To Give a Defense
The Catholic Church came to an end earlier today, dear reader, after a brief 2000-year run. It has crashed smack into the Tiber River, there are almost no survivors—only a remnant of 11—and we must sit and gaze on the ruins and wail. Or at least that is what one would think, to judge by the apocalyptic screams coming from the right-wing blogs over the last day or two.
So what happened this time? I will tell you, but you must brace yourself. Are you ready?
The pope gave an interview.
(I pause so you may recover your wits.)
(……..)
In this one, he was asked a question about religious fundamentalism. Here are the very indisputable words he said in reply:
Fundamentalism is a sickness that exists in all religions. We Catholics have some, not just some, so many, who believe they have the absolute truth and they move forward with calumnies, with defamation and they hurt (people), they hurt.
Now, I am going to return to these words and explain the very clear meaning of them, because it appears that a lot of people are having a great deal of difficulty with very clear meanings (so it goes). But before I do that, I first need to report that the immediate reaction was a grand eruption of Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome. It takes so little.
THE LADDER STARTS TO CLATTER
Over on Fr. Z’s Blog, in a self-described “rant,” the eponymous Father reminded his panicked readers that Francis’s papacy is no more than a “parenthesis” and that God will one day hit the alt-control-delete key to it. One can only hope God does so soon, I guess.
(Fr. Z, by the way, has become quite enamored of late with the word “parenthesis.”)
Now, of course, Fr. Z tries to play both hands from the deck at the same time, and so he says, look, every papacy is a parenthesis (which I don’t recall him saying when Benedict XVI was pope), Pope Francis is in the Chair of Peter, and God is giving him graces, and he might surprise us all one day in a Humanae Vitae moment, like Paul VI. I know I would be stunned.
But in spite of that, the eponymous Father admits that this interview had him breathing into a paper bag, and his real takeaway from it is that the pope needs to stop dodging trick questions about condoms and show that he is willing to teach hard truths. Which kind of strikes me as an ironic thing to say when every time the pope opens his mouth he has people scratching their heads, breathing into paper bags, and wailing that this is a hard saying and who can listen to it.
It is just that the pope speaks these hard truths when Fr. Z would have him speak those hard truths.
TEAM BY TEAM, REPORTERS BAFFLED
Then, over at Catholic World Report, Carl Olson plains that Francis’s pontificate is “off the cuff” and “out of focus.” Spontaneity is blurring everything; nothing is clear; it is all dark dark dark and vacant interstellar spaces.
And to be sure, Mr. Olson has a notable lack of clarity about the pope’s thoughts on fundamentalism. “Who, exactly, are these violent Catholic “fundamentalists”? he wonders.
But wait, let me stop Mr. Olson right there. Did the pope say that Catholic fundamentalists are “violent”? I didn’t see that. Where did he say that?
Maybe I missed it. Let me go and look at it again. Be right back. …
Fundamentalism is a sickness that exists in all religions. We Catholics have some, not just some, so many, who believe they have the absolute truth and they move forward with calumnies, with defamation and they hurt (people), they hurt.
…Nope, he didn’t say it. So maybe the first problem is not that the pope is confusing, but that Mr. Olson reads something into the pope’s words that ain’t there, and then claims confusion.
But let us return.
“What does Francis mean,” Mr. Olson wonders,
by “fundamentalism” (a much abused and misused term, it should be noted)[?] And since when is it contrary to the Catholic faith to believe and adhere to absolute truth—specifically, to the One who said, “I am the way, the life, and the truth” (Jn 14:6)? And does adherence to the One who is Truth lead to “fundamentalism”? Of course it doesn’t—but, again, what is Francis saying?
It’s all just so confusing. Now, I have read and read again (and read still one more time) the pope’s words above, and blessed if I can find where he says that Fundamentalists “believe and adhere to the absolute truth.” The pope does not say that; Mr. Olson reads it in to his words. (I’ll get there.)
And yet somehow we are supposed to believe that we have a confusing pope rather than a confused journalist.
“Let’s face it,” Mr. Olson insists,
this pontificate is often confusing and even incoherent; Francis regularly fails to speak with clarity. Worse, he sometimes fails to speak with charity. When the two failings converge, chaos ensues.
It’s chaos out there, dear reader. Priests are breathing into paper bags; journalists don’t know how to read definitions and can’t make heads or tails of sentences. It’s a nightmare scenario. It might even be a major paradox in the space-time continuum.
SLASH AND BURN, RETURN, LISTEN TO YOURSELF CHURN
Then, over on the sulphurous One Peter Five, Dale Price writes to inform us that it is okay to hate the pope since, as we know all, he hates us “typical and observant Catholics.”
But mommy, the pope started it!
“I think it’s safe to say,” Mr. Price tells us with preternatural confidence,
that we are dealing with the fascinating—and unique—spectacle [sic]. Namely, a Bishop of Rome who truly dislikes the Church.
“The pope, Mr. Price raves on, “has no use for the Church as She is.” He is a “hip-shooting shepherd” who does not explain and does not apologize. He is “a veritable Pollock with the broadbrush.” He is a “crabby aunt.” The only reasonable response is to “heave blunt and heavy household objects” at him. (The Swiss Guard might want to be informed of this.)
Then after all that hysteria, vitriol, and ipse dixit (combined with hyperlinks to more hysteria, vitriol, and ipse dixit), Mr. Price at last gets to the pope’s words about fundamentalists. And he has two main criticisms of what the pope said, after which he returns to his rambling and his near-interminable hiss and venom. They are these.
- The pope is guilty of the fallacy of false equivalence, for not all fundamentalists are alike.
- The pope seems to think there is a problem with believing in absolute truth.
And on both points, the pope did not say it.
Let me repeat this:
THE POPE DID NOT SAY IT.
If I am wrong, would somebody please write to tell me where the pope said that all fundamentalists are alike? He didn’t. He said that all religions have fundamentalists, he didn’t say that they were all alike. Mr. Price reads that into the pope’s words.
And if I am wrong, would somebody please write to tell me where the pope said that there is anything at all wrong with believing in absolute truth? He didn’t. He said that Catholic fundamentalists believe they “have the absolute truth.” But they don’t. The laity are not the pillar and ground of truth; the Church is. This is a very important distinction: The Holy Spirit guides the Magisterium into the truth. It does not reside in Joe Catholic. Joe Catholic’s job is to be teachable; it is not to think that he has the absolute truth and therefore has no need to be taught. (Or even that it falls to him to teach the pope.)
I leave the rest of Mr. Price’s wild and obstreperous rant to those who hath a stomach for’t.
LIGHT A CANDLE, LIGHT A MOTIVE
What I want to do is construct a definition of “Catholic fundamentalist” as the pope uses that phrase. It is twofold, and it is very plain. Catholic fundamentalists
- Believe they have the absolute truth
- Engage in calumny and defamation
I note again, on the first point, that the operative word is “they.” Fundamentalists are those who think the absolute truth resides, not in the Church, but in themselves. They act as though they are the Magisterium, and that it falls to them to teach the Church. They are fully convinced of their own rightness and are incorrectible.
And the second point is more or less self-explanatory. Fundamentalists’ well-defined sense of their own rightness and rectitude lead them to defame and calumniate those who don’t understand Church teaching the way they do. It is self-righteous and hurtful behavior.
Over the past two days I have heard over and over again that these people just don’t exist. Because, after all, Catholics are well-known, every last one of them, for being completely humble and kind and decent to everyone they meet. Why, just go to Facebook and you’ll see that!
All that aside, I suspect the reason that the pope’s words about fundamentalism in the Church bothered some people so much is because they deeply feared that the pope might have meant them. It is as though his finger reached through the window of the plane, across the Atlantic, through the screen of their computer, and right at them. And it angered them. Which could mean a couple things.
It could mean that they think fundamentalism is a good thing, take pride in thinking of themselves as fundamentalists, and are irked to find the pope describing it as though it’s bad.
Or it could mean that the word “fundamentalist” has negative connotations for them, that they associate it with Radical Islam or Protestantism, and don’t like to feel they are being lumped in the same category.
In either case, I think the anger that has come out is a mask for a sense of guilt and of having been rebuked by the pope.
The question is: If such people do not think this definition fits them, why are they so worried about it? And if they do, why do they not repent? Are they that attached to their own sense of their own Rightness?
Either way, I don’t think it helps very much to play confused and misconstrue the pope’s words and prognosticate doom. That path only leads to Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome becoming a blog—I mean, blob—that feeds off itself and everything it comes in contact with and grows bigger, more red, and more inflamed.
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