’s not a “The Sky is Falling!” moment. It’s just an opportunity to pray that such people, whether dabblers or sincere, be brought to know the truth of Christ.

Reflection on Interpretation and Misinterpretation

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Reading What the Magisterium Says Critically

Introduction

I mentioned the other day that I had problems with certain bloggers who were Catholic—ones who presumed they had superior knowledge to the ones they criticized on whatever topic. One of my offhand comments could be summed up as "...and your qualifications to judge are...?" A person must know about the subject he or she is speaking about and also must know what the subject intended to say. Otherwise, the reliability of the critic is very much in doubt--even if he or she is knowledgeable in other areas.

I can say this because I have been there. In the early Xanga days of this blog, I was quite contemptuous of the American bishops. I thought they were largely idiots with a liberal bent. I bought into and spread that attitude. (Those articles have been no longer available ever since the original Xanga went defunct, and though I recovered my files, those particular articles will never see the light of day again).

My conversion of attitude came from a combination of reading Christus Dominus and witnessing the response of the bishops to the 2008 visit of Pope Benedict XVI. In these events, I was reminded that the bishops are the successors to the Apostles and I saw that the bishops were strengthened by the visit of the Pope—that they had been previously demoralized by their facing continuous dissent.

From that perspective, I found that many of their documents which I previously dismissed as worthless did have good things to say.  I recognized that my problem was I accepted what others said about the bishops without evaluating if what they said was correct.

I think it's a real issue to consider: the concept of critically assessing what members of the Magisterium say vs. what bloggers and news sources think they say.

Context

The first issue is context. When facing news reports or a blog speaking on what the Pope or bishops said on an issue, my first question is to ask "What is the context of what was reported?" The thing is, even news agencies and bloggers of good will can only quote so much. So they try to pick what they think is the most important part.

The problem is, the quote might require some more of the article to get the full sense of what was said. The news reporter or blogger might actually be editing in good faith. He or she might think that the quote represents the whole statement accurately.  But, if you ever come across a WTF? moment where a quote sounds bizarre, the odds are very good that something got left out.

Interpretation and Intention

Another part of critical assessment is making sure that the interpretation of what was said matches the intent of what the speaker or writer was trying to say.

It is a problem today that people try to interpret a statement based on what they believe.  But that's exactly the opposite of what we must do. When a person uses a term, we have to understand what it means to the writer/speaker.

Here's an example. When St. John XXIII wrote his encyclical Pacem in Terris, many interpreted what he had to say on the topic of peace as if he was supporting the Soviet meaning of the term because the Soviets spoke constantly about peace in a way that benefited them. But that wasn't what St. John XXIII meant.

Or consider how people interpret Matthew 7:1ff. People who don't want to have their behavior declared wrong interpret judging to mean saying something is right or wrong. But that's a meaning imposed by the reader. It would be wrong to blame the Scripture verses for a meaning not intended.

The thing is, we interpret a text or speech based on what  the speaker/author intends and critique it based on our own views. This means that before we critique, we have to make sure that we interpret correctly. Bad Interpretation, bad critique.

Conclusion

The thing we always have to remember is when we read an article written about a bishop or about the Pope, we have to consider whether the person who wrote the article has fully addressed what the bishop or Pope actually had to say about the subject or whether or not the author omitted something important—it doesn't have to be malicious omission.

We must also remember that even when we do see the quotes do exist in context, we have to ask whether the blogger commenting or the reader of the Papal statement has in fact interpreted the article as saying what the Pope intended it to say. If the critic or reader has not correctly interpreted the article or statement, then the criticism is starting from a false assumption. If the premises are false, the conclusion is not proven true.

Recognizing these things, we have to realize our responsibility as a reader to accurately understand what was actually said and what was intended before judging the Magisterium for doing wrong—it might turn out the fault is not with the Pope or Bishop after all.

Reading What the Magisterium Says Critically

Introduction

I mentioned the other day that I had problems with certain bloggers who were Catholic—ones who presumed they had superior knowledge to the ones they criticized on whatever topic. One of my offhand comments could be summed up as "...and your qualifications to judge are...?" A person must know about the subject he or she is speaking about and also must know what the subject intended to say. Otherwise, the reliability of the critic is very much in doubt--even if he or she is knowledgeable in other areas.

I can say this because I have been there. In the early Xanga days of this blog, I was quite contemptuous of the American bishops. I thought they were largely idiots with a liberal bent. I bought into and spread that attitude. (Those articles have been no longer available ever since the original Xanga went defunct, and though I recovered my files, those particular articles will never see the light of day again).

My conversion of attitude came from a combination of reading Christus Dominus and witnessing the response of the bishops to the 2008 visit of Pope Benedict XVI. In these events, I was reminded that the bishops are the successors to the Apostles and I saw that the bishops were strengthened by the visit of the Pope—that they had been previously demoralized by their facing continuous dissent.

From that perspective, I found that many of their documents which I previously dismissed as worthless did have good things to say.  I recognized that my problem was I accepted what others said about the bishops without evaluating if what they said was correct.

I think it's a real issue to consider: the concept of critically assessing what members of the Magisterium say vs. what bloggers and news sources think they say.

Context

The first issue is context. When facing news reports or a blog speaking on what the Pope or bishops said on an issue, my first question is to ask "What is the context of what was reported?" The thing is, even news agencies and bloggers of good will can only quote so much. So they try to pick what they think is the most important part.

The problem is, the quote might require some more of the article to get the full sense of what was said. The news reporter or blogger might actually be editing in good faith. He or she might think that the quote represents the whole statement accurately.  But, if you ever come across a WTF? moment where a quote sounds bizarre, the odds are very good that something got left out.

Interpretation and Intention

Another part of critical assessment is making sure that the interpretation of what was said matches the intent of what the speaker or writer was trying to say.

It is a problem today that people try to interpret a statement based on what they believe.  But that's exactly the opposite of what we must do. When a person uses a term, we have to understand what it means to the writer/speaker.

Here's an example. When St. John XXIII wrote his encyclical Pacem in Terris, many interpreted what he had to say on the topic of peace as if he was supporting the Soviet meaning of the term because the Soviets spoke constantly about peace in a way that benefited them. But that wasn't what St. John XXIII meant.

Or consider how people interpret Matthew 7:1ff. People who don't want to have their behavior declared wrong interpret judging to mean saying something is right or wrong. But that's a meaning imposed by the reader. It would be wrong to blame the Scripture verses for a meaning not intended.

The thing is, we interpret a text or speech based on what  the speaker/author intends and critique it based on our own views. This means that before we critique, we have to make sure that we interpret correctly. Bad Interpretation, bad critique.

Conclusion

The thing we always have to remember is when we read an article written about a bishop or about the Pope, we have to consider whether the person who wrote the article has fully addressed what the bishop or Pope actually had to say about the subject or whether or not the author omitted something important—it doesn't have to be malicious omission.

We must also remember that even when we do see the quotes do exist in context, we have to ask whether the blogger commenting or the reader of the Papal statement has in fact interpreted the article as saying what the Pope intended it to say. If the critic or reader has not correctly interpreted the article or statement, then the criticism is starting from a false assumption. If the premises are false, the conclusion is not proven true.

Recognizing these things, we have to realize our responsibility as a reader to accurately understand what was actually said and what was intended before judging the Magisterium for doing wrong—it might turn out the fault is not with the Pope or Bishop after all.

Reflections on Not Judging

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Reflections on Not Judging

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