I find myself troubled these days. I have a lot of things weighing on my heart and mind. I don't even know where to begin. Writing an SOC post is therapeutic in this regard because it helps me to get it out. I have never received a dime for doing this gig over the years, but it has been very rewarding to me in ways that I cannot count. With that said, I want to talk about the Great Ones.
My wife came up with the moniker "The Great Ones." These are the old people we see in the church, and they are really old. Some of them are still spry while others need canes to make it to the pews. Why are they the Great Ones? Because they always make it to Mass even daily Mass. They kneel on arthritic knees. Devotion, integrity, and holiness just come off of them in waves. I love those people. When I think of true Catholics, I think of the Great Ones.
The Ents from Tolkien are like the Great Ones. The Ents are tree like and very old. Yet, they are strong. When the Ents move against you, you are done. Hang it up. I don't know if Tolkien had the Great Ones in mind as he fashioned those characters, but they are the same in my brain. The Great Ones are like mighty oaks of the faith. They are immovable. But if they move against you, you will be crushed.
I have great regard for the Great Ones because they are the bedrock of the Church. If you are on their side, things will go well for you. If you go against them, may the Lord have mercy on you. The Great Ones are the ones who make and preserve the Church. All Catholics should aspire to be a Great One.
The greatest enemies of the Church are the ones I can only call the "Catholic Left." These are the Catholics who have embraced Modernism which Pope Pius X called the "synthesis of all heresies." Basically, Modernism teaches that Catholic teachings must change with the times especially in regards to Catholic morality. In a nutshell, these are the Catholics who want the Church to get with the times on issues like contraception, abortion, divorce, and gay rights. Now, if the Church actually did this, you can write it off because the gates of Hell will have prevailed against the rock of Peter.
Now, there are already churches that exist that cater to the viewpoints of these heretics. The Unitarian Church is one where even an atheist can be a minister, and they bless same sex unions. The Episcopalian Church is also similar in this regard for those folks who still want an old fashioned liturgical form of worship to go along with their modernism. But make no mistake about it. These people have options. Yet, they insist on staying within the Catholic Church and causing grief. Why?
The answer is obvious from a spiritual standpoint. These people really do want to tear down the Church. They can't be as honest as they would like to be, so they cloak their agenda in the guise of "social justice" as if people who disagree with their agenda hate the poor. Nevermind that many of the traditional Catholics in the Church care very much about the poor and put their money and their work to use in this regard. But the greater emphasis on social justice is simply to reduce the rhetoric about abortion. This is why the two camps are regarded as the "social justice Catholics" who voted for Obama and the "pro-life Catholics" that voted for Romney. This move on the part of these heretics is nothing more than obfuscation and chicanery. The funny thing is that I don't actually see much of anything they do for the poor and underprivileged except to lend their services to the Democratic National Convention to campaign for Obama. But I certainly see the Knights of Columbus doing stuff for the poor and underprivileged.
Groups like Catholics United and its sister-in-arms, Faithful America, are the groups pushing this modernist agenda. They support the Nuns on the Bus who appeared at the DNC but implore bishops to stay out of partisan politics. Then, they are hypercritical of the Knights of Columbus for opposing same sex marriage and abortion. Don't take my word for it. You can read about it here. Basically, if you support their agenda, you need to get political and oppose the Church. If you are a traditional Catholic, you need to shut up, not be partisan, and stop taking a huge dump on the poor. Their cynicism in this regard is breathtaking.
The opposition to this Catholic Left is a group I can only call the "Catholic Right." Where the Catholic Left has a nasty habit of not wanting to leave the Church, the Catholic Right is quite eager to hit the exits in schism. Basically, these folks have been angry with the Church ever since Vatican II. The ones who have schismed out consider the popes to be antipopes while those who remain in the fold hold out the hope that the Roman Catholic Church will return to the Tridentine Mass. There are a variety of these people, and they often schism from each other the way Protestants do. At the crossroads of these groups is a man named Michael Voris who says a lot of good things, but he seems dipped from the same barrel of vinegar as these schismatics. Voris aims his sights directly at the modernists, but he has no qualms about taking a few shots at any who do not share his same level of enthusiasm like Father Robert Barron, a man I admire greatly both for his intelligence but also his gentleness and humility. People like Voris are fond of removing specks from other people's eyes but seem blind to the beams in their own eyes.
Two people who had this speck/beam problem were Mel Gibson and Father John Corapi. Mel Gibson was raised a traditionalist Catholic, has been an ardent critic of Vatican II, and has done more to present a Catholic worldview in Hollywood than any director in modern times. The pinnacle of this achievement was The Passion of the Christ which I found moving and troubling even when I was an atheist. But whatever Gibson achieved as a director, he has undone as a person with behavior that is shameful even for an atheist. Gibson has one divorce to his credit. He has battled alcoholism and made an ass of himself. He carried on with a nasty girlfriend which is a no-no for a divorced Catholic who is called to be celibate. Then, that same girlfriend betrayed him and showed him to be a racist which has been to his shame in Hollywood. The guy is a train wreck.
I don't want to pile on Gibson because we all have our flaws. The man also has a high degree of self-awareness over those flaws which is a testimony to being Catholic. But it is a truism that those most intent in fixing flaws in others are blind to the flaws within themselves. This leads us to the story of Father John Corapi. Corapi was a lion of a priest who was very critical of corruption in the Church especially the sex abuse scandal. The irony is that he became involved in a personal scandal involving materialist excess, fornication, and drug abuse.
Seeing things like this is like sending armed troops for a humanitarian mission to rescue people from thuggery by guerrillas except the soldiers you send end up committing atrocities and rape. Such things reveal the truth about the myth of American exceptionalism. Likewise, atheists will point out that behavior like this shows Roman Catholic exceptionalism to also be a lie. But unlike America, the Catholic Church has a moral duty and a command from the Lord Almighty to be exceptional. We are to be the salt and the light. Yet, for most people, the Catholic Church seems like an institution of darkness, corruption, and abuse.
All of this weighs on me heavily. But there are good Catholics. I see them all the time. They are the Great Ones. They don't aim to be hip and adapt to the times. They don't run their mouths and denigrate the Church. They don't schism either. They just live faithful lives. They go to Mass. They pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy. They are patient, and they are quiet. But don't ever mistake their silence for weakness. They are the only strong ones in the Church. They will die off as all people must. But more Great Ones will replace them.
For myself, I find that it will be a hard path to tread because I don't want to be a heretic, a schismatic, or a hypocrite. I also don't want to be an apostate either. These are the ones who are either explicitly atheist as I once was or those who are functionally atheist by default because they don't even care anymore. These are the Catholics that haven't been to Mass or Confession in years. These are the CINOs or Catholics in Name Only. Like secular Jews, "Catholic" is more of an ethnic identifier than a religious belief for these people. This phenomenon is so bad that the Church routinely makes the distinction of "practicing" Catholic such as when the Knights of Columbus require that you be a practicing Catholic in order to join their ranks. This is like being a vegetarian that really doesn't eat meat.
It is really easy to be a practicing Catholic. You just show up. That's it. You can be a scumbag or a saint. It doesn't matter. You just go to weekly Mass. My favorite analogy is the gym. You can be fit or out of shape. It doesn't matter. You can have a great workout or a terrible workout. It doesn't matter. If you go to the gym, you will leave better than when you arrived. It always works. But it can't work if you don't go. Similarly, the Mass brings you into the presence of Christ. Even if you can't take the sacrament, just being in the presence is enough. It will change you. It will stir in your soul. That small commitment yields huge returns. I know because I can't take the Eucharist. I just go.
I think it is the small acts that pay the biggest dividends in this regard. Attending Mass is a small act. It isn't defying a dictator. It isn't rescuing Holocaust victims. It isn't preaching to masses of people. It isn't being Mother Theresa to countless numbers of poor people. You just show up. This is all the Great Ones do. They just show up. That matters. If all I had to go on were the most visible members of the Church, I would continue as an atheist comforted in the knowledge that Catholics were just a bunch of fakers like everyone else. But I am humbled by those Great Ones. Their quiet witness is like a deafening roar in my ears. My only aspiration as a Catholic is to be like those Great Ones. So, I just keep showing up.
The quiet witness of faithful Catholics makes a huge difference. If I could take all these disparate groups and boil them down to two categories, it would be these. You have loud Catholics, and you have quiet Catholics. All of the heretics, schismatics, and hypocrites are loud. They all want a soapbox. The quiet Catholics simply live it out. Volume is no match for weight. The loudest voice is no match for the humblest saint living out their testimony.
The trouble I have these days is that I am a blogger. This means that I have a soapbox. So, I am asked the question. Am I going to be a Catholic blogger? My answer is no. I will be a blogger that happens to be Catholic. I write and post about Catholicism as if it were like my previous "-isms" like atheism or libertarianism or minimalism. But I feel like I am doing it wrong. I can soapbox a lot of things, but I don't think religion should be one of them. I don't know what that means for the C-blog, but I think I will leave preaching and teaching to those called to do that sort of thing. I'm just a writer. What kind of writer I will become from this point forward is another matter for another blog post.
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