The Lutheran Reformation saved the Papacy

The greatest danger of all--secularization--the danger which came from within, from the Popes themselves and their 'nipoti', was adjourned for centuries by the German Reformation. ... This alone had made the expedition against Rome (1527) possible and successful, [and] so did it compel the Papacy to become once more the expression of a world-wide spiritual power, to raise itself from the soulless debasement in which it lay, and to place itself at the head of all the enemies of this reformation. ... In the face of the defection of half Europe, was a new, regenerated hierarchy, which avoided all the great and dangerous scandals of former times, particularly nepotism ... It only existed and is only intelligible in opposition to the seceders. In this sense it can be said with perfect truth that the moral salvation of the Papacy is due to its mortal enemies. ... Without the Reformation ... the whole ecclesiastical State would long ago have passed into secular hands.

-- Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Phaidon, 1945), 79.

Catholic parochial education, now more secular and costly, reaches 64% fewer students in 2021 than it did in 1970

Catholic Schools Are Losing Students at Record Rates, and Hundreds Are Closing :

Even before the pandemic hit, about 100 Catholic schools were closing each year, according to the NCEA. In 1970, some 4.4 million students attended Catholic elementary and secondary schools, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a Catholic social-science research institute based at Georgetown University. At the time, almost all students were Catholics, and classes were often taught by priests, nuns or members of male religious orders, who earned salaries far lower than their public-school counterparts.

Today, about 1.6 million students attend Catholic schools, according to the NCEA. About 80% of students are Catholic, and lay teachers have almost completely replaced priests and nuns, which has driven up the cost. Though religious instruction remains a core piece of Catholic education, mass is no longer a daily part of most schools. ...

Other factors have contributed to the decline as well: Enrollment fell sharply in the early 2000s, during the church’s sex-abuse scandal, and fell again after the financial crash in 2008. Some secular families are turned off by the church’s opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage, said Carol Ann MacGregor, vice provost of Loyola University New Orleans. Meanwhile, more the most devout Catholics are home-schooling their children, in some cases because they don’t believe Catholic schools are focused enough on the faith.

Maybe Sister Cindy should try preaching repentance as liquidation of assets and a life of poverty if she's to become edgy again

What Can Fascination With ‘Sister Cindy’ Teach Us About the ‘None’ Generation?  :

I do think thoughtful conservative religious people would likely be concerned to discover—to use Christian language—that the scandal of the gospel has largely lost the power to scandalize (an enervation for which they themselves are, in my view, largely responsible). And if religion indeed no longer has this power, then we may perhaps imagine that religion of the kind that made real claims on and demands of people is heading, like that elderly aunt, rather headlong into oblivion. It may be that the world will be a better place when it’s gone, but it may also be that we come to miss it deeply. 

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. 

-- Luke 14:33

“I abhor his doctrines. Christianity is truly a religion for the expropriated.” 

-- Russell Kirk in 1942

This is priceless coming from an evangelical Christian, seeing that the foundation of evangelicalism requires buying into Pauline enthusiasm

“I Did Not Die. I Did Not Go to Heaven.”:

“The idea that someone could go to heaven and come back with visions and dreams and we should take that seriously is as far from historic evangelicalism as it’s possible to get,” Phil Johnson, the executive director of the ministry headed by MacArthur, the California pastor and author whose ministry Beth reached out to in 2012. “To me, one of the real signifiers that modern evangelical Christianity is badly astray and in serious jeopardy of even existing 50 years from now is the ease with which evangelicals buy into stories like this.”

It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.  I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.

-- II Corinthians 12:1ff.

Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, bars Illinois Senate President, Speaker of Illinois House, and other lawmakers from Holy Communion

Bishop Paprocki bars pro-abortion Illinois lawmakers from Holy Communion:

“In accord with canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law...Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan, who facilitated the passage of the Act Concerning Abortion of 2017 (House Bill 40) as well as the Reproductive Health Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 25), are not to be admitted to Holy Communion in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois because they have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time.”

“These persons may be readmitted to Holy Communion only after they have truly repented these grave sins and furthermore have made suitable reparation for damages and scandal, or at least have seriously promised to do so, as determined in my judgment or in the judgment of their diocesan bishop in consultation with me or my successor."

“I declare that Catholic legislators of the Illinois General Assembly who have cooperated in evil and committed grave sin by voting for any legislation that promotes abortion are not to present themselves to receive Holy Communion without first being reconciled to Christ and the Church in accord with canon 916 of the Code of Canon Law."

“[I]n issuing this decree, I anticipate that some will point out the Church’s own failings with regard to the abuse of children.”

“The same justifiable anger we feel toward the abuse of innocent children, however, should prompt an outcry of resistance against legalizing the murder of innocent children. The failings of the Church do not change the objective reality that the murder of a defenseless baby is an utterly evil act."

“We also understand many unplanned pregnancies come with fear and difficulty."

“It is our obligation, as a society, to be there for these pregnant mothers, help them in any way possible, and empower them to make life affirming decisions. This also includes continued support for the mother and her child after birth. We must acknowledge a child in the womb is not a problem. He or she is a gift from God.”

“In view of their gravely immoral action to deprive unborn children legal protection against abortion, it must be said that any Catholic legislator who sponsored, promoted, advocated, or voted for these pro-abortion bills has acted in a seriously sinful manner unfaithful to the 2,000-year-old Christian teaching against abortion and therefore, would place themselves outside of the full communion of the Catholic Church."

“Such persons are not to receive Holy Communion until they have celebrated the sacrament of reconciliation and displayed a public conversion of life.”

“As sacred Scripture warns, ‘Whoever eats unworthily of the bread and drinks from the Lord’s cup makes himself guilty of profaning the body and of the blood of the Lord.’ To support legislation that treats babies in the womb like property, allowing for their destruction for any reason at any time, is evil. It’s my hope and prayer these lawmakers reconcile themselves to the Church so they can receive Communion.”

“The Eucharist is the most sacred aspect of our Catholic faith."

“I want to thank lawmakers who stood up to these barbaric pieces of legislation and voted ‘no,’ and I applaud their courage to speak the truth that the most basic right we should all enjoy, is the right to life.”

Pope defrocks former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sexually abusing "minors", should say "boys"

Pope defrocks ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick over abuse claims: 

 

 

A former Roman Catholic archbishop and cardinal has been dismissed from the priesthood after the Vatican found him guilty of sexually abusing minors in a sign of an increasingly hardline stance taken by the church. Theodore McCarrick, 88, one of the prominent figures in the church, was defrocked just days before an unprecedented global summit of bishops to discuss child sexual abuse is convened by the Vatican. The Vatican’s move makes McCarrick the most senior figure to be removed from the priesthood in modern times. ...

An earlier Vatican hearing had found him guilty of soliciting for sex while hearing confession “with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power” and ordered his “dismissal from the clerical state”. McCarrick, who retired as archbishop of Washington DC in 2006, was forced to resign as a cardinal last July after a man publicly alleged that he had been sexually abused by the cleric from 1971, when he was a 16-year-old altar boy in New York. ...

Another man subsequently claimed he had also been abused as a child by McCarrick, and several former trainee priests alleged they had been sexually harassed by the former cardinal at his New Jersey beach house.

 

National Catholic Reporter attacks its conservative luminaries and First Things, denies Catholic abuse scandal is primarily homosexual in origin

This snooty editorial demanding deep self-examination is itself blind to the sin of homosexuality which has metastisized in the Catholic priesthood. The church's view that God has created people homosexual is the little leaven that has leavened the whole lump.

Here:

Those who worked so ardently in the past to enable you — the faithful, so betrayed, who just couldn't believe you would engage in such a deliberate cover up; the likes of George Weigel and his blind, uncritical hagiography of Pope John Paul II; Dr. Mary Ann Glendon and the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and their naive celebration and defense of Maciel; the rest of the chorus at First Things and like publications; the telling silence of so many other Catholic outlets; the absurdity of charlatan William Donohue and his silly "Catholic" League — they helped sustain your weak narrative as many of them denigrated those who raised the tough questions and pursued the truth.

It's over.

None of them any longer has a persuasive case to make. Some of them now try to blame the crisis on gay priests. You might be tempted to latch onto that diversion, but it will only prolong the already intolerably long agony.

Gay priests and bishops are certainly among us — probably a greater percentage of gays in the Catholic clergy, if anecdotal evidence and the private chatter of seminary rectors and heads of orders is to be believed, than one would find in the general population. ...

Unless the preponderance of credible experts has suddenly flipped its understanding of things, however, sexual orientation is not one of the topics that match with sexual abuse.

Why Jesus was a prophet without honor in his own home

And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. -- Matthew 13:57 (Mark 6:4)

Imagine Jesus the bastard child of Mary taken in by the carpenter as his own son. The carpenter Joseph raises Jesus as his own and presumably trains him to be a carpenter also. Joseph disappears from the record, probably due to early death, so that we never hear of him again in the Gospels in the active sense, beyond the time when Jesus at the age of twelve tarried in the temple according to Luke. Thus Jesus no doubt became the man of the family and its material provider from that point on, which would explain in part why the spiritually precocious child had to wait so long to begin his public ministry as a teacher with pupils. He had a personal obligation of support for his family, which also included training his younger brothers in the trade to take over for him when the time was right.

Jesus turned his back on all this, that is, he repented of his former life, when he left them all and submitted to the baptism of repentance, the baptism of John. In doing so Jesus was demonstrating that he himself was willing to pay the price of discipleship, personal poverty, which he demanded his followers to pay also. "No man can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that he owns."

We can well imagine how this went over with his own family, which found it difficult to accept even if it never caused them to shun him as he now seemed to shun them. The famous scene in Mark 3 where Jesus fails to recognize them as his true mother, sisters and brothers no doubt was confirmation to them that he was indeed "beside himself". You can almost hear some of them saying, "Brother Jesus has gone off the deep end and started a cult!"

But to others from Jesus' hometown not simply the failure to meet his social obligations but his rejection of those obligations in principle was a scandal causing them to be indignant at him, despite his reputation for "success" as a prophet and wonder worker, and now they felt alienated from him. "What if everyone did what he did? How would anyone survive? Those unwilling to work will not get to eat! If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever!"

Methodist Adam Hamilton can't stand the apocalyptic Jesus

Methodist Adam Hamilton has to edit out of the Bible the apocalyptic Jesus, and much else, here:

The violence attributed to God in the Bible is a serious issue that Christians must address. It is inconsistent with the character of God described in many places in the Old Testament, and certainly inconsistent with the Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ who calls his followers to love their enemies.

John the Baptist begged to differ:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

-- Matthew 3:11f.

Contra Mark Tooley And Michael Novak, Jesus Wasn't Interested In Alleviating Poverty, Funding Charity And Sustaining Liberty

 

 

  

Mark Tooley, here:

Creating new businesses is a Christian moral imperative, recalling the Savior was Himself a small businessman, and knowing that only business can meaningfully alleviate poverty, fund charity, and sustain liberty. Why aren’t more Christians speaking of business and economic expansion as central to true social justice???

This claim that Jesus was a small businessman stands on the strength of Mark 6:3 alone in the New Testament:

"Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

But of course Matthew has corrected this narrative at 13:55 of his own gospel:

“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?"

Apart from the fact that I rather doubt that Michael Novak would find a happy audience among his fellow Catholics if he similarly pressed these passages to insist Jesus' brothers and sisters were the progeny of the ever virgin Mary, to insist that Jesus was a small businessman is to miss completely from the gospels his vocation as eschatological prophet and his message of repentance, which required "saying goodbye to everything that one has" according to Luke 14:33. Fisherman are called to drop their nets and follow, in other words leave their jobs behind and become completely dependent on God in order to escape the wrath that is to come. The same for everyone else, rich and poor alike, from miserable tax farmers to princes in soft raiment. All are required to give up their former pursuits and come follow, bringing nothing to the table. Indeed, the more you've got, the more it is likely to hold you back.

Jesus' message is not about alleviating poverty. It's about increasing it. The meaning of Jesus' gospel is to become the poor.

Yes, distribution to others who are poor is required. You can call this funding charity if you wish, but Jesus expected the recipients to give it all away, too, and also come follow so that his movement would give and give and give without producing anything new until the eschaton of God's judgment intervened, which Jesus believed would happen imminently.

In other words, sustainability was the last thing on Jesus' mind.

Actually, liquidation of businesses is the moral imperative of the teaching of Jesus, not creating new businesses, because God's judgment is right around the corner. Well, if you said that today, they'd call you nuts, too.

If there is a stumbling block in the gospel it's this, not the cross of later invention.

 

Which is why they got rid of it. 

Rod Dreher is Really Full of It

Rod Dreher gets all uppity, here, searching as he does the innermost thoughts and secrets of the human heart:

So many times I’ve heard Catholics and Orthodox both, when talking about the scandals within these churches, quickly dismissing the deep and complex evils embedded within the lives of the two churches by making some easy reference to the wheat and the tares, or complaining that the media doesn’t see all the good things the church does, etc. That sort of thing. And it’s true! But these are statements that the people who make them typically haven’t earned the right to make, because they have never seriously looked at and thought about the kinds of things that exist within these churches (and all churches) that would lead someone to lose faith. Tom Breen has done that. That he could not only hold on to his faith, but actually find his faith by so doing, is a testament to the man’s character, and to the grace of God.

Nice riff on the human will cooperating with the spirit of God there Rod. I'd be more impressed by an involuntary conversion like that of Saul of Tarsus, which no one in any denomination seems very interested in talking about.

And just why isn't it a testament to their character who lose faith? Perhaps because for you that's impossible a priori? Because for you it is in principle impossible for the faithless to look seriously and think seriously and reach the conclusion not to believe?

Isn't the point of both experiences that human character is not absolute and not eternal and completely contingent, and something of a mystery to us? Isn't the point that it's not a conclusion?

Like it or not, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18), you and me, and everyone else, serious or not.

With Rob Bell . . . in Hell

There once was a pastor named Bell

His first sermon, chronicl'd in hell:

"Jesus' radical love is a scandal!

That's why I took off my sandals!"

Twofold more child of hell than yourselves.

Story here.

Rome Still Pink As The Day Is Long

The UK Daily Mail reports here on yet another embarrassment for the Roman Catholic Church right in its own backyard:

Catholic sex scandal as undercover reporter 'films priests at gay clubs and having casual flings'

By Nick Pisa

23rd July 2010

A gay priest sex scandal has rocked the Catholic Church in Italy today after a weekly news magazine released details of a shock investigation it had carried out.

Using hidden cameras, a journalist from Panorama magazine - owned by Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi - filmed three priests as they attended gay nightspots and had casual sex.

Today there was no immediate comment from the Italian Bishops Conference and the Vatican - which has been rocked by a series of sex scandals involving paedophile priests since the start of the year.

A preview of the Panorama article sent out by email last night added that video footage from the investigation would be made available.

The article describes how the reporter was assisted by a gay 'accomplice' as they 'gate-crashed the wild nights of a number of priests in Rome who live a surprising double-life.'

In its preview, Panorama added: 'By day they are regular priests, complete with dog collar, but, at night it's off with the cassock as they take their place as perfectly integrated members of the Italian capital's gay scene.'

Panorama described its investigation as 'deeply disturbing' as it detailed how three priests - two Italians and a Frenchman - happily took part in gay events and had casual sex.

The Catholic Church forbids priests to have sex and homosexuality is also seen as a 'sin' .

In 2008 the Vatican issued guidelines which said that any would be trainees should not join if they had 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies'.

In one part of the investigation Panorama said that one priest, named as Carlo, willingly put on his cassock to have sex with the reporter's gay accomplice, adding 'all of which was filmed by the hidden camera'.

The magazine also described how they had attended a Mass which was celebrated by Carlo.

In its preview Panorama insisted that it had carried out through checks and established that all three priests were bona fide but would not reveal their real names or any other details.

Panorama editor Giorgio Mule said: 'This was a two week investigation and was not aimed at creating a scandal but showing that a certain section of the clergy behaves very differently.'

To Be or Not To Be

On Fox News Sunday, January 3, 2010, Brit Hume made the following remarks about the Buddhism of Tiger Woods, remarks which have been the subject of much controversy for days:

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think is a very open question, and it’s a tragic situation with him. He’s lost his family, it’s not clear to me whether he’ll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal, the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith, so my message to Tiger would be 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'

Since Hume is a self-professed Christian, is it reasonable to expect that Tiger's present record of misbehavior wouldn't call into question for such a person the character of Tiger's own religion? Indeed, Tiger's egregious misbehavior suggests that some awfully bad karma from a past life has been manifesting itself in this one just as much as his pre-eminence as an athlete suggests the opposite. What extremes these are. What was he in a past life that he should be what he is in this one?

Christianity explains reality very differently, in terms of tragedy, where human excellence derived from a divine spark becomes co-mingled with total depravity because of a choice taken to disobey, made freely. To the Buddhist, all of this is an illusion, both the good and the evil, along with the idea of personality, whether human or divine. Escaping from the great chain of being represents a rather different religious goal than forgiveness, redemption and eternal life. But Tiger's penchant for the procreative act seems like a strange, deep and willful entanglement in it.

The thing which jumps out at me about this spectacle is how incidental religion has seemed to the careers of the principals involved, and how avocational. Hume should feel as free to speak his mind as I feel to say that his chosen venue was unwise, if he sincerely had Tiger's eternal welfare foremost in his mind.