No Revolution, but a Revelation

American Media (Left and Right) is making much of the recent vote in Ireland to legally recognize same sex marriages.  Now, why they are making so much of it is worth a whole essay on conspiracy theories.  Yet let us take them at their word: the American Left and the American Right are all susprised.  This is because they have not done their homework on the Irish Republic, on Irish History or on the Catholic Church in Ireland and her place in the Irish Culture.

Here's an outline: a preces, if you will. A full version would be worth a history book about Irish religion in the 20th Century.

1) The Catholic Church holds a near mythical place in the hearts of the Irish and the Diaspora.  This is very true.  But this mythical Irish Church has no resemblance at all to the Church in Ireland for any number of reasons:

• It was the Pope who gave Ireland to the English Crown.
• The hierarchy several times abandoned the Irish People and their aspirations for nationhood.
• Despite the support of many parish clergy in their political aspirations,  the larger Church mostly ignored or even supressed - or reported - any "revolutionary activities".
• The presence of the Church Heirarchy in Irish Politics in the 20th Century was written into the Irish Constitution by a politician (Eamon de Valera) who knew that the myth of Wholy Catholic Ireland would need to be played up in order to keep the funding coming in from the Diaspora.
• The Church in the Early 20th Century taught that the Irish should support the proto-Nazis in the Spanish revolution.  This was totally ignored, thank God.
• What has not been ignored at all is how the Church treated Childen, unwed mothers and anyone else who departed from her cultural ideas of a "Catholic Nation".
• The Church's inability to repent of the various issues around pæophilia has done even more to distance her from her people in the country.

2) All of the political parties in Ireland claim some sort of allegiance to Catholicism, but none of them live up to it.

• Despite the image of "Catholic v Protestant" in Northern Ireland, which does wonders for funding from the diaspora, the Republican parties are all on the socialist left.  The images may be shamrocks and celtic crosses in the States, but in Ireland it's fists and guns and Che.  
• The only folks that believe in a Wholy Catholic Ireland in Ireland are a few folks in certain Protestant chapels in Belfast. They use it to scare people the same way the Republicans use it to market to their people.
• Irish pols go to church about as often (and with as much intent) as American pols.

3) The Church knows all this.  In Ireland, the Church has been on a "let's reconvert Ireland" kick for as long as I have been vacationing there.

• While there are pockets of piety around the country and more people may go to church more often than in the States, on the ground coming to the US to get a divorce or going to England to get an abortion is not at all surprising.

4) When any of this gets pointed out the dispora gets up in arms. President Mary Robinson thought The Commitments was one of the best examples of Irish Culture to ever be exported.  American Irish throught it was vulgar and wanted to boycott it.  The Myth of Catholic Ireland is important to (for example) the Ancient Order of Hibernians who want to keep gays out of the St Patricks Day Parade.  The Gays have been marching in Dublin for nearly two decades.

__________

When I was in Ireland just after gay activity was decriminalized in the Early 90s, one of the largest and most successful pubs in Dublin was a gay bar.  There were bathhouses, sex clubs, you name it.  They didn't happen overnight though. Hold hands on the street, make out in the park across the street from Parliament in broad daylight: no one cared.  It was less Wholy Catholic Ireland than it was Thoroughly Modern Mill Ireland.  One gentleman caught me making out with my then-boy friend on a stoop as he walked by us in Rathmines.  In Irish, he called us "English" under his breath as he passed. We laughed.  He wouldn't dare have called us anything else, it would not have been polite.

25 Years later, I'm not at all surprised by the recent vote.

__________

I think those parties in the US and elsewhere who are beating the drums the loudest are either clueless, or else they have their own political axes to grind: I can imagine one important message might be "See, if the Gays can do this in a really religious country what might they do here where we are lukewarm?"  This might be important to either side of the marriage debate in our country: "Look what we can do in a backward religious country like that! We're all modern here!" It is pure political propaganda, however.

This was less a klaxon than a confirmation.  

We Have Gained More Than Ever We Lost

A Homily for the Ascension from the works of Pope St Leo.

After the blessed and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (wherein was raised up in three days that true Temple of God which had been destroyed by the impiety of Jewry), there came by God’s providential ordering a season of forty days, the annual commemoration of which endeth on this day. The original great forty days, dearly beloved, were spent by the Lord in profitable instruction for our benefit. On this wise, his bodily presence was still given to the earth during all these forty days, that our faith in his resurrection might be armed with all needful proofs. For the death of Christ had troubled the hearts of many of his disciples ; their thoughts were sad when they remembered his agony upon the cross, his giving up of the Ghost, and the burial in the grave of his lifeless body : and so a sort of hesitation had begun to weigh on them.

Hence the most blessed Apostles and all the disciples who had been fearful concerning the death on the cross, and doubtful of the trustworthiness of the report of Christ’s resurrection, were so strengthened by the clear demonstration of the truth, that, when they saw the Lord going up into the heights of heaven, they sorrowed not ; nay, they were even filled with great joy. And, in all verity, it was a mighty and unspeakable cause of rejoicing for all the holy multitude of believers, when they perceived that the nature of mankind was thus exalted above all creatures, even the heavenly spirits, so as to pass above the ranks of the Angels, and be raised beyond the heights of the Archangels. For on this wise they perceived that no limit was set upon the uplifting of that nature short of the right hand of the Eternal Father, where it was to be Sharer of his throne, and Partaker of his glory ; and nevertheless it was still nothing more than that nature of man, which the Son hath taken upon him.

Therefore, dearly beloved, let us also rejoice with fitting joy. For the Ascension of Christ is exaltation for us. And whither the glory of the Head of the Church is passed in, thither is the hope of the body of the Church called on to follow. Let us rejoice with exceeding great joy, and give God glad thanks. This day is not only the possession of paradise made sure unto us, but in Christ our Head we are actually entering into the heavenly mansions above. Through the inexpressible grace of Christ we have gained more than ever we lost by the envy of the devil. For those whom our venomous enemy cast down from the happiness of their first estate, those same hath the Son of God made to be of one body with himself, and hath given them a place at the right hand of the Father : with whom he liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Pope St Leo, Pray for us!

Moralistic Therapeutic Blindness

In their 2005 work, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers,  sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton introduced the term "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" to describe the spirituality they found among those teenagers.  Most of the commentary I've read about the topic (hereinafter MTD) has included a lot of hand-wringing and asking where we (as adults and parents) went wrong.  There has been blame laid at the feet of educators and their "everyone is special" brand of tripe.  Oprah and her newage "spiritual but not religious" attitudes showing up in Starbucks take a good deal of the credit as well. I want to blame my Sunday School teacher in 1967.

My grandfather was really big into science: even at the age of three I was learning rudiments of geography and simple meteorology.  I knew about ice crystals and had taken a telescope with Grandpa out to a dark lake shore where we saw the Milky Way: not something you can see clearly at all any more in most places in the world.  I clearly remember making paper snowflakes in Sunday School, one morning before Christmas.  This was the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Gaines, GA, in 1967. I doubt it's snowed in that part of the world since the last ice age. But as my neighbor finished his snowflake, I put my arm around him an said, "It can't be a snowflake because snowflakes have 6 sides. "  His was a special snowflake with 8 sides.  And he cried.  We were three.  But point of fact, I was right.  And the Sunday School teacher in 1967 told us that if he wanted to have a snowflake with 8 sides, he was allowed.  Later we sang "Jesus Loves Me, this I know."

It's a wonder I didn't stop going to church right then and there.

A lot of people older than me (and I'm 50 now, so that teacher must be somewhere between 70 and death) were practicing MTD long before millennial teenagers ever happened or even before their parents ever were old enough to have sex.

I've struggled a lot lately for a number of reasons. Lent was especially hard as I would talk to my brothers and sisters at church or online, and I would hear what can only be called MTDoxy.  Now, this is not unexpected at all: most of the converts that I know were MTD folks in their other denominations.  What usually drove us away from those former places was a sense that "Something here is not right".  I, at least, didn't wake up one day with the idea that "I have been wrong all my life and now I must get right."  Most converts I know - including me - started with "I'm right and this denomination is wrong and I have to find a church filled with right folks".  One online writer referred to the American Orthodox Convert boomlet as just more Church Shopping, but now it was Boutique Church Shopping.  We're just looking for home, and now we've found it (welcome home, we say to new converts). That writer used to annoy the stuffing out of me, but I see his point, increasingly, everywhere.

My way of reminder, the "basic doctrines" of MTD are:

1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

It is possible to attend an Orthodox Church every time the doors open and still come up with that. A member of a parish I attended apologized to me for letting his sons go into Boy Scouts as if the telling of that to me would not be offensive to me as a Christian.  A long time friend who has been Orthodox about 20 years longer than I wondered if she would be able to stay Orthodox after her very elderly priest died.  She suggested, "Well, I guess we can go back to the Episcopal Church".  Other Orthodox folks out there are seeking to find more ways to include others with different, Gnostic ideas about their sex and sexual activity without the Church asking them uncomfortable questions about their sex or sexual activity.  But it's not just "liberal" folks.  The ultra-conservative sorts are on the same bandwagon, it may surprise you to learn.  They may not feel that way about an individual's sex and sexual activity, but ask them about divorce, or other things that laity shouldn't care about: most people on line (again, including myself) have very strong opinions about it.  I was surprised to see a conservative Roman Catholic Blog post pictures of an Episcopal Priest who supports gay marriage but, at least, does liturgy right. I know a whole bunch of Convert Clergy - very conservative - who left one Jurisdiction because it was "becoming modernist" as if it had suddenly happened in the previous few months since their conversions.  It surprised them to learn that all the Ethnic Jurisdictions are, in one degree or another, riddled with MTDoxy.  But the desire to run away and find a "better" church was equally MTD.

This is not a slam against anything other than our own blindness.  I don't want a crusade against MTD or MTDoxy. It's today's Gnosticism, and it's out there in Jewish forms, Pagan forms, Buddhism, even Atheism all have their "Can't we all just get along" crap where "What we believe" has nothing at all to do with what we've been given to believe and everything to do with how it makes me feel and how I can fix it if it makes me feel bad.  My point is it's not the Millennial Generation that made this up.  There were special snowflakes at the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Gaines, GA, in 1967.

The question we need to ask is how do we avoid it now.

St Augustine's Sermon for St Thomas Sunday.

The Feast of this day is the end of the paschal solemnity, and therefore it is today that the Newly-Baptized put off their white garments. But though they lay aside the outward mark of washing, namely, their white raiment, the inward mark of that washing remaineth in their souls unto eternity. Now are the days of the Passover, that is, of God’s Passing Over our iniquities with his pardon and remission. And therefore our first duty is to sanctify the mirth of these holy days, that our bodily recreation may be taken without defilement to our spiritual cleanness. Let us strive that our relaxation may be sober and our freedom holy, holding ourselves carefully aloof from anything like excess, drunkenness, or lechery. Let us try so to keep in our souls their Lenten cleansing, that if our fastingtime hath left us aught as yet unwon, we may still be able to seek it.

 My discourse concerneth all of you who have been committed to my spiritual charge. But I address myself in especial to you who are the Newly-Baptized. The first happy week of your sacramental life draweth this day to a close. Ye are the new olive-plants of holiness round about the Table of the Lord. To you, who but a little while ago were born again of water and the Holy Ghost, I would speak particularly ; to you, O holy generation ; to you, O new creation ; to you, the excellency of my dignity ; the fruit of my labour ; my brethren dearly beloved, and longed for ; my joy and my crown ; all ye who who now so stand fast in the Lord. To you I address the words of the Apostle ; Behold the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Cast off therefore the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day ; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying ; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have, saith Peter, a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the Day-Star arise in your hearts. Let your loins therefore be girded about, and your lights burning in your hands, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding. Behold, the days come, whereof the Lord saith : A little while, and ye shall not see me, and again little while and ye shall see me. Now is the hour whereof he said : Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice : that is to say, the world is this present life, wherein we walk as strangers and pilgrims, far away from him who is our Home. This present life is very full of trials, but (saith Jesus) I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

Wedding Cakes and Religious Freedom

Do you refuse cakes to Jews, Hindus, and Muslims? Non-religious weddings? Do you only bake cakes for members of your tiny little sect, be it only 5 or almost 500 years old (such old)? Do you ask if your couples will engage in sex during Lent or other fasting times? Do you ask them if they will go to Church and raise their children to be Christian? Do you ask into the sexual practices of every couple that arrives at your door, denying cakes for those who use birth control, who engage in other sex acts beyond the procreative function? Historic Christianity forbids not only sexual activities not allowing for  procreation, but also forbids sex acts prior to marriage or outside of marriage all together. Thomas Aquinas says any sex outside of marriage is intrinsically disordered - the same language used for same-sex sexual activity. He does not allow that male-female sex is "natural" as compared to "unnatural" but rather even the desire to have such action is disordered - because that's not why God gave us sex.

Source

Or do you only deny cakes and flowers for the one or two gay people that might show up at your door having heard good things about you from friends who love them deeply enough to wish them well at their ceremonies?

I've never had any qualms at all about attending the weddings of people who do not practice my faith (or any faith).  If they are people I love, I love them.  Likewise I don't need to wonder about their sex lives, no matter what their sexes.

That is all.

I know the Orthodox Church's teaching regarding sex and marriage. I know her teachings on idolatry, rejection of icons, and heretical sects as well. I can pray that my friends find lives more in conformity with God's will and I can be Orthodox and - remembering the Lenten prayer of St Ephrem - assume their salvation is between them and God; but with my own sinfulness they will get into heaven before I even see the light of judgement day, on which day I will be condemned for my real sins of thought, word, and deed in exactly the same way that I condemn others now for the sins I only imagine them to be committing.

Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.  In the meanwhile, I'll thank you to claim your own religion and leave mine and the name of my Lord out of it.

On the other hand, Do you need a cake baked?  Call this sinner. And pray for him.

St Augustine on the Miracles of Jesus

The miracles wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ were verily divine works, and they stir up the mind of man to rise by a perception of what is seen by the eye unto an apprehension of God himself. For God is of such substance as eye cannot see, and the many miracles which he doth work in his continual rule of the whole universe, and in his providential care of everything which he hath made, are by use become so common that scarce anyone permitteth himself to perceive the same, as for example, what wondrous and amazing works of God there be in every grain of seed. Wherefore his mercy hath constrained him to keep some works to be done only at some convenient time, as it were, out of the common course and order of nature, to the intent that men may see them and wonder, not because they be greater, but because they be rarer, than those which they so lightly esteem by reason of their daily occurrence.

For to govern the whole universe is surely a greater miracle than to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves of bread. At the former works no man doth marvel, yet at the feeding of the five thousand, all men do marvel, not because it is a greater miracle than the other, but because it is a rarer one. For who is he that now feedeth the whole world? Is it not the same who, from a little grain that is sown, maketh the fulness of the harvest? God worketh in both cases in one and the same manner. He that of the sowing maketh to come the harvest, is the same that took in his hands the five barley loaves, and of them made bread to feed five thousand men. For the hands of Christ have power to do both the one and the other. He that multiplieth the grains of corn is the same that multiplied the loaves, save only that in this latter case he committed them not unto the earth whereof he is himself the Maker.

Therefore this miracle is done outwardly before us, that our souls inwardly may thereby be quickened. The same is shewn to our eyes to furnish food for thought. Thus by means of those of his works which are seen, we may come to feel awe toward him that cannot be seen. Perchance we may thereby be roused up to believe, and if we attain unto belief, we shall be purified to such good purpose that we shall begin to long to see him. Wherefore, in such wise, through the things which are seen, we may come to know him that cannot be seen. Yet it sufficeth not if we perceive only this one meaning in Christ’s miracles. Rather let us ask of the miracles themselves what they have to tell us concerning Christ ; for in all truth they speak with a tongue of their own, if only we have good will to understand the same. For Christ is the Word of God, and each and every work of the Word speaketh a word unto us.

Medium: New Longer Essay Site

I have been experimenting with useing the new site, Medium, for longer-form essays. I've just published one (about 4,000 words long) called Orthodoxy and the Celibate Sodomite. I'm still a bit too long-form, because the longer essays I see over there are about half the length of mine. But sometimes you need to write it all out! Blogging has nearly always been the Readers Digest of the internet.  I need something like Medium to be more like a long-form literary journal.

It's a very enjoyable process, with focus on the writing: you can add comments and notes to a specific paragraph, it is set up to be easily shared with social networks, and you have a list of followers, etc. The stats do not (yet) show inbound links, etc.  But I'm sure they will with time.  I know I can get a domain sent over there, so I may.