Religious Liberty Down Under in the side bar.

On the great vigil of Easter in 433, which was also March 25th, Feast of the Annunciation, St. Patrick determined to meet the Celtic chieftains and High King Leoghaire  on their own ground at Tara by and challenge their superstitious and idolatrous druidism.  The pagans were prepared for the messenger of Christ, as their demoniac prophets had divined his presence.au

St. Patrick made his presence known opposite Tara on the summit of the hill of Slane where he kindled the Easter fire.  The druid priests responded by appealing to Leoghaire:  ”O King, live for ever. This fire, which has been lighted in defiance of the royal edict, will blaze for ever in this land unless it be this very night extinguished.”  By order of the king the druids were sent to the hill of Slane to put out Patrick’s fire and slay him, but by miraculous intervention, both the fire and the saint were protected from all harm, much to the consternation of the pagans.

In the morning the saint accompanied by his Christian band formed the Easter procession and proceeded from the fire on the hill of Slane to the Tara.  St. Patrick was arrayed in full episcopal attire.  As he approached the stronghold of Satan, the druid priests made use of their black incantations to cover all the land in darkness, but at his prayers this wile was undone and the sun shown gloriously in the Easter Day.  In the light the druid high priest was then raised off the ground into the heights only to be brought down again by divine power and dashed on the rocks below.

In this way St. Patrick defeated paganism in Ireland and proved to all the cheiftans the truth of the Catholic religion.  Through his great faith and his willingness to risk his life before the minions of Satan, the Saint one the admiration of the King and obtained from him permission to spread the true faith throughout the realm.

Life is always a struggle between light and darkness. It is the story of mankind.  It is the story of Ireland and it is the news of the week:

God bless Dana Rosemary Scallon, a modern day Joan of Arc, who in the past was not afraid of being attacked by the Irish bishops in defense of the right to life.  Read her largely unheeded exhortation to the Irish people:

This is no longer about the politics of right and left, it is about right and wrong. I can no longer stay silent about the wilful betrayal of Ireland’s Constitution.

BTW, the preamble of that constitution reads thus:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

In effect, the Lisbon Treaty offers no protection to the unborn and largely eliminates Ireland’s judicial sovereignty.

What about “acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ”?

Pray for Ireland.  Ask St. Patrick to bring light into the darkness and exorcise the Great Snake from the Emerald Isle.

During my discussions of the topic of prudery on The Linde, Lauretta found a quote from Christopher Derick in which he makes the claim that the paschal candle is, in fact, a phallic symbol.  I mention this because in one of my posts I noted that, while Christopher West quotes Derrick’s Sex and Sacredness as supporting this theory, the quote he actually uses says nothing about the candle.  In any case, there is still no magisterial or patristic evidence for this assertion and I still maintain that it is a baseless invention.

I have also updated the compendium with my latest contribution.

The following list provides links to all the posts that I have written either here or on Dawn Patrol about the Theology of the Body. I will update the list if I have missed any, or if, God forbid, I add others.

Update: Missed posts added to compendium (dates in red text).

Further Update:  Added posts (dates in green text).

• “Hope of the World” (November 11, 2008):  The first reference I made to the “new chastity movement” on this blog shortly after the national election in the context of our lack of will to elect a pro-life president in the United States.
• “Thinking Like a Man” (April, 16, 2009):  Why it is necessary for men to fight the good fight of chastity, rather than hope to be delivered from temptation by a new and holy fascination with the body, as is suggested in West’s presentation.
• “John Paul the Great and Hugh Hefner the Magnificent” (May 8th, 2009):  My original reaction to Chris West’s Nightline interview with a focus on the problem of prudery.
• “Christopher West’s blind spot:  TOB has to be seen through Church’s historical teachings” (May 14, 2009):  A response to those who say that the critique is an attack on Christopher West and a closer look at the question of “original innocence” and its relation to the effect TOB can have on our redemption.
• “Schindler’s list: Sparks fly as JP2 Institute dean raps Christopher West for errors” (May 29, 2009):  An analysis of the responses of Professors Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein to the critique of West by Professor David Schindler.
• “Virgo redacta:  Christopher West and the dangers of overanalogizing Mary” (June 18, 2009):  An attempt to answer the defenders of Christopher West, by addressing some of the specific problems with his presentation, namely,  the phallic symbolism of the paschal candle  and the way that the Blessed Virgin is eroticized by his presentation.  More generally, I touch upon his problematic use of analogy. (See, notation on new information contained in this post).
• “To Chris West: Enough Already. How about a Response?” (June 24, 2009):  A critique of the methodology by which critics of West are dealt with by implying prudery or animus as a motivation for the disagreement, or that disagreement with West constitutes disagreement with John Paul II.
• “St. Agustine and the Theology of the Body” (June 27, 2009):  Comments on and several quotations from Msgr. Cormac Burke’s defense of St. Augustine’s views on marriage.  Another critique of seeing prudery where it isn’t.
• “The Theology of the Body and Courage: Fighting the Real Fight” (July 14, 2009):  Why it is important for men to focus on agape rather than eros.
• “Martyrs, Mystics and Rhetoricians” (July 31, 2009):  A response to Father Thomas Loya’s defense of Christopher West, with a focus on the hermeneutic of discontinuity manifested by the new “holy fascination” with the body advocated by Christopher West and his followers.
• Shame on You.  Amen. (September 1, 2009):  Thoughts inspired by a discussion on The Linde regarding the nature of shame and its relation to modesty, with an emphasis on the cultivation of prudence in the face of the American TOB crusade against prudery.
• Cardinal and Bishop Support Christopher West (September 8, 2009): Text of Cardinal Rigali’s and Bishop Kevin Rhoades letter of support of Christopher West and his work.
• In Defense of Purity (September 20, 2009):  Introductory post to my commentary on Dietrich von Hildebrand’s work In Defense of Purity, proposed as a sure way of coming to understand the true meaning of the Theology of the Body.
• In Defense of Purity I (September 29, 2009):  Commentary on the first chapter of von Hildebrand’s book, focusing on the meaning of shame, particularly in its positive aspect, and distinguished from that shame which seeks to protect the person from use, with a particular reference to its correlation in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
• A Response to Christopher West (October 30, 2009):  My reply to the response to Christopher West, in which he finally breaks his silence regarding the controversy surrounding his presentation of the Theology of the Body.
• Theology of the Tango? (November 1, 2009):  An example of the American version of Theology of the Body gone off the rails.

Or the Theology of the Soapbox

What follows in another one of my long expositions on the Theology of the Body.  I have to give a loud content warning at the outset.  There is some frank talk here about sexuality, or rather, my complaints that there is too much frank talk about such matters.  I would have asked Dawn Eden to publish this one, but she has very courageously retired from blogging.  I have to commend her on her decision; however, it is not without regret on my part.

I again want to let those I disagree with know that my intentions are honorable and I do not question their integrity or commitment to the faith.  I can take my lumps if I deserve them.

In a recent apologia for Christopher West, Father Thomas Loya makes grand assertions:

Christopher West is a bit of a mystic—in the best sense of the word. His work, which seems strange to some, is actually that of a pioneer. And like all pioneers, West is taking a lot of arrows for his courage. In the face of much resistance, West is courageous enough to invite all of us to do just what John Paul II invited us to do: to think and talk in spousal categories.

He goes on to put the author and speaker in good company:

West’s use of this kind of imagery is rooted deeply in the Catholic tradition.  Hence, if we want to condemn West for certain comparisons he makes, then it seems we must condemn a great many saints as well.  St. John Chrysostom told married couples to remember that Christ united himself to the Church “in a spiritual intercourse.”  Teresa of Avila writes of ecstasies she experienced in “nuptial union” with Christ.  St. Bernard of Clairvaux had mystical experiences of nursing at Mary’s breasts. St. Louis de Montfort repeatedly refers to Mary’s milk and breasts as a source of consolation for Christians.  Bishop Fulton Sheen – assuring his audience that he was quoting St. Augustine verbatim – proclaimed that Christ “came to the marriage bed of the Cross, … united himself with the woman [the Church], and consummated the union forever.”  And he didn’t hesitate to share publicly Augustine’s idea that the blood and water from Christ’s side was, as it were, his “spiritual seminal fluid.”  For those with eyes to see, these precious theological jewels are not a cause for scandal.  They make perfect mystical sense; they are beautiful and profoundly healing.

No Mystics or Martyrs

In truth, these “precious theological jewels,” are not a cause for scandal, nor has anyone that I know of been scandalized by them.  This is another straw man argument put forward in defense of Christopher West without addressing any of the real issues that have been raised by those who have problems with his presentation of TOB.

I know very well that there are many people who disagree with my analysis of the West/TOB issue.  I do not claim to have any mystical insight, nor do I believe that anyone who disagrees with me is my persecutor, nor do I know of anyone else on my side of the issue who believes he or she is suffering the slings and arrows of defenders of West.  Considering the influence West already has, I think it would be more productive if these elevations to mystic and martyr were dropped in favor of an effort to engage in a real intellectual discussion of the issues.

I do not know of anyone who has minimized the value of John Paul II’s presentation of the faith in “spousal categories,” nor anyone on my side of the issue who has criticized a saint.  On the contrary, it is West who takes the saints to task for their alleged prudery.  But let me comment on Father Loya’s saint references one by one.

Saintly Eroticism?

The context of St. John Chrysostom’s remark is a discussion about the holiness of marriage insofar as it was denied by heretics who themselves engaged in sexual depravity.  It was not an exhortation to have a holy preoccupation with sex.

St. Theresa of Avila and other mystics, like St. Bernard, often comment on nuptial and erotic imagery of the Song of Songs, but this does not translate into the sexualization of their mystical experiences with Christ or into a constant preoccupation with the natural and holy pleasures of marriage, as I have pointed out elsewhere.  If the contrary is true, I would like to see someone actually make a reasoned argument for the position, rather than simply assert that it is true because saints commented on the Song of Songs.

As for St. Bernard’s mystical experience and St. Louis’s de Monfort’s references to Maria Lactans, are West and Father Loya really suggesting that these experiences and meditations were sexually erotic?  That assertion, quite frankly, would be blasphemous.  If that is not what is meant, I would like to know what the correct interpretation is.  (I have dealt specifically with West’s over-extended and flatly mistaken interpretation of St. Louis, elsewhere.)  If grown men who have a natural and vehement sexual attraction to women find it difficult to have the same regard for a woman’s body as a nursing infant, I do not think this should be faulted them.  Do you?  It is no shame to admit that we are not St. Bernard.

The quote of St. Augustine by Bishop Sheen is conveniently edited to exclude the statement of the saint that Christ came to “a bed of pain, not pleasure.”  Father Loya has done this more than once, as I have learned from Dawn Eden.  In any case, as much as I believe St. Augustine is scapegoated for modern prudery, I can hardly imagine the great doctor of the West preaching and teaching that we ought to have a holy preoccupation with sex.

Since when does nuptial and erotic imagery in the bible and the writings of the saints translate into a constant, marketed, mystic and martyred fascination with sexuality?  Since Christopher West has asserted it and suggested that those who doubt it need to look within themselves and ask why they are uncomfortable with thinking in this way.  And now Loya plays the absolute moral authority card by declaring West mystic and martyr.

Pious Sex Obsession

Let us be clear: The real issue is not whether the Theology of the Body is an important contribution to the Church’s new evangelization, but whether as a single corpus of magisterial teaching it constitutes the new evangelization, and whether its valid interpretation is a mandate for a fascination with the erotic.  I am willing to drop the veiled language only in the sense that we need to make plain that all this revisionist apologetics has become a pious justification for the contemporary obsession with sex.

Loya quotes John Paul II, where he says that “consciousness of the spousal meaning of the body constitutes the fundamental component of human existence the world” (TOB 15:5).  But why are we supposed to believe that this mean that we must keep our minds focused on sex?  And then Loya quotes the Holy Father again in Mulieris Dignitatem, where he says that “the Eucharist is the … sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride” (26).  But why are we to conclude, then, that the pope wants us to think sexual thoughts?  John Paul II’s Theology of the body is so philosophical and dense that “experts” have succeeded in squeezing more out of the text than is warranted because they are very effective apologists and rhetoricians.

Manichaean Bogeyman

Father Loya has his own question which I am happy to answer once he clarifies if for me:  “Could it be that those tainted by a Manichaean suspicion are actually projecting their own issues on to West?”  And who would these persons “tainted by a Manichaean suspicion” be?  Perhaps those who disagree with West, precisely because they disagree with him?  This is a classic example of the fallacy of the complex question.  So who is projecting?

Lest you think I exaggerate, lest you think that we are not being told to shed our inhibitions and get erotic, behold the language of Father Loya’s Holy Week meditation:

So, is your sex life improving? It should for those who have really understood and embraced the season of Lent. We said last time in this column that the season of Lent was great for our sexual lives.  Now it gets even better!

. . . . The events of the week leading up to Christ’s death on the Cross are like a mystical “foreplay.” In fact, Jesus is even stripped naked during this process. What happens on the Cross is not just the death of Christ but the consummation of a mystical marriage between God and His Bride. This is why Christ looks down from the Cross at his mother and calls her “Woman.”  He echoes the name Adam gave to Eve because in this climactic moment, Christ becomes the new Adam and his Mother becomes the new Eve.

. . . . This is why in my church we sing with great exuberance on the days of Pascha (EasterJ “Christ emerges from the tomb like a bridegroom from the bridal chamber and fills the women with great joy!” Wow! Now is that sexual or what!?

Lent is “mystical foreplay”?  And Holy Week the best part of our sex lives?  No, the problem here is not that prudery reacts against something holy, but that common sense reacts against the vulgarization of something holy.

Sex Sells

But we are told this kind of language is necessary because people are deeply wounded in their sexuality and need to be talked to frankly about it.  That is certainly a valid consideration. Good people will have to be free, within measure, to decide for themselves where the line ought to be drawn.  My inclination is not to burden apologists by all kinds of secondary rules about what they may or may not say; however, a good argument does not justify a bad conclusion.  I contend that a holy fascination with sexuality is not in any way mandated by John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

The problem with marketing language designed for our oversexed age, is that it canonizes and intellectualizes the modern sex obsession.  That objections to this are rooted in Manichaeism is a red herring, because the people claimed to be in most need of healing through TOB are those who already have little in the way of sexual inhibitions.  Furthermore, the advance levels of indoctrination into this popularization of TOB are not less explicit, but more explicit.  So the erotic preoccupation really has little if anything to do with apologetical exigencies.

Hermeneutic of Discontinuity

In fact, this sex fascination is based on a hermeneutic of discontinuity and is not a development of doctrine at all, because, as Newman would point out, its “action upon the past” is not “conservative.” That is, on the contrary, it “obscures,” not “illustrates”; corrects, not “corroborates,” “the body of thought from which it proceeds.”  Thus, it is a corruption of doctrine, not a development.  Any recourse to mystic intuitions in support of this kind of speculation or martyrdom when it is opposed just sinks the position further into fallacious argumentation.

I do not oppose this with such vehemence because I dislike West or Loya, or because I am jealous (another really swift argument), but because the assertions I criticize are false.  The topics being discussed are extraordinarily important. The more those who disagree with me call my part of the discussion foul play, the more I am convinced that what they espouse is harmful.

Mystery and Martyrdom

In fact, chastity is a mystic reality, precisely because it is the mystery of martyrdom.  This is the doctrine of marriage, according to St. Paul, which teaches that marriage is a great mystery, precisely because the Bridegroom gave Himself up for the Bride (Eph 5: 32, 25).  As John Paul II states:

The Church is herself in the degree to which she, as body, receives from Christ her head the whole gift of salvation a fruit of Christ’s love and of his giving for the Church: fruit of Christ’s giving to the end.  The gift of self to the Father through obedience to the point of death (see Phil 2:8) is at the same time, according to Ephesians, an act of “giving himself for the Church.”  In this expression, redeeming love transforms itself, I would say, into spousal love: by giving himself for the Church, with the same redeeming act, Christ united himself once and for all with her as Bridegroom to the Bride, as the husband with the wife, giving himself through all that is included once for all in “giving himself” for the Church (TOB 90.6).

“Redeeming love,” “spousal love,” “giving himself,” and “obedience to the point of death,” are all dimensions of the same love, the focus of which is oblative and sacrificial.  Certainly erotic pleasure is related to sacrificial love as receiving is to giving, but even the theological meaning of giving of one’s body in Christian marriage is more about sacrifice than possession, more about selflessness than pleasure.  Christ spousal love is the act of “giving himself” to his bride on the cross in the embrace of death.  The paradox is that the keenest joy and pleasure, even in the marital embrace, is experienced when there is complete selflessness.  The eros God intends for us is gained, not by focusing on it, but on agape.

This primacy of oblative love reveals the full context of St. Augustine’s remark, only selectively quoted by Father Loya:

The heavenly bridegroom left the heavenly chambers, with the presage of the nuptials before him.  He came to the marriage bed of the cross, a bed not of pleasure, but of pain, united himself with the woman, and consummated the union forever.  As it were, the blood and water that came from the side of Christ was the spiritual seminal fluid.

Pope Benedict XVI clarifies this in Deus Caritas Est when he calls the death of Christ on the cross “love in its most radical form,” from which “our definition of love must begin.”  This “act of oblation” is given an “enduring presence” in the Eucharist through which we “are drawn into Jesus act of self-oblation (12, 13).  The pope says:

The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God’s presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood. The sacramental “mysticism”, grounded in God’s condescension towards us, operates at a radically different level and lifts us to far greater heights than anything that any human mystical elevation could ever accomplish (13).

So yes, the Eucharist is “the sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride,” but this statement is not a pretext for dwelling on the marital embrace.  It is not holy eroticism.  There is far too much in the world today that, a la Dan Brown, turns eroticism into piety and prayer.  This is not the “sacramental mysticism” of the Church, but the “human mystical elevation” of the pagans which the pope criticizes.

Let’s Talk Sex, Not

Lest I be misconstrued, I must refer once again to the context of my remarks, which is in no way determined by an antipathy toward erotic love, or by the machinations of the Manichaean demon.  The fact is that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body is being used by others to justify a fascination with erotic love and the institutionalization of sex talk as the new evangelization.  The pretext for this is the presumption that the absence of this kind of talk and discomfort with it is due to prudery.

Prudery is a problem, as I have attested many times before, but it is simply not true that prior the sexual revolution, Vatican II and John Paul II there was no mainstream corrective offered here in America by prominent Catholics.  Dawn Eden has done some research on this subject and has discovered, for example, that in 1958 Msgr. George A. Kelly edited and published a highly successful and acclaimed manual on marriage that addressed prudery in very explicit terms.

Monsignor Kelly was prominent priest of the Archdiocese of New York, appointed by Cardinal Spellman to be Family Life Director in 1955, and who in 1977 founded the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.  Monsignor Kelly’s Catholic Marriage Manual “sold a quarter-million copies and netted him almost a quarter-million dollars in royalties, every penny of which went to the New York Foundling Hospital.”  It received Cardinal Spellman’s imprimatur, and was highly and widely praised by members of the Catholic media and academia.

Chapter 3 of the manual was written by Bernard J. Pisani, M.D. and entitled “A Catholic Doctor Looks at Marriage.”  There Dr. Pisani addressed prudery in no uncertain terms:

Since sex is God’s creation, it is presumptuous for any creature to call It “dirty” or “vulgar.” Yet misunderstanding of the goodness of sex when its use conforms with God’s law is the cause of many difficulties in marriage. These problems stem from the prevailing point of view of a century ago that the sex act was not “nice” under any circumstances. Sex was something shameful, a necessary evil that should be kept hidden from children as long as possible. Remnants of that puritanical point of view remain. Often a woman in her twenties, who is ready to enter matrimony, has the fixed notion taught by her parents that the act of physical love is an animal function which should be tolerated when necessary but never enjoyed. She has been warned since adolescence about the evils of sexual intercourse. Because of their own misunderstanding her parents were unable to draw the necessary distinction between the improper use of sex outside of marriage and its proper role inside marriage. They regard God’s creation as a necessary evil at best.

What is more noteworthy is that doctor Pisani addressed the question of “mutual climax” at more or less the same time that Karol Wojtyla was delivering his talks in Lublin that included the same notion.  The written work Love and Responsibility did not appear until 1960 and was not published in English until 1981, twenty-three years after American Catholics had the opportunity to read these words of Dr. Pisani:

Since the typical male will reach a climax sooner than his wife unless he controls himself, he should learn to delay the peak of his excitement and to caress and stimulate his wife so that they achieve release in unison.  Young brides especially should realize that the reaching of such an adjustment often requires considerable time. Because the act of sex is such an intimate activity, its enjoyment requires the gradual flowering of mutual understanding and a sense of freedom. The husband must learn to recognize his wife’s reactions at the various preliminary stages and to govern his own impulses accordingly. Satisfactory adjustment in the sense of simultaneous release may require many months or even years to achieve, and perhaps may never be achieved on a regular basis. You will help this adjustment if you discuss your relationship with love, frankness and an understanding of your partner’s fundamental nature and specific responses.

So much for West’s claim that the Holy Father was revolutionary on this point.  And to think this was first put into print in the body-hating, sex-despising U.S. of A.  The popular American interpretation of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which at heart is a formula to overcome prudery is based on a myth that the Church had no effective means or even the awareness to address the problem.  This is not to say that John Paul’s teaching is not a tremendous contribution, only that the American interpretation is based on a historical falsehood used to justify a hermeneutic of discontinuity.

One thing can be learned from the time in which prudery was being addressed by the Church without the “theological time bomb” that has become a pretext for focusing on the erotic:  It is actually possible to address problems of sexuality and prudery without ripping down all the veils, vulgarizing our catechesis and making sure we train ourselves to look on nakedness without shame.

The Theology of Clothing

In fact, it seems that in 2000 Cardinal Ratzinger might have been offering a corrective when he dealt with the modern liturgical penchant for unveiling everything.  He wrote that “the theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body.”  His use of John Paul’s appellative for this modern corpus of teaching on marriage and sexuality cannot be coincidental.

The context of Cardinal Ratzinger’s remarks on this topic in The Spirit of the Liturgy is his discussion of the meaning of priestly vestments, which signify, in the words of St. Paul, the clothing of our perishable nature in immortality (1 Cor 15:53).  Though the context is different from our immediate concern, it is, in my opinion, at least analogous and validly applied to our topic.  The Holy Father himself makes reference to the Theology of the Body and concludes his discussion with a reference to the clothing of the newly baptized in the white garment, which is “an expression of the purity and beauty of the risen Christ” (220).  It is at least interesting that the new man in Christ, redeemed in body and soul, and incorporated into the body of Christ through Baptism, is not stripped but clothed.  In any case, here is Cardinal Ratzinger at length:

Paul describes the body of this time as an “earthly tent”, which will be taken down, and looks ahead to the house not made with human hands, ‘eternal in the heavens’. He is anxious about the taking down of the tent, anxious about the ‘nakedness’ in which he will then find himself. His hope is to be not “unclothed”, but “further clothed”, to receive the “heavenly house” — the definitive body — as a new garment.

. . . Thus the theology of clothing becomes a theology of the body. . . . The liturgical vestment carries this message in itself.  It is a “further clothing”, not an “unclothing”, and the liturgy guides us on the way to this “further clothing”, on the way to the body’s salvation in the risen body of Jesus Christ, which is the new “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1).  The Body of Christ, which we receive in the Eucharist, to which we are united in the Eucharist (“one Body with him”, cf. 1 Cor. 6:12-20), saves us from “nakedness”, from the bareness in which we cannot stand before him (218).

Perhaps, the reason why John Paul II never went as far as to say that “sex is liturgical,” not even with qualifying words “in a sense,” (a phrase he often uses in TOB, as Steve Kellmeyer has pointed out) is because of the extremes to which men are inclined to go.  Perhaps it had nothing to do with scandalizing the prudish, but with not encouraging those who are inclined to strip everything down to genitalia and sex acts.

The Reform of the Reform

Is not what the pope has called the “reform of the reform” a measured reaction against the vulgarity by which every boundary and veil has been penetrated and every sanctuary violated.  We no longer even have sanctuaries, we have unveiled, boundariless “worship spaces.”  Even Catholic liturgical orthodoxy is presented to us in such a way that we are forced to watch the Easter Candle copulate with the Baptismal font.  I am not going to mince words here.  I have been criticized for not using “nuptial’ language in reference to this groundless assertion.  When is it ever appropriate or even moral to simulate a sex act in public (or even in private for that matter), let alone during the sacred liturgy?  Never.  We fittingly modify the description of such acts with the word “pornographic.”  It is only the skills of the rhetorician that has allowed this travesty to pass for liturgical interpretation.

Or we are told that the Baldichin covering the altar of sacrifice is a bed canopy, because, by all means we need to think about a man and woman having sex on the altar when the Sacrifice of Christ is being offered during the Holy Mass.  But, in fact, isn’t a bed canopy a kind of veil, a boundary that creates a sacred space in which “liturgy” of marriage takes place and in which the revelation and communion is experienced by the two spouses alone? In fact as we learn from the New Liturgical Movement blog, the Baldichin is traced back to the ancient ciborium mangum, the veils of which were actually drawn closed during parts of the sacred liturgy.  There is no question that the liturgy is replete with “spousal” and “nuptial” imagery, as are the scriptures and the writings of the saints, but I take exception to Father Loya’s hijacking of these terms, by suggesting that healthy Catholics ought to see the erotic everywhere.

In fact, the language of the liturgy envelopes the mysteries we celebrate in a sacred clothing. “Holy” means “other,” and times, places and activities are sacralized (made holy) by setting them apart, not by stripping them naked.   Husbands and wives should absolutely rejoice in each others’ bodies and in their embrace which is blessed and hallowed by the Church.  This is not even an issue.  Furthermore, an exalted view of sexuality should be a means of healing us of the wounds of our disordered sexual lives, but this voyeuristic enthusiasm for nakedness is not the proclamation of the holy, on the contrary is the vulgarization of the holy.

The liturgical boundary most often violated in this age of the sexual revolution and crusade against prudery has been the line that delineates the nave of the Church from the sanctuary, or the congregation from the place of sacrifice.  There used to be an altar rail marking that separation, where the rule was reverence and awe of mystery.  In even earlier times, there was the chancel screen or rood screen which obscured the altar of sacrifice and shrouded it in mystery.  Eamon Duffy, in his monumental The Stripping of the Altars, writes that rood screen in medieval England and the veil which was added to it on the weekdays of Lent, did not, contrary most common assumptions, prevent the faithful from fully participating in the liturgy.  The screen was not a wall, but a window that framed the “liturgical drama.”  In this way, the people where able to penetrate the mystery, and at times the mystery would come to them when the ministers would come out carrying sacred objects, especially, at Easter time, when the priest would carry the Sacred Host itself before the screen (111-112).

The purpose of the veil, Duffy says,

“was to function as a temporary ritual deprivation of the sight of the sacring.  Its symbolic effectiveness derived from the fact that it obscured for a time something which was normally accessible; in the process it heightened the value of the spectacle it temporarily concealed (111).

No one is saying that clothes should not come off at times.  But those who reveal themselves, those to whom they reveal themselves, and the time, place and manner of the revelation need to be sacralized, not vulgarized.  It is interesting to note also that in the tradition of the Roman Rite the tabernacle veil is ordinarily the first sign that the Eucharist is present in the tabernacle.  Our Lord is reposed behind the veil and at the sacred hour and within the sacrificial space He comes to His people.

In the East, this custom of veiling the sanctuary is retained in a fuller form by means of the iconostasis.  In the Syriac Church the sanctuary is still completely veiled.

My point is not to argue for a return to the screen, though I believe the elimination of the altar rail has at the very least sent the wrong signal; my point is merely to say that if marriage and sexuality have, “in a sense,” a liturgical dimension, and if the language of the liturgy is nuptial, then it is simply a non sequitur to claim that unveiling every liturgical and nuptial reality is a virtue.  More to the point perhaps is the suggestion of Cardinal Ratzinger that the Eucharistic Canon ought to return to a more silent form.  Silence is a form of veiling.  It is certainly appropriate  to be silent when to say something would only vulgarize a mystery.  Much can be learned from St. John Chrysostom of this silence, which, as I know all too well, has been ignored in the most sterilely clinical and irreverent ways:

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny.  Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.  For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.

In any case the greater availability of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass might contribute something positive to this needed dialogue of silence and sacrality.

Don’t You Dare Touch that Loincloth

West and company want a clear view of everything and they want to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it.  Even the loincloth on Our Lord, they have said, is a necessary evil.  We just can’t handle looking at Our Lord’s nakedness, but that is the real shame, they say.  We are told that His nakedness on the Cross is a revelation.

Actually, it is a shameful thing.  When our Lord revealed himself in glory on Mount Tabor, he was not stripped.  It was his face that did shine as the sun, and his garment that became white as snow (Mt 17:2).  He did not reveal his nakedness; He revealed the light emanating from the veil of His clothing.  No, we were the ones who exposed His nakedness.  We, the blasphemers and ingrates, stripped him naked, raised him on a gibbet and mocked him.

There is no question that in this Jesus fulfills the Old Testament typology as the New Adam, who recreates us in the nakedness of the Cross.  But was it without shame?  To recreate us Our Blessed Lord was made a curse for us.  It is a shameful thing to be stripped and crucified before a jeering mob, and a curse to be hung on a tree (Heb 12:2; Gal 3:13).  The typological correspondence doesn’t mean that we should dare to be so bold as to stare at Our Lord’s nakedness.  It means that the nakedness imposed on Him shamefully is the sign of our restoration to grace, and the hope of the redemption of our bodies.  Where does John Paul II tell us that the Theology of the Body means we should be focused on the erotic, even to the point of wishing to strip Our Blessed Savior naked?  This is truly shameful.

Peril and Martyrdom

In 1927 G. K. Chesterton delivered lucid address entitled Culture and the Coming Peril.  “Vulgarity” was the term he used to describe the peril into which culture was falling.  He defined vulgarity in relation to culture as “standardization at a lower standard.”  He said:

The kind of thing that I mean is a certain large and gross familiarity, not always with bad but often with very good things, a familiarity that indicates insensibility to the thing that the man is handling.

It is certainly not to be suggested that Christopher West and company are insensible to the beauty of human sexuality, nor, in many respects, are the points they make to wounded souls without real merit; however, sexuality is of such a nature, like the liturgy, that constant analysis and drummed-up enthusiasm only vacates the mystery and the sacrality, no matter how exalted and good the object of our gaze is proclaimed to be.

I find it more and more difficult to take seriously the proposal that our real problem is Manichaeism.  Not in this age where states are now finding it necessary to institute laws against the sexting of minor children; not in this age of the sterile voyeurism of the Facebook and Twitter culture, in which we have cultivated and refined the art of exhibitionism.  I cannot tell you of all the instances in which I encounter tremendous heartache, useless drama, unproductive preoccupation and morbid self-loathing as a result of “too much information.”

No, the good news about human sexuality does not have to be expressed in more and more sex talk.  The truth is that are not we really afraid of eros.  We are afraid of agape.

Too many men, even Catholic men, define their masculinity in terms of libido, and too many women have either chosen to use their sexuality as a form of manipulation, or have otherwise consented to have foisted upon them a bill of goods that turns sexuality into spirituality.  Yes, the cross and the liturgy are the places where the nuptial realities are consummated, and eros is the gift of that consummation, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we are going to ride our way to holiness on a bed of pleasure.

In the light of John Paul II’s landmark teaching on human love in the divine plan, called Theology of the Body, there has been a recent effort in the United States to repackage the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality in “more positive” terms.  It is said that the Holy Father was reacting against “prudish Victorian morality,” especially prevalent in the United States, much in the same way that the sexual revolution was a reaction against “sexual repression.”  The difference, we are told, is that John Paul II’s teaching consists of a beautiful vision for marriage, not the world’s pernicious justification of lust.

Now while this modern sex-saturated age benefits from the beauty of the truth of God’s original plan for conjugal love, we run the risk of going off the rails if we make prudery the bogeyman for our pornographic age.  Modern man is not preoccupied with fear of the body and of sexuality.  Modern man is largely afraid of suffering and of dying.  This is also true within the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI critiqued modernity’s obsession with erotic love in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est without denying a real problem with prudery:

Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will (5).

The answer to this problem is not a new “holy” focus on all things erotic, but a subordination of eros to agape.  In the Benedict XVI’s language eros is “possessive love,” not bad in itself, but in need of being put in the service of agape or “oblative” (sacrificial) love (7).  God wants us all to be happy, but the way to happiness is through sacrifice.

The place we learn this more than anywhere else is at the foot of the cross, where the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are united in the wedding banquet of the Lamb and through which we are united to God by our participation in these mysteries in the reception of Holy Communion.  But first of all, the cross is the mystery of oblative love.  The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are opened for all mankind through the suffering and sorrow of their sacrifice.  Theirs is a battle against our ancient enemy.  While mankind has generally been the loser in this struggle, this new Man and Woman conquer by means of their fortitude, that is, by means of their willingness to face death.  This is more agape than eros.

But the fruit of agape is eros, because victory leads to joy and life.  Christ the King with His blessed Mother the Queen reign forever in the bliss of heaven because in this place of exile they overcame the enemy.  This must be the standard of our own effort to subordinate eros to agape.

Most Catholics are not afraid of their bodies.  They are afraid of death.  By definition, the virtue of fortitude is endurance in the face of suffering and death.  In reference to the cross and our participation in its mystery St. Bonaventure says:  “Whoever loves this death can see God because it is true beyond doubt that man will not see me and live” (Itinerarium Mentis in Deum 7.6, quoting Ex. 33:20).  Modern man needs to continue in the struggle against lust while striving also to see the beauty of God’s plan for love.  The focus of our lives needs to be on the cross where we find the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

It seems to me that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Benedict’s XVI’s analysis of eros and agape fit hand in glove.  We should avoid using the profound insights of either pope to conduct a local crusade.  In the real battle we cannot afford to lose our focus.

Cross-posted here from Dawn Patrol.

I was reading Leon Podles’, The Church Impotent, lately in preparation for my paper, which, by the way, I will be posting snippets of while I am away in Fatima to deliver it.  One interesting observation of Podles is that the development of patriarchy among the Jews in the Old Testament, was quite a an accomplishment.  It was quite a unique institution of that time and place.

You see, patriarchy among the Jews was not principally about authority or the elimination of legitimate autonomy, but it was rather about the common good.  Fathers protect and defend.  Among the Old Testament Jews with the development of patriarchy, the father was not just a provider, or someone who was only home in the evening to crash after a hard day’s work.  The father was a presence of both firm guidance and compassion.

In connection with this, I link to an interesting post by Msgr. Charles Pope who comments on several reviews of Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  One is by George Weigel, who does not think that this latest take on Catholic social ethics is a “theological timebomb.”  Just can’t get the enthusiasm revved up.  The other is by Bill Donahue of the Catholic league, who suggests that leftist interpretations of the Holy Father’s remarks are not to the point.  To bad that The righty Weigel paints the Holy Father on the wrong side of the picture.  The actual fact, is that Catholic social teaching canonizes neither socialism or capitalism.  Catholic social teaching is about the common good; we might say it’s about the values of patriarchy not paternalism.  Here is Donahue:

The best way to service the poor, according to the pope, is not to create bureaucratic monstrosities that cripple the dignity of the indigent. “By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, [the principle of] subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.” Similarly, the pope admonishes us not to promote “paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.” In other words, the tried and failed, dependency-inducing welfare programs that mark the social policy prescriptions of the poverty industry are seen by the pope as a disaster.

But there are many people the pope will never please, because his interests are not the same as the average know-it-all.  He is a good father, whose concern is the common good.

(I am out the door to the airport and to Fatima.  I will try to post while I am there.)

No, I have not been kidnapped by aliens.  I have been working on the paper I am supposed to deliver in Fatima next week.  I will post the introduction before I leave on Monday Morning.  Meanwhile, here is a tidbit from the King of the United States, regarding his meeting with Pope Benedict;

Denis McDonough, a deputy White House national security aide, said of the pope and Obama, “They discussed a range of those issues, and I think the president was eager to listen to the Holy Father.” He said Obama was “eager to find common ground on these issues and to work aggressively to do that.”

How does the culture of death “aggressively” find common ground the culture of life except by either getting us to use their talking points, or by talking us to death, or by shutting us up?

I am just following up on the latest developments of the West controversy in which I have been lately involved (pretty severe content warning).

Christopher West, in the last couple of days has been in the Catholic press–not responding to his critics, mind you.  All he says is public relations as far as I can tell.

In Our Sunday Visitor he is quoted as saying:

“Many good people seem unaware of what the great saints have taught about the mystical dimensions of our sexuality. This is where John Paul II’s theology of the body leads us — into the mystical depths of our creation as male and female, and the call of the two to become ‘one flesh.’

In my latest piece, linked to above, I show how West misconstrues St. Louis de Montfort as supporting some kind of holy fascination with the body of the Blessed Mother.  I do this not by quoting West out of context, but by actually showing from the text of the saint that he says nothing like what West suggests.

Then the National Catholic Register, reports the following:

West’s struggle to stem the confusion reflected a desire to both defend his reputation and to prevent a backlash against the late Pope’s teachings, which have begun to enter the mainstream of Catholic catechetics with the encouragement of Pope Benedict XVI.

It is not clear how accurately this statement reflects the actual views of Christopher West; however, there is no question that West and his supporters claim that he is the authority on TOB and that his assertions are compatible with the views of John Paul II.  The above statement goes so far as to suggest that disagreement with West is tantamount to disagreement with John Paul II.   But from the point of the critics the objections have nothing to do with the Holy Father’s teachings, but with the extrapolations of West.

And this is precisely the point of this post.  West and his supporter are avoiding to deal with the substantive issues raised in the critiques.  They say “The critics should have done it privately.”  “They should quote sources.”  When we quote sources they say  we  “are taking everything out of context.”   They tell us “West has good instincts; trust him.”

Unfortunately, they are making this worse for themselves.  I will do everything in my power to see to it that this remains a gentleman’s disagreement.  But I will not be told I am a prude for disagreeing with Christopher West or that I disagree with him because I have a personal animus.  I find this methodology and “strategic management” tiresome, to put it mildly.

Dawn Eden records some of the wearying methodology employed by West to deal with objections to his presentation in her latest post.  I refer to the incident transcribed by her in my latest contribution on her blog.

One commenter pointed out that in my exposition of the Blessed Mother’s courage (“Damsels in Distress“), that my distinction between the masculine courage of action and the feminine courage of suffering, according to St. Bonaventure, did not sufficiently take account of the many biblical images, nor of the great Chesterton’s “The Ballad of the White Horse.”  She is right, of course, that discussion about passive courage does not do enough to account for the Blessed Virgin’s active role in the redemption of mankind, or of women in general throughout history.  I have no disagreement with the commenter.

In fact, I have have written on the subject Our Lady’s presence in “The Ballad of the White Horse” in a paper I delivered at our international symposium on the Coredemption in England, 2001, entitled “Seven in the Heart, One in the Hand:  The Mediation of the Immaculate in the Poetry of Hopkins and Chesterton” (Mary at the Foot of the Cross II:  Acts of the International Symposium on Marian Coredemption, New Bedford:  Academy of the Immaculate.  395-439).  I am attaching here a pdf of the complete paper for those who are interested.  Also, FYI, there is an excellent reprint of the 1928 illustrated edition of “The Ballad of the White Horse,” published by Ignatius Press, that also includes a very helpful introduction and endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan.

Since I have been studying the Theology of the Body lately, I would like to suggest that one of John Paul II’s insights–one that is thoroughly traditional–would be helpful here.  There is no question that man is characteristically the “giver” (“the one who loves”) and woman the “receiver” (“the one who is loved”; cf. TOB 92.6); however, the Holy Father also  says:

The two functions of the mutual exchange are deeply connected in the whold process of “gift of self”: giving and accepting the gift interpenetrate in such a way that the very act of giving becomes acceptance, and acceptance transforms itself into giving (TOB 17.4).

By way of analogy, I think we can say that the “giver” is also the “defender,” and the “receiver” is also the “defended,” but this does not preclude a mutuality, though the courage of action in a woman, such as in the case of Judith or St. Joan of Arc is particularly marked by empathy and uniquely maternal characteristics.

I think of St. Joan, in particular, who received the ability to ride a horse, to formulate military strategy, especially the placement of artillery, as an extraordinary grace.  She was not merely a figure head of the French army; nevertheless, she never raised her sword against a man.  It was merely enough for her to get to the enemy castle and touch it with her banner.  I also recall how she nursed the dying, including the English, and shed tears over them.

I include below an apropos excerpt from my paper.  Without burdening this post with too much back story, one should at least know that at the beginning of the ballad, King Alfred, who is leading the Saxons against the invasion of England by the Danes, receives a vision of Our Blessed Lady in an hour when he has all but lost hope.  In desperation he asks Her:

“When our last bow is broken, Queen,
And our last javelin cast,
Under some sad, green evening sky,
Holding a ruined cross on high,
Under warm westland grass to lie,
Shall we come home at last?”

Her answer is paradoxical:

“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”

Alfred then goes onto gather his chiefs and army in order to enter into a battle and quest in which he is offered no promise of victory.  Here is the excerpt from my paper:

King Alfred, after an initial victory in battle (Book V), and then the eventual slaying of all three of his chiefs (Book VI), was left in a predicament very much like the one he had been in when he had seen Our Lady, although his later doom and England’s was far more imminent.  The Battle of Ethandune was all but lost.  In a long speech Alfred convinced what was left of his army that “death is a better ale to drink” (bk. 7, 119) than to drain the cup of surrender to heathendom.  Convinced by their captain, the soldiers “stood firm” and “feeble” (153).  Alfred blew his horn calling his men to the hunt, and “The people of the peace of God/ Went roaring down to die” (184).  But in the desperation of the situation the Immaculate was present in Her causeless joy and hopeless faith:

And when the last arrow,
Was fitted and was flown,
When the broken shield hung on the breast,
And the hopeless lance was laid at rest,
And the hopeless horn was blown,

The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death,
For our Lady stood on the standards rent
As lonely and as innocent
As When between white walls she went
In the lilies of Nazareth.

One instant in a still light,
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was queen most womanly–
But she was queen of men.

Over the iron forest
He saw Our Lady stand;
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart–
But one was in her hand. (185-205).

In the moment of supreme sacrifice, the Mother of God interceded on behalf of Her children.  The seven swords of Her own heartfelt sorrow, became one which She wielded in hand on behalf of those for whom She suffered:  In the first vision of King Alfred Mary had said to him:

“But you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save” (bk. 1, 250-53).

Thus we are shown how this intercession of the Immaculate in temporal war is also connected to a greater war for the salvation of souls.  These wars hardly won and souls hardly saved are remarkably juxtaposed in another of Chesterton’s poems whose theme is along the same lines, viz., “The Queen of the Seven Swords.”  That poem is actually the introduction to seven monologues delivered by seven saints of Western Europe, who, as Chesterton notes, “have no connection with the historical saints” that “bore their names,” but rather are types of the different nations, viz., St. James of Spain, St. Denys of France, St. Anthony of Italy, St. Patrick of Ireland, St. Andrew of Scotland, St. David of Wales and St. George of England.  There, in “The Queen of the Seven Swords,” Chesterton records a dream in which he saw Europe as a waste land, and after surveying the panorama of desolation said:  “There is none to save.” It is obvious from his descriptions that the wasteland is typical of moral desolation.  In the gloom, however, he saw a source of hope:

I saw on their breaking terraces, cracking and sinking for ever,
One shrine rise blackened and broken; like a last cry to God.

Old gold on the roof hung ragged as scales of a dragon dropping,
The gross green weeds of the desert had spawned on the painted wood:
But erect in the earth’s despair and arisen against heaven interceding,
Whose name is Cause of Our Joy, in the doorway of death she stood.

The Woman who had asked of Alfred “Do you have joy without a cause?” is in fact the Cause of His Joy, and this as She stands in the “doorway of death.”  Thus we begin to understand that the doom of Alfred is not a joy strictly without cause, but one without any natural explanation, for his joy has its source in the Heart of the Queen of the Seven Swords.  Chesterton goes on in “The Queen of the Seven Swords:

The Seven Swords of her Sorrow held out their hilts like a challenge,
The blast of that stunning silence as a sevenfold trumpet blew
Majestic in more than gold, girt round with a glory or iron,
The hub of her wheel of weapons; with a truth beyond torture true.

That truth which is beyond torture true is that faith which saves, not in spite of suffering, but because of suffering.  Hence we understand what the Lady meant when She asked Alfred “Do you have faith without a hope?”  Not a natural hope, or a conviction that things will get better, but a conviction that God is faithful to His promises.  In “The Towers of Time,” Chesterton says that “the heart of the swords, seven times wounded,/ Was never wearied as our hearts are.” And in the poem “In October,” honor is due to Mary, because Hers was “The broken Heart and the unbroken word.” Is this not why in his Encyclical, Redemptoris Mater, the Holy Father compares the Blessed Virgin to Abraham, saying with St. Paul that in hope believed against hope, She is blessed for Her unwavering faith?